Global News

By Pei-ju TENG AFP | Posted by TOE A powerful typhoon headed towards Taiwan on Thursday, triggering the cancellation of dozens of flights and prompting warnings for locals to prepare for heavy rain, strong winds and giant waves. Typhoon Champi is expected to sweep past Taiwan’s northeast coast on Friday and Saturday as it moves towards China and Japan, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Champi is packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 213 kilometres (132 miles) per hour, according to the latest update from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It was previously classed as a super typhoon, with reported maximum sustained wind speeds of nearly 300 kph, but it has since weakened. “Everyone is urged to remain vigilant and be prepared for the strong winds and heavy rains brought by the typhoon,” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a Facebook post. Champi is the latest in a busy Pacific storm season turbo-charged by the El N...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE Two Ukrainians over 80 years old were among four killed in overnight Russian attacks ​that also targeted energy facilities across four regions, officials said, hours after ‌US President Donald Trump urged Kyiv to agree peace terms with Russia. Relations between the United States and Ukraine have come under severe strain, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reporting a hiatus in ​advance warnings of missile strikes and limitations on Elon Musk’s Starshield system. Ukrainian police ​said two of the dead were in the capital Kyiv, where ⁠a drone slammed into an apartment building. Another two people – an 83-year-old man ​and an 81-year-old woman – were killed outside the northeasern city of Kharkiv, they added. Prime ​Minister Sergii Koretskyi said Russia had attacked power facilities in the Kyiv, Volyn, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, as well as civilian enterprises in at least two others. A university building and sho...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE At least 73 people were killed when drones struck a market in the disputed Abyei region along the border of South ​Sudan and Sudan, the caretaker information minister for the jointly administered region said on ‌Tuesday, accusing Sudan’s army of carrying out the attack. The minister did not provide evidence for his claim of who was responsible for Monday’s attack. Abyei is an oil-rich area that is jointly administered by South ​Sudan and Sudan, which have both staked claims to it. It experiences frequent ​bouts of violence, with clashes usually involving rival ethnic groups or armed ⁠militias. “Around 73 people have been killed and 19 have been wounded … a number of ​drones were shot yesterday by the Sudanese armed forces,” Yohana Akol Ngor, the caretaker minister ​of information of the Abyei region, told Reuters on Tuesday. Last year, at least six Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded in a d...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE At least 18 people were killed in an attack ​on Monday by the Iran-aligned Houthi ‌movement on a Yemeni government military training camp in Yemen’s Shabwa province, four government and medical sources told ​Reuters. The government sources said the attack, ​which targeted soldiers during a morning training, ⁠was carried out using three ballistic missiles. Fighting ​between the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised ​government and the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and much of the north, has escalated in recent ​weeks, becoming another front in the wider regional ​conflict that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran ‌in ⁠late February. Earlier this month, government forces launched a campaign to recapture areas controlled by the Houthis, recovering ground near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait , a ​key shipping ​chokepoint at ⁠the mouth of the Red Sea. War broke out in Yemen in ​2014 when the Houthis...

By The Associated Press | Posted by TOE Ukrainian attacks set an oil export terminal ablaze in St. Petersburg on Sunday, as Kyiv launched more than 1,000 drones across Russia in one of its largest ever aerial bombardments. The attack comes amid deepening tensions between Ukraine and Washington , with U.S. President Donald Trump criticizing Kyiv for its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. One person was killed and five more were wounded in the attack, which sparked fires at both the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city’s Ruchi oil depot, said local Gov. Alexander Beglov. A logistics center belonging to Russian retailer Ozon and a data center for local tech giant VK were also targeted, both companies confirmed. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that its forces had destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, as well as the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state n...

By Sergio Limachi Reuters | Posted by TOE  In the Bolivian Altiplano, where rising fuel costs are threatening farmers’ livelihoods, local resident Etson Machaca built a small plant ​that turns plastic bags, old tires and used oil into energy ‌for his tractors. Though the operation is small, producing only between 80 and 150 liters of gasoline and diesel a day, the savings are a lifesaver for Machaca after Bolivia’s ​centrist government last month ended state diesel subsidies in a bid to ​shore up public accounts. The plant produces fuel at a cost of ⁠between 7 and 10 bolivianos ($0.60 to $0.86) per liter. Prices for diesel on ​the open market are about double, at 18 bolivianos ($1.54) per liter. “We transform plastics, ​bags, tires, used oil. All of that has become raw material for us to produce fuel in the highlands,” said Machaca, whose plant is located in Ancocala, a community in ​the rural municipality of Laja, about 35 kilometers (22 m...