The meeting is scheduled for Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa. The White House plan calls for Ukraine to make significant concessions to Russia.
António Costa, president of the European Council, left, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, right, with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, in Johannesburg on Thursday.
At the site of an apartment building in western Ukraine where a Russian strike killed dozens of people, the New York Times reporter Kim Barker heard reactions to a 28-point U.S. proposal to end the war.
There is room for real concern in the agitation to disseminate do-it-yourself sex assault kits, the latest front in what militant feminists hold to be a righteous counterattack on male sexual predation, and many men regard as an escalation of the arch-feminists’ campaign to emasculate and terrify Canadian men. There is now a widely supported proposal to make these kits, which facilitate taking DNA samples from relevant places in the female anatomy that can be used to strengthen allegations of sexual assault and packaging them at home by aggrieved sexual assault complainants. Read More
Museums are Canada’s greatest stewards of public history. But in the past decade, increasingly overbearing cultural policies have rewritten their mandates. Once dedicated to simply telling the truth, they now have an agenda to push. Read More
The plan would leave Ukraine’s democracy in jeopardy and its sovereignty compromised
For a moment, Donald Trump seemed to have seen the light on Ukraine. After promising “severe consequences” in August if Vladimir Putin continued to obstruct ceasefire talks – but then doing nothing as Putin did just that – Trump finally on 22 October imposed significant sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, seriously compromising Putin’s ability to finance his invasion. But now, with his 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, drafted by US and Russian officials without Ukrainian or European participation, Trump has reverted to his pro-Putin norm.
Trump’s plan would reward Putin for invading Ukraine while leaving Ukraine’s democracy in jeopardy. The plan’s ringing proclamation that “Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed” rings hollow when so much of the plan compromises that sovereignty. A Kremlin dream, the plan would be a Ukrainian nightmare.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane.
Experts infuriated by president accusing Democrats of ‘sedition’ for urging soldiers to refuse illegal orders
Veterans have condemned the politicization of the military after Donald Trump accused Democratic lawmakers of “sedition, punishable by death” after a small group of them released a video in which they urged US soldiers not to follow any “unlawful” orders.
The extraordinary exchange was sparked after Democratic lawmakers with military or national security backgrounds – the Congressional representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chris DeLuzio and Chrissy Houlahan, and the senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin – posted a video on Facebook addressed to US service members.
The abject obedience of GOP members for the president has not augured well in the 4 November elections
The elections of 4 November were the end of a grandiose illusion. After his 2024 victory Donald Trump claimed he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”, that his “mandate” was “massive”, and that his “Maga movement” was irresistible, the wave of the future. It lasted 10 months, in which he had betrayed his chief promise to lower inflation, turned the public against him on every issue and Republicans at last faced a battering by voters.
Trump’s image of omnipotence has rested upon a pyramid of dread. His ability to maintain the servility of the Republican Congress, whose members are intimidated by the danger that if they defy him he would support primary opponents to run against them, has been the political foundation for all the other forms of fear he incites throughout American institutions. Trump could not have leveraged himself as “dictator on day one” without congressional abdication. The Republicans immediately fell into lockstep. But within two weeks of the 4 November elections, only one Republican in the House voted against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files which Trump had called a “hoax” before he felt compelled to bend in the cyclone to sign the bill – and yet still suppresses the files.
Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to the president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist
In 2013, former longtime Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett, in a terse letter to the National Post, said no doctor in Canada can terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks unless the mother's life is at risk or the fetus has serious complications. Read More
The Indian photographer captured a quiet moment at the popular Maha Kumbh Mela religious festival in Prayagraj
Divyanshu Verma regards the north Indian city of Prayagraj as deeply special: not only is it home, it is also where he began his journey into street photography. This image was taken in the Sangam area during the huge Hindu purification festival Maha Kumbh Mela – maha meaning great because this was the 12th in a row of the ritual that takes place once every 12 years.
“It’s a massive spiritual gathering and the energy is entirely unique,” Verma says. “The place was incredibly crowded with people who had travelled from far and wide, all drawn by faith, but there was a strange sense of calm within the chaos. I wandered through the crowds with my phone, observing rituals and soaking up the powerful atmosphere.”
It’s six weeks until inauguration day and New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani has already declared war on his city’s Jews. On Thursday evening, barely 24 hours after throngs of agitators violently demonstrated in front of Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, Mamdani’s office released a condemnation that essentially accused the congregation of bringing it upon themselves. Read More
For years, there has been a debate over how prevalent late-term abortions are in this country. Officials have always tried to assure the public that they are exceedingly rare, and generally only happen when there is a valid medical reason. But a recent undercover investigation by a pro-life activist reveals that terminating a medically viable pregnancy is often no harder than buying a pack of cigarettes. The fact that this has gone on with little public debate is appalling, even as it's important to affirm abortion rights. Read More
Politician reportedly taken from his villa into custody at a federal police base about 7 miles from presidential palace
Brazil’s former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested at his villa in the capital, Brasília.
In a brief statement, federal police confirmed officers had executed a preventive arrest warrant at the request of the supreme court. Brazilian media reports said the politician had been taken to a federal police base, seven miles from the presidential palace Bolsonaro occupied from 2019 until 2022, when he lost the election and tried to launch a military coup.
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