The Guardian / Ukraine agrees to 30-day ceasefire as US prepares to lift military aid restrictions

• Hours after Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed to a partial ceasefire on energy and infrastructure targets, Russia launched drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, injuring civilians and damaging property near Kyiv.

• The Kremlin insisted a full ceasefire would require an end to all Western military aid to Ukraine, a demand Trump denied discussing in his call with Putin.

• Trump’s envoy announced that ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia would begin on Sunday in Jeddah, with a broader peace deal as the ultimate goal.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, awaiting further details from Washington, expressed cautious optimism but emphasized the need for clarity before responding.

SCMP / Nvidia unveils new AI products that it says can help DeepSeek’s models run faster 

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang introduced new AI products at the GTC conference, including Dynamo, an open-source inference software that boosts AI reasoning capabilities, potentially enhancing DeepSeek’s R1 model performance.

• Nvidia’s new Blackwell Ultra GPU, optimized for reasoning models, is set to launch later this year, with future GPU architectures Vera Rubin (2026) and Feynman (2028) also announced.

• Nvidia detailed how a single DGX system with eight Blackwell GPUs could process over 30,000 tokens per second on DeepSeek-R1, improving performance by 36-fold since January.

• Despite US-China trade tensions, Nvidia continues supporting DeepSeek’s AI models, with major Chinese tech firms like Baidu, Alibaba Cloud, and ByteDance participating in GTC 2025.

Politico / Von der Leyen calls for collective arms purchases by 2030

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for an EU-wide defense market by 2030, urging joint arms purchases to reduce reliance on the US.

• The Commission's upcoming defense white paper proposes a €150 billion fund for military spending, including a European Sales Mechanism to coordinate weapons procurement.

• Von der Leyen emphasized investment in air and missile defense, artillery, and military transport infrastructure while inviting non-EU partners like the UK, Canada, and India to collaborate.

• Her remarks followed Trump’s talks with Putin on Ukraine, which excluded European nations, reinforcing her warning that a "new international order" is emerging.

Le Monde / Record numbers displaced by climate disasters in 2024, UN reports

• The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported record numbers of climate-related displacements in 2024, urging the rapid expansion of global early warning systems by 2027.

• Extreme weather events forced hundreds of thousands to flee, with Mozambique’s Cyclone Chido displacing 100,000 people and wildfires in North America affecting over 300,000.

• Scientists raised concerns over the Trump administration’s cuts to NOAA, a key global climate agency, warning of setbacks in weather monitoring and disaster preparedness.

• The report confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record, surpassing the 1.5°C warming threshold, with rising sea levels, glacier retreat, and Antarctic ice loss accelerating.

Our opinion reads for today:

• Foreign Policy – Michelle Kim / Can South Korea Join the Frontier AI Race?

• Project Syndicate – Dani Rodrik / When Will US Academia and Business Speak Up Against Trump?

By EsadeGeo:

• ABC - José María de Areilza / Atlantismo militante

• El Mundo - Juan Moscoso del Prado / Crecimiento, industria y comunidades

• Negocios TV / El renacimiento de la política industrial europea entrevista a Juan Moscoso, Senior Fellow en EsadeGeo.