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By Ahmed Kingimi Reuters At least 18 people were killed and 30 others injured after a series of attacks by suspected female suicide bombers in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state on Saturday, the head of the local state emergency management agency said. Borno is at the centre of a 15-year Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more. Although the Nigerian military has degraded the capabilities of the militants, they still carry out deadly attacks against civilians and security targets. Barkindo Saidu, director general of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, said suspected suicide bombers separately attacked a wedding, funeral and hospital, killing and injuring several people in the town of Gwoza. Saidu said 18 deaths had been confirmed, a toll that included children, adults and pregnant women. “The degree of injuries ranges from abdominal ruptures, scull fractures, and limb fractures,” he said. Advertisement · Scroll to continueReport ...

By Lucinda Elliott, Monica Machicao and Daniel Ramos Reuters Bolivian leftist President Luis Arce told Reuters on Friday support on the streets had strengthened his government after a failed military coup just days ago and that he would keep working until his last day, in one of his first interviews since the dramatic attack. The quiet economist was thrust into the global spotlight on Wednesday when rogue military units seized the central square of La Paz and  rammed a door of the presidential palace  with an armored vehicle to allow soldiers to rush in. Flanked by armed soldiers, a rogue general, Juan Jose Zuniga, had demanded a shake-up of the government. Arce had warned that the landlocked country of some 12 million people was facing a coup and called for supporters to mobilize. Face-to-face he ordered the general to stand down, and hours later as support for the coup disintegrated the soldiers pulled back. Zuniga and dozens of others have since been arrested. The atta...

By Helen Coster, Steve Holland and Joseph Ax Reuters President  Joe Biden  delivered a shaky, halting performance while his Republican rival  Donald Trump  battered him with a series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever exchanged personal insults ahead of the November  election . The two men traded barbs on abortion, immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, their handling of the economy and even their golf games as they each sought to shake up what opinion polls show has been a virtually tied race for months. Biden’s allies tried to put a brave face on the evening, and two White House officials said Biden had a cold. But the president’s poor performance  rattled his fellow Democrats  and will likely deepen voter concerns that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another four-year term. One top Biden donor, who did not want to be identified while criticizin...

By Aaron Ross Reuters Kenyan police put up roadblocks on streets leading to the presidential palace on Thursday as some protesters vowed to “occupy State House”, despite the president’s climbdown on proposed tax hikes that sparked a week of demonstrations. It was not clear how far protesters would be mollified by President William Ruto’s Wednesday decision to  withdraw  the finance bill a day after clashes killed at least 23 people and saw parliament being stormed briefly. Ruto is grappling with the most serious crisis of his two-year-old presidency as the youth-led  protest movement  has grown rapidly from online condemnations of the tax hikes into mass rallies demanding a political overhaul. Lacking a formal leadership structure, however, protest supporters were divided on how far to carry the demonstrations. “Let’s not be foolish as we fight for a better Kenya,” Boniface Mwangi, a prominent social justice activist, said in an Instagram post. He voiced suppor...

By Andrew McKirdy and Harumi Ozawa AFP Julian Assange was on his way back to his native Australia as a free man Wednesday after a plea deal ended years of legal drama for the WikiLeaks founder, who had long been wanted for revealing US state secrets. Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of confidential US documents on the whistleblowing website, was released this week from a high-security British prison. The 52-year-old traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a Pacific US territory, to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information. He was sentenced Wednesday to five years and two months in prison — but credited for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain while fighting extradition to the United States. “You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man,” the judge told Assange, adding she hoped the deal would restore some “peace” to him after his incarceration. Assange has become a h...

By Selim SAHEB ETTABA AFP Julian Assange was released from prison Monday and has left Britain, WikiLeaks said, as he reached a landmark plea deal with US authorities that brought an end to his years-long legal drama. “Julian Assange is free,” WikiLeaks wrote on X of its founder, who had been detained in Britain for five years as he fought extradition to the United States which sought to prosecute him for revealing military secrets. He has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information, according to a document filed in court in the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Assange is scheduled to appear in the US territory on Wednesday morning local time. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months in prison, with credit for the five years he has served in prison in Britain. This means he could return to his native Australia. The publisher, now aged 52, was wanted by Washington for publishing hundreds of thousands of se...

