KYIV, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday he planned to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump soon and that a lot could be decided before the New Year as Washington pushes diplomatic efforts to end the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy has said that sensitive issues, including any compromises on territory, should be discussed at the level of heads of state, and Kyiv has been seeking a face-to-face meeting with Trump.
“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,” he said on X following the latest round of talks between Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators.
Zelenskiy held talks on Thursday with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
He said that some documents, part of a wider framework aimed at ending the conflict and ensuring Ukraine’s reconstruction, were “nearly ready” while others were “fully prepared”.
Earlier this week, Zelenskiy unveiled a 20-point draft peace plan that he described as the main framework for ending the war.
While the plan outlined Ukraine receiving security guarantees to prevent further Russian aggression, there was no compromise between Ukraine and the U.S. on the issues of territory, which Moscow is demanding Kyiv cede.
Control over the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant also remained the matter of further discussion.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Joe Bavier)
STOCKHOLM, Dec 25 (Reuters) – Swedish police are investigating a serious incident in the northern town of Boden, they said on Thursday, with daily Aftonbladet reporting that a number of injured people had been taken to hospital.
“We are taking a number of investigative measures,” a police spokesperson said, declining to give further details.
Daily Aftonbladet said it had information that a violent crime had occurred and that the perpetrator had been shot by police.
A number of people had been taken to hospital, the paper said, citing the local authority.
Boden is around 80 km (50 miles) south of the Arctic Circle and is home to Sweden’s 19th Infantry Regiment.
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Ukrainian long-range drones hit oil product tanks in the Russian port of Temryuk and a gas processing plant in Russia’s Orenburg, an official at the SBU security service told Reuters on Thursday.
“The SBU continues to target facilities in the Russian oil and gas sector systematically. Each of these strikes hits the Russian budget, reduces foreign currency revenues, and complicates logistics and fuel supplies for the army,” the official said.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Writing by Olena Harmash; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
BANGUI, Dec 25 (Reuters) – Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera is seeking a third term in an election on Sunday, campaigning on security gains after signing deals with rebel groups and enlisting support from Russian mercenaries and Rwandan forces.
He faces six opposition candidates including Anicet-Georges Dologuele, a former prime minister and runner-up in the 2020 election, but is likely to win in part due to his control over state institutions, analysts say.
Such a result would likely further the interests of Russia, which has traded security assistance for access to resources including gold and diamonds. Touadera is also offering access to the country’s lithium and uranium reserves to anyone interested.
The 68-year-old mathematician took power in 2016 after the worst crisis in the chronically unstable country’s history, when three years of intercommunal strife forced a fifth of the population to flee their homes, either internally or abroad.
Touadera has signed peace deals this year with several rebel groups, while others have been weakened in the face of Russian mercenaries and troops from Rwanda deployed to shore up Touadera’s government as well as U.N. peacekeepers.
“During the 10 years that we have been working together, you yourselves have seen that peace is beginning to return, starting from all our borders and reaching the capital,” Touadera told a rally at a stadium in the capital Bangui this month.
His opponents, meanwhile, have denounced a constitutional referendum in 2023 that scrapped the presidential term limit, saying it was proof Touadera wants to be president for life.
They have also accused him of failing to make significant progress towards lifting the 5.5 million population out of poverty.
“The administrative infrastructure has been destroyed and, as you know, the roads are in a very poor state of repair,” Dologuele told a recent press conference.
“In short, the Central African economy is in ruins.”
SECURITY THREATS REMAIN DESPITE PEACE DEALS
The presidential contest is taking place alongside legislative, regional and municipal elections, with provisional results expected to be announced by January 5.
If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a presidential runoff will take place on February 15, while legislative runoffs will take place on April 5.
A smooth voting process could reinforce Touadera’s claim that stability is returning, which was buttressed last year with the U.N. Security Council’s lifting of an arms embargo and the lifting of a separate embargo on diamond exports.
“The fact that these measures were lifted, it shows that we’re gradually getting back to normal. Or at least that’s the narrative,” said Romain Esmenjaud, associate researcher at the Institut Francais de Geopolitique.
The peace deals are credited with a decline in violence in some areas and an expected boost in economic growth projections to 3% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has said the U.N. should hand security back to the government soon.
