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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday agreed to deepen cooperation on critical minerals used in electric vehicles (EVs) batteries as both countries seek to cut emissions to fight climate change.

Yoon visited London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, and then New York in his first U.S. trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly, before arriving in Canada on Thursday. On Friday, Yoon met Trudeau in Ottawa, and then they both spoke to reporters.

"Yoon and I discussed ways to collaborate in a variety of areas, including essential minerals, batteries for electric vehicles, and emerging technologies, including AI (artificial intelligence)," Trudeau told reporters.

Canada has many of the critical minerals - like lithium, cobalt and nickel - that are now used to make batteries for EVs, and the government is in the process of seeking to help producers and processors scale up production.

"Canada, as a global leader in the production of minerals, and Korea, a major semiconductor and battery maker - each play crucial roles in global supply chains," Yoon said through an interpreter.

"The governments and businesses of our two nations will work together for the mineral resources sector to build a cooperative architecture... to respond to the shocks resulting from the changing world order," Yoon added.

China is currently by far the dominant global supplier of critical minerals used in EVs. Yoon said it was strategically important for both countries to find an alternative supplier.

Canada and South Korea are already cooperating in the sector, Trudeau pointed out.

In March, Stellantis (STLA.MI), the parent of Jeep and Chrysler, said it would build an EV battery plant in a joint venture with South Korea's LG Energy Solution (373220.KS) in Windsor, across the border from Detroit.

In a joint statement, the two countries said they agreed to deepen their "strategic partnership on supply chain resiliency" and would seek to position themselves as "competitive players in the critical minerals supply chain and battery and EV value chains".

To that end, both countries agreed to develop a memorandum of understanding in the coming months to "support clean energy transition and energy security, including with respect to critical minerals". (Reuters)

China has accused the United States of sending "very wrong, dangerous signals" on Taiwan after the U.S. secretary of state told his Chinese counterpart on Friday that the maintenance of peace and stability over Taiwan was vitally important.

Taiwan was the focus of the 90-minute, "direct and honest" talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, a U.S official told reporters.

"For our part, the secretary made crystal clear that, in accordance with our long-standing one-China policy, which again has not changed, the maintenance of peace and stability across the Strait is absolutely, vitally important," the senior U.S. administration official said.

China's foreign ministry, in a statement on the meeting, said the United States was sending "very wrong, dangerous signals" on Taiwan, and the more rampant Taiwan's independence activity, the less likely there would be a peaceful settlement.

"The Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter, and the United States has no right to interfere in what method will be used to resolve it," the ministry cited Wang as saying.

Tensions over Taiwan have soared after a visit there in August by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi - which was followed by large-scale Chinese military drills - as well as a pledge by U.S. President Joe Biden to defend the democratically governed island.

Biden's statement was his most explicit to date about committing U.S. troops to the defend the island. It was also the latest instance of his appearing to go beyond a long-standing U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity," which does not make it clear whether the United States would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

The White House has insisted its Taiwan policy has not changed, but China said Biden's remarks sent the wrong signal to those seeking an independent Taiwan.

In a phone call with Biden in July, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned about Taiwan, saying "those who play with fire will perish by it."

China sees Taiwan as one of its provinces and has long vowed to bring the island under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so.

Taiwan's government strongly objects to China's sovereignty claims and says only the island's 23 million people can decide its future.

Taiwan's foreign ministry, responding to the meeting between Blinken and Wang, said China's "recent provocative actions" had made the Taiwan Strait a focus of discussion, and China was trying to "confuse the international audience with arguments and criticisms that contradict reality."

The State Department had said earlier that Blinken's meeting with Wang was part of a U.S. effort to "maintain open lines of communication and manage competition responsibly," and the senior official said Blinken had reiterated U.S. openness to "cooperating with China on matters of global concern."

Blinken also "highlighted the implications" if China were to provide material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine or engage in wholesale sanctions evasion, the official added.

