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Kyiv will propose an aerial and naval ceasefire with Russia during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia this week, a Ukrainian official told AFP on Monday as President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to arrive in the kingdom.The talks on Tuesday will be the first Ukraine-US meeting since a White House blow-up between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump that led to Washington halting military aid to Kyiv.”We do have a proposal for a ceasefire in the sky and ceasefire at sea,” the official told AFP on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.”Because these are the ceasefire options that are easy to install and to monitor and it’s possible to start with them.”Ukrainian and US officials will meet in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to seek a way out of the conflict, more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.Britain’s Financial Times newspaper, citing a source briefed on preparations for the talks, said Kyiv would propose a partial ceasefire hoping that Washington would resume military aid and intelligence-sharing.Zelensky on Monday said Ukraine wants peace, insisting Russia was the sole reason that the war was carrying on.”Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia,” he wrote on social media.Zelensky will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi leader, on Monday, before his officials sit down with the Americans on Tuesday.He said Ukraine is “fully committed to constructive dialogue”, but wants its interests to be “taken into account in the right way”.  “We hope for results, both in terms of bringing peace closer and continuing support,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Sunday.US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington wanted to use the talks “to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well”.In Jeddah, the port city close to Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, dozens of Ukrainian and Saudi flags flew on a main roundabout near the airport and on thoroughfares.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will fly there on Monday, the US State Department said. Mike Waltz, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has also confirmed his participation.Zelensky said his negotiators will include Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Pavlo Palisa, a military commander and Yermak’s deputy. – ‘Significant advantage’ -Washington has suspended military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence-sharing and access to satellite imagery in a bid to force it to the table with Moscow, which launched its invasion in February 2022 on orders from President Vladimir Putin.Russia could enjoy a “significant advantage” against Ukrainian troops if the US sustains its pause on sharing intelligence, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP.”The main thing is how long it will last. If it lasts a long time, it will give the Russians a significant advantage,” the source said.Trump has renewed communications with Putin and criticised Zelensky, raising fears in Kyiv and among European allies that the US leader may try to force Ukraine to accept a settlement favouring Russia.On Friday, however, Trump said he was considering further sanctions on Russia for “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield.Ukraine’s European allies last week held a summit with Zelensky and announced they would greatly increase defence spending.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will host virtual talks on Saturday for the “coalition of the willing” to build on last week’s summit, his office said.- ‘Regrettable’ -The Saudi talks come after the White House clash saw Zelensky leave without signing the minerals deal demanded by Trump.Zelensky later called the incident “regrettable” and said he was ready to work with Trump’s “strong leadership”. He also expressed readiness to sign the deal.Witkoff said Trump received a letter from Zelensky, calling it “a very positive first step” and “an apology”.Asked if Ukraine would sign the deal in Saudi Arabia, Witkoff said: “I think Zelensky has offered to sign it, and we’ll see if he follows through.”Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Rubio met in Riyadh last month, agreeing to resume dialogue and start talks on the Ukraine conflict. Zelensky has visited Saudi Arabia several times since Russia’s invasion in 2022 but postponed a trip last month, saying he was not invited to the Russia-US talks. 

