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Ukraine, Russia hold peace talks in Geneva as Trump puts pressure on Kyiv

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By John Revill Reuters Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia concluded the first of two days of U.S.-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump pressing Kyiv to act fast to reach a deal to end the four-year conflict. Ahead of the negotiations in ‌Switzerland, Russia carried out airstrikes overnight across swathes of Ukraine, severely damaging the power network in the southern port city of Odesa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr ‌Zelenskiy said the attacks left tens of thousands without heat and water. “We are ready to move quickly toward a worthy agreement to end the war,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address, saying he was waiting for ​a report from the negotiating team in Geneva. “The question for the Russians is: Just what do they want?” Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, said in a statement that the day’s talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” with...
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Cyclone Gezani leaves 59 dead in Madagascar, displaces more than 16,000

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Flooding and fierce winds have pushed Madagascar’s death toll from Cyclone Gezani to 59, with more than a dozen people still unaccounted for, the country’s disaster agency said on Monday. It is the latest in a string of tropical storms to batter the southern African island in recent months, underscoring its vulnerability to increasingly extreme weather fuelled by climate change. At least 59 people had been killed countrywide by the cyclone, which slammed into Madagascar on February 10, the National Office for Risk and Disaster Management (BNRGC) said, while more than 16,000 people have been displaced by storm waters. A previous report had put the death toll at 43. Most of the fatalities were reported in the port city of Toamasina on the east coast, formerly known as Tamatave, Madagascar’s second‑largest urban centre with around 400,000 inhabitants. Another 15 people remain missing nearly a week after the cyclone struck, according to BNRGC. The damage to housing was extensive, wit...
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North Korea opens new housing district for families of Ukraine war dead

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un touted a newly built street of flats for families of soldiers killed supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, state media reported Monday, with photos showing him accompanied by his daughter. North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to fight for Russia, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies, and Seoul has estimated that around 2,000 have been killed. Analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology and food and energy supplies from Russia in return. “The new street has been built thanks to the ardent desire of our motherland that wishes that… its excellent sons, who defended the most sacred things by sacrificing their most valuable things, will live forever,” Kim said in a speech released by the official Korean Central News Agency. The report on Monday did not mention Russia, but Kim last week pledged to “unconditionally support” all of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies and decisions. “Befo...
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Zelensky labels Putin a ‘slave to war’

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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a “slave to war” in a speech to the Munich Security Conference Saturday, adding that Russia’s attacks had damaged every power plant in the country. Zelensky also drew parallels between the current Russia-Ukraine talks over territorial concessions and the 1938 Munich Agreement, when Hitler forced territorial concessions from the European powers — a year before World War II. Zelensky was speaking days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, which has killed hundreds of thousands, decimated eastern Ukraine and forced millions to flee. Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of deliberately freezing Ukraine’s population with its attacks on the energy grid. “There is not a single power plant left in Ukraine that has not been damaged by Russian attacks,” Zelensky said. “Not one.” “But we still generate electricity,” he added, praising the thousands of workers repairing the plants. Once again...
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African Union summit clouded by Saudi-UAE rivalry in Horn of Africa

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A feud between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates across the Horn of Africa is overshadowing this weekend’s African Union summit, though most of the continent’s leaders will try to avoid taking sides, nine diplomats and experts said. What began as a rivalry in Yemen ‌has spread across the Red Sea into a region riven with conflicts – from war in Somalia and Sudan to rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea and a ‌divided Libya. In recent years, the UAE has become an influential player in the Horn – encompassing primarily Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti – through multi-billion-dollar investments, robust diplomacy and discreet military support. Saudi Arabia has been more low-profile but ​diplomats say Riyadh is building an alliance that includes Egypt, Turkey and Qatar. “Saudi has woken up and realised that they might lose the Red Sea,” a senior African diplomat told Reuters. “They have been sleeping all along while UAE was doing its thing in the Horn.” Initially f...
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Cyclone Gezani kills dozens, displaces thousands in Madagascar

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The death toll from Cyclone Gezani rose to 40 on Friday, three days after its passage across Madagascar, as officials struggled to restore widespread cuts to power and water supplies. In its latest update Friday, the National Office for Risk and Disaster Management (BNRGC) said 40 people had been killed and 427 people injured, as one aid worker spoke of “apocalyptic” scenes on the Indian Ocean island. Six people were still missing and the cyclone had affected 273,417 people — or 74,393 households, the BNRGC added. After visiting the island’s second-largest city of Toamasina, which bore the brunt of Gezani’s 250-kilometre-per-hour (155-mile-per-hour) winds, the World Food Programme’s Madagascar director Tania Goosens told journalists that “the scale of destruction is overwhelming”. “The authorities have reported that 80 percent of the city has been damaged,” she added. “The city is running on roughly five percent of electricity and there is no water,” she said, adding that the WFP’...
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Bangladesh’s BNP wins big in historic parliamentary election

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The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has claimed victory in the country’s first election since the 2024 uprising, positioning itself to form the next government and potentially reshape Bangladesh’s political landscape after years of intense rivalry and disputed polls. Long overshadowed by his parents and heir to one of Bangladesh’s most powerful political dynasties, Tarique Rahman has finally stepped into the spotlight. At 60, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader is preparing to take charge of the South Asian nation of 170 million, driven by what he calls an ambition to “do better”. A year and a half after the deadly uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s iron-fisted regime, the BNP said they had a won a “sweeping victory” in parliamentary elections held on Thursday. Official results are yet to be declared, but the United States offered congratulations to Rahman on an “historic” win. His rise marks a remarkable turnaround for a man who only returned to Bangladesh in December a...
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