U.S. officials have in the past said they had seen no evidence of China providing such support.

Blinken "underscored that the United States and China and the international community have an obligation to work to counter the effects of that invasion and also to deter Russia from taking further provocative actions," the official said.

'DEVASTATE OUR BILATERAL TIES'

Blinken's meeting with Wang was preceded by one between the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, which issued a statement, referring to the Indo-Pacific, saying that "we strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo or increase tensions in the region."

Since Pelosi's visit "China has taken a number of provocative steps that have by design acted to change the status quo", the U.S. official said.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will discuss Taiwan security during bilateral meetings with the leaders of U.S. allies Japan and South Korea when she visits them next week, another U.S. official said. 

Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia under President Barack Obama, said the fact Blinken and Wang had met was important after the turbulence brought by Pelosi's visit, and hopefully some progress would have been made towards arranging a meeting between Xi and Biden on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in November, which would be their first in-person as leaders.

"Wang and Blinken's decision to meet in New York does not guarantee the November summit will go smoothly or that it will even occur. But had they been unable to meet, it would have meant the prospects for a summit in November were poor," said Russel, now with the Asia Society.

In a speech to the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, Wang said the Taiwan question was growing into the biggest risk in China-U.S. relations.

"Should it be mishandled, it is most likely to devastate our bilateral ties," Wang said, according to a transcript from the Chinese embassy.

Likewise, the decades-old U.S. law outlining Washington's unofficial relations with Taiwan – which Beijing considers null – makes clear that Washington's decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1979 "rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means." (Reuters)

Dozens of Iraqi and Iranian Kurds rallied in Iraq's northern city of Erbil on Saturday over the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in the custody of Iranian police.

Protestors carrying placards with Amini's photograph gathered outside the United Nations compound in Erbil chanting

"Death to the dictator" - a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Women, Life, Freedom" chanted others, many of whom were Iranian Kurds living in self-imposed exile in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Protests broke out in northwestern Iran a week ago at the funeral of Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died after falling into a coma following her detention by morality police enforcing hijab rules on women's dress.

"They killed (Amini) because of a piece of hair coming out from her hijab. The youth is asking for freedom. They are asking for rights for all the people because everyone has the right to have dignity and freedom," said protestor Namam Ismaili, an Iranian Kurd from Sardasht, a Kurdish town in Iran’s northwest.

Amini's death has reignited anger over issues including restrictions on personal freedoms in Iran, the strict dress codes for women and an economy reeling from sanctions.

"We are not against religion, and we are not against Islam, we are secularists, and we want religion to be separate from politics," said protester Maysoon Majidi, who is a Kurdish Iranian actor and director living in Erbil. (Reuters)

Iran is planning "proportional action" in response to Ukraine's decision to downgrade diplomatic ties over the reported supply of Iranian drones to Russia, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Saturday.

Nasser Kanaani said Ukraine should "refrain from being influenced by third parties who seek to destroy relations between the two countries", a ministry statement said.

Ukraine said on Friday that it would withdraw accreditation of the Iranian ambassador and significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff at the Iranian embassy in Kyiv over Tehran's decision to supply Russian forces with drones, a move President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called "a collaboration with evil".

Kanaani said Ukraine's decision was "based on unconfirmed reports and resulted from a media hype by foreign parties".

He did not directly refer to drones. Iran has previously denied supplying drones to Russia, but the hardline daily Kayhan said on Saturday "hundreds of armed drones" have been sold.

"For a while now, Iranian drones have been carrying out operations in Ukraine's skies against NATO," said the newspaper, whose head is appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Military authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday they had shot down at least seven Iranian drones, including six Shahed-136 "kamikaze" craft over the sea near the ports of Odesa and Pivdennyi on Friday.

These included - for the first time in Ukraine - a Mohajer-6, a larger Iranian drone, the southern military command said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an English language tweet on Saturday that Iran was supporting Russia "by giving modern drones to (a) backward country for the murders of Ukrainians". (Reuters)