King's Birthday comes amidst ongoing cancer concerns, familial tensions and diplomatic tightropes
King Charles' whirlwind visit to Canada may have been a bit more than your usual Commonwealth tour.
While the monarch didn't utter an inference to Donald Trump, his speech supporting the country as he opened parliament in Ottawa referenced the promise to 'protect Canadians and their sovereign rights'.
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NZ Herald
7 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Asian markets rise amid US-China trade talks speculation
Most markets rose as investors speculated on upcoming China-US trade talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo / 123rf Most markets rose Tuesday as investors kept tabs on developments in the China-US trade war as speculation swirled that the countries' leaders will hold talks soon. After a period of relative calm on tariffs, US President Donald Trump at the weekend accused Beijing of violating last month's deal to slash
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Trump may be forced to act as Putin refuses to budge in Russia-Ukraine peace talks
US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Mandel Ngan and Maxim Shemetov / various sources / AFP Analysis: So, Russia and Ukraine are still as far apart as ever , with the two warring countries unable to make a significant breakthrough in direct talks in Istanbul. While there was agreement to exchange more prisoners, Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided over how to bring the costly and bitter Ukraine war to an end. Russia has shown itself to be particularly uncompromising, handing Ukrainian negotiators a memorandum re-stating its maximalist, hardline terms which would essentially amount to a Ukrainian surrender. Expectations were always low for a Kremlin compromise. But Moscow appears to have eliminated any hint of a readiness to soften its demands. The Russian memorandum again calls on Ukraine to withdraw from four partially occupied regions that Russia has annexed but not captured: a territorial concession that Kyiv has repeatedly rejected. It says Ukraine must accept strict limits on its armed forces, never join a military alliance, host foreign troops or aquire nuclear weapons. It would be Ukrainian demilitarisation in its most hardline form, unpalatable to Ukraine and much of Europe, which sees the country as a barrier against further Russian expansion. Other Russian demands include the restoration of full diplomatic and economic ties, specifically that no reparations will be demanded by either side and that all Western sanctions on Russia be lifted. It is a Kremlin wish-list that, while familiar, speaks volumes about how Moscow continues to imagine the future of Ukraine as a subjugated state in the thrall of Russia, with no significant military of its own nor real independence. This uncompromising position comes despite two important factors which may have given the Kremlin pause. Firstly, Ukraine has developed the technical capability to strike deep inside Russia, despite its staggering disparity of territory and resources. The stunning drone strikes recently targeting Russian strategic bombers at bases thousands of miles from Ukraine is a powerful illustration of that. Ukraine, it seems, has some cards after all, and is using them effectively. Secondly - and arguably more dangerously for Moscow - the Kremlin's latest hardline demands come despite US President Donald Trump's increasing frustrations with his own Ukraine peace efforts. Trump has already expressed annoyance with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who he said had gone "absolutely MAD" after massive Russian strikes on Ukraine last week. But now, Trump himself is under pressure as a cornerstone of his second term foreign policy - bringing a rapid end the Ukraine war - looks decidedly shaky. There are powerful levers to pull if Trump chooses, like increasing US military aid or imposing tough new sanctions, such as those overwhelmingly supported in the US Senate. One of the key backers of a cross-party senate bill that aims to impose "crippling" new measures on Moscow, Senator Richard Blumenthal, accused Russia of "mocking peace efforts" at the Istanbul talks and in a carefully worded post on X accused the Kremlin of "playing Trump and America for fools." It is unclear at the moment how the mercurial US president will react, or what - if anything - he will do. But the outcome of the Ukraine war, specifically the brokering of peace deal to end it, has become inextricably linked with the current administration in the White House. The fact that Putin has once again dug in his heels and presented an uncompromising response to calls for peace, may now force Trump to act. - CNN
RNZ News
20 hours ago
- RNZ News
Russia sets out punitive terms at peace talks with Ukraine
