Author: Daily Sabah With Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not sign a minerals deal on Friday, a White House official told Reuters. Trump has not ruled out an agreement, but not until Ukraine is ready to have a constructive conversation, a senior U.S. official said. It was up to the Ukrainians if the leaders’ canceled joint news conference could be rescheduled while Zelensky remained in the U.S., the official said.

North Korea says it has test-launched a strategic cruise missile to demonstrate the reliability of its nuclear deterrence, Yonhap news reported on Friday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a test-launch of a strategic cruise missile and ordered full readiness to use nuclear attack capability, which would ensure the most effective defence for the country, state media said on Friday. The test was designed to warn “enemies who are intensifying a confrontational climate and violating the security environment of the country” and to demonstrate the readiness posture of various nuclear capabilities, KCNA news agency said. “Kim Jong Un stressed…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump traded blows at a White House meeting that ended in disaster on Friday, prompting an outpouring of reaction from across the globe. Zelensky ON X “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.” FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON TO REPORTERS IN PORTUGAL: “Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is the aggressed people. I think we were all right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years…

North Korea says it has test-launched a strategic cruise missile to demonstrate the reliability of its nuclear deterrence, Yonhap news reported on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged on Friday that he left Washington after talks this week with President Donald Trump with scant hope that the European Union would avoid U.S. trade tariffs. Macron said the Trump administration’s trade strategy – and particularly its understanding of value-added taxes – was flawed. Two days after Macron mixed flattery with firmness during his White House meeting with Trump, the U.S. president said his administration would announce a 25% tariff on all imports from the European Union. Trump said the bloc had been created to “screw” the United States. “I left with very little hope,”…

The Kremlin on Friday condemned an alleged Ukrainian-sponsored assassination plot on a senior Russian cleric linked to President Vladimir Putin, saying the planned attack showed nothing was sacred for Kyiv. Russia’s FSB security service has arrested two church figures, a Russian and a Ukrainian, on suspicion of plotting to murder Tikhon Shevkunov, whom Russian media have described as “Putin’s confessor”, at the behest of Ukrainian military intelligence. “It is clear that the Kyiv regime does not shrink from anything,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the matter. “In this case, nothing is sacred. This is once again…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “not ready for Peace if America is involved,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday, following a contentious meeting between the leaders in the Oval Office. “I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace,” Trump said.

Online rights activists have filed complaints with data protection authorities in several European countries about U.S. software firm Meta’s targeted advertising practices, the Eko group said on Thursday. The group said it had filed complaints with watchdogs in Norway, Germany and Spain after collecting evidence that Facebook’s parent company had not listened to explicit user requests to opt out of data collection and targeted advertisements. A Meta spokesperson said the company was unaware of the details of the Eko complaints and could not respond, but that it is committed to protecting users’ data privacy. In light of Europe’s data protection…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will go into effect on March 4 as scheduled because drugs are still pouring into the U.S. from those countries. Trump also said he would impose an additional 10% duty on Chinese goods on that day — on top of the 10% tariff that he levied on Feb. 4 on imports from China. Trump said drugs were still flowing into the U.S. at “very high and unacceptable levels,” with a large percentage of them the deadly opioid fentanyl. “We cannot allow this scourge…

The UN Human Rights Chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law. “Nothing justifies the appalling manner in which Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza which consistently breached international law”, said Volker Turk, while presenting a new report on the human rights situation in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also accused Hamas of grave violations since…