Category: 2. World

When Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet in Alaska, the Russian president will set out to woo his US counterpart and dangle financial incentives for siding with Moscow over Ukraine.

The hastily arranged summit, organised at Putin’s request, will be his first invitation to meet a US president on American soil since he visited George W Bush in 2007.

The surprise announcement caught Kyiv and its European allies off guard but for Putin it signals a preliminary diplomatic victory: a face to face with Trump requiring no concessions, and a step towards his goal of deciding Ukraine’s future at the table with Washington.

Key to Putin’s message on Friday will be an appeal to Trump’s business instincts. On Thursday, the Russian president’s adviser Yuri Ushakov said the leaders would discuss the “huge untapped potential” in Russia–US economic relations.

“An exchange of views is expected on further developing bilateral cooperation, including in the trade and economic sphere,” Ushakov said. “This cooperation has huge and, unfortunately so far, untapped potential.”

Notably, alongside a cadre of veteran diplomats, Putin is bringing two prominent economic advisers. The inclusion of the finance minister, Anton Siluanov, is particularly notable: he has led Russia’s response to western sanctions, the removal of which the Kremlin has consistently set as a key condition for any peace deal.

“Putin sees this as a chance to show Trump that he is more than ready to agree to peace if the conditions are right. He wants to portray [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy as the one prolonging the war,” said a former high-ranking Kremlin official who, like several other sources, spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Putin knows Trump sees the world through a business lens, and will pitch a peace on his terms as the gateway to lucrative opportunities,” the former official added.

If past encounters between the two leaders are any guide, it may be Putin, the former KGB operative, who edges the upper hand in Alaska.

“Trump is exactly the kind of leader Putin believes he can always strike a deal with, an authoritarian in the mould of [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan, Xi Jinping or [Narendra] Modi,” said a Russian academic close to the foreign ministry, citing the leaders of Turkey, China and India respectively.

Analysts and insiders say the summit, convened after weeks of largely fruitless talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey, has been organised on too short a timescale to deliver any meaningful outcome. Russia’s foreign ministry reiterated on Wednesday that Putin’s conditions for ending the war remained unchanged: the full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from key regions and the renunciation of Kyiv’s Nato ambitions. Kyiv has ruled out these demands from the outset.

“This is not a final summit where lasting peace can be achieved,” said a member of the Russian foreign policy establishment who advises Putin. “Not enough groundwork has been laid for that. But it does offer a rare chance to win Trump over to Russia’s side.”

Trump has been unusually careful not to raise expectations on the outcome. On Monday, he described the talks as a “feel-out” to determine whether a peace deal was possible. “I may say ‘lots of luck, keep fighting’ or I may say we can make a deal,” the president said.

The next day, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, described the meeting as a “listening exercise” and said there was no specific outcome Washington could predict.

What is clear is that for both leaders the summit comes at an opportune moment. In recent weeks, Trump’s rhetoric towards Putin had hardened: he accused the Kremlin leader of feeding Washington “a lot of bullshit” and issued a public ultimatum, warning that continued fighting in Ukraine would spark sanctions. In Moscow, there was a growing sense that sustained European lobbying on behalf of Kyiv was beginning to have an effect.

But Putin brushed off Trump’s outburst, keen to keep channels with the US president open. For Trump, the summit offers a convenient off-ramp from imposing sanctions for which he had little appetite in the first place.

In recent days, Trump has reverted to his more familiar posture of criticising Zelenskyy and striking a milder tone with Putin – an attitude that emerged after his envoy Steve Witkoff met the Russian leader in the Kremlin last Wednesday.

Details of that meeting remain murky and at times contradictory. Witkoff, who often travels to Russia alone and without his own translators, is believed to have floated a proposal for Kyiv to cede full control of two regions in eastern Ukraine – Luhansk and Donetsk – in exchange for a ceasefire. Luhansk is almost completely occupied by Russia but Ukraine still controls a large portion of Donetsk, which it would have to voluntarily give up under this plan.

Witkoff initially told European partners that Russia was prepared to give up the territory it controlled in southern Ukraine. But after further talks with European leaders, it emerged that Moscow had no intention of ceding any land; instead it insisted that Kyiv surrender the areas it holds in the Donbas in return for a ceasefire that would lock in the frontlines elsewhere.

Map of Russian advances in Ukraine

This idea has since coloured much of Trump’s pre-summit rhetoric, with the US leader telling the media he intends to pursue a form of “land swapping” to end the war.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

In Alaska, Putin is likely to push for full control and US recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as Russian territory, two sources in Moscow said.

Kyiv still holds key cities in Donetsk, such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, along with heavily fortified positions of critical strategic importance whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.

All sources consulted said Russia was highly unlikely to relinquish territory it held in southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which forms a vital land bridge from the Donbas along the Sea of Azov to Crimea. Russia claims to have annexed all four regions plus the Crimean peninsula, which it captured in 2014. Moscow could offer to relinquish small slivers of Ukrainian land it captured in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions.

While Kyiv is unlikely to renounce its legal claim to the occupied regions, it is generally understood it could accept a freezing of the frontlines. Zelenskyy stressed on Tuesday that Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow could use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.