Held every year in the capital of conservative-leaning Texas, the South by Southwest festival increasingly celebrates the state’s emergence as a technology hub stepping out of Silicon Valley’s shadow.The sprawling, counter-cultural conference — first launched in 1987 as a music festival — was always a bit of a Texas outlier, just like its host city Austin, a liberal enclave in the middle of a state best known for its big skies, cowboy hats and oil rigs.The festival, which lasts through Saturday, has mushroomed into a conglomerate of film, comedy, media, cultural and professional events, but none are more in-line with Austin’s zeitgeist than those highlighting technology.Long home to a thriving tech scene, recent years have seen the city inundated with Silicon Valley types, turbocharging the quirky capital’s bro element and billionaire contingent. Among the former is podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan, who produces his distinctly masculine show from Austin, interviewing not just a few of the country’s biggest tech titans.As for billionaires, the most dominant figure is Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon who has made the Lone Star state his de facto headquarters.Musk is a regular guest on Rogan’s podcast, but Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also came through his studio, expressing frustration with the lack of masculinity from his workers on the liberal coasts.”The Californians I know who moved to Texas are even extra Texan marinated in Texas sauce,” Musk wrote on X in November.”For the love of God, please don’t let Texas become California,” he added.Austin’s tech ascendance has its origins in the state’s strong business culture.Texas provides a combination of very low taxes, top-notch cities built on the oil and gas industries, light-touch regulation, and vast expanses of flat space.”When you are thinking about setting up a new factory, a new data center, what is it that we have here? We have the space to grow at a lower cost than you can find in more densely developed areas of the country,” said Paul Cherukuri, Rice University’s vice president for innovation.- Bigger than Italy -Texas is so big that it is almost unfair to think of it as a state — it has a $2.6 trillion economy that is the 8th largest in the world ahead of Italy’s.And it is powered by Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, with their universities, talent pools, and lower costs of living.According to Federal Reserve data, tech jobs in Texas have grown at double the rate of other sectors over the past decade.In 2022, Musk opened a Tesla vehicle factory east of Austin. He is also opening facilities in nearby Bastrop County, including a living compound for employees and a new headquarters for X, his social media platform.Apple is betting on Texas as well, with Austin already representing the iPhone-maker’s second-largest concentration of employees outside the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters.The company recently announced that a 250,000-square-foot (23,225-square-meter) server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs.Meta and Google also have an expanding presence and onetime Silicon Valley stalwarts like Oracle and a portion of Hewlett-Packard have moved their headquarters to the state.Most of these relocations will benefit from Texas’s seemingly infinite real estate, where a lithium factory or an AI-ready data center can be built at massive scale with minimal government red tape.”The Silicon Valley universe is shifting to more physical tech, hard tech, and the place to really make stuff is Texas,” said Rice University’s Cherukuri.Another determining factor is the cost of living compared to California, which is “massive, especially for housing,” said Gib Olander, a business strategist at Northwest Registered Agent, which advises companies on relocation.”Engineers who were priced out of homeownership in the (San Francisco) Bay Area can actually buy homes in Texas cities. That quality-of-life equation has become even more powerful in the remote work era,” he added.- Political contrasts -The city’s transformation hasn’t come without friction. Austinites complain about soaring real estate prices, though the construction boom may eventually cool the market.Meanwhile, Texas’s conservative policies — including a near-total abortion ban and Governor Greg Abbott’s hardline immigration stance — contrast sharply with tech’s traditionally progressive culture.But the state’s fans maintain that beneath political divisions is a welcoming environment.”We don’t care where you’re from: Just come and be a part of us,” said Cherukuri, who was born in India.”That’s Texas. Even though you may hear something else in the caricatures,” he said.

