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Students and teachers abandoned classes from California to New York on a national day of protest, which came amid mixed messages from the Trump administration about whether it would de-escalate Operation Metro Surge.Under a national immigration crackdown, President Donald Trump has sent 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis area who are patrolling the streets in tactical gear, a force five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department.**media[411423]**"No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE," ran a slogan on the organisers' website, nationalshutdown.org, that listed 250 sites for Friday's protests across 46 states and in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.Protesting the surge and the tactics used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), several thousand people gathered in downtown Minneapolis in sub-zero temperatures, including families with small kids, elderly couples and young community activists.Katia Kagan, wearing a "No ICE” sweatshirt and holding a sign demanding that the agency leave the city, said she was the daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to America seeking safety and a better life.**media[411424]**"I’m out here because I’m going to fight for the American dream that my parents came here for,” she said.Kim, a 65-year-old meditation coach who asked that her last name not be used, said she was at the protest because of "basic compassion” for her fellow residents of Minneapolis."Democracy is what’s at stake in Minnesota. This is a full-on fascist attack of our federal government on citizens,” Kim said.Marchers have lauded how peaceful the protests have remained despite fury over masked federal agents' arrests and killings."We learned so much from the Floyd protests. We had a bunch of cops that were rogues – white supremacists,” said protester Mary, 67. “They had warrior training. Now we have a wonderful police department and now I think people... know to speak up and to act peacefully."The Midwest's largest city, Minneapolis saw prolonged unrest after the 2020 murder by police of George Floyd, a black man whose killing sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.At the protest on Friday, police were barely visible as tens of thousands of people turned out under the banner of "National Shutdown", with Minneapolis police telling AFP that there were no arrests, and no reports of injuries or property damage.Ahead of the protest, President Donald Trump accused Alex Pretti, shot dead by federal officers in Minneapolis while helping women who had been pepper sprayed, of "abuse and anger" after video emerged of him in a heated exchange with agents.**media[411425]**Mary, who declined to give a last name, said she was horrified by how federal officers including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, have executed their push to round up undocumented migrants across Minnesota, a deployment that has seen officers shoot dead two US civilians."They're scooping up anybody,” she said. “You know, there are innocent people getting scooped up right and left, and it's far more terrifying than when George Floyd was here. I think it's important for our voices to be heard."There have been daily noisy protests at the Whipple federal building where ICE agents stage ahead of raids.On Friday morning, sheriffs deputies ran into a hostile crowd of activists and dragged away one of the demonstrators, AFP saw.One gloved protester held up a widely shared image of a federal officer deployed to the city skidding on ice, captioned "baby's first winter", while another clutched a sign reading "gnomes in, Noem out" – a reference to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem – at Friday's protest.Sporting a giant papier mache head modeled on Noem, protester Connie described the official and Trump as "the criminals at large that are really causing so much trouble”.She said the peaceful demonstrations since the start of the sprawling immigration raids were a strength of the movement galvanizing against the raids."We're just trying to get them out of here. That's all we want...They say, 'Oh, you want all these criminals?' Yeah, we'll take them. You just get out of here. You're the criminal,” she said. "We have 2,000, 3,000 ICE here – they're the criminals."She added that she was "100%" sure federal officers were seeking to provoke local people."(ICE) are extremely aggressive, very intimidating. They're out to cause trouble," she said.Native Minnesotan protester Paul Chouinard said he thought Trump would "probably love for it to turn into something more so he could make an example – but that's not what Minnesotans want.""You don't fight force and guns with violence, you know? We're gonna use our voices in the right way and make our opinions known to hopefully change this."Nearby a child screamed "ICE out of Minnesota" into a bullhorn to huge cheers from the crowd, many of whom wore ski gear to brave the temperatures that hovered around 1° Fahrenheit (-17° Celsius).There were protest actions and marches in cities across the United States including New York, Boston and Los Angeles.Protester Shushta Santhana, 24, whose parents emigrated to the United States 30 year ago, said "it's really cool to see the community come together”.She pointed to "grassroots organisations pulling together to get groceries to people and protect (migrant) people when they're leaving work and leaving the courts and all sorts of things”."We've done a good job here. I'm very proud to be a Minnesotan right now."Retiree Lisa Schmid told AFP that Minneapolis would become known as "the city that stood up for freedom”. 

