AFP USA

Columbia University,  targeted by Donald Trump over student protests and alleged anti-Semitism from some demonstrators, unveiled a package of policies Friday in a bid to placate the president.Trump has targeted US universities that saw significant surges of protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that followed the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.The administration had demanded that the university deploys external oversight, but the school stopped short of that with its raft of measures, instead vowing to engage with outside academics on the issue.Columbia’s student movement has been at the forefront of protests that have exposed deep rifts over the war.Activists call them a show of support for the Palestinian people, while Trump condemns them as anti-Semitic, and says they must end.The president has cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia — including research grants and other contracts — on the grounds that the institution has not adequately protected Jewish students from harassment.Columbia announced Friday “improvements to our disciplinary processes” as well as making it mandatory that protesters identify themselves when challenged — even if they wear masks, as many did during the height of the pro-Palestinian protests.It also announced the expansion of its security team, including the hiring of 36 officers empowered to remove or arrest those that break the prestigious Ivy League university’s rules.- ‘Combat discrimination’ -In the document titled “Advancing our work to combat discrimination, harassment and anti-Semitism at Columbia,” the university announced the creation of a new “Office of Institutional Equity” as well as updating its anti-discrimination and discriminatory harassment policy for students and groups.”The University’s approach and relevant policies will incorporate the definition of antisemitism recommended by Columbia’s Antisemitism Taskforce in August 2024,” the policy document said.As well as budget cuts to Columbia’s federal funds, with more threatened, immigration officers have targeted a leader of the pro-Palestinan protests, Mahmoud Khalil.Khalil, a US permanent resident with Palestinian roots and a graduate student at Columbia, was arrested by officers and has been held in Louisiana as he and his supporters fight his deportation on foreign policy grounds.Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, previously acknowledged the “critical moment for higher education” in a recent statement.Last week, the private university announced a battery of disciplinary measures — including suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions — aimed at student protesters who occupied a campus building last year.In a recent letter sent to Columbia, the Trump administration gave the university one week to agree to a series of drastic reforms if it wants to open negotiations to recover the $400 million.The letter demanded Columbia codify a definition of anti-Semitism that includes a focus on anti-Zionism, and insists the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments be put under “academic receivership.”Friday’s policy announcement did not use that language to describe the measures the university will take towards the departments of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies — but did announce a review of their work.

Lawyers and relatives of Venezuelans flown from the United States to a notorious jail in El Salvador believe the men were wrongly labelled gang members and terrorists because of their tattoos. Jhon Chacin, a professional tattoo artist, has images of “a flower, a watch, an owl, skulls” and family members’ names etched onto his skin.Last October, the 35-year-old was arrested at the Mexican border for entering the United States illegally.Then last weekend, after not hearing from him for several days, shocked family members spotted him in a video of shaved and chained prisoners at a maximum security prison in El Salvador.He was one of 238 men declared as a member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua — a terrorist group under US law — and deported by US President Donald Trump.”He doesn’t have a criminal record, he’d never been arrested,” Chacin’s sister Yuliana, who lives in Texas, told AFP.She is convinced her brother was designated a gang member because of his body art.At the US detention center, before being deported, “ICE (immigration) agents told him he belonged to a criminal gang because he had a lot of tattoos.”In the western Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, family members of several other deportees denied their loved ones were criminals.Twenty-three-year-old Edwuar Hernandez Herrera, known to family and friends as Edward, left Venezuela in 2023.He made a fraught journey across the jungle-filled Darien Gap before reaching the United States, where he was detained.He has four tattoos — his mother and daughter’s names, an owl on his forearm and ears of corn on his chest, according to his mother Yarelis Herrera.”These tattoos do not make him a criminal,” she told AFP.Herrera’s friend Ringo Rincon, 39, has nine tattoos, including a watch showing the times his son and daughters were born, said his wife Roslyany Camano.