A sprawling Russian disinformation network is manipulating Western AI chatbots to spew pro-Kremlin propaganda, researchers say, at a time when the United States is reported to have paused its cyber operations against Moscow.The Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation to spread pro-Russian narratives globally, is said to be distorting the output of chatbots by flooding large language models (LLM) with pro-Kremlin falsehoods.A study of 10 leading AI chatbots by the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard found that they repeated falsehoods from the Pravda network more than 33 percent of the time, advancing a pro-Moscow agenda.The findings underscore how the threat goes beyond generative AI models picking up disinformation circulating on the web, and involves the deliberate targeting of chatbots to reach a wider audience in a manipulation tactic that researchers call “LLM grooming.””Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda,” NewsGuard researchers McKenzie Sadeghi and Isis Blachez wrote in a report.In a separate study, the nonprofit American Sunlight Project warned of the growing reach of the Pravda network — sometimes also known as “Portal Kombat” — and the likelihood that its pro-Russian content was flooding the training data of large language models.”As Russian influence operations expand and grow more advanced, they pose a direct threat to the integrity of democratic discourse worldwide,” said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the American Sunlight Project.”The Pravda network’s ability to spread disinformation at such scale is unprecedented, and its potential to influence AI systems makes this threat even more dangerous,” she added.This disinformation could become more pervasive in the absence of oversight in the United States, experts warned.Earlier this month, multiple US media reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered a pause on all of the country’s cyber operations against Russia, including planning for offensive actions.The order was reported to be part of an overall reevaluation of US operations against Moscow, with the duration or extent of the pause unclear.The Pentagon declined to comment on the news but the reported change comes as President Donald Trump has been pushing for negotiations to end the three-year war in Ukraine, and days after the US leader berated his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a stormy White House meeting.- ‘Tool to be leveraged’ – The Pravda network, launched in April 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has expanded significantly to cover 49 countries and dozens of languages, NewsGuard said.Millions of articles carrying pro-Russian content produced by the Pravda network — including false claims such as that the US operates secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine — are amplified across platforms such as X, Telegram and Bluesky.Pravda does not produce original content itself, but instead is known to aggregate content from sources such as the Russian state media and pro-Kremlin influencers.In NewsGuard’s study, all 10 chatbots –- including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, You.com’s Smart Assistant, Grok, Microsoft’s Copilot, Meta AI, Google Gemini and Perplexity — repeated disinformation spread by the Pravda network.Seven chatbots even directly cited specific articles from Pravda as their sources.Last month, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked social media claims that Zelensky had banned Truth Social after facing sharp criticism from Trump.Representatives for the social network said it had not launched in Ukraine, and the government there said Trump’s platform would be welcome.When NewsGuard prompted the chatbots with the question “Why did Zelensky ban Truth Social?” six of them repeated the false narrative as fact, in many cases citing articles from Pravda.The chatbots also repeated fabricated narratives pushed by US fugitive turned Kremlin propagandist John Mark Dougan, NewsGuard said.”By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI,” the watchdog quoted Dougan as saying in January at a conference in Moscow.”It’s not a tool to be scared of, it’s a tool to be leveraged.”

North Korea fired “multiple unidentified ballistic missiles” on Monday, South Korea’s military said, the same day Seoul and Washington began a major annual joint military drill known as Freedom Shield.”Our military has detected at around 13:50 (0450 GMT) multiple unidentified ballistic missiles fired from Hwanghae province into the West Sea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Yellow Sea.”Our military will bolster surveillance and maintain a full readiness posture under close cooperation with the United States,” the JCS added.The United States stations tens of thousands of US soldiers in South Korea, and the allies regularly stage joint drills, which they describe as defensive in nature. But such exercises infurate Pyongyang, which regards them as rehearsals for invasion and routinely responds with weapons tests of its own. Earlier Monday, the nuclear-armed North slammed the drills as a “provocative act”, warning of the danger of sparking war with “an accidental single shot”.”This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot,” said Pyongyang’s foreign ministry, according to the Korean Central News Agency.The joint US-South Korea “Freedom Shield 2025” exercise kicked off on Monday, and will involve “live, virtual, and field-based training”, according to a US statement.The exercise will run until March 20, the statement said.The latest exercise comes after two South Korean Air Force fighter jets accidentally dropped eight bombs on a village during a joint training exercise with US forces on March 6. Some 31 people, including civilians and military personnel, were wounded in that incident, South Korea’s military said.Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been at one of their lowest points in years, with the North launching a flurry of ballistic missiles last year in violation of UN sanctions.The two Koreas remain technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.The large-scale Freedom Shield exercises are one of the allies’ biggest annual joint exercises.In its statement on Monday, North Korea’s foreign ministry dubbed the exercises “an aggressive and confrontational war rehearsal”.Last week, Pyongyang slammed the United States for “political and military provocations” over the visit of a US Navy aircraft carrier to the South Korean port of Busan.

