Global News

By Steve Holland, Nandita Bose, Jeff Mason and Tom Balmforth Reuters Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s meeting with  Donald Trump  ended in disaster on Friday, after the two leaders clashed in an extraordinary exchange before the world’s media at the White House over the  war  with Russia. Zelenskiy had seen the meeting in the Oval Office as an opportunity to convince the United States not to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Instead U.S. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance laid into Zelenskiy, saying he showed disrespect, driving relations with Kyiv’s most important wartime ally to a new low. The Ukrainian leader was told to leave, a U.S. official said. An  agreement  between Ukraine and the United States to jointly develop Ukraine’s rich natural resources, which Kyiv and its European allies had hoped would usher in better relations, was left unsigned and in limbo. European...

By Edward Mcallister and Renee Maltezou Reuters Clashes broke out in Athens on Friday as hundreds of thousands of people rallied across Greece to demand justice on the second anniversary of the country’s deadliest-ever train crash, and striking workers brought air, sea and rail transport to a halt. Fifty-seven people were killed when a passenger train filled with students collided with a freight train on February 28, 2023, near the Tempi gorge in central Greece. Two years later, the safety gaps that caused the crash have not been filled,  an inquiry found  on Thursday. A separate  judicial investigation  remains unfinished and no one has been convicted in the accident, fuelling popular anger. Demonstrations were held in cities and towns across Greece in one of the biggest protests in the country in years. In the capital Athens, the protest turned violent when a group of hooded youths hurled petrol bombs at police and tried to storm the barricades in front of par...

By Jonathan Spicer and Mark Trevelyan Reuters Russian and U.S. teams held six hours of talks in Turkey on Thursday to try to restore normal functioning of their embassies, and Vladimir Putin said initial contacts with Donald Trump’s new administration had inspired hope. The talks, focused narrowly on conditions for each other’s diplomats, provided an early test of the two countries’ ability to reset wider relations, amid a Trump administration outreach effort that has alarmed Washington’s European allies and Kyiv. The Kremlin last year described relations as “below zero” under the administration of Joe Biden, who backed Ukraine with aid and weapons and imposed sanctions on Russia to punish it for its  invasion in 2022 . But  Trump , who has promised a quick end to the war, has upended U.S. policy swiftly to  open talks with Moscow , beginning with a phone call to  Putin  on February 12 and a high-level diplomatic meeting  in Saudi Arabia  six days ...

Hamas said Thursday it was  ready to negotiate  the the next phase of  the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip , after a swap in which it handed over what it said were the remains of four hostages in exchange for the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It was the final such exchange the two sides agreed to as part of a truce  that’s set to end this weekend . Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more prisoners and a lasting ceasefire, have not yet begun. Hamas said in a statement that the “only way” for Israel to secure the release of the remaining hostages was through negotiations and adhering to the agreement. It warned that any attempt to pull back from the truce “will only lead to more suffering” for the captives and their families. Hamas confirmed that over 600 prisoners had been released overnight. Most were detainees returned to Gaza, where they had been rounded up afte...

Germany’s Munich and Hamburg airports were hit by strikes by public sector union Verdi on Thursday and Friday, with airlines cancelling about 80% of flights in Munich. Munich, Germany’s second-largest hub, said in a statement on its website that there was a risk that even more flights could be cancelled and that passengers planning to travel through Munich should contact their airlines. Verdi has staged several walk-outs in Germany since wage  negotiations  kicked off in January. The union said that staff at Hamburg airport’s operator, as well as at services including at maintenance, IT, security and baggage handling would not work during the two days. German airport association ADV said that the strikes, as well as similar airport walk-outs in Duesseldorf and Cologne earlier this week, were disrupting travel plans of almost 300,000 passengers. “Two-day strikes that cut off German metropolitan regions from international air travel go far beyond what could qualify as token...

By Ania TSOUKANOVA AFP Ukraine has agreed on the terms of a minerals deal with the United States and could sign it Friday, the two countries said, a move Kyiv hopes will lead to future security guarantees from Washington. US President Donald Trump, in part of a dramatic shift of policy that includes reaching out to Russia, has demanded that Ukraine give access to its rare earth minerals to compensate for the billions of dollars of wartime aid it received under Joe Biden. The deal would see the United States jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral wealth, with revenues going to a newly created fund that would be “joint for Ukraine and America”, a senior Ukrainian source told AFP on the condition of anonymity late Tuesday. The source said the draft of the deal included a reference to “security”, but did not explicitly set out the United States’ commitments — one of Kyiv’s prior demands for an agreement. “There is a general clause that says America will invest in a stable and prosperous so...