- Due process -US authorities have provided little public evidence to support claims that all the deportees were members of Tren de Aragua (TdA).In a court filing, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official admitted “many” of the expelled men had no criminal records, because “they have only been in the United States for a short period of time.”But Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin cited tattoos as evidence against 36-year-old professional soccer player Jerce Reyes Barrios.”He has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating TdA gang membership. His own social media indicates he is a member of the vicious TdA gang,” McLaughlin wrote on X.She insisted US intelligence assessments “go beyond a single tattoo.”Reyes Barrios’s lawyer, Linette Tobin, believes he was accused of gang membership for his tattoo of a crown atop a soccer ball — a variant on the logo of Real Madrid, his favorite team.In a letter posted on social media, Tobin said her client had sought asylum in the United States after being tortured for taking part in anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.- ‘Strong vetting process’ -In September 2024, Texas authorities published a report listing tattoos it said were characteristic of Tren de Aragua membership, including crowns, stars and weapons.Yet Ronna Risquez, author of a book about Tren de Aragua, said tattoos are not known to be a signifier of gang allegiance in Venezuela — unlike heavily tattooed members of El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha.”Tren de Aragua has no identifying tattoo… some members of the gang are tattooed, others not,” she told AFP.Trump, who has previously linked tattoos with gang violence, on Friday insisted the men were a “bad group.””I was told that they went through a very strong vetting process, and that that will also be continuing in El Salvador,” he said.But if anyone was misidentified “we would certainly want to find out” Trump added. “We don’t want to make that kind of mistake.”Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said Thursday the government had hired a law firm in El Salvador to try and secure the migrants’ release.Some eight million Venezuelans are estimated to have fled the country’s economic meltdown and increasingly authoritarian rule in the past decade.An estimated 770,000 Venezuelans live in the United States — many under a protected status granted to citizens of dangerous countries, which Trump recently revoked.

A federal judge said Friday that President Donald Trump’s use of a more than 200-year-old wartime law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members from the United States was “incredibly troublesome.”James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, ordered a temporary suspension of the deportation flights last weekend in a move that put the court on a collision course with the administration.At a hearing on Friday, Boasberg questioned the legality of using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to summarily send the more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador last weekend.”The policy ramifications of this are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning,” Boasberg said.He noted that the only previous uses of the AEA were “in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when there was no question there was a declaration of war and who the enemy was.”Boasberg’s order halting the deportation flights earned Trump’s ire and the Republican president called on Tuesday for his impeachment, branding the judge a “troublemaker and agitator.”Trump’s remarks drew a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the deportations along with other rights groups, noted during the court session that even during World War II “people got hearings.””It was not this summary removal,” Gelernt said.”You have to be able to contest,” he said. “Otherwise anyone could be taken off the street.”Boasberg issued an emergency order on Saturday against the deportation of the Venezuelans as they sought legal recourse and said two flights already in the air needed to turn around.The Justice Department has claimed the planes were in international airspace when the judge issued his written order directing them to return and his jurisdiction no longer applied.”The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order,” Boasberg said at Friday’s hearing.Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua gang, had committed no crimes and were targeted for deportation only because of their tattoos.- ‘A bad group’ -Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump defended the deportations under the AEA, which was last used during World War II to intern Japanese residents.”I was told that they went through a very strong vetting process,” Trump said. “This was a bad group.. killers, murderers, and people that were really bad with the worst records you’ve ever seen.”The New York Times reported meanwhile that nearly the entire civil rights branch of the Department of Homeland Security was fired on Friday.The department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was responsible for oversight of the administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.