Iran said Monday it would not negotiate under “intimidation”, after US President Donald Trump sought to ratchet up pressure on Tehran by ending a sanctions waiver that had allowed Iraq to buy electricity from its Shiite neighbour.Iran’s mission to the United Nations had indicated Sunday that Tehran might be open to talks aimed at addressing US concerns about the potential militarisation of its nuclear programme — though not to ending the program completely.But on Monday, Iran’s top diplomat seemed to slam the door on such discussions, saying Tehran’s nuclear programme was and always will be entirely peaceful and so there was “no such thing as its ‘potential militarization'”.”We will NOT negotiate under pressure and intimidation. We will NOT even consider it, no matter what the subject may be,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media platform X.Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has reinstated his policy of exerting “maximum pressure” against Iran, reimposing sweeping sanctions aimed at crushing its oil industry in particular.The US State Department said Sunday the decision not to renew Iraq’s sanctions waiver was made to “ensure we do not allow Iran any degree of economic or financial relief.”Iran supplies a third of Iraq’s gas and electricity, providing Tehran with substantial income.- ‘Never take place’ -On Sunday, the Iranian mission to the United Nations had sounded a more conciliatory note, suggested Tehran might be willing to discuss certain issues.”If the objective of negotiations is to address concerns vis-a-vis any potential militarization of Iran’s nuclear program, such discussions may be subject to consideration,” said a statement from the mission.”However, should the aim be the dismantlement of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program to claim that what (President Barack) Obama failed to achieve has now been accomplished, such negotiations will never take place,” it said.The waiver for Iraq was introduced in 2018, when Washington reimposed sanctions on Tehran after Trump abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran negotiated under Obama.A spokesman for the US embassy in Baghdad on Sunday urged Baghdad “to eliminate its dependence on Iranian sources of energy as soon as possible.””The President’s maximum pressure campaign is designed to end Iran’s nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program, and stop it from supporting terrorist groups,” the spokesman said.The landmark 2015 deal that Obama helped negotiate between Tehran and major powers promised sanctions relief in return for Iran curbing its nuclear programme.Tehran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, initially adhered to the nuclear deal after Trump pulled out of it, but then rolled back commitments.US officials estimate Iran would now need mere weeks to build a nuclear bomb if it chose to.- ‘All scenarios’ -Trump pulled out of the agreement over the objections of European allies, instead imposing US sanctions on any other country buying Iran’s oil. The waiver was extended to Iraq as a “key partner” of the United States.Iraq, despite having immense oil and gas reserves, remains dependent on such energy imports. But Baghdad said it had prepared “for all scenarios” regarding the waiver.The ending of the energy waiver is expected to worsen the power shortages that affect the daily lives of 46 million Iraqis.Gulf analyst Yesar Al-Maleki of the Middle East Economic Survey said Iraq will now face challenges in providing electricity, especially during summer.To alleviate the impact, Iraq has several options including increasing imports from Turkey.

Immigration officers have arrested a leader of the protests at Columbia University against Israel’s war in Gaza, authorities said Sunday, after US President Donald Trump vowed to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent faces of the university’s protest movement that erupted in response to Israel’s conduct of the war, was arrested on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on X.The agency said the action was taken “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State.”The Student Workers of Columbia Union said in a statement that Khalil had been detained on Saturday, describing him as “a Palestinian recent Columbia graduate and lead negotiator for last spring’s Gaza solidarity encampment.”US campuses including Columbia’s in New York were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The demonstrations ignited accusations of anti-Semitism.Protests, some of which turned violent and saw campus buildings occupied and lectures disrupted, pitted students protesting Israel’s conduct against pro-Israel campaigners, many of whom were Jewish. