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Zelensky ready to join Trump-Putin talks after ‘frank’ White House meeting

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[pic BBC]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he would be ready to join Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at a proposed summit in Hungary if he were invited.

The US and Russian presidents announced after their phone call on Thursday that they planned to hold talks on the war in Ukraine in Budapest, possibly in the coming weeks.

On Monday, Zelensky told reporters: “If it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy… then in one format or another, we will agree”.

Meanwhile, media reports suggest his White House meeting with Trump on Friday descended into a “shouting match” – with the US side urging Ukraine to accept Russia’s terms to end the war.

Zelensky was guarded during his first press briefing since the talks, but still his comments made clear that there were large areas of disagreement between the two sides.

He described the meeting as frank, and said he had told Trump that his main aim was a just peace, not a quick peace.

He criticised Hungary as the location of the prospective Trump-Putin talks, saying the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban – who is seen by Kyiv and many EU leaders as a Kremlin ally – could not do “anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution”.

When asked by reporters on Friday if Zelensky would be involved in the meeting in Budapest, Trump said he wanted to “make it comfortable for everybody”.

“We’ll be involved in threes, but it may be separated,” he said, adding the three leaders “have to get together”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a “constructive” phone call on preparations for the Budapest summit, Moscow said on Monday.

Zelensky had hoped to secure US Tomahawk missiles to strike deep into Russia during his White House visit, but appeared to walk away empty-handed as Trump struck a non-committal tone on the matter.

[BBC]



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Shafali, Renuka close in on top five in ICC T20I rankings

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Shafali Verma has scored three successive half-centuries in the ongoing series (BCCI)

India’s opening batter Shafali Verma and swing bowler Renuka Singh have moved up to sixth spots in the ICC’s T20I batting and bowling rankings respectively.

Shafali is the leading scorer in the ongoing bilateral series against Sri Lanka by a distance, her 236 runs nearly twice as many as second-highest scorer Smriti Mandhana’s 120. Renuka is also the leading wicket-taker, her four wickets level with team-mates Deepti Sharma, Vaishnavi Sharma and Shree Charani.

Shafali went up four places with back-to-back scores of 69*, 79* and 79 in the second, third and fourth T20Is. Renuka, meanwhile, climbed eight places to reach the joint-sixth position along with South Africa’s Nonkululeko Mlaba, particularly through her 4 for 21 in the third game of the series. Deepti leads the bowlers’ rankings after taking that position last week. Both Shafali and Renuka have also bagged one Player-of-the-Match award each in the series that India lead 4-0, with the last match scheduled for Tuesday in Thiruvananthapuram.

If India win today (30), this will be their third 5-0 series win in T20Is. They won by that scoreline in the West Indies in 2019 and in Bangladesh last year. Sri Lanka have, however, never before lost a T20I series 5-0.

(Cricinfo)

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S. Achchudan appointed as Director General of the Sports Development Department.

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The Cabinet of Ministers granted their concurrence to the resolution furnished by the Minister of Youth Affairs to appoint S. Achchudan of Special Grade of Sri Lanka Administrative Service, who is currently serving as an Additional Commissioner of Elections at the Elections Commission who is
recommended by the panel of interviewers to the post of Director General of the Sports Development Department with effect form 01.01.2026.

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Amendment of the National Environment Act No. 47 of 1980

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The Cabinet of Ministers granted approval to the proposal furnished by the Minister of Environment to publish the draft bill of the National Environment (Amended) Act in the government gazette notification and subsequently to submit the same to the Parliament for its concurrence.

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