Police seek suspects in deadly birthday party shooting
Lawmakers launch inquires into U.S. boat strike
Nov. 29, 2025, 10:07 PM EST / Updated Nov. 30, 2025,…
Mark Kelly says troops ‘can tell’ what orders…

Be that!

contact@bethat.ne.com

Menu ≡ ╳

Home
Travel
Culture
Lifestyle
Sport
Contact Us
Politics Politics

Be that!

Winter storm threatens post-holiday travel

admin - Latest News - November 30, 2025

admin

5 views 4 secs 0 Comments

Winter storm threatens post-holiday travel

Source link

TAGS:

PREVIOUS

Nov. 29, 2025, 7:42 AM EST / Updated Nov. 29, 2025, 2:57 PM ESTBy Freddie ClaytonJust as peace talks were gaining traction, Ukraine has lost its lead negotiator.Andriy Yermak, an ever-present figure at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s side throughout the war with Russia, resigned as chief of staff on Friday after an anti-corruption raid at his home, injecting fresh uncertainty for Ukraine’s leadership.The exit leaves a vacuum around Zelenskyy as talks accelerate, isolating the Ukrainian president at a critical moment and creating an opening Moscow may try to exploit, analysts say.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his chief of staff Andriy Yermak in Madrid on Nov. 18.Oscar Del Pozo / AFP – Getty ImagesThe development capped a dramatic week, which began with Kyiv under intense pressure from President Donald Trump to endorse a plan that aligned with Moscow’s hard-line demands. An initial deadline of Thursday, imposed by the White House, passed without any announcement as Ukraine and its allies pushed back against calls for the country to cede territory.Ukrainian negotiators, led by Yermak, secured changes, and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will now head to Moscow for talks next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Russia still wants to move toward peace despite its belief that Zelenskyy was not a legitimate leader.Putin says he’s ready for ‘serious’ talks to end war in Ukraine00:29But analysts warn that Yermak’s departure leaves Kyiv navigating unfamiliar waters, as Zelenskyy is forced to steer Ukraine through high-stakes negotiations without his most trusted aide.Yermak’s resignation comes at a “very bad time, because we’re really at a possible tipping point where you know what Ukraine is demanding may not be granted or taken into consideration,” Michael Bociurkiw, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told NBC News by phone on Saturday.“None of us really know what Zelenskyy is like operating solo, because he never has,” he said, adding that Yermak has “basically stood in” for Zelenskyy at times.Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, will lead Ukraine’s delegation for a round of talks in the U.S. on Sunday, Zelenskyy said in a post on X. Umerov has also been mentioned by anti-corruption investigators. Neither he nor Yermak have faced charges.Bociurkiw added that Yermak’s departure would be unlikely to change Ukraine’s firm stance on territorial concessions, but that Russia “will try to manipulate and take advantage of this vacuum.”Secretary Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner will attend Sunday talks, a U.S. official tells NBC News. Michael A. Horowitz, a Jerusalem-based geopolitical consultant, echoed Bociurkiw’s concerns, saying that Yermak’s resignation, just days before major U.S.-Ukraine-Russia talks and a potential Trump-Putin summit, “disrupts Kyiv’s preparations and invites counterparts to probe whether Ukraine’s red lines on territory and NATO can be eased during the transition.”But in the long term, Horowitz told NBC News on Saturday, Yermak’s departure could even be a positive.Critics have said for years that Yermak had accumulated too much power and wielded excessive influence over Zelenskyy. A constant presence by the president’s side through the ups and downs of the war, Yermak had emerged as one of the few men that the Ukrainian leader appeared to really trust.Zelenskyy has previously railed against corrupt officials, but signs that a corruption scandal may have stretched into his inner circle may provide more ammunition to critics of further support for Ukraine. Trump-aligned figures, including Vice President JD Vance, have previously criticized Ukraine for its issues with corruption.Yermak’s departure may “reinforce skepticism within the Trump administration” about Zelenskyy’s inner circle, giving them further reasons to push for concessions, said Natia Seskuria, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.But Horowitz said the resignation “removes a lightning rod for controversy and gives Kyiv a cleaner, more collective mandate to say no to an unfair and unsustainable peace,” adding: “Zelenskyy is getting his house in order.”When it comes to how the rule of law is being enforced in Ukraine, “generally this is a good sign,” said Moritz Brake, a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies.“Of course, it’s bad enough that these accusations existed in the first place,” he added, but “even those in the highest places are prosecuted when suspicions arise.”Zelenskyy said in a video statement on Friday that he was looking for Yermak’s replacement. “Russia really wants Ukraine to make mistakes,” he said. “There will be no mistakes on our part.”Losing unity could mean losing the country and its future, he added.But Bociurkiw said time is “not on Ukraine’s side right now.”If you’re Ukraine at the moment, he added, “you need not only a physical army, but an army of diplomats and advocates.”Freddie ClaytonFreddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London.