“We find ourselves at a total dead end,” said the former Kremlin official, summing up the current standoff. “In Moscow, the view is that Trump can pressure Ukraine into giving up its land. But Kyiv has shown independence.”

Even if a provisional agreement could be reached on territory, peace would still appear distant, given Russia’s other maximalist demands.

“Trump seems to be under the illusion that Putin only cares about the land,” said the former official. They argued that the Trump administration had yet to grasp that from the outset, territory was secondary to Ukraine’s independence and Putin’s “root causes” that led him to invade.

Those “root causes” that Putin often refers to include his demands for Ukraine’s formal renunciation of Nato membership as well as its “demilitarisation” and “denazification” – a vague set of demands that in practice amount to the removal of Zelenskyy.

The timing of the summit works in Putin’s favour. This week, Russian forces made a sudden push into eastern Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to increase pressure on Kyiv to concede territory and to reinforce Putin’s negotiating position.

“Given that the situation is developing in Russia’s favour, there must be some major incentives for Putin to stop the fighting,” said the Russian academic close to the foreign ministry. “Putin believes that if diplomacy fails, he can simply press ahead militarily.”

But even with expectations low, there are risks for Putin. Leaving Trump empty-handed could provoke the unpredictable US leader.

Andrey Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political analyst, said Trump’s patience may not last indefinitely. “Putin is stalling for time but there comes a point when it is no longer possible to stall,” Kolesnikov said. “At some stage he will have to give something.”

One possibility, sources suggest, is that Putin agrees to a temporary halt on long-range strikes. But the Russian leader is unlikely to accept a full ceasefire unless his conditions are met.

Whatever the outcome, Kolesnikov said, on Friday Putin will find himself exactly where he wants to be. “Putin has a messianic streak in everything he does,” he said. “He wants to carve up the world into spheres of influence with Trump and Xi. A new Yalta is his dream.”

At least 27 migrants have died after two boats capsized as they tried to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy.

Around 60 survivors were rescued from the seas off the island of Lampedusa, while the search for others continues.

More than 700 people have died trying to cross the central Mediterranean this year, according to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offered her “deepest condolences” to the victims. A UNHCR spokesperson said there was “deep anguish” felt over the incident.

More than 90 people were aboard the two boats before they capsized, Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesperson for the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

A Somalian woman onboard one of the vessels gave a harrowing account to the Rome-based daily newspaper La Repubblica of losing her one-year-old daughter and husband.

“All hell broke loose,” she said. “I never saw them again, my little girl slipped away, I lost them both.”

What caused the two vessels to capsize has yet to be confirmed.

However, survivors suggested to La Repubblica that when the first boat capsized, its occupants were forced to climb into the second vessel, which then capsized as well.

“We had set out on two boats, but one capsized, so we all climbed aboard one of them. But then the other one also started taking on water,” one told the paper.

Italian PM Meloni said in a statement: “When a tragedy like today’s occurs, with the deaths of dozens of people in the waters of the Mediterranean, a strong sense of dismay and compassion arises in all of us.

“And we find ourselves contemplating the inhumane cynicism with which human traffickers organise these sinister journeys.”

The island of Lampedusa is home to a migrant reception centre that is often overcrowded with challenging living conditions. It welcomes tens of thousands of migrants who have survived the often dangerous route across the Mediterranean to Europe every year.

Those who make the journey often travel in poorly maintained and overcrowded vessels.

At least 25,000 people have gone missing or been killed while trying to cross the central Mediterranean since 2014, according to the IOM.

GAZA CITY: A boy’s lilting song filled the tent in Gaza City, above an instrumental melody and backing singers’ quiet harmonies, soft music that floated into streets these days more attuned to the deadly beat of bombs and bullets.

The young students were taking part in a lesson given on August 4 by teachers from the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, who have continued classes from displacement camps and shattered buildings even after Israel’s bombardments forced them to abandon the school’s main building in the city.

“When I play I feel like I’m flying away,” said Rifan Al-Qassas, 15, who started learning the oud, an Arab lute, when she was nine. She hopes to one day play abroad.

“Music gives me hope and eases my fear,” she said.

Al-Qassas hopes to one day play abroad, she said during a weekend class at the heavily shelled Gaza College, a school in Gaza City. Israel’s military again pounded parts of the city on August 12, with more than 120 people killed over the past few days, Gazan health authorities say.

The conservatory was founded in the West Bank and had been a cultural lifeline for Gaza ever since it opened a branch there 13 years ago, teaching classical music along with popular genres, until Israel launched its war on the Mediterranean enclave in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.

Before the fighting, Israel sometimes granted the best students exit permits to travel outside Gaza to play in the Palestine Youth Orchestra, the conservatory’s touring ensemble. Others performed inside Gaza, giving concerts in both Arabic and Western traditions.

After 22 months of bombardment, some of the students are now dead, said Suhail Khoury, the conservatory’s president, including 14-year-old violinist Lubna Alyaan, killed along with her family early in the war.

The school’s old home lies in ruins, according to a video released in January by a teacher. Walls had collapsed and rooms were littered with debris. A grand piano had disappeared.

