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Headlines: Ukraine peace deal close to being done · The Front

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  Speaker 1: Today's biggest news from The Australian. I'm Kristanamio with the
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  Speaker 1: Front's afternoon headlines. The White House says Ukraine is close
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  Speaker 1: to signing a peace deal that will end its almost
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  Speaker 1: four year war with Russia. It comes after Ukraine flagged
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  Speaker 1: concerns with the plan, which was drafted by Special Envoy
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  Speaker 1: Steve Witkoff without Ukraine's involvement. Representatives from the Wartorn nation
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  Speaker 1: met with their Russian counterparts in Abadhabi on Tuesday to
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  Speaker 1: discuss the twenty eight point proposal. Now, Ukrainian President Vladimir
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  Speaker 1: Zelenski wants to negotiate the final points with Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 1: but the US President said he'll only meet with Zelensky
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  Speaker 1: and Russian President Vladimir Putin when it's a done deal.
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  Speaker 1: Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline leave It.
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  Speaker 2: The President wants this war to end. He is a
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  Speaker 2: peacetime president. That's what he's pursuing. And today he remains
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  Speaker 2: optimistic and hopeful, and I know our teams are working
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  Speaker 2: around the clock to try to get this deal to
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  Speaker 2: an end.
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  Speaker 1: Steve Whitcoff was dispatched for further talks with Putin amid
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  Speaker 1: calls for him to be sacked after details of his
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  Speaker 1: phone conversation with Russian officials were leaked. He reportedly advised
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  Speaker 1: the Kremlin to praise Donald Trump to get the deal moving,
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  Speaker 1: but the White House defended Whitcoff, who was instrumental in
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  Speaker 1: securing the Middle East peace deal, in October, saying his
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  Speaker 1: conduct was a standard thing and how deals are done.
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  Speaker 1: The Albansy Labor government won't say how much it's paying
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  Speaker 1: a handful of high flying barristers to defend a legal
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  Speaker 1: claim by former Senator Linda Reynolds and her former chief
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  Speaker 1: of staff, Fiona Brown. Reynolds is suing the Commonwealth over
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  Speaker 1: its handling of a two point four million dollar payout
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  Speaker 1: to former staffer Brittany Higgins, who alleged she was raped
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  Speaker 1: by a colleague in Reynolds's ministerial office in two thousand nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: That colleague, Bruce Lamman, has always denied any wrongdoing. Brown
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  Speaker 1: says the Commonwealth failed to protect her in the fallout.
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  Speaker 1: Attorney General Michelle Rowland hasn't disclosed if the top Silks
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  Speaker 1: are being paid more than the standard five thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: per day threshold, or if she signed off on higher
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  Speaker 1: fees but Ruth Higgins SC, Justin Gleeson SC and Kate
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  Speaker 1: Eastman SC can command up to twenty five thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: per day. A twenty month battle between Andrew Twiggy Forest's
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  Speaker 1: Fortescue Mining company and three of its former executives is
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  Speaker 1: expected to reach a conclusion in the Federal Court on Wednesday.
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  Speaker 1: Fortescue claimed Michael Masterson, Bart Klojayjik and Bjorn Winther Jensen
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  Speaker 1: stole its intellectual property and spent millions pursuing the Element
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  Speaker 1: zero founders in court. They also hired private detectives to
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  Speaker 1: spy on the trio's families and seized millions of documents
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  Speaker 1: in raids authorized through secret court orders. But The Australian's
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  Speaker 1: Margin Call columnist Nick Evans reports the case was dismissed
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  Speaker 1: after Fortescue failed to turn up any incriminating evidence. Inflation
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  Speaker 1: jumped to three point eight percent in October, and that
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  Speaker 1: means further cuts to the cache rate by the Reserve
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  Speaker 1: Bank are looking unlikely. The RBA likes underlying inflation to
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  Speaker 1: sit between two and three percent. It's the highest inflation
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  Speaker 1: has been in more than a year, and it's due
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  Speaker 1: to surging electricity prices. Check out those stories live right
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au and come
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  Speaker 1: back to the front first thing in the morning.