US, China leaders refine ties

US President Donald Trump has lavished praise on Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a marked contrast to his previous criticism of China on the flashpoint issues of North Korea and trade.
But he also urged Mr Xi to “work very hard” on persuading North Korea to denuclearise.
On China’s trade surplus, Mr Trump surprised many when he said he did “not blame China” for “taking advantage”.
China has said it will lower market entry barriers to some sectors.
The US president was speaking in Beijing while on a state visit.
He is in the Chinese capital as part of his five-nation tour of Asia. The two leaders held talks earlier on Thursday after a grand welcome for Mr Trump.
China will further lower entry barriers in the banking, insurance, and finance sectors, and gradually reduce vehicle tariffs, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
Deals worth $250bn (£190bn) have also been announced, although it is unclear how much of that figure includes past deals or potential future deals.
But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told journalists the deals were “pretty small” in terms of tackling the trade imbalance.
Discussion on how to deal with North Korea’s threats to the region has dominated Mr Trump’s agenda, and China is Pyongyang’s main economic supporter.
Mr Trump said China could fix the problem of North Korea’s nuclear programme “easily and quickly”.
He added: “I am calling on [Mr Xi] to work very hard. I know one thing about your president. If he works on it hard, it’ll get done.”
Mr Xi, for his part, said both sides would “continue to work towards” fully implementing UN sanctions and “enduring peace” on the Korean peninsula.
Mr Trump has previously been more critical and tweeted in July that Beijing was doing “NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk”.
Just before his arrival in Beijing he urged China to sever ties with the North. Beijing has consistently said it is doing all it can.
“I don’t blame China – after all, who can blame a country for taking advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens… I give China great credit,” said Mr Trump while addressing a room of business leaders.
Instead, the US leader said previous US administrations were responsible for what he called “a very unfair and one-sided” trade relationship with China.
Mr Trump has in the past accused China of stealing American jobs and threatened to label it a currency manipulator, though he has since rowed back on such rhetoric. Syria war: Army re-takes last IS urban stronghold
The Syrian military says it has “fully liberated” the eastern border town of Albu Kamal, so-called Islamic State’s last urban stronghold in the country.
Commanders said the victory signalled the “fall of the terrorist Daesh [IS] organisation’s project in the region”.
A monitoring group said militants had withdrawn to another part of Deir al-Zour province following negotiations.
IS now only controls a few villages and desert areas north of Albu Kamal, and scattered pockets elsewhere in Syria.
The jihadist group seized large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, when it proclaimed a “caliphate” and imposed its rule over some 10 million people.
But it has suffered a series of defeats over the past two years, losing Iraq’s second city of Mosul this July and its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria last month.
The official Sana news agency quoted a statement by the General Command of Armed Forces hailing the swift recapture of Albu Kamal as a “strategic achievement and a base for eradicating remnants of the terrorist organisation with its various names along the Syrian territories”.
It said troops, after entering the town late on Wednesday, had engaged in fierce battles in which a large number of militants were killed.
Army engineers were already dismantling bombs and mines left by IS, while other units were pursuing jihadists who had fled in different directions into the desert and eliminating their remaining “dens”, it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, cited its sources as saying that Albu Kamal was retaken by troops and Iranian-backed militiamen – led by members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement – after the last militants withdrew to areas in eastern Deir al-Zour.
The sources added that militias had left open a corridor to allow the jihadists to flee northwards, where they are likely to encounter the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, which captured Raqqa, is advancing east of the Euphrates and has seized several oil and gas fields.
The US-led multinational coalition against IS recently estimated that there were 1,500 militants left in the Euphrates Valley area, among them leading figures.
The fate of the civilians living in Albu Kamal was unclear. United Nations officials in Damascus said that in the last few weeks an estimated 120,000 residents had been displaced, AFP news agency reported.
On Wednesday, Syrian troops linked up with Iraqi forces on the border, giving the Syrian government control of its first official crossing with Iraq since 2012.
Last week, Iraqi forces secured the Iraqi side of the crossing after taking the nearby city of al-Qaim as part of an operation to clear IS out of its last pocket in Iraq.