Things to know about the limited ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine brokered by the US

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Ukrainian rescuers and local residents evacuate an injured person on a stretcher following a missile attack in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, on March 24, 2025. More than 65 people were wounded in the attack, the regional prosecutor's office said. (Handout photo via AFP)
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Updated 27 March 2025
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Things to know about the limited ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine brokered by the US

  • Russia conditioned its part in opening Black Sea shipping on the US lifting sanctions, which Kyiv dismissed
  • While the benefits to Russia are clear, Ukrainian officials questioned how the Black Sea deal announced Tuesday would profit them

KYIV, Ukraine: After three days of intense negotiations, the Trump administration, Ukraine and Russia agreed to a limited ceasefire in which the key details, including what was covered and how it will start, were disputed by the warring sides, indicating the road to a complete truce will be long and mired with contention.
The negotiations focused on easing Black Sea shipping and halting long-range strikes on energy infrastructure, relatively low-hanging fruit that both sides had experience in negotiating before the US brokered indirect talks.
While much is yet unknown, here is a breakdown of the key elements of the partial ceasefire and what is at stake in the coming weeks as talks continue.
The limited ceasefire began with a rocky start
Conflicting statements emerged immediately after the talks on Tuesday. Both sides differed on the start time of halting strikes on energy sites and accused the other of violating the ceasefire.
Russia also conditioned its part in opening Black Sea shipping on the US lifting sanctions, which Kyiv dismissed.
Russian officials have greeted the results of the talks with optimism, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described it as a good start, though some Ukrainian officials have expressed discontent.
“Something tells me this is more advantageous for the enemy,” Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak told the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
 




A general view of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, where talks between Russia and the US were held on March 24, 2025, in an effort to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. (Reuters)

Stopping fighting around Black Sea shipping routes
The US said Tuesday it had reached a tentative agreement with Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting and ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea in separate talks with the two sides.
Details of the deal were not released, including how or when it was to be implemented and monitored, but it appeared to mark another attempt to ensure safe Black Sea shipping after a 2022 agreement that was brokered by the UN and Turkiye was halted by Russia one year later, in July 2023.
Russia said the Black Sea deal announced Tuesday could only be implemented after sanctions against the Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions involved in food and fertilizer trade were lifted and their access to the SWIFT system of international payments was ensured.
Zelensky said Moscow was lying about the terms of the agreement, despite the US later saying it would help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports.
It’s unclear how the Black Sea deal would benefit Ukraine
While the benefits to Russia are clear, Ukrainian officials questioned how the Black Sea deal announced Tuesday would profit them. It isn’t clear, for instance, if it would also halt attacks on Ukrainian ports.
“Personally, I don’t think this will significantly boost our export capacity. Frankly speaking, thanks to Ukrainian naval drones, we have considerably expanded our capabilities in the Black Sea,” Ukrainian lawmaker Zhelezniak said.
That’s because Ukraine took matters into its own hands after Russia backed out in 2023 of the earlier deal to ensure safe Black Sea shipping. Ukraine carved out a trade route requiring ships to sail near the coast lines of Bulgaria and Romania, guided by the Ukrainian Navy. At the same time, Ukrainian forces launched a campaign of sea drone attacks to further push back Russia’s fleet.
“Unfortunately,” Zhelezniak said, the new deal “worsens our position in terms of influence in the Black Sea.”
Trading blame over halting of energy strikes
The ceasefire also included a halt to long-range strikes on energy infrastructure, but sharp differences emerged immediately after Tuesday’s announcement over when the halt to fighting would begin.
Moscow said the ceasefire had started on March 18 and accused Kyiv of violating the terms by striking energy sites inside Russia, a charge that Ukraine’s General Staff denied on Wednesday.
The Kremlin later posted a list of the types of facilities covered by the limited ceasefire.
It included refineries, oil and gas pipelines, oil storage facilities, including pump stations, power-generating and transmitting infrastructure, as well as power plants, substations, transformers, distribution switchgear, nuclear power plants and hydropower plant dams.