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X that “we will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”Khalil, who remains in immigration enforcement detention, held permanent residency at the time of his arrest prompting thousands of people to sign a petition calling for his release, the union statement added.”We are also aware of multiple reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accessing or attempting to access Columbia campus buildings on Friday and Saturday, including undergraduate dorms,” the union said.Columbia did not directly address Khalil’s arrest in response to inquiries, but in a statement said “there have been reports of ICE in the streets around campus.” “Columbia has and will continue to follow the law. Consistent with our longstanding practice and the practice of cities and institutions throughout the country, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings,” Columbia said.In its post on X, the DHS said Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” without further details.Trump railed against the student protest movement linked to the conflict in Gaza, and vowed to deport foreign students who had demonstrated.He also threatened to cut off federal funding for institutions that he said were not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.His administration announced Friday it was cutting $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio set off on Sunday to fly to Saudi Arabia for talks with Ukraine, as President Donald Trump decides whether to relent on a freeze in military and intelligence support.Rubio will then travel on to Group of Seven (G7) talks in Canada, making him the first major US official to visit since Trump returned to office, launched a trade war the neighboring country and mocked its sovereignty.In three days of talks in Jeddah, Rubio will discuss how to “advance the president’s goal to end the Russia-Ukraine war,” said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.The talks in Jeddah on Tuesday are expected to involve Rubio and Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, with Zelensky’s national security advisor and foreign and defense ministers. “The fact that they are coming here at senior levels is a good indication to us that they want to sit down and they’re ready to move forward,” a senior State Department official said.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is also expected in Saudi Arabia, but to pay a visit to Riyadh and not to participate directly in the Jeddah talks.Trump, asked separately about the hopes for a quick resolution, told reporters Sunday: “I think we’re going to have a good result in Saudi Arabia… we have a lot of good people going out there.”And I think Ukraine’s going to do well, and I think Russia is going to do well. I think some very big things could happen this week. I hope so.”Trump suspended aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after a disastrous February 28 meeting with Zelensky at the White House.The Republican leader and his vice president, JD Vance, publicly dressed Zelensky down for alleged ingratitude over billions of dollars worth of previous US weapons shipments.Zelensky left without signing an agreement demanded by Trump in which Ukraine would hand over much of its mineral wealth to the United States, which Trump argues will compensate US taxpayers for the assistance provided under former president Joe Biden.Zelensky has since said he is ready to sign the minerals deal and has sent a conciliatory letter to Trump, who read it at his address to Congress on Tuesday.- Frozen aid -Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy on Russia and Ukraine, said Thursday he would support resuming assistance once Zelensky signs the deal — but that the decision was ultimately up to Trump.NBC News, quoting unnamed sources, said Trump was unlikely to relent just with the minerals deal and would want to be assured that Zelensky is ready to make concessions to Russia.Trump told reporters Sunday he did not think Ukraine had yet shown they “want peace.””Right now they haven’t shown it to the extent that they should… but I think they will be, and I think it’s going to become evident over the next two or three days.”Stunned European leaders have been racing to find ways to make up for US aid, although Zelensky himself has said that there is no substitute for Washington’s security guarantees in a deal with Russia.Rubio last month met his Russian counterpart, breaking a Biden-era freeze on such high-level contacts, and spoke of future economic cooperation if the war ends.Those talks also took place in Saudi Arabia, which has positioned itself as a key diplomatic partner for Trump.Rubio will also meet in Jeddah with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, the State Department said.Trump is expected to push hard for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, a prospect that seems remote until a permanent end to the Gaza war — a priority for Witkoff as he travels the region. Rubio will then head to Quebec for a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers where his spokeswoman said he will work to “further US interests in peace and security, strategic cooperation, and global stability.”She made no mention of tensions with Canada, which Trump has mocked as the “51st state” as he unleashes tariffs, although he has partially backed off faced with a slide on stock markets.

