| Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he won’t cede the eastern region of Donbas to Russia and pushed for Kyiv to be included in talks as the US and Russian leaders prepare to meet on Friday. Vladimir Putin is heading to the meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska confident that Russia is in a dominant position on the battlefield as his military advances in Ukraine. Zelenskiy and European leaders plan a call with Trump today about proposals to end the war. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rejected the idea that China could follow nations like Japan and South Korea and the European Union in making investment pledges worth billions of dollars part of any trade pact, narrowing options for Washington and Beijing to resolve their dispute. Whether the industry is semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, pharmaceuticals or steel, “my sense is that isn’t what will happen,” Bessent told Fox Business.  WATCH: Stuart Livingstone-Wallace considers what’s at stake in Trump’s call with European leaders on Bloomberg TV. A rare protest over the brutal attack of a schoolgirl has inflamed concerns about the credibility of legions of local officials that President Xi Jinping relies on to govern China’s 1.4 billion people. While demonstrations in China over property and employment disputes are common, the unrest in Sichuan stood out for its focus on social injustice. India and China are restoring economic links strained by a deadly 2020 border clash, the latest sign Prime Minister Narendra Modi is drawing closer to the BRICS countries after the Trump administration hit the South Asian nation with a 50% tariff. Modi and his ruling party have also seized on the growing friction with Trump to bolster support from farmers ahead of a key election in the eastern state of Bihar, where almost half the population work in agriculture and related sectors. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest challenger is open to endorsing an alternative candidate if he’s prevented from contesting the next election. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been in jail for almost five months, said “democratic legitimacy” was at stake. While he still hopes to represent the opposition alliance it was “not the time for hesitation,” he said in the first interview with foreign media since his March arrest.  A supporter holds a poster of Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul on March 29. Photographer: Chris McGrath/Getty Images The State Department’s annual human-rights report called out Brazil and South Africa while scaling back criticism of Israel and El Salvador, shifting its account of other nations’ abuses to align with Trump’s priorities. Pretoria slammed the findings. The US sanctioned an armed group and two Hong Kong-based firms linked to violence and illegal mining in Democratic Republic of the Congo, part of what officials said was an effort to combat exploitation of conflict minerals in central Africa. Italy has pushed back against EU criticism of Rome’s power to block or limit deals, which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently used in UniCredit’s now-failed attempt to acquire rival lender Banco BPM. China sanctioned a pair of banks in the EU, fulfilling a promise to retaliate after the bloc targeted some Chinese lenders over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. | 