NEXT

4 killed, 10 injured in shooting during family celebration in California banquet hall

Related Post

September 30, 2025

With a final screech, AOL's dial-up service goes silent

October 25, 2025

Oct. 25, 2025, 9:19 AM EDTBy Katherine DoyleKUALA LUMPUR— President Donald Trump arrives in Malaysia on Sunday for his first visit to Asia since returning to office, a three-nation tour through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea that is expected to culminate in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as tensions between the world’s two biggest economies tick higher.“The first message is Trump the peacemaker. The second is Trump the moneymaker,” said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And then, of course, with the meeting with China, I think what everybody’s expecting is that there’s probably not going to be a big trade deal, but there will be an effort to de-escalate or put a pause on the situation.”Trade is expected to dominate the week. Aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said he would subsidize U.S. farmers if he did not reach a deal with China, and that he planned to discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war with Xi, saying he’d like to see China “help us out.”The president also suggested he was angling for a meeting with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, even as the White House has said that no meeting is planned. “You know, they don’t have a lot of telephone service,” Trump said, before urging reporters to “put out the word.” In Kuala Lumpur, Trump is scheduled to meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim before attending a working dinner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders. Malaysia, this year’s ASEAN chair, has set “Inclusivity and Sustainability” as the summit theme. The White House said Trump will also join a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, whose deadly border conflict he has claimed credit for helping to resolve. During his first term, Trump attended the annual ASEAN summit only once.Sandwiched between the summit in Kuala Lumpur and South Korea’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, Trump will pay an official visit to Japan, his fourth, for talks with the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and an audience with Japanese Emperor Naruhito.Takaichi, a conservative protege of the late Shinzo Abe, has pledged to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by March, two years ahead of schedule, a target likely to draw praise from Trump, who has pressed for allies to spend more. She has also raised the idea of revisiting the U.S.-Japan trade deal announced in July. Trump and Abe forged a close personal relationship during his first term, before Abe’s assassination in 2022. Trump will also meet with business executives and visit American troops while in Japan, a country that hosts more U.S. service members than any other in the world.In South Korea on Wednesday, Trump is slated to address business leaders at APEC, hold a bilateral meeting with the president, and attend a leaders’ dinner that evening.Topping the agenda at every stop is trade, with negotiators still ironing out the details of pacts with South Korea and Japan and taking steps towards agreements with China and Malaysia. U.S. and Chinese delegations are meeting in Malaysia over the weekend ahead of Trump’s arrival in Kuala Lumpur.“It’s not the U.S. president coming to Asia to meet the multilateral schedule; it’s the U.S. president coming to Asia and then bending the multilateral schedule around his schedule,” said Cha, noting Trump is skipping the U.S.–ASEAN leaders meeting, the East Asia Summit, and formal APEC sessions. Even so, Cha said regional leaders are eager to engage.“Everybody still wants to cut a deal with the U.S. president,” he said. “They all want tariff relief, and they will try to make a deal to achieve that.”Central to the trip is Trump’s anticipated meeting with Xi in South Korea on Thursday, though Beijing has not yet confirmed the session. Top officials from the U.S. and China are sitting down in Malaysia on Saturday to find a way forward after Trump threatened new tariffs of 100% on Chinese goods and other trade limits starting on November 1 in response to China’s expanded export controls on rare earth minerals and related technologies. Trump has said he plans to raise fentanyl, accusing China of failing to curb the flow of precursor chemicals, and a senior administration official said China’s purchases of Russian oil will also be on the table. Trump said he also expects to discuss Taiwan. “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us,” Trump said Friday, adding he expects “a good meeting” even as he has intermittently threatened to call it off over trade frictions, including soybean purchases.Both leaders want the optics and tactical aspect of this meeting to go well, a person familiar with the meeting planning said. Analysts urged caution about what a leader-level encounter can deliver. “During Trump’s first term, high-level exchanges with China did not prevent him from later taking a harder line,” said Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy. “So the symbolic value of summit diplomacy should not be overstated.”Earlier this week, a senior administration official pushed back on speculation that Trump could reprise his 2019 encounter with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, when he made a surprise visit to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas in an effort to revive nuclear talks that had collapsed. Trump said before leaving Washington on Friday that he “would like” to meet with Kim, but was unsure whether it would happen on this trip. Kim says he will negotiate only if the U.S. recognizes North Korea as a nuclear power, and has only further strengthened his weapons programs since Trump’s first term. “I think they are sort of a nuclear power,” Trump seemed to acknowledge as he began his journey to Asia on Friday, perhaps paving the way for a possible meeting. “They’ve got a lot of nuclear weapons. I’ll say that.”Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Carol E. Lee, Jennifer Jett, Peter Guo, Arata Yamamoto and Stella Kim contributed.

September 22, 2025

Micron Technology: China probes US chip maker for cybersecurity risks as tech tension escalates

November 12, 2025

Sudanese women's bodies turned into 'crime scenes'

Comments are closed.

Home
Travel
Culture
Lifestyle
Sport
Contact Us
Politics

© Copyright 2025 - Be That ! . All Rights Reserved