Gunmen attacked churches and synagogues in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday, killing at least eight police and national guard officers and a priest, officials said. The unidentified gunmen launched simultaneous attacks in Dagestan’s largest city of Makhachkala and in the coastal city of Derbent. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened criminal probes over “acts of terror” in Dagestan, a largely Muslim region of Russia neighbouring Chechnya. The leader of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, wrote on Telegram: “This evening in Derbent and Makhachkala unknown (attackers) made attempts to destabilise the situation in society.” “We know who is behind these terrorist attacks and what objective they are pursuing,” he added later, without specifying but referring to the war in Ukraine. “We must understand that war comes to our homes too. We felt it, but today we face it,” he said. Melikov said the “active phase” of operations in Derbent and Makhachkala had ended and...

BY BASSEM MROUE and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA AP Thousands of fighters from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East are ready to come to Lebanon to join with the militant Hezbollah group in its battle with Israel if the simmering conflict escalates into a full-blown war, officials with Iran-backed factions and analysts say. Almost daily exchanges of fire have occurred along Lebanon’s frontier with northern Israel since fighters from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip staged a bloody assault on southern Israel in early October that set off a war in Gaza. The situation to the north worsened this month after an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hezbollah military commander in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah retaliated by firing hundreds of rockets and explosive drones into northern Israel. Israeli officials have threatened a military offensive in Lebanon if there is no negotiated end to push Hezbollah away from the border. Over the past decade, Iran-backed fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan an...

By Yassin Kombi and Erikas Mwisi Kambale Reuters  A militia killed at least 23 people in attacks on several villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province in recent days, local authorities said on Saturday. The Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO) group, one of many armed groups operating in the conflict-ridden east, carried out the killings in Djugu territory on Thursday and Friday, two local community leaders told Reuters. “Most of the victims were killed with machetes, but those who tried to flee were shot. In all these villages, people’s belongings were taken, houses were burnt down,” said Vital Tungulo, president of Djugu’s Nyali-Kilo community. The motive for the attacks was not clear but militia violence in Congo is linked to long-running competition for influence and the region’s rich mineral resources. The human rights situation in Ituri has deteriorated since the beginning of the year as CODECO carries out more attacks, the United ...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi Reuters CAIRO – Israeli forces pounded Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday, as well as other areas across the enclave, killing at least 45 Palestinians as troops engaged in close-quarter combat with Hamas militants, residents and Israel’s military said. Residents said the Israelis appeared to be trying to complete their capture of Rafah, which borders Egypt and has been the focus of an Israeli assault since early May. Tanks were forcing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south and centre. Firing from planes, tanks and ships off the coast caused more people to flee the city, which a few months ago was sheltering more than a million displaced people, most of whom have now relocated again. The Gaza health ministry said at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in Mawasi in western Rafah and 50 wounded. Palestinians said a tank shell hit a tent housing displaced families. “Two tanks climbed a hilltop overseein...

Seoul’s military said Friday it had fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the heavily fortified border in the third such incursion this month. The nuclear-armed North has been reinforcing the border in recent months, adding tactical roads and laying more landmines, which has led to “casualties” among its troops due to accidental explosions, South Korea has said. On Thursday morning, “several North Korean soldiers who were working inside the DMZ on the central front line crossed the Military Demarcation Line,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. “After our military’s warning broadcasts and warning shots, the North Korean soldiers retreated back northward,” they added. Similar incidents took place on June 9 and Tuesday this week, with Seoul’s military saying both incursions appeared to be accidental. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with  Kim Jong Un Get info without leaving the page. hosting Russian le...

By Lucie PEYTERMANN AFP When invading Russian troops advanced towards Kyiv and the first explosions rang out in the suburbs, Daria Zymenko took refuge in Gavronshchyna, her parents’ village near the Ukrainian capital. The Russians took control of Gavronshchyna soon after. One day several soldiers, drunk and armed, burst into the family’s home, saying that Zymenko, an illustrator, must be taken in for questioning. What happened to the young woman next forms part of what Ukrainian authorities say is a widespread, systematic campaign of sexual abuse by the Russian invaders. Zymenko is one of the survivors who have overcome their fear and shame to speak of the horrors that she and countless other Ukrainian women have undergone. On March 28, 2022 the soldiers took Zymenko to an abandoned house and told her to undress. “I realized this would not be questioning,” said Zymenko, a 33-year-old with piercing blue eyes. “It lasted for two hours.” The next day the soldiers returned, raping h...

BY Damon Wake with Cat Barton in Seoul AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Vietnamese counterpart Thursday as he began a state visit to Hanoi, a day after signing a mutual defence pact with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Putin and Kim inked a strategic treaty at a summit in Pyongyang that included a commitment to come to each other’s aid if attacked. Kim also pledged his “full support” for Russia’s war on Ukraine. Washington and its allies accuse North Korea of supplying ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine, and the deal has fuelled fears of more deliveries. The US State Department said deepening Russia-North Korea ties were “of great concern” while a top Ukrainian official accused Pyongyang of abetting Moscow’s “mass murder of Ukrainians”. Putin was welcomed by newly installed Vietnamese President To Lam and a military guard at the presidential palace in Hanoi. He will hold talks with Lam and later meet other senior Vietnamese leaders including Nguyen Ph...

