Russia-Ukraine – peace talks resume today
Ukrainian President Volodomir says he’s willing to compromise and discuss making his country a neutral, non-nuclear nation, but he won’t discuss ceding any territory in negotiations to end the month-long invasion by Russia.
His comments came in an interview with independent Russian media.
The Russian government immediately banned the airing of the interview and has threatened legal action against those outlets that took part.
Talks resume today in Turkey.
Late last week, Russia said its main goal now was to secure the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.
Parts of that area have been under the control of Russian-speaking separatists since 2014.
Child care agreement for Ontario
Several reports this morning say the Ford government has finally reached a child care agreement with the federal government, with details to be announced later today.
The Trudeau government’s program is to reduce child care costs to ten dollars a day.
The deal reportedly does not see our province gaining any more than the 10.2-billion dollars offered by the federal government over the next five years.
But it has apparently secured an agreement to review funding after the third year and a commitment to provide funding for a sixth year.
Ontario had wanted more money, saying our child care costs were the highest in the country and we provide full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds.
Provincial officials were facing a March 31st deadline.
If an agreement hadn’t been reached by then, the program in Ontario would have been delayed by another year.
Pope meeting with Indigenous contingents
Representatives of Canada’s indigenous people have arrived in Rome for a historic series of meetings with Pope Francis.
They’re hoping for a formal apology from the Pontiff for the Catholic Church’s support of the residential school system.
Members of the Inuit and Metis community are meeting with the Pope today, while First Nations leaders have their session on Thursday.
Francis is expected to issue his formal response before a final public audience with the groups on Friday.
China Black Box
Search crews have managed to find the second of the two black boxes from a China Eastern Boeing 737 that crashed a week ago in a mountainous region of southern China.
The flight data recorder has been heavily damaged, so it’s not yet known if the information recorded will be useful to investigators.
The cockpit voice recorder was discovered last week and is now being analyzed.
All 132 people on board were killed when the plane dove almost vertically into a mountainside.