But serious security threats remain. Rebels have not fully disarmed, reintegration is incomplete, and incursions by combatants from neighbouring Sudan fuel insecurity in the east.
Pangea-Risk, a consultancy, wrote in a note to clients that the risk of unrest after the election was high as opponents were likely to challenge Touadera’s expected victory.
“The election will take place in an atmosphere marked by heightened grievances over political marginalization, increasing repression, and allegations of electoral fraud,” said chief executive Robert Besseling.
Dologuele alleged fraud after he was recorded as winning 21.6% of the vote in 2020, when rebel groups still threatened the capital and prevented voting at 800 polling stations across the country, or 14% of the total. A court upheld Touadera’s win.
Paul-Crescent Beninga, a political analyst, said voters will be closely scrutinising the voting and counting processes.
“If they do not go well, it gives those who promote violence an excuse to mobilise violence and sow panic among the population of the Central African Republic. So that is why we must ensure that the elections take place in relatively acceptable conditions,” he said.
(Reporting by Pacome Pabandji, Jessica Donati and Robbie Corey-Boulet; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Four Democratic governors wrote to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday to ask the Trump administration to lift its halt on five offshore wind projects on the U.S. East Coast.
The Department of the Interior on Monday attributed its suspension of the leases for the projects to national security concerns.
However, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee rejected those claims, saying that the projects had already undergone extensive federal review, including an assessment that addressed national security considerations.
They said neither the Interior Department nor any other agency, including the Pentagon, informed their states about a new risk prior to the suspensions.
“The sudden emergence of a new ‘national security threat’ appears to be less a legitimate, rational finding of fact and more a pretextual excuse to justify a predetermined outcome consistent with the President’s frequently stated personal opposition to offshore wind,” the governors wrote.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suspension was the latest blow for offshore wind developers that have faced repeated disruptions to their multi-billion-dollar projects under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he finds wind turbines ugly, costly and inefficient.
Agencies including the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to suspend all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.
Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s halt to all federal approvals for new wind energy projects.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)
WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – The White House has ordered U.S. military forces to focus almost exclusively on enforcing the “quarantine” of Venezuela, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.
“While military options still exist the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking,” the official said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, editing by Michelle Nichols)
The Dutch Gambling Authority (KSA) will undergo a significant internal transformation, reflecting the sharp evolution of the country’s gambling market and its associated risks in recent years. Starting from January 1, 2026, a new, streamlined governance model will centralize the regulator’s management structure, bolstering its focus on player protection, digital oversight, and enforcement.
An Updated Leadership Structure Reflects Shifting Market Trends
The regulator announced that it will maintain continuity, meaning that Michel Groothuizen will remain chairman and the sole full-time member of the Board of Directors. Two additional part-time board members will contribute strategic input rather than overseeing day-to-day operations. Their recruitment is at an advanced stage, and formal announcements are expected in the next few months.
“This change will make the KSA a modern, agile organization that oversees a rapidly changing gambling market.”
KSA statement
The regulator is also consolidating its internal departments into three directorates responsible for day-to-day management. One will concentrate on Player Protection and Management Advice, underscoring the growing political and public emphasis on harm prevention. Another will oversee Licenses and Supervision, maintaining the regulator’s core responsibilities around market access and compliance. The third, Digitalization, Analysis, and Operations, will keep track of technological advancements in the sector.
The directors of these three new directorates, Roos Lawant, Ella Seijsener, and Daniël Palomo van Es, will collectively assume operational control, leaving the board to focus on strategy, governance, and accountability. Vice-chair Bernadette van Buchem will step down at the end of 2025, concluding a four-decade career in public service marked by a strong commitment to gambling regulation.
Illegal Operators Remain a Persistent Issue
The restructuring aligns with a moment of self-reflection for the KSA. In a recent speech, Groothuizen admitted the limitations of the Netherlands’ current regulatory framework. Despite the introduction of a regulated online market, offshore operators continue to thrive due to the country’s reluctance to block websites or impose aggressive internet restrictions.
At the same time, some of the Netherlands’ strict player protection rules have led to unintended consequences. There has been a gradual but steady movement of high-spending players to unlicensed platforms, causing tension in the regulated market and undermining channelization efforts. Groothuizen underlined the growing need for international collaboration by regulators to address the global rise in illegal gambling.
