Defence minister arrives in Berlin to lead Malaysia's delegation at UN peacekeeping forum on security efforts
BERLIN (Germany), May 13 — Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has arrived here to attend the two-day United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping Ministerial 2025 Forum which begins today.
His arrival at Berlin Brandenburg Airport at 5.36 pm local time, here last night together with a Defence Ministry delegation was received by the Charge d'Affaires / Counsellor of the Malaysian Embassy in Berlin Rozaime Mohamed Desa.
Held from May 13 to 14, the UN Peacekeeping Ministerial Forum will serve as a high-level political platform to discuss the future of peacekeeping and for member states to express and demonstrate their political support.
The forum will also provide a stage for delegations to announce pledges to close capability gaps and adapt peace operations to better respond to existing challenges and new realities, in line with the pledging guide.
The biannual forum brings together the country's top leaders and officials who support the security mission under the UN, with Mohamed Khaled taking the opportunity to voice his views and renew the country's commitment to supporting the global security effort.
During the forum, Mohamed Khaled is also scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto. — Bernama
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Malay Mail
5 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Following Nato summit, Trump and Europe still at odds over Putin's ambitions
THE HAGUE, June 27 — For US President Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin is a man looking for an off-ramp to his bloody three-year assault on Ukraine. But according to Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, the Russian leader may be just getting started. If the alliance does not invest in its defence capabilities, Rutte warned the annual Nato summit on Tuesday, Russia could attack an alliance country within three years. By most measures, this year's Nato summit in The Hague was a success. Member states largely agreed to a US demand to boost defence spending to 5 per cent of gross domestic product. Trump, who once derided the alliance as a 'rip-off,' said his view had changed, while a budding bromance blossomed between him and Rutte, who compared the US president to a stern 'daddy' managing his geopolitical underlings. But the summit, which ended on Wednesday, also highlighted the widening gap between how the US and Europe see the military ambitions of Russia, the bloc's main foil. That is despite some lawmakers in Trump's own Republican Party hardening their rhetoric in recent weeks, arguing that while the president's ambition to negotiate an end to Russia's war in Ukraine is laudable, it is now clear that Putin is not serious about coming to the table. In a Wednesday press conference, Trump conceded that it was 'possible' Putin had territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. But he insisted that the Russian leader — buffeted by manpower and materiel losses — wanted the war to end quickly. 'I know one thing: He'd like to settle,' Trump said. 'He'd like to get out of this thing. It's a mess for him.' Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump's view in a sideline interview with Politico, saying the US was holding off on expanding its sanctions against Moscow, in part to keep talks going. 'If we did what everybody here wants us to do — and that is come in and crush them with more sanctions — we probably lose our ability to talk to them about the ceasefire,' he said. The message from others at the summit was starkly different. A senior Nato official told reporters in a Tuesday briefing that Putin was not in fact interested in a ceasefire — or in engaging in good-faith talks at all. 'Regardless of battlefield dynamics, we continue to doubt that Russia has any interest in meaningful negotiations,' the official said. Russia's ambitions, the senior official said, go beyond control of 'certain territories at their administrative lines,' as Rubio put it. Putin is instead bent on imposing his 'political will' on neighbouring states. Rutte put the Russian threat in existential terms. 'If we do not invest now,' he said on Tuesday, 'we are really at risk that the Russians might try something against Nato territory in three, five or seven years.' Russia strategy remains elusive The US is not the only Nato member with a more optimistic view of Russia. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a longtime Trump ally and critic of European institutions, said Russia was 'not strong enough to represent a real threat to Nato.' Still, as the alliance's largest contributor and most powerful member, Washington's position is a central preoccupation in most Nato capitals. The White House, asked for comment, referred to Trump's comments at the Wednesday press conference. In response to a request for comment, a separate Nato official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, disputed that there were differing assessments within the alliance, pointing to a Nato declaration on Wednesday which referenced the 'long-term threat posed by Russia.' The Russian embassy in Washington referred to Thursday comments by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who criticised Nato for wasting money on defence. 'It seems that only by invoking the fabricated 'Russian threat' will it be possible to explain to ordinary people why their pockets are being emptied once again,' she said. The US State Department and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. The lack of a common understanding about Putin's goals will complicate future diplomatic plans to wind down the war, said Philippe Dickinson, the deputy director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former British diplomat. 'To reach a peace agreement, it's not just something that Trump and Putin can agree themselves,' Dickinson said. 'There does need to be European involvement. That needs to mean that there is some sort of sharing of views among allies on what Putin is trying to achieve.' European leaders likely have not given up on trying to change Trump's views on Russia, Dickinson said. But they were always unlikely bring up thorny conversations at the Nato summit. The alliance's main goal was to simply get through it without major blowups, he said, an aim that was accomplished. Still, peace came at a cost - the lack of substantive discussion around Ukraine and Russia, he argued, was conspicuous. 'The lack of a Russia strategy is a real glaring omission from what the summit could have produced,' Dickinson said. — Reuters