By Fabian Cambero and Alexander Villegas Reuters A massive power outage across Chile plunged the country’s capital Santiago into darkness on Tuesday and knocked out electricity to major copper mines in the country’s north, buffeting global metal markets. Hours after the outage began and as darkness fell, Chile’s government announced a state of emergency and established a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (0100 to 0900 GMT) from the northern region of Arica to the southern region of Los Lagos. The widespread blackout was caused by a transmission line failure in the country’s north, Interior Minister Carolina Toha said, ruling out a cyber attack as a cause. Chile’s largest power cut in years saw streetlights in the capital go dark, while sirens from emergency vehicles blared across the city, according to Reuters witnesses. The Santiago metro, which transports millions of passengers, was closed and passengers were evacuated from stalled trains. “There’s nothing. There’s no cash. No money...

The Palestinian extremist group Hamas is considering suspending indirect negotiations with Israel. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi wrote on Telegram that the group would not engage in ceasefire discussions until Israel released around 600 Palestinian prisoners who were due to be freed on Saturday. Dpa learned from Hamas circles that a final decision has yet to be made and the group is coordinating with the mediators. Hamas on Saturday handed over six hostages to Red Cross representatives in the Gaza Strip. In return for the men’s release, Israel was set to free more than 600 Palestinian prisoners, including 50 serving life sentences, according to Palestinian information. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office then announced it was delaying the release of the prisoners. Their release was on hold “until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. A multi-stage ceasefire...

By Gregory WALTON AFP The United States sided with Russia twice Monday at the United Nations, as they sought to avoid any condemnation of Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor three years ago. The two votes highlighted a seismic shift in the balance of power at the UN, where Washington had steadfastly voted for resolutions that favored Ukraine and condemned Russia, until the abrupt rupture with Kyiv. As US President Donald Trump stakes out a new position on the Ukraine war, Washington and Russia aligned first at a morning vote at the General Assembly and again at an afternoon vote of the Security Council. A European-backed text won93 votes for at the General Assembly and 18 votes against, with 65 abstentions and Washington sided with Moscow and Russian allies Belarus, North Korea and Sudan to vote against the text. The resolution — which won far less support compared to previous ones on the war — strongly criticizes Russia, and emphasizes Ukraine’s territorial integrity and inviolabil...

By Kirsti Knolle and Madeline Chambers Reuters Germany’s Friedrich Merz has pledged to achieve “independence” from the United States after his centre-right alliance won parliamentary elections held amid doubts about US President Donald Trump’s commitment to Europe’s security. Merz vowed on Monday to quickly form a government after winning a national election but face tricky coalition talks and the prospect of an obstructive parliament after far-right and far-left parties surged. Time is pressing for Europe’s  ailing  largest economy, with Germans divided over migration, its security caught between a confrontational U.S. and an assertive Russia and China, and businesses  demanding help  to remain globally competitive. The most likely outcome of the election is a coalition of Merz’s conservative bloc and Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), who came in third, after the far-right  Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged  to a historic second place. The AfD ...

By Khalid Abdelaziz Reuters Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces signed a charter with allied political and armed groups late on Saturday to establish a “government of peace and unity”, signatories al-Hadi Idris and Ibrahim al-Mirghani told Reuters. Among the signatories to the charter is Abdelaziz al-Hilu, a powerful rebel leader who controls vast swathes of territory and troops in South Kordofan state, and who has long demanded that Sudan embrace secularism. Such a government, which has already drawn concern from the United Nations, is not expected to receive widespread recognition, but is a further sign of the splintering of the country during a civil war that has lasted almost two years. The RSF has seized most of the western Darfur region and parts of the Kordofan region in the war, but is being pushed back from central Sudan by the Sudanese army, which has condemned the formation of a parallel government. Idris, a former official and head of an armed group, said the government’s for...

 Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two ex-Soviet Central Asian states, said on Friday that they had resolved a decades-old border dispute that had sparked clashes between different ethnic groups that had killed over a hundred people. Top security officials from both countries signed an agreement setting down the state borders over more than 970 km (600 miles) after resolving disputes over certain sections. The document must now be signed by the countries’ presidents. Two days of skirmishes in border regions  killed more than 100 people  in September 2022 and prompted the evacuation of about 140,000 residents. Similar clashes in April 2021 killed about 20 people and injured more than 200. “The border demarcation between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is taking place after two quite bloody conflicts and this complicates the problem,” Temur Umarov, a Central Asian expert at the Berlin Carnegie centre, told Reuters. “This is a sensitive political issue. If the documents agreed on are...

The Congolese army called on deserters to rejoin their units on Thursday, as rogue soldiers fired guns and looted parts of the eastern town of Lubero after fleeing nearby clashes with advancing Rwandan-backed rebels. The unrest points to mounting disarray within the Congolese armed forces in the face of the M23 rebel group’s ongoing offensive, which  has captured  eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s two largest cities and stoked fears of a wider war. A statement from a military spokesperson for operations in North Kivu province ordered runaway soldiers around Lubero to return to their posts within 12 hours and called on all soldiers to refrain from theft and other illegal acts. Fighting with the M23 has continued outside the town, in the southern part of the wider Lubero territory, for the past 72 hours, Congolese army spokesperson Sylvain Ekenge told Reuters. On Thursday morning, five residents of Lubero town described chaotic scenes linked to the desertions from the f...

BY TIA GOLDENBERG AP The bodies of four Israelis taken captive by Hamas, including those said to be of the last female and child hostages in Gaza,  were released  Thursday, bringing to 28 the number of captives freed since  the ceasefire  between Israel and Hamas began on Jan. 19. The remains of the youngest and one of the oldest captives seized by Hamas during the attack that ignited  the war in the Gaza Strip  are expected to be returned on Thursday, an Israeli official said Wednesday. The handover, part of the ceasefire agreement that has paused the fighting in Gaza, will include the bodies of a mother and her two young children whose fate was uncertain and a retired journalist in his 80s, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. It was the first Israeli confirmation that the bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were 4 years old and 9 months old when they were taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023, were being returned ...

By STEPHANY MATAT and AAMER MADHANI AP Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “a dictator without elections” and said he better move fast to secure a peace or he would have no country left. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday called  Volodymyr Zelenskyy  a “dictator without elections,” lashing out after the Ukrainian president said Trump was being influenced by Russian disinformation as he  moves to end  the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine on terms that Kyiv says are too favorable to Moscow. “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle,” Trump said of Zelenskyy, who was popular television star in Ukraine before running for office. Trump added in his social media post that Zelenskyy is “A Dictator ...

By Humeyra Pamuk and Pesha Magid Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold more talks with Russia on ending the  war in Ukraine  after an initial meeting that excluded Kyiv, a departure from Washington’s previous approach that rallied U.S. allies to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin. As the 4-1/2-hour meeting in the Saudi capital was underway, Russia  hardened its demands , notably insisting it would not tolerate the NATO alliance granting membership to Ukraine. Later on Tuesday, Trump said he was more confident after the talks and he would probably meet with Putin before the end of the month. “Russia wants to do something,” Trump told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida. He brushed aside Ukraine’s concern about being left out of the meeting and said Kyiv should have entered talks much earlier. “I think I have the power to end this war,” said Trump. The talks in Riyadh were the first time U.S. and Russian official...

By Ange Adihe Kasongo and Sonia Rolley Reuters As Rwanda-backed rebels strolled through the streets of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s second-largest city, President Felix Tshisekedi’s office claimed it was actually still controlled by his army and “valiant” allied forces. It was the latest jarring move from the 61-year-old leader that has fuelled a sense of worry and panic 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away in the capital Kinshasa, where some residents are looking to move their families abroad amid open talk of a coup. “There was never any question of fighting in Bukavu. It was clear to all the people on the ground that the Rwandans and their auxiliaries were going to make their entry,” said one army general who expressed bafflement at a statement issued by the president’s office on Sunday. Tshisekedi, he added, “doesn’t have the right sources.” Anxiety is visible on the streets of Kinshasa as the army puts up limited resistance against the M23 group’s advance and residents quest...