Groothuizen has consistently called for deeper international cooperation, even floating the idea of a Europe-wide body dedicated to combating illegal gambling, akin to Interpol. The KSA’s reorganization signals that gambling oversight is no longer just about issuing licenses and chasing violations. It is about data, digital tools, and strategic coordination — and the regulator wants to remain relevant.
Dec 24 (Reuters) – American businesswoman and television personality Martha Stewart has joined Swansea City as a co-owner, the Welsh soccer club announced on Tuesday.
Lifestyle expert Stewart, the first female self-made billionaire in the United States, was in attendance as a guest for Swansea’s 2-1 Championship win over Wrexham last Friday.
“We are very excited to welcome Martha on board,” the club said in a statement.
“We know experiencing Friday night’s game in-person has only increased her own enthusiasm and anticipation for being part of Swansea City.”
Stewart is the latest celebrity to become a minority co-owner of the club, with U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg coming on board in July.
Luka Modric is also a minority co-owner, the Ballon d’Or winner joining in April.
Swansea are 19th in the Championship and face leaders Coventry City later on Friday.
(Reporting by Karan Prashant Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
LONDON, Dec 23 (Reuters) – British police said on Tuesday they would take no further action over comments made about the Israeli military during a performance by punk duo Bob Vylan at the Glastonbury music festival in June.
“We have concluded, after reviewing all the evidence, that it does not meet the criminal threshold outlined by the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) for any person to be prosecuted,” Avon and Somerset Police said.
(Reporting by Sam TabahritiEditing by William Schomberg)
Apple is making it a little easier to use third-party devices with iPhones in order to comply with Europe’s Digital Market Act (DMA), MacRumors reported. For iOS 26.3, Apple’s devices will support third-party proximity pairing and notifications in Europe only, according to the latest beta notes. That will make it a bit easier to connect devices like Sony headphones or receive notifications from an iPhone on Wear OS smartwatches — provided manufacturers support the new feature.
“The DMA creates new opportunities for developers to bring to market innovative products and services in Europe,” an EU spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. “This is another step towards a more inter-connected digital ecosystem to the benefit of all EU citizens.” The EU Commission added that the functionality will be “fully available” in the bloc in 2026.
The new capabilities are as follows:
Proximity pairing – Devices like earbuds will be able to pair with an iOS device in an AirPods-like way by bringing the accessory close to an iPhone or iPad to initiate a simple, one-tap pairing process. Pairing third-party devices will no longer require multiple steps.
Notifications – Third-party accessories like smart watches will be able to receive notifications from the iPhone. Users will be able to view and react to incoming notifications, which is functionality normally limited to the Apple Watch. Notifications can only be forwarded to one connected device at a time, and turning on notifications for a third-party device disables notifications to an Apple Watch.
Proximity pairing is a relatively minor quality-of-life upgrade, allowing you to connect with a tap via NFC rather than diving into the Bluetooth settings. However, there’s no indication that it will allow seamless switching between devices as you can do with Apple’s iPods, for instance. Notifications, however, will finally make third-party watches feasible with iOS devices.
Apple’s DMA compliance efforts are interesting to watch, as it appears to be doing the bare minimum required, often for what it calls privacy reasons. In some cases, the company is removing features in Europe that are available elsewhere, like iPhone mirroring on Mac — meaning it doesn’t have to implement the same feature on Android devices or PCs.
Dec 23 (Reuters) – A Ukrainian overnight drone attack sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, the region’s governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said on Tuesday.
There were no injuries reported, Vladimirov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Vladimirov did not specify which facility was on fire.
Russian oil major Lukoil runs the Stavrolen petrochemical complex at Budyonnovsk in Stavropol and the region also hosts gas pipeline infrastructure and fuel storage sites that make it part of Russia’s broader energy and chemicals system.