The United States is importing Turkish and South Korean eggs to ease an avian flu-fueled supply crunch that has pushed up prices across the country, Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary confirmed Friday.Brooke Rollins told reporters in Washington that imports from Turkey and South Korea had already begun and that the White House was also in talks with other countries about temporarily importing their eggs. “We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term,” she added. The cost of eggs has skyrocketed due to multiple bird flu outbreaks in the United States, forcing farmers to cull at least 30 million birds and sharply constraining supply. Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year’s presidential election campaign as he sought to capitalize on voters’ frustrations with the rising cost of essential items during his predecessor Joe Biden’s presidency.After returning to office in January, Trump tasked Rollins with the job of boosting the supply of eggs, and bringing down prices. In the weeks since, producers in several countries have reported American interest in their produce, with the Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations telling AFP that they had been approached by US diplomatic staff on the hunt for fresh eggs. “There is a shortage of eggs in many countries,” Katarzyna Gawronska, director of Poland’s National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, said recently. “The key question would be what financial conditions would be offered by the Americans.” The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently noted that wholesale egg prices have fallen by almost 50 percent since late February, which suggests that consumer prices could soon start to fall.”The downward trend underscores the effectiveness of USDA’s approach,” the agency said in a statement.Speaking to reporters on Friday, Rollins said that the imports of eggs would stop once US poultry farmers were able to ramp up supply.”When our chicken populations are repopulated and we’ve got a full egg laying industry going again — hopefully in a couple of months — we then shift back to our internal egg layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf,” she said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity on Friday expressed its interest in buying TikTok, which faces a deadline to divest from its Chinese owner or be banned in the United States.Perplexity in a blog post laid out a vision for integrating its AI-powered internet search capabilities with the popular video-snippet sharing app.”Combining Perplexity’s answer engine with TikTok’s extensive video library would allow us to build the best search experience in the world,” the San Francisco-based firm reasoned.”Perplexity is singularly positioned to rebuild the TikTok algorithm without creating a monopoly, combining world-class technical capabilities with Little Tech independence.”President Donald Trump earlier this month said the United States was in talks with four groups interested in acquiring TikTok, with the Chinese-owned app facing an uncertain future in the country. A US law has ordered TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the United States.”We’re dealing with four different groups. And a lot of people want it, and it’s up to me,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “All four are good,” he added, without naming them.The law banning TikTok took effect on January 19 over concerns that the Chinese government could exploit the video-sharing platform to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion.During his first stint in the White House, Trump similarly attempted to ban TikTok in the United States on national security concerns.TikTok temporarily shut down in the United States and disappeared from app stores as the deadline for the law approached, to the dismay of millions of users.Trump suspended its implementation for two-and-a-half months after beginning his second term in January, seeking a solution with Beijing.TikTok subsequently restored service in the United States and returned to the Apple and Google app stores in February.Although TikTok does not appear overly motivated regarding the sale of the app, potential buyers include an initiative called “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” launched by real estate and sports tycoon Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative.Others in the running are Microsoft, Oracle and a group that includes Internet personality MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson.”Any acquisition by a consortium of investors could in effect keep ByteDance in control of the algorithm, while any acquisition by a competitor would likely create a monopoly in the short form video and information space,” Perplexity contended in the post.”All of society benefits when content feeds are liberated from the manipulations of foreign governments and globalist monopolists.”Perplexity said it would build infrastructure for TikTok at datacenters in the United States and maintain it with US oversight.The AI startup also proposed rebuilding TikTok’s winning algorithm “from the ground up”, making the app’s “For You” recommendation feed open-source.Perplexity also vowed to enable TikTok users to cross-reference information as they watch videos to check their veracity.

President Donald Trump said Friday that Elon Musk should not be allowed to see top secret US plans for any war with China, in a rare admission that his billionaire ally’s business links raised potential conflicts of interest.Trump strongly denied media reports that the world’s richest man, who is now leading the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), would receive a classified Pentagon briefing on its war strategy.Tesla and Space X boss Musk has major business interests in China but also has huge US defense contracts, while his status as an unelected advisor to Trump has raised concerns about his influence.”I don’t want to show it to anybody. You’re talking about a potential war with China,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.”Certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much… Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that.”Trump, who was unveiling a contract for Boeing to build the next-generation F-47 fighter jet, described Musk as a “patriot” and hailed his efforts to slash back the US federal government, including the Defense Department.Musk was at the Pentagon on Friday, but Trump attacked reports, first published in the New York Times, about the visit. “They really are the enemy of the people,” Trump said of the Times, which reported Musk was to receive a briefing in a secure room dubbed “The Tank” on maritime tactics and targeting plans.The paper said the briefing was called off after it was publicized.- ‘Amazing visit’ -The United States increasingly sees China as its biggest rival and tensions have soared since Trump’s inauguration as the world’s two largest economies hit each other with tariffs.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hailed the “amazing visit” by Musk to the Pentagon.”I look forward to continuing our work together,” Hegseth said on X. Musk joined the chorus of criticism of the Times, labeling it “pure propaganda” on his social media platform X.”I’ve been to the Pentagon many times over many years. Not my first time in the building,” he wrote.Musk has long-standing business ties to China, however.His automaker Tesla produces some of its electric vehicles at a huge so-called gigafactory in Shanghai and is trying to compete with fast-growing Chinese manufacturers.The entrepreneur has become a cult figure in China and has fostered ties with its leadership. He has also suggested the self-ruled island of Taiwan should become part of China.In the United States, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Musk has no conflicts of interest, even as Musk leads a harsh overhaul of US government agencies that in some cases his companies have dealings with.Musk’s SpaceX has US government defense contracts worth billions of dollars, including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.Trump has recently further blurred the line by promoting Tesla cars after attacks by vandals over Musk’s links to the White House. Trump suggested Friday that such vandals could be deported to prisons in El Salvador.Democrats have meanwhile blasted Trump for handing administration policy to Musk despite him undergoing no background checks and heading companies with government contracts.