By: KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine before beginning a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang on Wednesday, in a bid to expand their economic and military cooperation and show a united front against Washington. Speaking before the summit, Putin thanked Kim for support in Ukraine and said the two countries would sign an agreement to boost their partnership as both “fight against the imperialist hegemonistic policies of the U.S. and its satellites against the Russian Federation.” Putin’s visit comes amid growing concerns about an arms arrangement in which North Korea provides Russia with badly needed munitions to fuel Moscow’s war in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program. North Korea is under heavy U.N. Security Council sanctions over its weapons program, while...

By Tora Agarwala Reuters  India was battling on Wednesday extreme weather that caused severe heatwaves, landslides and floods, killing at least 11 people this week, among them a woman and her three daughters buried alive in a northeastern state, officials and media said. The capital, New Delhi, sweltered through its hottest night in six years on Tuesday, with hospitals in the city of 20 million reporting at least five deaths from heatstroke this week, the Times of India newspaper said. Floods and landslides triggered by incessant rain in the northeastern state of Assam killed at least six people on Tuesday night, officials said. “A landslide buried a woman and her three daughters alive,” a state disaster management official, Siju Das, said by telephone. “Their house was on a slope, and they died on the spot around midnight,” he said, adding that the bodies were retrieved after a three-hour search operation by rescuers. “A three-year-old was killed too.” Billions across Asia ...

By Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith Reuters Vladimir Putin promised to build trade and security systems with North Korea that are not controlled by the West as he heads to Pyongyang on Tuesday for the first time in 24 years, seeking partners to boost Russia’s military in its war against Ukraine. Putin pledged his unwavering support in a letter published by North Korean state media on Tuesday ahead of his planned visit to the country. In the letter, printed in North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party mouthpiece, the Russian president said the two countries have developed  good relations and partnerships over the past 70 years based on equality, mutual respect and trust. “We will develop alternative mechanisms of trade and mutual settlements that are not controlled by the West, and jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions,” Putin wrote. “And at the same time – we will build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.” He thanked North Korea ...

Thirteen people have died in flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Guatemala as heavy rains pound Central America, authorities from the two countries said. In  El Salvador , the hardest hit country so far, five people died Monday in a  landslide  in the western district of Tacuba, in the department of Ahuachapan, Civil defense chief Luis Amaya said. Those deaths follow two fatalities recorded on Sunday after a tree and a pole fell on a car that was traveling on a highway in the capital. Another four people were killed in  flooding  and landslides between Friday and Sunday, Amaya added. On Sunday, Congress approved a  state of emergency  to facilitate the mobilization of resources. President  Nayib Bukele  said on X that he had asked Congress to make Tuesday a federal holiday to avoid commutes and “reduce the risk of tragedies.” Rains have been slamming both countries since Saturday. In  Guatemala , a 59-year-old woman and a 6...

By Dani Morera Trettin and Amanda Perobelli Reuters Thousands of women protested on Saturday against a bill advancing in Brazil’s conservative Congress that would equate abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy to homicide and establish sentences of six to 20 years in prison. The demonstrators marched along Sao Paulo’s main Paulista Avenue carrying banners rejecting the proposal, which they call the most repressive approach to women’s reproductive rights in decades. People of all ages, including many retirees and children, filled the streets chanting, “A child is not a mother, a rapist is not a father.” Abortion is allowed in Brazil only in cases of rape, fetal deformation or when the mother’s life is in danger. If the bill backed by evangelical lawmakers becomes law, abortions by rape victims would be considered homicide after 22 weeks gestation. Feminist groups criticized the proposed legislation for imposing harsher penalties than those given to rapists in Brazil. They also argue...

By James Mackenzie and Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, the military said, as forces continued to push in and around the southern city of Rafah and strikes hit several areas of Gaza, killing at least 19 Palestinians. The soldiers, all members of a combat engineering unit, were in an armoured carrier that was hit by an explosion that detonated engineering materials being carried on the vehicle, apparently in contravention of standard practice, the military said. It said the early morning incident, in the Tel al-Sultan area in the west of Rafah, was being investigated. The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said the vehicle had been trapped in a prepared minefield that set off the explosion. Israeli tanks advanced in Tel al-Sultan and shells landed in the coastal area, where thousands of Palestinians, many of them displaced several times already, have sought refuge. Despite growing international pres...