Trump presses US central Bank chief to cut rates during tense visit

Updated 4 sec ago
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Trump presses US central Bank chief to cut rates during tense visit

  • US president wants borrowing costs lowered
  • White House accuses Fed of mismanaging $2.5 billion building project

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump locked horns with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during a rare presidential visit to the US central bank on Thursday, criticizing the cost of renovating two historical buildings at its headquarters and pressing the case for lower interest rates. Trump, who called Powell a “numbskull” earlier this week for failing to heed the White House’s demand for a large reduction in borrowing costs, wrapped up his visit to the Fed’s $2.5 billion building project in Washington by saying he did not intend to fire Powell, as he has frequently suggested he would.
“To do so is a big move and I just don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump told reporters after the visit.
In a post on his Truth Social media site, Trump later said of the renovation, “it is what it is and, hopefully, it will be finished ASAP. The cost overruns are substantial but, on the positive side, our Country is doing very well and can afford just about anything.” The visibly tense interaction at the Fed’s massive construction site marked an escalation of White House pressure on the central bank and Trump’s efforts to get Powell to “do the right thing” on rates. It happened less than a week before the central bank’s 19 policymakers are due to gather for a two-day rate-setting meeting, where they are widely expected to leave their benchmark interest rate in the 4.25 percent-4.50 percent range.

The president has repeatedly demanded Powell slash rates by 3 percentage points or more.
“I’d love him to lower interest rates,” Trump said as he wrapped up the tour, as Powell stood by, his face expressionless.

Powell typically spends the Thursday afternoon before a rate-setting meeting doing back-to-back calls with Fed bank presidents as part of his preparations for the session.
The encounter between the two men became heated as Trump told reporters the project was now estimated to cost $3.1 billion.
“I am not aware of that,” Powell said, shaking his head. Trump handed him a piece of paper, which Powell examined. “You just added in a third building,” the Fed chief said, noting that the Martin Building had been completed five years ago. White House budget director Russell Vought and Trump’s deputy chief of staff, James Blair, who have spearheaded criticism of the renovation as overly costly and ostentatious, later told reporters they still have questions about the project. The two men, who joined Trump during the visit, have suggested poor oversight and potential fraud in connection with it. Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, a Republican who sent Powell a letter on Wednesday demanding answers to his own questions about the renovation, also took part in the visit.
Elevated by Trump to the top Fed job in 2018 and then reappointed by former President Joe Biden four years later, Powell last met with the current president in March when Trump summoned him to the White House to press him to lower rates. The visit on Thursday took place as Trump battles to deflect attention from a political crisis over his administration’s refusal to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reversing a campaign promise. Epstein died in 2019. The Fed, in letters to Vought and lawmakers backed up by documents posted on its website, said the project — the first full rehab of the two buildings since they were built nearly a century ago — ran into unexpected challenges including toxic materials abatement and higher-than-estimated costs for materials and labor.
Speaking outside of the construction site, Trump said there was “no tension” at his meeting with Powell and that they had a productive conversation about rates.

Fed independence

Ahead of Trump’s visit, Fed staff escorted a small group of reporters around the two construction sites. They wove around cement mixers and construction machines, and spoke over the sound of drills, banging, and saws. Fed staff pointed out security features, including blast-resistant windows, that they said were a significant driver of costs in addition to tariffs and escalations in material and labor costs.
The project started in mid-2022 and is on track to be completed by 2027, with the move-in planned for March of 2028.

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press after touring the construction at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, on July 24, 2025. (AFP)

A visit to the roof of the Eccles Building, a point of particular scrutiny by critics like Scott, who has complained about “rooftop garden terraces,” revealed an impressive view of the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall, according to the pool report.
Staff explained that rooftop seating, although inexpensive, had been removed because of the appearance of it being an amenity and was one of only two deviations from the original plan. The other was the scrapping of a couple of planned fountains. Market reaction to Trump’s visit was subdued. The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury bonds ticked higher after data showed new jobless claims dropped in the most recent week, signaling a stable labor market not in need of support from a Fed rate cut. The S&P 500 equities index closed largely flat on the day.
Trump’s criticism of Powell and flirtation with firing him have previously upset financial markets and threatened a key underpinning of the global financial system — that central banks are independent and free from political meddling.
His trip contrasts with a handful of other documented presidential visits to the Fed. Then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the central bank in 1937 to dedicate the newly-built headquarters, one of the two buildings now being renovated. Most recently, former President George W. Bush went there in 2006 to attend the swearing-in of Ben Bernanke as Fed chief. 


