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Zelensky to meet Trump on Sunday for crucial Ukraine talks

Zelensky to meet Trump on Sunday for crucial Ukraine talks

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with US president, Donald Trump, in Florida on Sunday (28 December) at 3.00 p.m. local time, in what many see as crucial talks on the future of Ukraine. Over the weekend, Russia has continued its attacks on  Ukraine, with the Ukranian air force warning that a drone and missile threat is in force for the entire country. Moscow currently controls about 75% of the Donetsk region, and some 99% of the neighbouring Luhansk.   Ukraine's president last met President Donald Trump at the White House in October Ukraine has sought to secure guarantees from the US as part of a peace deal, and Zelensky has suggested that a demilitarised "free economic zone" is a potential option for areas of Donbas that Russia has failed to take by force. On Friday, Zelensky told reporters that the 20-point plan was 90% complete: "Our task is to make sure everything is 100% ready." He wrote on social media: "We are not losing a single day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level – with President Trump in the near future. A lot can be decided before the new year." But in an interview with Politico, published on Friday, Trump said his Ukrainian counterpart "doesn't have anything until I approve it". "I think it's going to go good with him. I think it's going to go good with [Vladimir] Putin," Trump said. He also said he expects to speak with the Russian president "soon".

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Syrian president al Sharaa at the White House

Syrian president al Sharaa at the White House

Syrian president, Mohammed al Sharaa met with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday (10 November). Trump met with Sharaa in the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the White House, six months after the two first met in Saudi Arabia, and just days after Washington said that the Syrian leader, who once led an Al-Qaeda affiliate group, was no longer a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist." Washington suspended the imposition of Caesar Act sanctions on Syria in part for 180 days, the Treasury Department said as the meeting took place. The move replaces a previous waiver enacted on 23 May, it said On Friday, the US lifted sanctions on Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab, a day after the UN Security Council took the same step. Sharaa, 42, took power last year after his fighters launched a lightning offensive from their Idlib and overthrew longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad just days later on December 8. Syria's regional realignment has since moved  away from key allies of the former regime, Iran and Russia, and toward Turkey, the Gulf - and Washington. Syria's presidency said that Sharaa and Trump discussed the bilateral relationship, "the ways to strengthen and develop it, as well as a number of regional and international issues of common interest." After al Sharaa and Trump met in Riyadh in May, Trump announced he would lift all sanctions on Syria.
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UN Secretary-General calls for end to war in Sudan that is ‘spiralling out of control’

UN Secretary-General calls for end to war in Sudan that is ‘spiralling out of control’

The United Nations Secretary-General has warned that the war in Sudan is “spiralling out of control” after a paramilitary force seized the besieged and famine-stricken Darfur city of el-Fasher. Speaking in Qatar during the opening of the World Summit for Social Development on 4th November, Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire in the two-year conflict that has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
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Rubio plans to visit all five Central Asian countries as Trump hosts their leaders in Washington

Rubio plans to visit all five Central Asian countries as Trump hosts their leaders in Washington

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday 5th November that he planned to visit the five Central Asian countries in the coming year, as he met their foreign ministers as part of a Trump administration charm offensive aimed at the resource-rich region. The presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are set to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on 6th November for talks that are likely to include discussions of rare earths minerals and other resources in the Central Asian nations.
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President of Iran vows to rebuild nuclear facilities 'with greater strength'

President of Iran vows to rebuild nuclear facilities 'with greater strength'

Tehran will rebuild its nuclear facilities "with greater strength", Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian told Iranian state media adding that the country does not seek nuclear weapons. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that he would order fresh attacks on Iran's nuclear sites should Tehran try to restart facilities that the United States bombed in June. Pezeshkian made his comments during a visit to the country's Atomic Energy Organization on 2nd November during which he met with senior managers from Iran’s nuclear industry.
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Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds in Darfur hospital, according to the UN

Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds in Darfur hospital, according to the UN

Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people at a hospital, including patients, after they seized the provincial capital of North Darfur over the weekend, according to the U.N., displaced residents and aid workers, who described harrowing details of the atrocities. The 460 patients and their companions were reportedly killed Tuesday 28 October at Saudi Hospital by fighters from the Rapid Support Forces in the city of el-Fasher, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation. 
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Startups in Africa take the stage at the Moonshot 2025

Startups in Africa take the stage at the Moonshot 2025

Africa’s biggest tech conference, Moonshot 2025, brought thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators together in Lagos this October to discuss the continent’s digital future. The event, organised by TechCabal, with the theme “Building Momentum”, focused on how African startups can compete globally.
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China’s Role in Uzbekistan’s Waste-to-Energy Development

China’s Role in Uzbekistan’s Waste-to-Energy Development

China’s engagement in Central Asia is entering a new phase. Instead of focusing mainly on roads, railways, and pipelines, Beijing is now investing in environmental infrastructure, especially waste management and renewable energy projects. Uzbekistan has become the centre of this shift, as its growing economy faces mounting waste and pollution challenges.
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EU imposes more sanctions on Russia but fails to reach agreement on using Russian assets

EU imposes more sanctions on Russia but fails to reach agreement on using Russian assets

The European Union on Thursday 23 October applied more economic sanctions on Russia, adding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s new punitive measures the previous day against the Russian oil industry. However, EU leaders meeting in Brussels have so far failed to reach a deal on using Russian frozen assets. European capitals were hoping to convince Belgium, which houses the international deposit organisation Euroclear and is worried about legal repercussions, that a reparation loan from the funds is workable. Most of the €200 billion in Russian central bank assets frozen by the EU are held in Euroclear. However, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has so far been skeptical, reiterating during the European Council meeting on Thursday that certain conditions must first be met before a €140 billion loan can be given to Ukraine using Russia’s frozen assets. Russian officials and state media dismissed the new Western measures, saying they are largely ineffective.