Lawyers and relatives of Venezuelans flown from the United States to a brutal jail in El Salvador believe the men were wrongly branded as gang members because of their tattoos. Jhon Chacin is a professional tattoo artist with “a flower, a watch, an owl, skulls, my father’s name, my mother’s name, those of his children” etched onto his skin, according to his sister Yuliana.The 35-year-old was arrested at the Mexican border in October 2024 for entering the United States illegally.After going without news from him for several days, his family recognized him last weekend in a video of prisoners in chains, their heads freshly shorn, at a maximum security prison in El Salvador.US President Donald Trump had invoked a centuries-old wartime act to send Chacin and more than 200 other fellow Venezuelans to the Central American country as purported members of the fearsome Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang.Yuliana, who lives in Texas, is convinced her brother was designated a gangster because of his skin markings.At the detention center where Chacin was held before being deported, “ICE (immigration) agents told him he belonged to a criminal gang because he had a lot of tattoos,” she told AFP.- Soccer ball and horns -US authorities have not said what evidence they have to support claims that the 238 deportees are members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, designated a “terrorist” organization by the Trump administration.Senior ICE official Robert Cerna said Monday “many” of the expelled men had no criminal records, but claimed that was because “they have only been in the United States for a short period of time.”Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin cited tattoos as evidence against 36-year-old Jerce Reyes Barrios.”He has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating TdA gang membership. His own social media indicates he is a member of the vicious TdA gang,” McLaughlin wrote on X.She insisted US intelligence assessments “go beyond a single tattoo.”Her post was in reaction to an online statement attributed to Reyes Barrios’s lawyer, Linette Tobin, in which she said he was accused of gang membership for sporting a tattoo of a crown atop a soccer ball — a variant on the logo of Real Madrid, his favorite football team.The letter said her client, a former professional soccer player, had sought asylum in the United States after being tortured for taking part in anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.AFP was unable to reach Tobin.- ‘All over their faces’ -In September 2024, Texas authorities published a report listing tattoos it said were characteristic of Tren de Aragua membership, including crowns, stars and weapons.Yet Ronna Risquez, author of a book about the spread of Tren de Aragua, said tattoos are not known to be a signifier of gang allegiance in Venezuela, unlike in El Salvador.”Tren de Aragua has no identifying tattoo… some members of the gang are tattooed, others not,” she told AFP.Trump has associated body art with violent tendencies.Days after taking power in January, he warned that gang members with “tattoos all over their faces” were “pouring in” to the United States.- From children’s names to owls -In the western Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, family members of four of the deportees denied the men were engaged in any criminal activity.They also feared their loved ones’ tattoos may have got them in trouble unfairly.Edwuar Hernandez Herrera, 23, has four — his daughter’s name, that of his mother, an owl on his forearm and ears of corn on his chest, according to his mother Yarelis Herrera.”These tattoos do not make him a criminal,” the 44-year-old told AFP.Herrera’s friend Ringo Rincon, 39, has nine tattoos, including a watch showing the times his son and daughters were born, said his wife Roslyany Camano.Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said Thursday the government had hired a law firm in El Salvador to try and secure the migrants’ release.Some eight million Venezuelans are estimated to have fled the country’s economic meltdown and increasingly authoritarian rule in the past decade.The vast majority moved to other Latin American countries. By 2023, an estimated 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants were living in the United States — many under a protected status granted to citizens of dangerous countries, which Trump subsequently revoked.

Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing has been awarded the contract for the Air Force’s next-generation stealth fighter plane, which the 47th US president said would be named the F-47.”Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be known as the F-47. The generals picked a title, and it’s a beautiful number, F-47,” said Trump at the White House.The announcement is a boon for Boeing, which struggled last year with a lengthy labor strike and safety problems on its civilian airliners.The contract aims to develop the replacement for the F-22 jet — which has been in operation for some two decades — with a new, more advanced aircraft able to operate alongside uncrewed drones.”After a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding the contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform to Boeing,” Trump said in televised remarks in the Oval Office.He said the price of the contract could not be revealed for security reasons.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside Trump, said the new aircraft “sends a very direct, clear message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere, and to our enemies that… we will be able to project power around the globe unimpeded for generations to come.”Boeing said in a statement that the NGAD selection “builds on Boeing’s fighter legacy and establishes a new global standard for 6th generation capability.”Boeing is also competing with Northrop Grumman for a contract for the US Navy’s next-generation aircraft.- ‘Virtually unseeable’ -Lockheed Martin, which was also in the running for the Air Force contract, said it was “disappointed with this outcome,” but was “confident we delivered a competitive solution.”The NGAD effort was paused in 2024 over cost concerns — a major focus of the Trump administration, which has tasked billionaire donor Elon Musk with slashing government spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2018 that the NGAD airframe could cost up to $300 million apiece — significantly more than various other aircraft currently in the US inventory.In 2024, “officials cast doubt on whether the Air Force could afford to develop the NGAD alongside programs including the B-21 Raider bomber and the Minuteman III ICBM replacement,” the Congressional Research Service said in a report earlier this year.A senior Air Force officer said earlier this month that the service conducted a study following the pause, which concluded that “not only in the past, not only in the present but in the future, air superiority matters.””What this study told us is we tried a whole bunch of different options and there is no more viable option than NGAD to achieve air superiority in this highly contested environment,” Major General Joseph Kunkel told the AFA Warfare Symposium in Colorado.The F-47 will replace the F-22 Raptor, which features stealth technology, a high degree of maneuverability and the ability to supercruise, or maintain supersonic flight without afterburners.Little is known about the capabilities of the F-47, but Trump said the new jet will be “virtually unseeable” with unmatched maneuverability and power, and the ability to fly “with many drones, as many as we want, and that’s something that no other plane can do.”

President Donald Trump on Friday denied reports that Elon Musk would see top secret US plans for a possible war with China, saying that his billionaire ally’s links with Beijing raised potential conflicts of interest.The rare acknowledgment of Musk’s dueling roles in business and government came as Trump pushed back against media reports saying the Space X and Tesla owner would receive a Pentagon briefing on its China strategy.The reports fanned concern about the influence of the world’s richest man in the White House as an unelected, South African-born tycoon who has become Trump’s closest advisor.Musk did visit the Pentagon on Friday, but Trump insisted he was “there for DOGE, not for China” — referring to Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency, which is expanding its cost-cutting drive to the defense department.”I don’t want to show it to anybody. You’re talking about a potential war with China,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the possibility of sharing the war plan with Musk.”Certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman… Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that.”Musk’s automaker Tesla produces some of its electric vehicles at a huge so-called gigafactory in Shanghai and is trying to compete with fast-growing Chinese manufacturers.The entrepreneur has become a cult figure in China and has fostered ties with its leadership. He has also caused controversy by suggesting the self-ruled island of Taiwan should become part of China.In the United States, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Musk has no conflicts of interest, even as Musk leads a harsh overhaul of US government agencies that in some cases his companies have dealings with.Musk’s SpaceX has US government defense contracts worth billions of dollars, including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.Trump has recently further blurred the line by promoting Tesla cars after attacks by vandals over Musk’s links to the White House. Trump suggested Friday that such vandals could be deported to prisons in El Salvador.- ‘Enemy of the people’ -According to the New York Times, Musk had been set to receive a briefing Friday on US military plans in case of a war with China, including maritime tactics and targeting plans.The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post also reported on the apparent briefing.The Times later reported that the meeting in the secure “tank” room of the Pentagon had been called off after its story was published late Thursday.Trump, who has launched a series of attacks on journalists and news outlets in recent days, furiously lashed out at the press over the story.”They really are the enemy of the people,” Trump said of the New York Times.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Musk’s “informal meeting” at the Pentagon would focus on innovation and efficiencies, not “top secret China war plans.””The NYT should immediately retract this fake narrative,” Hegseth said on X.Tensions have soared between Washington and Beijing since Trump’s inauguration as the world’s two largest economies impose a slew of tariffs on each other’s imports.Democrats have meanwhile blasted Trump for handing administration policy to Musk despite him undergoing no background checks and heading companies with government contracts.Musk joined the chorus of criticism of the Times, labeling it “pure propaganda” on his social media platform X.In a separate post replying to Hegseth, he said Friday’s meeting would not be his first visit to the US Defense Department.”I’ve been to the Pentagon many times over many years. Not my first time in the building,” he wrote.

