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US, Ukraine agree to terms of critical minerals deal
One of the sources familiar with the deal said future weapons shipments are still being discussed between Washington and Kyiv.
The U.S. and Ukraine have agreed on the terms of a draft minerals deal central to Kyiv’s push to win Washington’s support as President Donald Trump seeks to rapidly end the war with Russia, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
A source familiar with the contents of the draft agreement said that it does not specify any U.S. security guarantees or continued flow of weapons but says that the United States wants Ukraine to be “free, sovereign and secure.”
One of the sources familiar with the deal said future weapons shipments are still being discussed between Washington and Kyiv.
Trump told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants to come to Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal.” This came after the two leaders exchanged hostile words last week.
The U.S. president, who has cast the deal as a repayment for billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv, also said some form of peacekeeping troops are needed in Ukraine if an agreement to end the conflict is struck. Moscow, which launched an invasion of Ukraine three years ago, has refused to accept any deployment of NATO forces.
Some European countries have said they would be willing to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine. Trump said on Monday that Moscow would accept such peacekeepers, but the Kremlin denied that on Tuesday.
Trump’s rush to impose an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine and his lurch toward Moscow has stoked fears of far-reaching U.S. concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin that could undermine security in Ukraine and Europe and alter the geopolitical landscape.
Trump last week falsely called Zelenskiy an unpopular “dictator” who needed to cut a quick peace deal or lose his country. The Ukrainian leader said the U.S. president was living in a “disinformation bubble.”
Officials on both sides have agreed to the draft and advised it should be signed, the sources said.
The deal could open up Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth to the U.S.
“What we’re doing is now we’re saying, look, we want to be secured,” Trump said. “The American taxpayer now is going to get their money back, plus.”
Zelenskiy refused to sign an earlier draft of a minerals agreement as Washington sought rights to $500 billion in Ukraine’s natural wealth. Kyiv protested it had received far less than that in U.S. aid and the deal lacked the security guarantees Ukraine needs.
Under the terms of a draft minerals agreement, according to sources familiar with its contents, the United States and Ukraine would establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund to collect and reinvest revenues from Ukrainian sources including minerals, hydrocarbons and other extractable materials.
Ukraine would contribute to the fund 50% of the revenue minus operating expenses and continue until the contributions reach the sum of $500 billion. The United States would provide a long-term financial commitment to the development of a “stable and economically prosperous Ukraine.”
Asked what Ukraine would get in return for the minerals deal, Trump cited what he said was $350 billion already provided by the U.S. “and lots of … military equipment and the right to fight on.”
Scott Anderson, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said that while the minerals deal would look like “a kind of piracy” to much of the world it is necessary to get buy-in from Trump and Republican lawmakers.
“They say this gives him (Trump) real skin in the game. I think there is real logic to that,” Anderson said.
“I hear that he’s coming on Friday,” Trump told reporters. “Certainly it’s okay with me if he’d like to. And he would like to sign it together with me.”
European officials have been left flat-footed by Trump’s decisions to hold talks on ending the war in Ukraine with Russia, spurning both Kyiv and Europe, and by his administration’s warning that the U.S. was no longer primarily focused on Europe’s security.
A White House meeting could give Zelenskiy a chance to make his case for continued U.S. support directly to Trump, who last week falsely accused Kyiv of starting the war.
Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals identified by the European Union as critical, according to Ukrainian data. They include industrial and construction materials, ferroalloy, precious and non-ferrous metals, and some rare earth elements.
Ukraine’s reserves of graphite, a key component in electric vehicle batteries and nuclear reactors, represent 20% of global resources.
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Japan allocates nearly $20 million in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
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Afghan border forces prevent illegal entry of hundreds into Iran
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
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US pauses green card lottery program after Brown University shooting
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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