South Korea's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) recorded a new export high in the third quarter of 2025, according to data cited by Yonhap News Agency. Exports from the sector reached $30.5 billion between July and September, marking an 11.6 percent increase from $27.3 billion during the same period last year.Used passenger vehicles led the surge, with overseas sales totaling $2.62 billion — an 80 percent year-over-year jump.For the first nine months of the year, SME exports climbed to $87.1 billion, up 5.8 percent from the previous year. The number of exporting companies also hit a record, reaching 89,418.

China’s stock rally is set to get a boost from small investors, stoking hopes that their massive savings will fuel the next leg of the market’s blistering advance.The benchmark CSI 300 Index has been on a tear, rising 10% in August to be one of the world’s best performing equity gauges amid a liquidity driven surge. While hedge funds have been active in the market, analysts say the nation’s mom and pop investors are still in the early stages of what could be a major rotation into stocks and equity funds.China’s household deposits fell 0.7% from a record high in June to 160.9tn yuan ($23tn) in July, suggesting investors are putting their money to work. JPMorgan Chase & Co predicts around $350bn of additional savings could flow into the equity market between July 2025 and the end of next year, propelling share prices more than 20% higher.“Cash makes bull markets, and deposits shifting to stocks is going to be an important driver of this rally,” said Xu Dawei, a fund manager at Jintong Private Fund Management in Beijing. “It’s already begun and there’s no turning back.” The glut of savings is one factor pushing Wall Street banks to hike price targets for China’s major stock gauges and fuelling hopes that China’s rally which has so far defied lacklustre earnings and persistent questions about the health of the economy has further to go.Goldman Sachs Group Inc strategists pointed to excess household savings when upgrading their target for the CSI 300, with the bank now predicting a roughly 10% rise over the next 12 months. HSBC Holdings Plc cited the savings pool as potentially a “very positive catalyst” when lifting its targets for the country’s two biggest indexes.Darwin Mao, a 28-year-old tech employee in Beijing, has been eyeing a shift to the stock market since last September.Back then, a stimulus blitz by China’s central bank sent stocks zooming higher, bringing an end to a years-long selloff fuelled by fears about the economy. The CSI 300 jumped around 25% in a week, leading to a feeding frenzy among local investors. It wasn’t until this August that the index beat the highs set back then.“Stocks rallied so fast that I didn’t have time to get in,” said Mao, adding that this time he was keen not to miss out. “I took the opportunity to invest some of my spare money at the end of July and I’ve been increasing my holdings. I believe the rally will extend until the end of this year.”The CSI 300 has risen in nine of the past 10 weeks, taking its gain from this year’s low in early April to 25%. Investors have expressed confidence that authorities will keep sentiment supported before a September 3 military parade, which is set to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. China has a history of propping up its stock market ahead of major political events to project an image of stability.Some strategists, including those at Morgan Stanley, have flagged signs the market is overheating, with some technical indicators flashing overbought signals. In one example, shares of Cambricon Technologies Corp more than doubled in August, prompting the AI chip designer to warn investors that its stock price may no longer reflect fundamentals. That sent the stock tumbling on Friday.So far, the shift from savings to stocks is a trickle: The roughly 2.1tn yuan jump in non-financial deposits a proxy for liquidity in stocks, funds and trust accounts in July was just the highest since February, and not much above the seasonal average over the past decade.But analysts see the shift to equities getting a boost from a “TINA” environment for stocks, shorthand for “there is no alternative.”Bond yields are around historic lows, while real estate once the go to investment for Chinese citizens wanting to get rich hasn’t recovered from its yearslong slump. One-year fixed deposits at China’s largest banks now pay just 0.95% per year, the lowest on record.“There is a shortage of investable assets in China,” said Winnie Wu, chief China strategist at BofA Securities. “If the stock market has a clear money making effect, people will be willing to allocate more funds.”A key question is how well Chinese officials can manage market swings. Regulators and local investors have been scarred by previous periods of boom and bust, most dramatically a bubble a decade ago that wiped out more than $2tn of market value when it burst.Local broker Sinolink Securities Co has hiked margin requirements for stock traders, while some onshore mutual funds have limited the size of new orders. It is unclear whether these moves were triggered by regulatory guidance, but it’s common for Chinese officials to issue behind the scenes instructions to brokers and funds during periods of wild stock swings.Chinese media has also cautioned investors against speculation.Local investors clearly have plenty of cash to put to work, but fund managers and analysts say it will be steady rises rather than wild swings that will encourage them to stick around this time.“It’s important this time to have a slow bull market,” said Wu Xianfeng, a fund manager at Shenzhen Longteng Assets Management Co “That is the only way a shift from deposits to stocks can be sustainable.”