Ukraine hopes to secure at least a partial ceasefire at upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia, during which US officials will meet separately with Russian and Ukrainian delegations, a senior Ukrainian source told AFP on Friday.Momentum has been building in recent weeks towards a ceasefire in the three-year war as US officials hold talks with both sides, though their efforts have so far failed to yield a breakthrough.Both Russia and Ukraine say they back a 30-day pause in strikes on energy infrastructure, a pause that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered on Tuesday but that Kyiv says Moscow has already broken.US negotiators will meet separately with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on Monday, in what US envoy Keith Kellogg described to US media as “shuttle diplomacy” between hotel rooms.Ukraine last week gave its approval to a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire on land, air and sea, an idea that Russia rejected.”We still want to agree on a ceasefire, at least on what we have proposed,” a Ukrainian source told AFP, referring to calls for a halt to strikes on energy sites, civilian infrastructure and attacks in the Black Sea.The Ukrainian delegation in Saudi Arabia will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who will handle a “technical discussion” of issues surrounding the implementation of any truce, the source said.Those questions included “what facilities” strikes would be limited against, and “how to oversee the ceasefire”, the source added.The Russian delegation will be led by career diplomat Grigory Karasin and senior FSB official Sergei Beseda, neither of whom are seen as high-ranking decision makers.”They are experienced negotiators with a wealth of experience in this kind of work,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.US President Donald Trump has said he can end the war and has been pursuing rapprochement with Moscow.- Ceasefire timing ‘unclear’ -Putin ordered a limited, 30-day pause on strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure following a call with Trump on Tuesday. But Zelensky has accused Moscow of continuing to hit energy facilities anyway and said Thursday that nothing had changed, “despite Putin’s words”.Russia had recently struck a high-voltage power line near the city of Pokrovsk, a flashpoint for fighting in east Ukraine, an official from Ukraine’s largest private energy provider told AFP.The attack cut power to a village, leaving it completely “cut off”, said Vitalii Asinenko, head of the Pokrovsk power distribution zone at DTEK.Both sides also accused each other of blowing up a gas facility under the control of Ukraine’s army in the Russian border region of Kursk earlier on Friday.The Ukrainian source added that as of yet it was “unclear” when any ceasefire could be implemented. “There have been no reciprocal steps from the Russians,” the source added.”We need to agree on the main thing: what objects and what control. The Americans have enormous intelligence capabilities, so they see a lot,” the source added.Zelensky said the Ukrainian side would present a “list of civilian objects” that he would want included in a ceasefire.Russia kept up its aerial attacks on Ukraine into Friday.Zelensky called for allies to exert “joint pressure” on the Kremlin after an overnight barrage of more than 200 drones and guided bombs.In the Black Sea city of Odesa, an AFP reporter saw the charred remains of a shopping mall destroyed in the overnight attack.The Russian defence ministry meanwhile said Kyiv “deliberately blew up the Sudzha gas metering station, located a few hundred metres from the state border in the Kursk region.”It said the Ukrainian army had been using the facility as a logistics hub since seizing it in its shock August 2024 cross-border offensive, and blew it up as part of Ukraine’s “retreat” from the area.The defence ministry claimed Kyiv blew up the site specifically to “discredit the peace initiatives of the US president”.”Everyone can see how much we can trust the word of Zelensky and the word of other representatives of the Kyiv regime,” Peskov said.Ukraine’s general staff said the claim it was behind the attack was “groundless” and said Russia had “fired artillery at the facility”.bur-afptv-cad/rmb