Ukraine, which has reportedly attacked the Stavrolen plant before, has said its strikes inside Russia and away from the front line are aimed at crippling Russia’s military effort in a war that Moscow launched nearly four years ago.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
Throughout her career, French-Italian artist Tatiana Trouvé has explored the psychological, mnemonic and emotional dimensions of architecture and space, creating evocative environments that engage themes of transition, fragility and resistance. Coinciding with the Venice Architecture Biennale, Trouvé is currently the subject of a major presentation at Pinault Collection’s Palazzo Grassi—“The Strange Life of Things”—bringing together a group of works that resonate deeply with many of the Biennale’s core concerns, as architects grapple with the precarious state of contemporary civilization and the failures of capitalism, which have pushed them to conceive buildings not as isolated structures but as integral components within a broader, deeply interconnected system shaped by social dynamics, environmental urgencies, biological rhythms and technological change.
Marking the most wide-ranging exhibition of the artist’s work to date, the presentation is intentionally fragmentary—rejecting any notion of linear time, fixed site or coherent narrative. Instead, it embraces the precarious yet highly malleable nature of human consciousness and experience. Microcosms and macrocosms of physical and psychological states unfold throughout, freely blending urban remnants with classical references and celestial motifs with subterranean, earthbound matter.
What Trouvé stages is an open system—an ecosystem of parts and fragments that stand in for larger wholes. Like a form of contemporary archaeology, we are presented only with traces: fragments of actions, emotions and thoughts that hint at the intelligence behind these material presences. This is the “strange life of things”—the objects and environments that surround us, shape us and contribute to our sense of being and to human development. In this sense, Trouvé’s work becomes a deliberately aleatory exploration of the material world as a state of flux, transformation and continuous metamorphosis. She embraces the fragmented nature of suspended forms and provisional structures that attempt to define and contain our existence, only to expose their inherent instability.
Occupying all three floors of Palazzo Grassi, Trouvé guides us through a continuous, uneasy oscillation between upper and underworlds, between material and spiritual realities. The palace’s marble courtyard becomes a personal constellation, an abstract cosmological chart centered on Hors-sol. Cast from various manhole covers, the different metals take on the appearance of medals, their symbols arranged on concrete as if to map a shared universe that relativizes the supposed limitlessness of human experience. Their fluid positioning across the ground evokes atomic particles drifting on liquid surfaces, echoing the stream of human consciousness and expression. At the same time, they appear to siphon away the failures and distortions that have prevented humanity from recognizing how everything—every thought, form and element—is part of the same current, the same water, the same flux.
From there, Trouvé brings us into the in fieri dimension of her studio. Apparently incoherent assemblages of materials settle into the rooms as inherently symbolic still lifes, frozen in time as a testament to human passage and experience. In the artist’s “Notes on Sculpture” series, each work is titled after a specific moment or a person who occupied Trouvé’s thoughts during its creation, with a diaristic impulse translated into three-dimensional form that captures the unpredictability of events and materials shaping a life. Interior and exterior worlds, past experiences and inherited memories blend seamlessly into sculptures that feel at once personal and collective, suspended between order and entropy.
Trouvé’s Poverista language of raw, humble materials reveals not only their physical properties but also their psychological resonance, transforming them into metaphors of both individual and collective existence. Her sculptural compositions read as a diary of humanity and poetry, staging unexpected encounters between objects that already carry embedded political, cultural and social meaning even before they are articulated into a message. Notes on Sculpture, April 27th, ‘Maresa’, for instance, reassembles a working desk, yet within this palimpsest of everyday gestures one object rises upright, asserting itself like a character claiming presence and individuality. For Trouvé, recycling materials and objects becomes a way of weaving new stories, a means of expressing the persistent urge to blur inside and outside, psyche and form, as if striving toward a more porous mode of perception beyond the strictly visual.
In this process, the low and the high merge seamlessly, memorializing encounters between material forms within the endless cycle of production and consumption, an existence perpetually oscillating between regeneration and decay. The fragility of urban structures collides with the grandeur of contemporary architectural space, exposing the tensions that define today’s urban condition. Throughout the exhibition, Trouvé reminds us that nature inevitably outlasts humanity’s attempts to contain or escape it, revealing a quiet resilience in the face of human constructs. The obsolescence of technology and architecture meets the enduring force of natural environments while confronting the timeless majesty of art from the past. Trouvé ultimately embraces the idea that, in this post-capitalist phase of human development marked by systemic failure, sculpture can only be precious insofar as it is resistant and resilient: a commentary on material survival that acknowledge the inherent fallibility of all human endeavor.
