European leaders debated whether to send troops to Ukraine at a meeting in Paris. Germany and Spain rejected the idea, while Britain said it was “prepared to consider” deploying forces after a peace deal. They also discussed boosting European defence spending, including possible joint borrowing. Earlier Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, accused European countries of wanting to continue the war and suggested that they should not be part of negotiations.
Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, said that “the next few days” will show whether Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is serious about peace in Ukraine. Mr Rubio confirmed that he would meet Mr Lavrov in Saudi Arabia this week. Mr Rubio appeared to contradict America’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, saying that Ukraine and Europe would, in fact, be given a seat during any “real” negotiations.
Israel will keep soldiers stationed at five sites in southern Lebanon, after the deadline for them to withdraw from the country. Israel had been expected to leave by Tuesday as part of a ceasefire deal brokered by America in November. An army spokesperson said that troops needed to remain in southern Lebanon to “defend Israeli citizens” from Hizbullah, a Shia militia.
Xi Jinping, China’s president, met top tech executives, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei, urging them to “show their talent” and strengthen China’s economy. The meeting signalled that Mr Ma is back in the government’s good graces; he was on the outs after criticising regulators in 2020. A slowing economy has Mr Xi keen to drum up investment by firms.
South Korea blocked new downloads of the app that lets users query DeepSeek, China’s flagship artificial-intelligence model. Last week, South Korea’s spy agency accused the Chinese firm behind the chatbot of “excessively” collecting personal data, and criticised its dubious responses to politically sensitive questions. Taiwan, Australia and Italy have also imposed restrictions or launched investigations into DeepSeek.
Argentina’s main stock index fell by 4% after Javier Milei, the country’s libertarian president, became embroiled in a scandal over $LIBRA. The memecoin’s value plummeted after Mr Milei promoted it on social media on Friday. He later removed the post and denied any connection to $LIBRA’s developers. A judge has been assigned to evaluate several cases that investors have brought against him.
South Africa could let Russia and Iran bid for contracts to expand its nuclear power infrastructure, according to Gwede Mantashe, the African country’s minister for minerals and petroleum. South Africa plans to more than double its nuclear-power capacity by the early 2030s. The suggestion may anger America, which has cut aid to South Africa over its land-reform policies.
Figure of the day: 9%, the fall in Europe’s benchmark gas price after Donald Trump raised the prospect of a peace deal in Ukraine. Read the full story.
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