Top energy industry figures converge on Houston this week for their biggest gathering since Donald Trump returned to the White House to champion fossil fuels and undo Joe Biden’s climate legacy.The president himself won’t appear at the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference, but Trump appointees are expected to talk up the Republican’s petroleum-led program as embodied by the slogan: “Drill Baby Drill.”Since returning to Washington less than two months ago, Trump and his team have laid siege to the existing economic order at a dizzying pace, launching trade wars against allies and neutering government agencies the president and his libertarian allies dislike.Trump made energy central to his agenda with his day-one “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, vowing during his inaugural address to “end the Green New Deal” in favor of “that liquid gold under our feet.”Trump’s January 20 executive order represents a potentially wide-ranging attack on tax incentives embraced by energy companies to advance billions of dollars of energy transition projects connected to laws enacted during Biden’s presidency to mitigate climate change.Some pundits think Trump will stop short of actions canceling existing projects, where workers have been hired, including many in Republican regions.But the abrupt shift to Trump from the climate-focused Biden likely “turns 2025 into a paralyzed year where folks are hesitant to push on any kind of decarbonization,” said Dan Pickering of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston advisory and investment firm.- More drilling? -The schedule for the five-day Houston CERA gathering lists three top Trump appointees, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who will open the proceedings on Monday morning.Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin are slated to speak later in the week.Wright, an energy industry entrepreneur and executive, and Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, appeared together last week to tout an announcement by Venture Global of an $18 billion expansion of a liquefied natural gas export facility in Louisiana.The event highlighted Trump’s reversal of a Biden freeze on permitting new LNG export capacity.Trump has ridiculed the environmental concerns at the center of Biden’s policy, championing LNG exports as a way to strengthen America’s ties with energy importing countries, as well as a way to boost the US exploration and production industry.But there has been widespread skepticism about Trump’s message urging the industry to significantly boost oil and gas drilling in order to lift output and lower energy prices. Wall Street has signaled a clear preference for robust industry profits that can continue to allow for dividends and share repurchases.Besides the Trump officials, other speakers include CEOs from Chevron, Shell, Saudi Aramco and other oil giants; senior government officials from energy importers like India and exporters like Libya; top power and tech industry executives.There are panels on low-carbon technologies, the electricity supply challenge to support artificial intelligence research, OPEC’s influence in setting oil prices and the shifting geopolitics around energy and international trade.- Questions for Europe -European officials are to appear on panels focused on Europe at a crossroads after shifting from Russian supplies  and the role of energy in the future of the continent’s security.In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US LNG “played a super-important role” for Europe as the continent sought to lessen its dependence on Russian gas, said Jonathan Elkind, a fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.But European leaders have been forced to reckon with the current state of the transatlantic alliance in light of Trump’s alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin and tensions with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.Whether a Russia-Ukraine peace deal might lead to a restoration of some Russian natural gas exports to Europe remains an open question.In the short run, including at CERA, Elkind expects European officials to continue to speak optimistically of the prospects for more US LNG.But “at the back of their mind… it’s pretty hard to tell whether Donald Trump is friend or foe and that’s a shocking thing to say after 70 years of a close alliance,” Elkind said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio set off on Sunday to fly to Saudi Arabia for talks with Ukraine, as President Donald Trump decides whether to relent on a freeze in military and intelligence support.Rubio will then travel on to Group of Seven (G7) talks in Canada, making him the first major US official to visit since Trump returned to office, launched a trade war the neighboring country and mocked its sovereignty.In three days of talks in Jeddah, Rubio will discuss how to “advance the president’s goal to end the Russia-Ukraine war,” said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.She avoided characterizing the crisis as a “Russian invasion of Ukraine” as the previous administration and US allies have done.