Category: Australasia

CloseTrump says Putin agreed to not fire on Kyiv for a week during coldUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested that a second round of three-way peace talks with the US and Russia may not go ahead tomorrow as planned.
Delegates from the US, Russia and Ukraine met last week to iron out their respective differences in order to move towards securing a peace deal with a follow-up to be held this weekend in Abu Dhabi.
However, Zelensky hinted that the follow-up planned for Sunday could be delayed with Donald Trump's attention focussed elsewhere on Iran.
“From our point of view, something is happening in the situation between the United States and Iran, and those developments could affect the timing,” Zelensky said.
Trump said earlier that Russian president Vladimir Putin had agreed to not attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure this weekend at a time when the war-hit nation is experiencing particularly harsh winter conditions.
Ukraine has said it will not attack Russia'..

Close'I told them two things': Trump reveals what he told IranIran is prepared for talks with the United States, but negotiations should be “fair and equitable” and not take place “under the shadow of threats”, the country’s foreign minister has said.
In a post on X, Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had “no problem with negotiations” following repeated threats of US military intervention by Donald Trump.
“They must certainly set aside their threats and change their approach toward a fair and equitable negotiation, as Mr Trump himself said in his post,” Araghchi said.
Trump warned Iran it must do “two things” to avoid US military action, as US forces continue to build in the Middle East ahead of a possible strike.
“Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters,” the US president said.
Iran earlier warned it will retaliate to any US attack “instantly” and that its response would not be limited. A response would likely see it attack the US military bases stationed ..

Overseeing Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and government-wide anti-immigration efforts is a constellation of longtime loyalists, law enforcement officials and advisers spread across federal agencies.
The president has reshaped the government around his mission to find, arrest and deport tens of thousands of people, deter new arrivals and impose severe restrictions on legal immigration that have stranded refugees and forced immigrants to flee the country.
That mission is dovetailing with his campaign of “retribution” against political opponents, whose cities have been occupied by federal officers and National Guard troops under his direction.
These are some of the agencies and players in charge.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of policyThe architect of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies in his first term returned to the White House last year as an influential force behind mass deportations and the president’s attempts to unilaterally define who..

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers carrying out the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minnesota have been ordered not to engage with “agitators” and focus on arresting migrants with criminal records in an apparent focus switch, according to a report.
A top ICE official shared the new guidance in an email obtained by Reuters following the deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal law enforcement during clashes in Minneapolis.
“We are moving to targeted enforcement of aliens with a criminal history,” the official said, according to the news agency. “This includes arrests, not just convictions. ALL TARGETS MUST HAVE A CRIMINAL NEXUS.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the administration ordered ICE to focus on serious criminals, a policy that was rescinded by President Donald Trump, allowing agents to arrest non-criminals without restrictions.
The new guidance states officers can run license plate checks for possible targets and shou..

Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse fatally shot by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, appeared to confront federal agents less than two weeks before his death, newly published video footage shows.
A video published by The News Movement, a digital media company, seemed to show Pretti kicking a government vehicle and being tackled to the ground on a city street January 13.
The BBC reported on Wednesday that the man in the video “has the same coat, facial hair and gait as Alex Pretti and a facial recognition tool suggests a 97% match.” CNN later reported that Pretti’s family confirmed to the outlet that he is the man in the video.
In the two-minute clip, a man can be seen rushing toward a federal vehicle and yelling before kicking out its taillight. He appears to be carrying a gun in his waistband.
An agent then steps out of the vehicle, shoves the man to the ground and receives backup from other agents. Bystanders, some filming and yelling at the federal agents, wa..

A Texas man sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend has become the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm CST after receiving a lethal injection Wednesday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman’s suburban Houston apartment.
In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding, “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”
“There are no winners in this situation,” he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about three minutes and shortly before a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered.
He said his execution “creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later.”
“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what happened, and I ..

A Russian drone strike has killed five people aboard a passenger train in northeastern Ukraine, prosecutors confirmed on Tuesday, an attack President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned as an act of terrorism.
The assault, which set the train on fire, occurred just hours after a separate barrage of Russian drones targeted the southern city of Odesa overnight, killing three and injuring 25. These incidents underscore Moscow's escalating campaign of strikes, seemingly aimed at compelling Kyiv to cease hostilities.
Meanwhile, the capital Kyiv continues to grapple with the aftermath of last week's attacks, with Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal reporting that 710,000 residents remain without power. This ongoing targeting of energy infrastructure forms part of Russia's winter offensive, even as Ukraine faces international pressure to agree to a US-backed peace deal to end the nearly four-year conflict.
In northeastern Kharkiv Region, prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been ..

CloseNATO warns Ukraine faces 'harshest winter' as Russia targets energy gridVolodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of an “act of terrorism” after an attack on a Ukrainian passenger train killed at least five people.
“In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be regarded in the same way – purely as an act of terrorism,” Zelensky said.
The war-time president said there was no “military justification” in Russia’s targeting civilians. He added that there were 18 people in the carriage that was hit and over 200 on the train in total.
The attack was in contrast to US president Donald Trump’s remarks just a few hours earlier when he said “very good things” were happening in efforts to bring peace to Ukraine, as US-brokered peace talks are set to continue this Sunday.
His comments follow trilateral discussions in Abu Dhabi over the weekend, which Zelensky said were “constructive”.
A source familiar with internal discussions told Reuters on Tue..

Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs on imports from South Korea to 25 per cent after accusing the Asian ally of dragging its feet on enacting a trade pact reached last year to make huge investments in U.S. business projects.
The U.S. President blamed South Korea’s National Assembly for not ratifying the trade deal he reached with President Lee Jae Myung in July which they later reaffirmed during Trump’s visit to Seoul in October.
“Because the Korean Legislature hasn’t enacted our Historic Trade Agreement, which is their prerogative, I am hereby increasing South Korean TARIFFS on Autos, Lumber, Pharma, and all other Reciprocal TARIFFS, from 15% to 25%,” the president said.
The White House has not yet issued an executive order to put the tariffs into effect as of Tuesday. But South Korea's presidential Blue House said it was committed to implementing the deal and would continue to take the required steps to finalise it to stave off tariff hikes.
The US president imposed a 25 pe..