While the human body is never directly depicted in Trouvé’s work, it is frequently evoked through the societal frameworks and constructed roles that shape identity, often overpowering the more authentic call of the soul. In a witty turn, even the room guardian is transformed into an onyx and bronze fetish, a figure as heavy as its symbolic role yet as fragile as the ghostly presence of custodianship itself—mute, isolated, unable to relate or communicate. It becomes a curious object of both artifice and weight, suspended between presence and absence.
In Storia Notturna 30 Giugno 2023, the artist confronts the failures of social systems of control by evoking communal resistance through material traces of shelter and defense. The rough surfaces of two monumental plaster wall casts stand in stark contrast to the richly adorned coffered ceiling of Palazzo Grassi, generating a charged tension between the turbulent reality of earthly existence and the idealized harmony of celestial realms. Embedded within the casts are impressions Trouvé took directly from the streets of Montreuil in the aftermath of the riots sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy of North African descent in June 2023. Molds drawn from the remains of the unrest—burnt garbage bins, melted plastics, scorched shopfronts—are transformed into an abstracted landscape that channels the volcanic rage of the disenfranchised and maps the volatility of the present.
This unveiling of human psychological and societal constructions as inherently precarious and temporary is echoed throughout the exhibition. An underlying apocalyptic tone permeates the space, as if everything were teetering on the verge of collapse. In more than one installation, such as Navigation Gates from 2024, Trouvé evokes fragile shelters rooted in ancient yet increasingly eroded cultural systems of survival, while also gesturing toward older, more symbiotic relationships with the natural world.
In Somewhere in the Solar System, the artist appears to have already accepted societal collapse, envisioning a world reduced to shelters built from ruins, fragments of navigation maps, cosmic charts, diagrams and codes. These remnants offer a means of searching for a deeper, more ancient meaning of existence beyond the contingency and overwhelm of unfolding events. Along one timeline, inscriptions read “2060 NEWTON END OF THE WORLD” and “2100 ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE.” Arranged like a camp or a totemic circle, the installation suggests a sculpture that functions as premonition, a contemporary monument in the lineage of Maya structures that likewise sought to mark the end before it arrived.
Throughout the exhibition, Tatiana Trouvé blurs the boundaries between the observed and the imagined, between what may have occurred in the past and what could unfold in the future. The act of artistic creation, informed by both historical memory and imagination, emerges as one of the few tools of resistance and survival amid the speed and confusion of modern life, a way to resist the current of forgetting and anchor oneself in ancient truths while projecting new visions of what lies ahead. As the exhibition text suggests, Trouvé plays with these temporal shifts to mirror the speculative fictions of writers like Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino and Ursula K. Le Guin, inviting visitors into narratives in which protagonists often find themselves in strange, disorienting circumstances that unravel linear time and logic.
What Trouvé ultimately reveals is a post-truth world marked by profound forgetfulness, where the values and knowledge of the past slip into obsolescence, leaving humanity without stable reference points to confront the recurring cycles of history. Yet she holds onto a belief in the power of artistic creation to imagine and construct alternative scenarios, a way to confront cultural and existential decay through the collective strength and imagination of the community.
An intimate act of both sentimental and poetic resistance is embodied in Trouvé’s Cities (2024), which reflects the endless circulation of bodies and objects across the world. These necklaces, composed of materials gathered in various cities, become a form of personal coding of sensations and experiences that spoke authentically to the soul. By casting them in bronze and preserving them in time, Trouvé invites contemplation of their broader meaning within the economy of social and physical relations. New archetypes emerge as impossible, tactile votive offerings, reviving a symbolic and mythic language as perhaps the only tools left to confront collapse. As Walter Benjamin once suggested, the past “flashes up” in moments of crisis, just as Trouvé gathers fragments, ruins and temporal dislocations to root memory in lived experience, resisting the current of forgetting.
The faculty of deep memory, combined with the force of expansive imagination, becomes, as Michael Meade writes, what continues to flow into the world as ongoing creation. Embracing this vital fluidity of matter and energy, Tatiana Trouvé conceives of her work as an ecosystem, a circulation of elements configured into a community of forms, each capable of generating new and open-ended narratives. The Residents exemplifies this approach, a cluster of sculptures suspended in time and space that invites viewers to move around them and imagine scenarios drawn from their unfinished, suggestive forms.