By Vladimir Soldatkin , Tom Balmforth and Huseyin Hayatsever, Reuters Head of the Russian delegation and Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, left, sits with delegation members as they attend a second meeting of Ukrainian and Russian delegation direct talks, at the Ciragan Palace, in Istanbul, on 2 June 2025. Photo: AFP / Adem Altan Russia has told Ukraine at peace talks that it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army, according to a memorandum reported by Russian media. The terms, formally presented at negotiations in Istanbul on Tuesday (NZT), highlighted Moscow's refusal to compromise on its longstanding war goals despite calls by US President Donald Trump to end the "bloodbath" in Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender. Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022. They agreed to exchange more prisoners of war - focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded - and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan described it as a great meeting and said he hoped to bring together Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a meeting in Turkey with Trump. But there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept. Moscow says it seeks a long-term settlement, not a pause in the war; Kyiv says Putin is not interested in peace. Trump has said the United States is ready to walk away from its mediation efforts unless the two sides demonstrate progress towards a deal. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv's delegation, said Kyiv - which has drawn up its own peace roadmap - would review the Russian document, on which he offered no immediate comment. Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June, but believes only a meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Umerov said. Zelenskiy said Ukraine presented a list of 400 children it says have been abducted to Russia, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them. Russia says the children were moved from war zones to protect them. The Russian memorandum, which was published by the Interfax news agency, said a settlement of the war would require international recognition of Crimea - a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 - and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. It restated Moscow's demands that Ukraine become a neutral country - ruling out membership of NATO - and that it protect the rights of Russian speakers, make Russian an official language and enact a legal ban on glorification of Nazism. Ukraine rejects the Nazi charge as absurd and denies discriminating against Russian speakers. Russia also formalised its terms for any ceasefire en route to a peace settlement, presenting two options that both appeared to be non-starters for Ukraine. Option one, according to the text, was for Ukraine to start a full military withdrawal from the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Of those, Russia fully controls the first but holds only about 70 percent of the rest. Option two was a package that would require Ukraine to cease military redeployments and accept a halt to foreign provision of military aid, satellite communications and intelligence. Kyiv would also have to lift martial law and hold presidential and parliamentary elections within 100 days. Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow had also suggested a "specific ceasefire of two to three days in certain sections of the front" so that the bodies of dead soldiers could be collected. According to a proposed roadmap drawn up by Ukraine, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Kyiv wants no restrictions on its military strength after any peace deal, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations. The conflict has been heating up, with Russia launching its biggest drone attacks of the war and advancing on the battlefield in May at its fastest rate in six months. On Sunday, Ukraine said it launched 117 drones in an operation codenamed "Spider's Web" to attack Russian nuclear-capable long-range bomber planes at airfields in Siberia and the far north of the country. Satellite imagery suggested the attacks had caused substantial damage, although the two sides gave conflicting accounts of the extent of it. Western military analysts described the strikes, thousands of miles from the front lines, as one of the most audacious Ukrainian operations of the war. Russia's strategic bomber fleet forms part of the "triad" of forces - along with missiles launched from the ground or from submarines - that make up the country's nuclear arsenal, the biggest in the world. Faced with repeated warnings from Putin of Russia's nuclear might, the US and its allies have been wary throughout the Ukraine conflict of the risk that it could spiral into World War Three. A current US administration official said Trump and the White House were not notified before the attack. A former administration official said Ukraine, for operational security reasons, regularly does not disclose to Washington its plans for such actions. A UK government official said the British government also was not told ahead of time. Zelenskiy said the operation, which involved drones concealed inside wooden sheds, had helped to restore partners' confidence that Ukraine is able to continue waging the war. "Ukraine says that we are not going to surrender and are not going to give in to any ultimatums," he told an online news briefing. "But we do not want to fight, we do not want to demonstrate our strength - we demonstrate it because the enemy does not want to stop." - Reuters