Malay Mail
7 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Europe's strategic reset: Turning Trump's return into opportunity, a 10 is still a 10? — Phar Kim Beng and Luthfy Hamzah
JUNE 27 — With the July 9 deadline for a breakthrough transatlantic trade deal fast approaching, quiet recalibrations are already underway in Brussels. Gone is the rigid insistence on securing zero-per cent tariffs with Washington across the board. Instead, European officials are now signalling that they may accept a 10 per cent baseline tariff as the new normal in their negotiations with a returning Trump administration. As President Emmanuel Macron affirmed: 'A ten is still a ten.' In other words, it is better to handle a US tariff of ten per cent by July 9, rather than butting head with the Trump is for a complete zero perfect tariff. For many in the European Commission and key member states like France and Germany, this shift represents a calculated retreat from idealism in favour of strategic realism, for now. The goal is no longer perfect parity—but preferential predictability. If a 10 per cent tariff averts a full-blown trade war and preserves access to American markets for the EU's high-end manufacturers, especially in autos, chemicals, and green tech, then it may be the best bargain they can extract under the circumstances. This thinking was encapsulated by Lithuania's President Gitanas Nausėda, who stated that the EU could at most 'hope to be treated like the United Kingdom.' In other words, a bespoke, asymmetrical arrangement with moderate trade-offs is now being viewed not as failure, but as strategic hedging in a world of fast-shifting economic power dynamics. Rather than viewing Donald J. Trump's potential return to the White House as a catastrophe for transatlantic relations, parts of the EU are beginning to see it as a moment to reset — and even reimagine — their strategic position. Trump may be erratic, but he is also transactional. That opens space for negotiated gains — if approached with agility, focus, and a clear-eyed view of global shifts. One such shift — arguably the most significant yet under-discussed — is the recent rare earth agreement between the United States and China. At first glance, it appears contradictory: after all, Washington and Beijing remain locked in a broader techno-strategic rivalry, complete with sanctions, export controls, and decoupling rhetoric. But the deal reveals something deeper about the evolving nature of power: even rivals must cooperate in critical sectors. The US-China rare earth deal: A strategic necessity Rare earth elements — 17 obscure minerals with names like neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium — are the backbone of modern technology, from smartphones to missiles, wind turbines to EV motors. For years, China has maintained a near-monopoly over their mining and processing, controlling over 69 per cent of global supply. This strategic dominance has long worried US officials, especially as green and defence technologies escalate in both importance and demand. Against this backdrop, the United States has moved to secure a limited but crucial agreement with China: Beijing will guarantee stable exports of rare earths and certain value-added materials to American industries under a supervised, traceable regime. In return, Washington has agreed to temporarily relax specific export restrictions on American advanced mining equipment and allow non-dual-use technology exchanges in the sector. This deal — quietly negotiated between mid-level envoys in Geneva and Singapore over the past six months — is not a truce in the broader US-China contest. Rather, it is a strategic compartmentalisation, allowing both powers to secure mutual interests in one domain while continuing to compete in others. For Europe, however, the implications are profound: the two superpowers are cutting deals without Brussels at the table — and over resources that will define the 21st century. Europe's critical crossroads This US-China rare earth accord exposes a structural weakness in the EU's global positioning. Despite years of talk about 'strategic autonomy,' the EU has yet to develop significant rare earth processing capacity. Projects in Sweden, Greenland, and France remain years from operational maturity. Meanwhile, the bloc's dependency on Chinese supply remains near-total. Even worse, the EU lacks a coherent common foreign economic policy to negotiate comparable bilateral deals. Its consensus-driven model, though admirable for democratic governance, often hinders agility in crisis response and strategic industrial decisions. President Nausėda's comment reflects an awareness that the EU must now negotiate from a position of limited leverage. Trump's transactionalism may, paradoxically, offer opportunity here. If Brussels can align its interests with Washington's emerging industrial policy — particularly around clean tech, AI, and semiconductors — it may yet secure sector-specific pacts even under a sceptical or abrasive administration. US President Donald Trump gestures during a press conference at a Nato summit in The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025. — Reuters pic A three-pronged reset for Europe To seize this opportunity, the EU must reframe Trump's potential presidency not as a threat but as a catalyst for strategic reset. This entails a three-pronged strategy: 1. Rebuild transatlantic trust through sectoral alignment: Europe should identify sectors where mutual interests with the US are strong and immediate — such as rare earths, hydrogen energy, and cyber defence — and offer co-investment frameworks. A Euro-American Innovation Corridor could be one such proposal, linking industrial clusters across both sides of the Atlantic. 