Yet Trouvé is acutely aware that even deep memory and expansive imagination inevitably confront the boundaries imposed by societal structures that contain and regulate reality. This tension is rendered in L’appuntamento through an intricate layering of glass barriers and walls, transparent yet obstructive. And still, there is always a door, a portal that appears once the viewer shifts perspective, a means of escape from the rigid frameworks through which society seeks to control not only individual behavior but also the inherently chaotic nature of the universe. Trouvé’s composition suggests that reality is, in fact, porous, malleable and multiple, urging us to embrace the fluidity of transformation and the fundamental relativity of all so-called truths.
However, it is in her enigmatic drawings that Tatiana Trouvé most fully explores the tension between the human urge to impose order, to meticulously chart and contain reality within graphic systems and architectural plans, and the opposing pull to surrender to the unbounded torrent of imagination. Within these intricate visual tapestries, real and imagined places, past and future fluidly intertwine, giving rise to impossible, speculative landscapes. These are spaces imbued with a haunting, almost ominous quality, where the spectral outlines of a post-capitalist world begin to take shape.
Yet amid this embrace of boundless imagination, there remains a deep and deliberate attempt to discern order, to safeguard and preserve fragments from the ceaseless flow of time and experience. Like a memory chamber, Trouvé transforms an entire room into a sculptural inventory composed of an extraordinarily varied array of ordinary objects she has found or collected over the years. Far from mere curiosities, these objects form a personal lexicon, a tangible testament to the overlooked “life of things” within the expanding cosmos of her artistic practice. Here, while she yields to the transformative power of imagination and its capacity to envision new political and social futures, she simultaneously anchors her work in the vast, enduring memory of the past and the cyclical rhythms of history. In doing so, she positions her art outside the overwhelming mainstream of contemporary life, with its relentless overflow of temporary truths and disorienting barrage of information.
As a meticulously staged exercise in remembrance, resilience and imagination, the exhibition as a whole resonates deeply with a poignant quote by author and mythologist Michael Meade: “If we lose our natural connection to the deep river of memory and the flow of imagination in our own souls, we can lose the future as well as the past, and we’ll find ourselves losing our footing in the present as well.” Trouvé’s work, through its sustained engagement with memory and the imaginative possibilities of the future, stands as a vivid testament to the enduring human need to preserve these vital connections. Even as we drift within the relentless current of time, disoriented and increasingly detached from the essence of who we are, her art offers a quiet insistence on reorientation, anchoring the self in forms of meaning that resist erasure.
BERLIN, Dec 22 (Reuters) – Belarusian opposition leaders Maria Kalesnikava and Viktar Babaryka, freed this month after five years in prison, said they need more time to recover before speaking publicly.
The pair, prominent figures in the movement that challenged President Alexander Lukashenko in a disputed 2020 election, were released on December 13 as part of a deal under which the U.S. lifted sanctions on Belarusian potash in exchange for their freedom.
They had been expected to give a news conference in Berlin on Tuesday.
“Maria and Viktar need some time to recover and to reconnect with their loved ones,” Kalesnikava’s sister Tatsiana Khomich told Reuters. “After the New Year, we will get back with a format that will allow for the broadest possible participation.”
The two were imprisoned on what Western observers said were trumped-up political charges. Human rights activists said they had been subjected to degrading treatment and undergone serious health emergencies during their time in detention.
Last week Germany announced that it would grant residency to the pair, part of a policy of allowing prominent prisoners of conscience residence on their release.
(Reporting by Thomas EscrittEditing by Ros Russell)
LISBON, Dec 20 (Reuters) – The man who police say killed two Brown University students and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist had cut short a promising academic career to take a modest software developer job back in his native Portugal before returning to the United States in 2017.
U.S. investigators, helped by their Portuguese colleagues, are still seeking a motive for the shootings carried out by Claudio Valente before his suicide. Officials have been looking into his academic past, which some of Valente’s former colleagues recall as an uneasy one.
