Global News

Russia and Ukraine launched major attacks on each other Friday, with a two-day unilateral ceasefire that Moscow had declared around its World War II commemorations appearing to be in tatters. Ukraine never said it would abide by Moscow’s call to halt strikes and lambasted Russian leader Vladimir Putin for only wanting to pause fighting so he could stage a grand parade on Red Square on Saturday. Kyiv said Moscow ignored a Ukrainian call to halt fighting earlier this week — a counter-proposal for a short-term ceasefire that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cast as a test of whether the Kremlin was serious about providing a brief respite in the four-year war. Russia has threatened a massive strike on the heart of Kyiv if Ukraine disrupts the Victory Day parade on Saturday, repeatedly urging foreign diplomats to evacuate the Ukrainian capital ahead of time. “On the Russian side, there was not even a token attempt to cease fire on the front,” Ze...

By Amel Emric and Daria Sito-Sucic Reuters A new silver, lead and barite mine offered hope to the small town of Vares, in mountainous central Bosnia, when it opened in 2024. After decades of economic decline, new roads and houses were built, cafes and restaurants filled up, and the long-dwindling population ‌swelled with workers and new residents. In recent months, however, blood tests have revealed exposure to lead in more than 300 residents living near the mine, some at elevated ‌levels, alarming locals and throwing the town’s future into doubt. On Wednesday, four Bosnian environmental agencies filed criminal charges against Dundee Precious Metals, the Canadian mining company that took over the mine in September when it acquired the previous owner, UK-based ​Adriatic Metals, with the Zenica-Doboj cantonal prosecutors’ office. “We think that the situation is ripe to declare an emergency situation,” Miroslav Pejcinovic, the president of Opstanak...

An overnight attack by suspected Boko Haram jihadists on a Chadian military base has killed at least 24 people, a military official and regional administrator told AFP on Tuesday. The Barka Tolorom base is on the shores of Lake Chad, which straddles Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria and whose islands provide a refuge for jihadists from Boko Haram and other radical Islamist groups. The raid late on Monday “left 25 dead and 46 wounded on the Chadian army side”, the army source told AFP. The administrative official gave a toll of “24 dead and several wounded”. Both attributed the attack to Boko Haram, with the administrator insisting that “the situation is under control”. “Once again, the nebulous Boko Haram terrorist group carried out a cowardly attack last night on our military base at Barka Tolorom,” Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said on Tuesday in a Facebook post. “We will continue the fight wit...

The Sudanese government accused Ethiopia of being behind recent drone attacks on sites  including Khartoum airport  and recalled its ambassador on Tuesday. A military spokesperson in Sudan said the government has evidence that four drone strikes that have happened since March 1 came from Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar airport. It also accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying the drones. The Sudanese military has been at war with a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, when the RSF stormed the capital. The battles have now shifted towards more drone warfare concentrating in the Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Sudan has long accused the UAE of supporting the RSF, and U.N. experts and rights groups have also accused the it or providing arms to the group. The UAE has rejected the accusation. The most recent attack came on Monday and targeted the airport in Sudan’s capital Khartoum. The previous attacks were launched towards the Sudanese ...

 Russian troops are inching toward the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, trying to establish a foothold close to a heavily defended area, ‌Ukraine’s top army official said on Saturday. Kostiantynivka, along with other cities, forms a so-called fortress ‌belt in the country’s east – an area well fortified by the Ukrainian military. “We are repelling the Russian occupiers’ persistent attempts ​to gain a foothold in the outskirts of Kostiantynivka using infiltration tactics. Counter-sabotage measures are going on in the city,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s army chief, said on the Telegram app. A Ukrainian battlefield mapping project called DeepState shows that Russian troops control an area around only one kilometre (0.6 mile) from the city’s southern outskirts. Small chunks ‌of Kostiantynivka, in southeast Ukraine, are ⁠marked as a grey zone, meaning neither Ukraine nor Russia has full con...

Russia has test launched its new Soyuz-5 rocket ‌for the first time, the country’s ‌space agency said late on Thursday, saying it had ​lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan without any issues. The Soyuz-5, which Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, describes as a ‌launch vehicle equipped ⁠with the world’s most powerful liquid-fuelled engine, lifted off successfully at ⁠2100 Moscow time (1800 GMT) on April 30, it said in a statement. The new ​rocket is ​capable of carrying ​payloads of up to ‌17 metric tonnes, will significantly reduce launch costs, and is more effective than its predecessors at placing objects like satellites in near earth orbit, the agency said. Dmitry ‌Bakanov, the head of ​Roskosmos, said the rocket – ​which he ​hailed as a “new step in space ‌exploration” – would create new ​jobs in ​Russia and Kazakhstan. SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/kJlXIjQ