Ukraine Truce Proposal, UN Condemns Gaza Blockade, Brazil Carnival

👋 გეგაჯგინას*

Welcome to Monday, where France and UK propose a one-month ceasefire in Ukraine, Arab states and the UN condemn Israel’s Gaza aid blockade and our quiz question comes from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. Meanwhile, for French economic daily Les Echos, Basile Dekonink reports on the “currency war” currently unfolding in Kosovo.

[*Gegacginas - Laz, Turkey and Georgia]

💡 SPOTLIGHT

Why the Trump-Zelensky clash is the perfect gift for Xi Jinping

"A shouting match.” That’s how the Chinese media describe the brutal confrontation between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the news cameras and international press at the White House on Friday. The reports from China noted the "very rare" and "dramatic nature" of an episode, which "exposes the deep differences between the United States and Ukraine” over a resolution of the three-year-long war.

And the incident, writes the Global Times, the tabloid close to the Chinese regime "also demonstrates to the Trump administration that ending the crisis could be more challenging than initially expected."

It is precisely these “challenges” that China has been betting since February 2022, holding a position on the war in Ukraine that has substantially remained unchanged, confident that the weariness of the Western front would eventually lead all sides to accept Beijing’s request for a "political solution" based on the principles of "territorial integrity" and respect for the "legitimate security concerns of all parties."

The two stated principles are of course difficult to reconcile in the war in Ukraine, given that Beijing has always supported Moscow's anti-NATO and anti-American vision. Precisely for this reason Xi Jinping has never proposed himself, despite the misinterpretation of some analysts, in the role of mediator of the conflict.

The Chinese government Saturday, as is its usual practice, has offered not comment. Indeed, at an official level it will be inclined to support Trump's efforts to find a political solution to the conflict. But, in reality, Zelensky's humiliation on worldwide television is a spectacle that could hardly have gone better from Beijing's perspective.

Sure, the world had already witnessed the fraying of the alliance between Washington, Kyiv and Europe, but nobody could have imagined the ultimate abandonment happening so grotesquely in front of the television cameras.

From a Chinese perspective, the episode ultimately demonstrates the disintegration of the reliability of the United States, as well as of the alliance between U.S.-led democracies around the world that had been reinforced by Joe Biden. [...]

— Read the full article by Lorenzo Lamperti for La Stampa, translated from Italian by Worldcrunch.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Belgian daily La Libre led today with a photo of European leaders around a negotiating table on Sunday, headlining, “After the American shockwave, allies to the rescue of Ukraine.” The summit in London, which also included Canada and Turkey, saw leaders pledge their backing to Ukraine after its President Zelensky clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance during a meeting at the White House. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said after the summit that Ukraine’s allies would keep funding flowing to ensure the sovereignty of Ukraine. Read more in this analysis translated from French by Worldcruch: Not Just Ukraine — Europe Also Knows It Still Needs The U.S.

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• France and UK propose one-month Ukraine truce, Kyiv ready to sign minerals deal. France and the UK are proposing a partial one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister said. This comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rallied his European counterparts at a summit in London Sunday, where he said they had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to present to the United States in a strong show of support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after he clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House last week. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president said that his country was ready to sign a minerals deal with the U.S. despite the heated argument.

• Arab states and UN condemn Israel’s Gaza aid blockade. Egypt and Qatar have condemned Israel’s decision to block goods and supplies from entering Gaza, saying it violates the ceasefire deal, while UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the move as “alarming.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the blockade on Sunday, saying that the country acted because Hamas was stealing supplies and using them “to finance its terror machine.” Meanwhile, a 70-year-old man was killed and four people injured in a stabbing attack in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday.

• Trump to set exact tariff levels for Mexico, Canada. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed on Sunday that tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday but added that the situation was “fluid” and that it will be up to President Donald Trump to determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level. Lutnick also indicated that an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports remains on the table. Read more in this reportage in China translated from French by Worldcrunch: Yiwu Postcard: Why The "Made-In-China" Capital Is Immune To Trump’s Tariffs.

• Official key to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal resigns. Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was key to the country’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has reportedly resigned from the government as vice-president for strategic affairs on Monday, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official. The move signals Tehran’s rapid retreat from its outreach to the West as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies sanctions on the country. For more on Zarif, here’s a Daraj analysis translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch.

• Japan fights worst forest blaze in decades. The country has deployed more than 2,000 firefighters to tackle its biggest forest fire in three decades in the northern Iwate region, which follows record low rainfall in the area and last year’s hottest summer on record. The blaze has consumed approximately 5,200 acres of land since it started on Thursday last week. Officials said on Monday that about 4,600 residents remain under evacuation advisories.

• “Anora” sweeps Oscars with five awards. Low-budget dark comedy Anora triumphed on Sunday at this year’s Academy Awards with five statuettes, including best picture, best actress for breakout star Mikey Madison, best director for Sean Baker, best editing and best original screenplay. Baker became the first person to personally win four Academy Awards for a single film. Meanwhile, Adrien Brody won his second best actor gong for The Brutalist.

• News Quiz! Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum has unveiled a revisited version of Vincent Van Gogh’s "Sunflowers." What is it made of?
A. Dried sunflowers
B. LEGO bricks
C. Gouda cheese
D. Bicycle parts
[Answer below]

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

$444 million

Mixue Ice Cream and Tea, a Chinese bubble tea chain with more locations than Starbucks or McDonalds, raised $444 million in the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of the year in their debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The tea shop, which boasts some 45,000 stores across 12 countries, has increased in popularity as consumers in China are faced with high property prices and poor buying power.

📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS

➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇺🇦 Russia's invasion pushed some 8 million Ukrainians to leave the country. While some are starting to return, the total number of Ukrainians who return home depends on the duration of the war.
— LIVY BEREG

💶 Determined to assert its sovereignty over regions still under Serbia’s illegal control, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti is pushing hard to enforce the euro as its official currency — risking a dangerous escalation in a region already scarred by war and ethnic conflict.
— LES ECHOS

🧒 “Lorenzo ate a small yellow berry from those plants that are everywhere. It’s toxic. The pediatrician says we should go to the ER.” And thus begins our latest father's tale.
— RECALCULATING

📸 PHOTO DU JOUR

Dancers in São Paulo, Brazil, celebrated Carnival over the weekend, a high point on the Brazilian calendar that was further heightened by the news of the country’s first Oscar win. I'm Still Here won Brazil’s first Academy Award for an international feature film, with an announcer at the celebration shouting over the speakers that, "The Oscar is ours!” — Photo: Cris Faga/ZUMA

📣 VERBATIM

“The front line keeps getting closer to us.”

— French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot warned that a live conflict within the European Union had never been so close. Barrot underscored the feeling shared by European leaders at Sunday’s summit in London that the escalation of the diplomatic situation around the war in Ukraine posed an existential threat for Europe. Barrot also pushed for a truce to be agreed by Russia as a way to show good faith for long term peace agreements, but both France and the UK said that the details of such a truce have not been set.

✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Jake Shropshire