According to physicist Filipe Moura, who was Valente’s teaching assistant at Lisbon’s elite Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in 1996-97 and maintained contact with him through the early 2000s, Valente did not enjoy his time at Brown and left after about a year in 2001.
“Claudio thought none of it was worthwhile, that it was a waste of time, and that everyone else was incompetent,” he wrote, adding that Valente then took a job as an IT specialist for Portuguese internet portal Sapo.
In a series of Facebook posts, Moura remembered Valente as “the best student of his year” at IST, but also someone who had “a very strong need to stand out and show that he was better than the others”, which often made teaching him an unpleasant experience because of his squabbles with other students.
Several ex-students disputed that characterization, however, saying that while Valente could be arrogant at times, he conducted himself much like other brilliant students and did not exhibit any antisocial behavior.
A former colleague at Sapo, cited by the newspaper Diario de Noticias, described Valente as “a very good person, truly sweet,” with a great sense of humor and patience to explain things, but extremely reserved about his life away from work.
“He was a little weird… a bit out of place as a software developer” considering his academic background in physics, she said, adding that Valente at one point left the company but then returned for another stint before going to the United States.
Valente won the U.S. green card lottery and became a lawful permanent resident in 2017.
The only child in a middle-class family from the town of Entroncamento near Lisbon, he had severed all relationships with his parents around the time of his studies at Brown, according to local media.
Investigators believe that two days after the Brown shooting, Valente shot Nuno Loureiro, an MIT physics professor and his classmate at the IST.
“I never thought I’d live to see this tragic drama unfold, especially involving the physics students from IST who, despite everything, seemed more like children in adult bodies during moments of ego insecurity,” researcher Hugo Tercas wrote commenting on Moura’s post.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Sergio Non and Nick Zieminski)
PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – The French government on Friday called for a Christmas truce with protesting farmers, warning against further blockades during the holiday season, a move the country’s main union said depended on the prime minister’s response to their demands.
Farmers have been blocking roads, dumping manure and holding demonstrations in France for over a week to protest against the government’s management of cattle lumpy skin disease and a trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur.
Farmers gathered with tractors early on Friday in front of President Emmanuel Macron’s residence in the seaside resort of Le Touquet in northern France, placing a coffin labelled “RIP Agri” and “NO Mercosur”.
Meanwhile, in the southern town of Avignon, farmers threw potatoes at public buildings.
Protesters argue that the government’s policy of culling an entire herd when lumpy skin disease is detected is excessive and cruel. They also claim the EU-Mercosur deal whose signing has been postponed to January would allow massive imports of products not meeting French standards.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu is holding meetings with the main farm unions. The head of the FNSEA, the country’s largest, said Lecornu committed to sending a letter by evening with answers to a range of agricultural issues.
“This letter will be decisive,” FNSEA Chairman Arnaud Rousseau told reporters, adding that the union would then make a decision on whether to suspend the protests.
Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said on RTL radio that the government would no longer tolerate further blockades and would do “everything necessary” to avoid them.
Young Farmers union President Pierrick Horel said it would observe a Christmas truce.
However, it was still unclear if unions Coordination rurale and the Confederation Paysanne, which have led the blockades, would call off protests.
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard was due to travel to a farm near Paris later in the day.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
MOSCOW, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual end-of-year press conference on Friday.
Below are some of his comments. He spoke in Russian and his words were translated by Reuters.
“So far, we don’t really see such readiness (form Ukraine for peace talks)… But still we see … certain signals, including from the Kyiv regime, that they are ready to engage in some kind of dialogue. The only thing I want to say is that we have always said this: we are ready and willing to end this conflict peacefully, based on the principles I outlined … at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by addressing the root causes that led to this crisis.”
(Compiled by Felix Light, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday it was too early to say whether a one-month delay to decide on an EU trade deal with South America’s Mercosur bloc will be enough to meet the conditions set by France, but that he hoped so.
Macron, who has pushed for stronger guarantees to protect farmers, said he hoped the EU and Mercosur nations will approve in January measures to ensure South American imports meet the same requirements than European ones.
That would make the pact a “new” Mercosur-EU deal, he said.
BRUSSELS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – European Union leaders could agree to borrow on the market, against the security of the EU budget, to keep Ukraine financed in 2026 and 2027, a draft text of the leaders’ conclusions seen by Reuters showed on Friday.