Thailand, Cambodia clash with jets and rockets in deadly border row

Updated 26 min 44 sec ago
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Thailand, Cambodia clash with jets and rockets in deadly border row

PHANOM DONG RAK, Thailand: Thailand and Cambodia fought their bloodiest military clashes in more than a decade on Thursday, with at least 12 people killed as the two sides battled with tanks, artillery and ground forces over a disputed border zone.
The fighting marks a dramatic escalation in a long-running spat between the neighbors — both popular destinations for millions of foreign tourists — over an area known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of both countries and Laos meet.
The decades-old squabble flared into bloody clashes more than 15 years ago and again in May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a firefight.
In Thursday’s clashes, Cambodia fired rockets and artillery shells into Thailand and the Thai military scrambled F-16 jets to carry out air strikes.
The Thai public health ministry said one soldier and at least 11 civilians were killed, most of them in a rocket strike near a petrol station in Sisaket province.

Evacuees take shelter in a hall on the grounds of Surindra Rajabhat University, in the Thai border province of Surin on July 24, 2025, amid fighting between Thail and Cambodian forces on July 24, 2025 over a disputed border zone. (AFP)

Footage from the scene showed smoke pouring from a convenience store attached to the petrol station. Provincial officials said most of the dead were students who were inside the shop when the attack happened.
“I heard a loud noise three or four times, and when I looked over, there was a gigantic cloud of smoke,” Praphas Intaracheun, a 53-year-old gardener from Sisaket, told AFP.
He was refueling at another petrol station around 300 meters (328 yards) from the one that was hit.
“I’m scared it might escalate during the night when you can’t see anything. I don’t even dare sleep,” he said.
Thailand said 35 people have been wounded, and accused Cambodia of targeting civilian buildings.
A 30-bed hospital in the town of Phanom Dong Rak in Surin province, just 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the border, was hit by shells which shattered windows and collapsed part of a roof.
The facility, which was also struck in the last major clashes between the two countries in 2011, was partially evacuated on Wednesday night as a precaution.
“We got a tip that there would be an attack from Cambodia,” a soldier stationed at the entrance told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“There is no telling when it will be safe enough for patients to return.”

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Fighting was focused on six locations, the Thai army said, with ground troops and tanks battling Cambodian forces for control of territory.
Six Thai air force jets were deployed, hitting two “Cambodian military targets on the ground,” according to Thai military deputy spokesperson Ritcha Suksuwanon.
Cambodia has not yet commented on casualties on its side. Defense ministry spokeswoman Maly Socheata refused to answer when asked about the issue at a news conference.
AFP journalists met Cambodians fleeing their villages near the Thai border to escape the fighting.
“We dare not to stay, they were fighting so bad that my house was shaking,” Say Vuthy, 36, told AFP.
“We already dug a bunker but we dared not stay because we were scared that they will keep fighting at night.”
Both sides blame the other for starting the fighting, which erupted near two temples on the border.
At the request of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the deadly clashes, diplomatic sources told AFP.
Thailand’s embassy in Phnom Penh urged its nationals to leave Cambodia “as soon as possible.”
Both the European Union and China, a close ally of Phnom Penh, said they were “deeply concerned” about the clashes, calling for dialogue.
The United States and France — Cambodia’s former colonial ruler — also called separately for an immediate halt to fighting and for talks to begin.


The violence came hours after Thailand expelled the Cambodian ambassador and recalled its own envoy after five members of a Thai military patrol were wounded by a land mine.
Cambodia downgraded ties to “the lowest level” on Thursday, pulling out all but one of its diplomats and expelling their Thai equivalents from Phnom Penh.
The border row also kicked off a domestic political crisis in Thailand, where Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been suspended from office pending an ethics probe over her conduct.
A diplomatic call between Paetongtarn and Hun Sen, Cambodia’s former longtime ruler and father of Hun Manet, was leaked from the Cambodian side, sparking a judicial investigation.
burs-pdw/sco/des/aks


80-year-old pro-Palestine protester in UK ‘traumatized’ after arrest

Updated 25 July 2025
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80-year-old pro-Palestine protester in UK ‘traumatized’ after arrest

  • Police forcibly entered Marianne Sorrell’s house, seizing iPads, Palestinian flag, books and climate-related material
  • Sorrell held on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action, banned earlier this month under anti-terror laws

LONDON: Marianne Sorrell, an 80-year-old retired teacher from Wells, a city in southwestern England, said that her arrest earlier in July for holding a placard at a pro-Palestine rally has left her feeling “traumatized” and “sick.”
Police officers detained Sorrell for nearly 27 hours on July 12 after forcibly entering her house and seizing 19 items, including iPads, a Palestinian flag, books about Palestine, and materials related to Extinction Rebellion and climate change. She was held on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action, which the UK government banned earlier this month under anti-terrorism laws.
Sorrell told The Guardian newspaper: “At 80, to be treated like a dangerous terrorist is deeply shocking. I’ve been very traumatised by this. Every morning I wake up feeling sick, nauseous. (I have) had to take anti-sickness pills.”