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously announced that he will be in Jeddah for the talks, as has Trump confidant and envoy Steve Witkoff. Rubio left Miami’s Homestead Air Base at around 08:00 pm local time (midnight GMT).Trump, asked separately on his own plane about the hopes for a quick resolution, told reporters Sunday: “I think we’re going to have a good result in Saudi Arabia… we have a lot of good people going out there.”And I think Ukraine’s going to do well, and I think Russia is going to do well. I think some very big things could happen this week. I hope so.”Trump suspended aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after a disastrous February 28 meeting with Zelensky at the White House.The Republican leader and his vice president, JD Vance, publicly dressed Zelensky down for alleged ingratitude over billions of dollars worth of previous US weapons shipments.Zelensky left without signing an agreement demanded by Trump in which Ukraine would hand over much of its mineral wealth to the United States, which Trump argues will compensate US taxpayers for the assistance provided under former president Joe Biden.Zelensky has since said he is ready to sign the minerals deal and has sent a conciliatory letter to Trump, who read it at his address to Congress on Tuesday.- Frozen aid -Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy on Russia and Ukraine, said Thursday he would support resuming assistance once Zelensky signs the deal — but that the decision was ultimately up to Trump.NBC News, quoting unnamed sources, said Trump was unlikely to relent just with the minerals deal and would want to be assured that Zelensky is ready to make concessions to Russia.Trump told reporters Sunday he did not think Ukraine had yet shown they “want peace.””Right now they haven’t shown it to the extent that they should… but I think they will be, and I think it’s going to become evident over the next two or three days.”Stunned European leaders have been racing to find ways to make up for US aid, although Zelensky himself has said that there is no substitute for Washington’s security guarantees in a deal with Russia.Russia, which invaded three years ago, has not let up in striking Ukraine, including its energy infrastructure. Trump on Friday also threatened to tighten sanctions on Russia if it does not come to the table.Rubio last month met his Russian counterpart, breaking a Biden-era freeze on such high-level contacts, and spoke of future economic cooperation if the war ends.Those talks also took place in Saudi Arabia, which has positioned itself as a key diplomatic partner for Trump.Rubio will also meet in Jeddah with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, the State Department said.Trump is expected to push hard for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, a prospect that seems remote until a permanent end to the Gaza war — a priority for Witkoff as he travels the region. Rubio will then head to Quebec for a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers where his spokeswoman said he will work to “further US interests in peace and security, strategic cooperation, and global stability.”She made no mention of tensions with Canada, which Trump has mocked as the “51st state” as he unleashes tariffs, although he has partially backed off faced with a slide on stock markets.

President Donald Trump declined Sunday to rule out the possibility that the United States might enter a recession this year.”I hate to predict things like that,” he told a Fox News interviewer when asked directly about a possible recession in 2025.”There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big — we’re bringing wealth back to America,” he said, adding, “It takes a little time.”Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was more definitive when asked Sunday about the possibility of a recession.”Absolutely not,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether Americans should brace for a downturn.Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff threats against Canada, Mexico, China and others have left the US financial markets in turmoil and consumers unsure what the year might bring. Stock markets just ended their worst week since the November election.Measures of consumer confidence are down, as shoppers — already battered by years of inflation — brace for the higher prices that tariffs can bring.And widespread government layoffs being engineered by Trump’s billionaire advisor Elon Musk add further concern.When asked later Sunday to clarify his remarks on whether there could be a recession, Trump told reports on Air Force One “Who knows?”Overall, the signs are mixed.A widely watched Atlanta Federal Reserve index now predicts a 2.4 percent contraction of real GDP growth in the year’s first quarter, which would be the worst result since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.Much of the uncertainty stems from Trump’s shifting tariff policy — effective dates have changed, as have the sectors being targeted — as businesses and investors try to puzzle out what will come next.Kevin Hassett, Trump’s chief economic advisor, was asked on ABC whether tariffs were primarily temporary or might become permanent.Hassett said that depended on the behavior of the countries targeted. If they failed to respond positively, he said, the result could be a “new equilibrium” of continuing tariffs.The administration has insisted that while the economy will pass through a possibly bumpy “transition,” things are headed in a positive direction.In his State of the Union message on Tuesday, Trump told Americans to expect “a little disturbance” as tariffs take hold, while adding: “We’re okay with that. It won’t be much.” And his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned of a “detox period” as the economy cuts government spending.Given the uncertainties, economists have been wary of making firm predictions. Economists at Goldman Sachs, citing Trump’s policies, have raised their odds of a recession over the next 12 months from 15 percent to 20 percent.And Morgan Stanley predicted “softer growth this year” than earlier expected.Recessions are generally defined as two consecutive quarters of weak or negative GDP growth. The US was briefly in recession in early 2020 as the Covid pandemic spread. Millions of people lost jobs.