By Yassin Kombi Reuters At least seven people have been killed in unrest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, local officials said on Saturday, after people took to the streets to protest against a surge in deadly attacks by suspected Islamist rebels. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group affiliated to the Islamic State, are alleged to have  killed more than 40 people  in an attack on Mayikengo village this week and  over 80 in attacks  on other villages in the province the previous week. The insecurity has fuelled public frustration, leading to the killing of two soldiers and their driver in Lubero territory by a crowd who torched their vehicle overnight on Friday, local official Julio Mabanga told Reuters. On Saturday, further clashes in the area between security forces and local residents led to the deaths of another three people: a civilian, a soldier, and an agent of the ANR national intelligence service, Mabanga said. ...

Swedish fighter jets intercepted a Russian military aircraft after it briefly violated Sweden’s airspace on Friday east of the Baltic island of Gotland, the Nordic country’s armed forces said on Saturday. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom called the airspace violation “unacceptable” and said officials from the Russian Embassy in Stockholm would be summoned to his ministry over the incident. “We are in close contact with allies and partners about the events in our immediate area,” Billstrom told Reuters in emailed comments. The Russian Embassy in Sweden did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sweden’s armed forces said in a statement that Gripen jets were sent up to intercept the Russian plane, an SU-24, after it failed to respond to a radio warning by military air traffic controllers. Swedish air force chief Jonas Wikman said the incident showed a lack of respect for Sweden’s territorial integrity. “We followed the entire chain of events and were in place to ...

By Nicolás Misculin and Eliana Raszewski Reuters Argentina’s Senate passed a sprawling bill on Wednesday that is key to libertarian President Javier Milei’s economic reform plans, while protesters set fires and clashed with police in the streets outside Congress. The upper house was divided down the middle over the bill, which was passed in a general vote after the head of the chamber, Vice President Victoria Villarruel, broke the 36-36 tie. The bill passed after a marathon debate, with senators now set to vote on each article of the package designed to boost investment by privatizing state entities and providing incentives for businesses. The bill initially passed the lower house  of deputies in April, but will now head back for another vote following changes in the Senate. “Today there are two Argentinas,” Villarruel said as she voted in favor of the reform. “A violent Argentina that sets a car on fire, throws rocks and debates the exercise of democracy, and another Argentin...

Greece shut the ancient Acropolis tourist site, suspended schools and stationed medics across Athens on Wednesday as it faced the first heatwave of the summer. Temperatures were expected to hit 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of the Mediterranean country, driven by southerly winds bringing hot air and dust from North Africa. The Acropolis hill, home to one of the world’s most famous archaeological sites that includes the Parthenon temple, was closed from noon to 5 p.m. (0900-1400 GMT) and Red Cross staff handed out bottles of water to tourists. Many primary schools and nurseries across the country will shut for two days. Greece is one of the  most climate-impacted  countries in Europe. Last year, rising temperatures fuelled deadly wildfires and erratic rains caused some of the worst flooding on record, both of which damaged crops and livelihoods. Last winter was the  hottest  on record and rainfall was low, creating...

By Maayan Lubell and Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters Hamas on Wednesday said its “positive” response to a U.S. ceasefire plan for the eight-month-old  war in the Gaza Strip  opened a “wide pathway” to reach an agreement, but the outlook was uncertain as neither the Palestinian group nor Israel publicly committed to a deal. Hamas submitted its formal response on Tuesday to a  proposal  outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden on May 31. Israel said the response was tantamount to a rejection while a Hamas official said the Palestinian group merely reiterated longstanding demands not met by the current plan. Advertisement · Scroll to continueReport this ad Egypt and Qatar said they had received Hamas’ response but did not disclose the contents. Early on Wednesday, Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, said in a statement the group’s answer was “responsible, serious and positive” and “opens up a wide pathway” for an accord. Another Hamas official, who declined...

Finland on Tuesday made its first deployment for NATO since joining the alliance in April 2023, sending seven F-18 fighter jets to a military base in southeastern Romania where they will conduct air shielding missions with Romanian and British jets. A Finnish Air Force commander said the mission would help speed up Finland’s integration into NATO. “I’m sure that during this enhanced air policing air shielding mission our integration into NATO will take a big leap forward,” Johan Anttila, commander of Finland’s Karelia Air Wing told soldiers on the tarmac at the Mihail Kogalniceanu base. “We as a team will have learned a lot and all this will boost NATO deterrence and defence.” Finland’s  accession , ending seven decades of military non-alignment, roughly doubled the length of the border the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shares with Russia and bolstered its eastern flank amid Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Romania, a NATO member since 2004, was among the first alliance s...