She said a friend of hers, who went to feed her cats while she was in custody, saw a Geiger counter, which measures radiation, on the table while the police were searching the house.

“They’ve actually not taken anything that could be classed as illegal but it’s very confusing that they’re beginning to think anything connected to Palestine or support for Palestine is illegal in some way,” Sorrell said.
She was detained at the end of a one-hour demonstration in Wells by the group Defend Our Juries in support of Palestine. Her friend Trisha Fine, 75, also from Wells and a retired teacher, was arrested and held by the police for nearly 27 hours. At the Cardiff rally, 11 others were arrested. Police questioned Sorrel and Fine about their awareness of Palestine Action’s support for violence and whether they were prepared to engage in it themselves.

The women have been released on bail until October and are prohibited from contacting each other or spending any nights away from their homes.
Fine told The Guardian: “Am I a 75-year-old terrorist? I don’t think so. It’s completely out of order. You just wonder what the hell is happening with this country and this government.”
Sorrell said: “I just feel if I’m put in prison for this, and even if I die in prison for this, I can’t think of a better thing to die for really than for the justice of the people who’ve been persecuted now for almost my lifetime.”
Palestine Action was banned in July after activists broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton on June 20, causing an estimated £7 million ($9.38 million) of damage to military aircraft.
Membership of or direct support for Palestine Action now carries a prison term of up to 14 years. Displaying the group’s name on clothing could lead to a six-month jail sentence.


Minnesota man sentenced to 59 years for crash that killed 5 young women

Updated 24 July 2025
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Minnesota man sentenced to 59 years for crash that killed 5 young women

  • Derrick Thompson admitted his guilt for the first time and begged for forgiveness at an emotional sentencing hearing
  • Relatives and friends of the victims offered no forgiveness at the hearing

MINNEAPOLIS, USA: A Minnesota man was sentenced to nearly 59 years Thursday for causing a crash that killed five young women who were out making preparations for a friend’s wedding.

Derrick Thompson admitted his guilt for the first time and begged for forgiveness at an emotional sentencing hearing. He said he was sorry for what he did and “there is not a day I don’t ask God why he didn’t take me instead and let your beautiful angels still be here,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

But relatives and friends of the victims offered no forgiveness at the hearing. Instead, they attacked Thompson for waiting until his sentencing to admit his crimes and putting their families through two criminal trials.

A state court jury convicted the 29-year-old from the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park of third-degree murder and vehicular homicide for the June 2023 crash that killed Salma Abdikadir, Siham Adam, Sabiriin Ali, Sahra Gesaade and Sagal Hersi. His defense claimed during the trial that Thompson was not the driver of an SUV that ran a red light and plowed into a Honda Civic.

The victims, between 17 and 20 years old, were on their way home from preparations for a friend’s wedding. Their deaths sparked sorrow and outrage in Minnesota’s sizable Somali American community.

“I hope reality suffocates you for the rest of your life,” said Sundus Odhowa, Siham Adam’s older sister. ”You should never know freedom again. You should never know peace.”

Authorities say Thompson was driving a rented Cadillac Escalade SUV at more than 100 mph (160 kph) down a freeway in Minneapolis before exiting, blowing through the red light and smashing into the sedan in which the young women were riding.

Minnesota inmates typically serve two-thirds of their sentences in prison and one-third on supervised release. With credit for 767 days of time already served, Thompson could go free in about 37 years. Thompson, who already had a felony record, was convicted separately in November on federal drug and firearms charges. He’s still awaiting sentencing on those counts.

Thompson is the son of a former Democratic state representative from St. Paul who was sharply critical of police during his one term in office.


