Kia ora and welcome to your Monday recap of global business and political news from the weekend.
First, US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Ukraine, accusing the country’s leaders of being ungrateful as a draft peace plan is considered by counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, the ABC reported.
Trump also wrote on Truth Social in capital letters that Ukraine had not shown support for curbing Russian oil.
"UKRAINE "LEADERSHIP" HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA."
The post was published online after the US presented Ukraine with a 28-point peace plan last week. The Trump administration has given Zelensky until Thursday local time to accept the plan or face the withdrawal of US support and intelligence sharing, the ABC said.
The plan, which has been widely leaked, has been interpreted as favouring Russia’s peace terms, the BBC reported. Ukraine would cede significant areas of the Donetsk region that it still controls, cut the size of its army, and pledge not to join Nato. Those were proposals Ukraine previously ruled out.
Zelensky warned his country may face a choice between losing its dignity or its key partner – the US. Counterpart Vladimir Putin has backed the plan, saying that it could "form the basis of [a] final peace settlement" in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the Middle East, the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding, despite a fragile situation, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said.
“So far, it’s fragile, it’s difficult,” he told Bloomberg. “The ceasefire is holding and hostages walked out alive and on top of that, we’re receiving the remains, literally week by week.”
Last week, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution supporting Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Waltz said the US argument to the UN was “everyone can find flaws in this plan” but no one wanted a return to war.
Al Jazeera reported that Israel had violated the Gaza ceasefire at least 497 times in 44 days, killing hundreds of Palestinians since October 10, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued serious and systematic violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Israeli occupation authorities,” the office said.
“These violations constitute a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and the humanitarian protocol attached to the agreement.”
In the UK, official figures showed the UK government borrowed almost £10 billion more than forecast in the year to October, the Guardian reported.
The Office for National Statistics said borrowing – the difference between public spending and income – was £17.4b last month. That was lower than the same month last year, but still the third-highest October deficit on record.
WPI Strategy chief economist Martin Beck said total borrowing in 2025-26 could overshoot forecasts and push the deficit close to 5% of GDP. “Combined with policy U-turns, market movements, and a deteriorating productivity outlook, [Chancellor Rachel Reeves’] headroom against her fiscal rules has almost certainly vanished.”
BHP mining operations.
In business news, mining giant BHP has made a renewed takeover approach to rival Anglo American, according to sources, just months after the London-listed miner agreed to merger plans with Canada’s Teck Resources, Reuters and CNBC reported.
BHP had been sniffing around Anglo American in recent days, but sources said deliberations were ongoing and there was no certainty of a deal.
Anglo American’s market capitalisation is about US$41.8b. In September, Anglo American agreed to merge with Teck, marking the sector’s second-biggest M&A deal. The deal came just over a year after BHP scrapped a bid for Anglo.
Elsewhere, Reuters also reported that Daily Mail owner DMGT had struck a £500 million deal to buy rival newspaper The Telegraph to create one of the most powerful right-leaning media groups in the UK.
The deal comes a week after US-based private investment firm RedBird Capital Partners withdrew its bid for The Telegraph.
The DMGT deal needs to be signed off by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. A spokesperson said Nandy would "review any new buyer acquiring the Telegraph in line with the public interest and foreign state influence media mergers regimes," the BBC said.
Finally, Canada Post and the union representing about 55,000 postal workers reached a tentative deal to end strike action, the BBC reported.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers said all parties had agreed on the “main points” and strike action had been suspended. "We need to agree on the contractual language that will form the collective agreements that would be put to a vote by the members," the union said.
A nationwide strike started in late September amid an ongoing dispute over worker pay and entitlements.