But the leaders still want their governments and the European Parliament to continue working on setting up financing for Ukraine based on frozen Russian assets, the draft text said.
The joint borrowing against the EU budget would be with the exclusion of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, said the draft, which has yet to be approved by the leaders.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Timour Azhari, Maya Gebeily and Jonathan Spicer
AMMAN/RIYADH/BEIRUT/ANKARA, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Syrian, Kurdish and U.S. officials are scrambling ahead of a year-end deadline to show some progress in a stalled deal to merge Kurdish forces with the Syrian state, according to several people involved in or familiar with the talks.
Discussions have accelerated in recent days despite growing frustrations over delays, according to the Syrian, Kurdish and Western sources who spoke to Reuters, some of whom cautioned that a major breakthrough was unlikely.
The interim Syrian government has sent a proposal to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that controls the country’s northeast, according to five of the sources.
In it, Damascus expressed openness to the SDF reorganising its roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units, according to one Syrian, one Western and three Kurdish officials.
‘SAVE FACE’ AND EXTEND TALKS ON INTEGRATION
It was unclear whether the idea would move forward, and several sources downplayed prospects of a comprehensive eleventh-hour deal, saying more talks are needed. Still, one SDF official said: “We are closer to a deal than ever before”.
A second Western official said that any announcement in coming days would be meant in part to “save face”, extend the deadline and maintain stability in a nation that remains fragile a year after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad.
Whatever emerges was expected to fall short of the SDF’s full integration into the military and other state institutions by year-end, as was called for in a landmark March 10 agreement between the sides, most of the sources said.
Failure to mend Syria’s deepest remaining fracture risks an armed clash that could derail its emergence from 14 years of war, and potentially draw in neighbouring Turkey that has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
Both sides have accused the other of stalling and acting in bad faith. The SDF is reluctant to give up autonomy it won as the main U.S. ally during the war, after which it controlled Islamic State prisons and rich oil resources.
The U.S., which backs Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and has urged global support for his interim government, has relayed messages between the SDF and Damascus, facilitated talks and urged a deal, several sources said.
The State Department did not immediately comment on last-minute efforts to agree a proposal before year-end.
SDF DOWNPLAYS DEADLINE; TURKEY SAYS PATIENCE THIN
Since a major round of talks in the summer between the sides failed to produce results, frictions have mounted including frequent skirmishes along several front lines across the north.
The SDF took control of much of northeast Syria, where most of the nation’s oil and wheat production is, after defeating Islamic State militants in 2019.
It said it was ending decades of repression against the Kurdish minority but resentment against its rule has grown among the predominantly Arab population, including against compulsory conscription of young men.
A Syrian official said the year-end deadline for integration is firm and only “irreversible steps” by the SDF could bring an extension.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on Thursday it does not want to resort to military means but warned that patience with the SDF is “running out”.
Kurdish officials have downplayed the deadline and said they are committed to talks toward a just integration.
“The most reliable guarantee for the agreement’s continued validity lies in its content, not timeframe,” said Sihanouk Dibo, a Syrian autonomous administration official, suggesting it could take until mid-2026 to address all points in the deal.
The SDF had in October floated the idea of reorganising into three geographical divisions as well as the brigades. It is unclear whether that concession, in the proposal from Damascus in recent days, would be enough to convince it to give up territorial control.
Abdel Karim Omar, representative of the Kurdish-led northeastern administration in Damascus, said the proposal, which has not been made public, included “logistical and administrative details that could cause disagreement and lead to delays”.
A senior Syrian official told Reuters the response “has flexibility to facilitate reaching an agreement that implements the March accord”.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, Timour Azhari in Riyadh, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Jonathan Spicer in Ankara, Additional reporting by Orhan Quereman in Syria and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
WARSAW, Dec 18 (Reuters) – European Union leaders agree that it would be fair to use Russian assets to finance Ukraine, but there are many technical points that need to be ironed out, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday.
“We have definitely made a breakthrough, everyone agrees that it is worth negotiating and it would be fair to use Russian assets, but some countries will fight until the end to maximize their guarantees,” he told reporters in Brussels.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz, writing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk)