British medics say Gaza is ‘televised genocide’ and ‘unlike anything’ seen in war zones

Updated 24 July 2025
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British medics say Gaza is ‘televised genocide’ and ‘unlike anything’ seen in war zones

  • Medical volunteers have been working tirelessly despite limited supplies, and have witnessed “very obvious ... malnourishment in the community”
  • Dr. Tom Potokar says he lost 11 kg during his recent trip to Gaza, despite bringing food with him, while his Palestinian medical colleagues appeared increasingly fatalistic

LONDON: British healthcare workers volunteering to treat patients in the Gaza Strip report witnessing harrowing injuries, including severe burns and shrapnel wounds as well as cases of extreme starvation due to Israeli attacks and restrictions on aid.

Sam Sears, a 44-year-old paramedic, told the British tabloid Metro that the range of injuries he has seen at a humanitarian medical tent facility in Al-Mawasi, on the southern coast of Gaza, includes blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, gunshot wounds and polytrauma.

He is volunteering with the UK-Med charity as part of a team responding to starvation in Gaza, following the emergence of distressing images of malnourished Palestinians, including some infants, which have prompted widespread condemnation, including from the UK government.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before,” Sears said.

“Especially like nothing I’ve seen in the UK, and I have worked in other areas like Sierra Leone for Ebola and Ukraine in the war, but this here is completely different. It’s like times ten here.

“We are struggling for food here at the moment, let alone (Palestinian) staff that are working with us who have had to manage this for the last 20 months.”

He said that medical volunteers have been working tirelessly despite limited supplies, including fuel, and it was “very obvious (that) we have got malnourishment in the community.”

“We can buy certain things from the market but it’s very scarce, it’s also costing quadruple or more than what it normally would. A kilogram of sugar at the minute is costing $130, so it’s just extortionate,” he said.

The UK-Med charity operates two field hospitals in Gaza, treating 500 people daily, and includes an operating theater for lifesaving surgical procedures.

“The ceasefire is needed, not just a pause but a permanent end to the hostilities,” Sears said. “The people in Gaza have suffered immensely, they have got nowhere to call home ... They are hungry, malnourished, the conflict needs to stop really.”

“The healthcare and aid needs to come in for the 2.1 million people who it’s needed for here,” he added.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a veteran British plastic surgeon who has volunteered in various Palestinian hospitals and has visited Gaza 16 times since 2018, said that the healthcare system is overwhelmed with severe burn victims from Israel’s military actions.

Dr. Potokar told the Telegraph newspaper that he had been operating on 10 to 12 patients suffering burns from blasts each day, with three-quarters of those cases being women or children. “That’s taking the top-10 priority, but there’s still plenty more behind that that needed operating,” he said.

He volunteered nearly two years ago during the initial six weeks after Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip in late 2023. He is the founder of the medical charity Interburns, established in 2006, which addresses the lack of burns expertise in poorer nations and war zones. When he arrived for the first time in Gaza in 2018, he discovered that there were only two fully qualified plastic surgeons, one of whom was partially retired.

His most recent visit, with the Ideals international aid charity, was in May and June, during which he witnessed terrible injuries from explosions.

“I saw many cases of bilateral or triple limb amputations, huge open wounds on the back, on the chest, with the lung exposed. Really horrendous blast injuries from shrapnel, and as I say, a lot of them combined with burns as well,” he said.

The most devastating cases involved children, with some cases sustaining about 90 percent burns.

“There’s nothing you can do. Even if there was not a conflict there, in that country, in that scenario, a 90 percent burn (case) when it’s almost all full thickness is not going to survive,” he said.

“But then you are talking about a nine-year-old and some end-of-life dignity, and unfortunately they don’t die in a couple of hours, it takes four or five days, so you see this patient every four or five days, knowing full well that there’s absolutely nothing you can do.”

Dr. Potokar described treating patients who are “skin and bone” due to Israeli aid restrictions leading to mass starvation in Gaza.

“Wounds are just stagnating because they are just not getting food.”

He said that he lost 11 kg during his recent trip, despite bringing food with him. His Palestinian medical colleagues appeared increasingly fatalistic, he said, as more than 100 human rights organizations warned this week that some staff members have become too weak to continue their work due to food shortages.

Dr. Potokar described Gaza as the “world’s first televised genocide” and said that there was a lack of response to end the war in the coastal enclave.

“We are putting plasters on a haemorrhaging aneurysm. The problem is the political initiative, the total lack of global, moral, ethical insight into this and desire to stop it,” he said.