By Humeyra Pamuk and Pesha Magid Reuters U.S. and Russian officials met on Tuesday in Riyadh for the highest-level talks to date between the two former Cold War foes on ending the  war in Ukraine . They were expected to discuss ways to end the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine and restore American-Russian relations. Their talks could pave the way for a summit between U.S. President  Donald Trump  and his Russian counterpart  Vladimir Putin . Ukraine, which is not attending, says no peace deal can be made on its behalf. “We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week. European governments, alarmed at the possibility that Russia and the United States could sideline them from negotiations that will determine the future security of the continent, have also demanded a role in peace talks. Media were allowed to film the two delegations before the start of the talks. Putin’s forei...

Sudan’s RSF have killed more than 200 people in attacks on villages around the town of al-Gitaina in White Nile state over the past three days, an activist group said. The group, known as Emergency Lawyers and comprising legal experts, has been monitoring human rights violations including attacks on civilians during the conflict in Sudan. SOURCE. AGENCIES from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/Mug2NSw

 The head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli troops must withdraw from Lebanese territory in full by a February 18 deadline, saying it had “no pretext” to maintain a military presence in any post in southern Lebanon. Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah since early October. That deadline was later extended to February 18, but Israel’s military requested that it  keep troops in five posts  in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week. In a recorded televised speech, Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem said: “Israel must withdraw completely on Feb. 18, it has no pretext, no five points or other details… this is the agreement.” Qassem said any Israeli military presence on Lebanese soil after February 18 would be considered an occupying force. “Everyone knows how an occ...

A ceasefire has enabled some Gazans to go back to their ruined homes without fear of Israeli airstrikes, but they have returned to a severe water crisis. “We returned here and found no pumps, no wells. We did not find buildings or houses,” said 50-year-old farmer Bassel Rajab, a resident of the northern town of Beit Lahiya. “We came and set up tents to shelter in, but there is no water. We don’t have water, we are suffering.” Drinking, cooking and washing are a luxury in Gaza, 16 months after the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Rajab said he sometimes walks 16 km (10 miles) in the hope of taking a shower in Gaza City. Some Palestinians have dug wells in areas near the sea, or rely on salty tap water from Gaza’s only aquifer, contaminated with seawater and sewage. The Palestinian Water Authority estimates that it will cost $2.7 billion to repair the water and sanitation sectors. Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as we...

By Dave Sherwood Reuters Cuba closed schools and told non-essential workers to stay home on Friday as its electrical grid faltered following the failure of a major power plant, causing widespread blackouts across the crisis-ridden island. Only six of the country’s 15 oil-fired power plants are in operation, according to government reports, and a dire fuel shortage has made it impossible to run smaller clusters of diesel-fired generators that typically back up the system. The predicament has hobbled the island’s creaky electrical system and led to the largest blackouts since several nationwide grid collapses late last year left the entire nation of 10 million people in the dark, prompting scattered protests and unrest. Dwindling  oil imports  from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico last year pushed the island’s obsolete and struggling oil-fired power plants into full crisis. The government said late on Thursday it would “suspend… teaching and work activities that are not essenti...

BY MOHAMMAD JAHJOUH, MELANIE LIDMAN and JALAL BWAITEL, Associated Press Hamas-led militants released three male Israeli hostages Saturday and Israeli forces began releasing hundreds of prisoners in return, in the latest indication that a fragile ceasefire that has paused fighting in the Gaza Strip but had teetered in recent days is holding. Militants in the southern Gaza Strip paraded the three hostages — Iair Horn, 46, a dual citizen of Israel and Argentina; American-Israeli Sagui Dekel Chen, 36; and Russian-Israeli Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29 — before a crowd before releasing them. All had been abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community that was hard-hit in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. They appeared pale and worn, but seemed in better physical condition than the three men released last Saturday, who had emerged emaciated from 16 months of captivity. The truce that began nearly four weeks ago had been jeopardized in recent days by a tense dispute that threaten...

M23 fighters and Rwandan troops on Wednesday pushed further into the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as Burundi warned Kigali it would respond if attacked. The armed group, which has gained ground against the Congolese army since it re-emerged in 2021, seized two towns on the road to Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu, local and humanitarian sources told AFP. Ihusi and Kalehe, around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bukavu, were taken over as the group made its way down the highway alongside Lake Kivu, the sources added. One person living in Kalehe described seeing “numerous” fighters, adding that “We see them moving around without saying a word to people.” In a statement, the government in Kinshasa called for an “emergency meeting” of the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community of states to “assess the situation and the consequences of this new act of aggression”, calling for sanctions. SADC and EAC leaders who met in Tanzania last Satur...