2. Invest in rare earth autonomy, urgently: Brussels must expedite projects in Sweden and Greenland but also partner with African and South-east Asian countries rich in rare earth deposits. For example, with Malaysia already poised to position itself in rare earth processing in future, especially on non-radioactive separation technology with Japanese or Chinese assistance, the EU should offer co-financing, governance frameworks, and environmental best practices in Malaysia to create a non-China-aligned supply network. If EU wants to. Otherwise, EU would be lacking in any leverage with US and China separately. 3. Speak with one voice in trade negotiations: If individual member states — especially Germany and France — pursue bilateral deals with the US, the EU's collective weight will diminish. A unified negotiating front, supported by the European Commission and the European External Action Service, is critical to avoiding divide-and-rule outcomes under a Trump presidency. Trump's style, Europe's substance Unlike the Cold War era, today's great power competition isn't about ideology alone — it's about who controls the flows of technology, data, and critical materials. Trump's preference for deals over doctrines may clash with the EU's normative style but therein lies an opening. Europe must learn to translate its regulatory power into geo-economic leverage, and to do so swiftly. The EU can no longer afford to expect 'special relationship' privileges. It must earn them. This means real investments in defence (to answer Trump's Nato criticisms), real proposals on trade (to complement US nearshoring), and real partnerships with third countries (to diversify away from Chinese dependence). President Nausėda's statement should not be seen as defeatist, but as pragmatic. If Europe accepts the reality of Trump's worldview and responds with bold, flexible initiatives, it can avoid marginalisation. Strategic reset begins not in despair — but in clarity. Conclusion: Reset, not retreat The rare earth deal between the US and China shows that even amidst rivalry, room for cooperation exists — if interests align. For the EU, the lesson is clear: waiting for ideal conditions is no longer viable. It must act now to safeguard its industrial future, secure its place in the new trade order, and reimagine its transatlantic relationship — regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Trump may not be the leader Europe wanted. But he may be the wake-up call it needs. *Phar Kim Beng is Professor of Asean Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Director of Institute of Internationalisation and Asean Studies (IINTAS). Luthfy Hamzah is Senior Research Fellow at Strategic Pan Indo Pacific Arena (SPIPA) Kuala Lumpur. Both authors write on geopolitics, global trade, and strategic affairs in Asean, EU and US China dynamics. * This is the personal opinion of the writers or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
Malay Mail
9 hours ago
- Malay Mail
UK govt U-turns on disability benefit cuts after Labour MPs revolt
LONDON, June 27 — The UK government backed down on Friday on controversial plans to slash disability and sickness benefits after a a major rebellion by MPs — a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's authority. Only days after the Labour leader insisted he would plough ahead with the reforms, Care Minister Stephen Kinnock confirmed concessions had been made to rebel MPs who had threatened to scupper the proposed reforms. A total 126 of Labour's more than 400 MPs publicly backed a move to block the proposals, forcing the third government U-turn in less than a month. The turnaround comes just under a year since Starmer swept to power in a landslide election victory. A spokesperson for Starmer's Number 10 office said the government had 'listened to MPs who support the principle of reform but are worried about the pace of change for those already supported by the system'. It said a revised package of measures would preserve the welfare system for those 'who need it, by putting it on a sustainable footing'. The concessions, due to be set out in parliament later on Friday, include a 'staggered approach' to the reforms, Kinnock said. This means that the narrower eligibility criteria proposed will only apply to new claimants, not those already receiving the benefit payments. 'What's clear from the announcement today is that it's going to be a more staggered process whereby people who are existing claimants are protected,' Kinnock said. The government U-turn comes at the close of a bumpy first year in power for Starmer during which finance minister Rachel Reeves has struggled to generate growth from a sluggish UK economy. Rethinks have also been announced in the past month of other policies that were previously robustly defended. On June 9, the government declared it had reversed a policy to scrap a winter heating benefit for millions of pensioners, following widespread criticism, including from its own MPs. Less than a week later, on June 14, Starmer announced a national enquiry focused on a UK child sex exploitation scandal that had attracted the attention of US billionaire Elon Musk. Starmer had previously resisted calls for an enquiry into the so-called 'grooming gangs' — that saw girls as young as 10 raped by groups of men mostly of South Asian origin — in favour of a series of local probes. Kinnock said he was now confident that the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (Pip) Bill, which contains the welfare reforms, would make it through a parliamentary vote due on Tuesday. Starmer's government had hoped to make savings of £5.0 billion (RM29 billion) as a result of the changes that have now been partly abandoned. — AFP