Reuters asked the Israeli military about the damage. The military declined to comment without more details, which Reuters could not establish.

During last week’s session, over a dozen students gathered under the tent’s rustling plastic sheets to practice on instruments carefully preserved through the war and to join together in song and music.

“No fig leaf will wither inside us,” the boy sang, a line from a popular lament about Palestinian loss through generations of displacement since the 1948 creation of Israel.

Three female students practiced the song Greensleeves on guitar outside the tent, while another group of boys were tapping out rhythms on Middle Eastern hand drums.

Few instruments have survived the fighting, said Fouad Khader, who coordinates the revived classes for the conservatory. Teachers have bought some from other displaced people for the students to use. But some of these have been smashed during bombardment, he said.

Instructors have experimented with making their own percussion instruments from empty cans and containers to train children, Khader said.

A BROAD SMILE

Early last year, Ahmed Abu Amsha, a guitar and violin teacher with a big beard and a broad smile, was among the first of the conservatory’s scattered teachers and students who began offering classes again, playing guitar in the evenings among the tents of displaced people in the south of Gaza, where much of the 2.1 million population had been forced to move by Israeli evacuation orders and bombing.

Then, after a ceasefire began in January, Abu Amsha, 43, was among the tens of thousands of people who moved back north to Gaza City, much of which has been flattened by Israeli bombing.

For the past six months, he has been living and working in the city’s central district, along with colleagues teaching oud, guitar, hand drums and the ney, a reed flute, to students able to reach them in the tents or shell-pocked buildings of Gaza College. They also go into kindergartens for sessions with small children.

Teachers are also offering music lessons in southern and central Gaza with 12 musicians and three singing tutors instructing nearly 600 students across the enclave in June, the conservatory said.

Abu Amsha said teachers and parents of students were currently “deeply concerned” about being uprooted again after the Israeli cabinet’s August 8 decision to take control of Gaza City. Israel has not said when it will launch the new offensive.

HUNGER AND FATIGUE

Outside the music teachers’ tent, Gaza City lay in a mass of crumbling concrete, nearly all residents crammed into shelters or camps with hardly any food, clean water or medical aid.

The students and teachers say they have to overcome their weakness from food shortages to attend the classes.

Britain, Canada, Australia and several of their European allies said on August 12 that “famine was unfolding before our eyes” in Gaza. Israel disputes malnutrition figures for the Hamas-run enclave.

Sarah Al-Suwairki, 20, said sometimes hunger and tiredness mean she cannot manage the short walk to her two music classes each week, but she loves learning the guitar.

“I love discovering new genres, but more specifically rock. I am very into rock,” she said.

Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 61,000 people, including more than 1,400 going to aid points to get food.

Israel says Hamas is responsible for the suffering after it started the war, the latest in decades of conflict, with the October 2023 attack from Gaza when its gunmen killed 1,200 people and seized 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

MUSIC THERAPY

In a surviving upstairs room at Gaza College, the walls pocked with shrapnel scars, the windows blown out, three girls and a boy sit for a guitar class.

Their teacher Mohammed Abu Mahadi, 32, said he thought music could help heal Gazans psychologically from the pain of bombardments, loss and shortages.

“What I do here is make children happy from music because it is one of the best ways for expressing feelings,” he said.

Elizabeth Coombes, who directs a music therapy program at Britain’s University of South Wales and has done research with Palestinians in the West Bank, also said the project could help young people deal with trauma and stress and strengthen their sense of belonging.

“For children who have been very badly traumatized or living in conflict zones, the properties of music itself can really help and support people,” she said.

Ismail Daoud, 45, who teaches the oud, said the war had stripped people of their creativity and imagination, their lives reduced to securing basics like food and water. Returning to art was an escape and a reminder of a larger humanity.

“The instrument represents the soul of the player, it represents his companion, his entity and his friend,” he said. “Music is a glimmer of hope that all our children and people hold onto in darkness,” he said.

Oman’s Ministry of Labour (MOL) has issued updated regulations for the Wage Protection System (WPS) under Ministerial Resolution No. 729/2024, aimed at strengthening transparency in salary payments and protecting workers’ rights. The resolution was published in the Official Gazette on 15 December 2024.

Under the new rules, employers must ensure that at least 75% of their workforce is paid through the WPS starting with September 2025 wages, payable in October. This threshold will rise to 90% for November 2025 wages, payable in December. Failure to comply could result in financial penalties.

The WPS, aligned with Royal Decree No. 53/2023, monitors electronic wage transfers in the private sector, requiring payments to be processed via banks or financial institutions regulated by the Central Bank of Oman.

Key amendments include shorter timelines for wage disbursement, broader exemption categories, and enhanced Ministry oversight. Exemptions apply in cases such as labour disputes exceeding 30 days, work stoppages beyond the employer’s control, approved absconding cases after 30 days, newly hired workers who have not completed one month of service, and employees on unpaid leave.

The labour ministry emphasised that timely wage transfers are essential to ensuring fair labour practices and urged employers to prepare early to meet the phased compliance deadlines.

According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information, Oman had 864,600 Omani workers across all sectors as of June 2025.