Global News

A Bangladesh court sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to be hanged for crimes against humanity on Monday, with cheers breaking out in the packed court as the judge read out the verdict. Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against a student-led uprising last year that eventually ousted her. The highly anticipated ruling, which was broadcast live on national television, came less than three months before the first polls in the South Asian country of 170 million people since her overthrow in August 2024. “All the… elements constituting crimes against humanity have been fulfilled,” judge Golam Mortuza Mozumder read to the court in Dhaka. The former leader was found guilty on three counts: incitement, order to kill, and inaction to prevent the atrocities, the judge said. “We have decided to inflict her with only one sentence — that is, sentence of death.” Crowds waved the national fl...

By Eva Korinkova and Radovan Stoklasa Reuters Thousands of Czechs and Slovaks on Monday celebrated the anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ended decades of communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia, with protests that warned democratic values were once again under threat. Czechoslovakia split peacefully in 1993 and the two nations have maintained friendly relations, both joining the European Union and NATO. But many fear the pro-Western, democratic outlook of both countries is under threat. In Slovakia, many thousands gathered in the capital Bratislava and other cities at rallies organised by opposition parties and civic groups protesting what they see as democratic backsliding and pro-Russian policies of Prime Minister Robert Fico. ‘DRAGGING US AWAY FROM THE DEMOCRATIC WORLD’ Fico, who is serving his fourth term as prime minister, has taken  pro-Russian stance  on the Ukraine war and repeatedly travelled to  meet Russian President  Vladimir Putin...

 Russia said on Sunday its forces had moved forward sharply in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, taking two settlements as part of a major push aimed at taking control of the entire Zaporizhzhia region. With a smaller army than Russia’s, Ukraine has been grappling with how to bolster defences in the Donetsk region while keeping the rest of the front stable under intense artillery and drone attack from highly mobile Russian units. Since advancing into the Dnipropetrovsk region in late June, Russian forces have been pushing there and in the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region where they have moved forward along a relatively broad front by at least 30 km (19 miles) over the past six weeks, according to pro-Ukrainian maps. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken Rivnopillya, which puts the southern town of  Huliaipole  in danger of being the target of Russian pincer movements. It said Russian forces had also taken Mala Tokmachka, just 9 km (6 miles) from...

Around 30 people were killed at a semi-industrial copper mine in southeastern Congo on Saturday after a bridge collapsed, the country’s artisanal mining agency said. An agency official told Reuters there were 49 deaths and 20 people had been taken to hospital in a critical condition as a result of the incident, which occurred on Saturday at the Kalando mining site in Lualaba province. Artisanal mining employs an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people in Congo and supports more than 10 million indirectly. The collapse was “caused by panic, reportedly triggered by gunfire from military personnel securing the site,” said Congo’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Support and Guidance Service, known by its French acronym SAEMAPE. Miners then “piled on top of each other, causing injuries and death”, SAEMAPE added in a statement on Sunday. The Initiative for the Protection of Human Rights called for an independent investigation into the military’s role in the deaths, citing reports of clashes ...

Thousands gathered in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje on Saturday in protest over a night club fire in March which  killed  63 people. Families of those killed and their supporters, holding pictures and dressed in black, demanded justice for the victims of the blaze, which broke out during a hip hop concert in Kocani, a town of 25,000 people 50 miles (80 km) east of Skopje. “There is a hope that we will not forget, hope that we will not give up, and hope that we will finally have a proceeding in this country in which everyone, everyone responsible will be held accountable,” said Bojan Eftimov, one of the protesters. Dozens were injured as they scrambled to get out through the unlicensed venue’s only exit as flames spread across its roof. Authorities believe it was set alight by sparks from flares. A first trial hearing is expected to begin on November 19. SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/QjnBo0r

 Thousands protested across Mexico on Saturday under the banner of “Generation Z,” denouncing rising violence after the public killing of an anti-crime mayor earlier this month. In Mexico City, a small group of hooded protesters tore down fences around the National Palace where President Claudia Sheinbaum lives, prompting a clash with riot police who deployed tear gas, according to Reuters witnesses. Mexico City’s public safety secretary Pablo Vazquez said in a press conference that 100 police officers were injured, including 40 who required hospital treatment. Another 20 civilians were also injured, Vazquez told local media outlet Milenio. The public safety secretary also said 20 people were arrested and another 20 “referred for administrative offenses.” Other marches took place in various cities across Mexico, including in the western state of Michoacan, where anger has flared over the murder on November 1 of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo, who was  shot  dead at a publ...

By Mark Trevelyan Reuters North Korean troops who helped Russia repel a major Ukrainian incursion into its western Kursk region are now playing an important role in clearing the area of mines, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday. Under a mutual defence pact between the two countries, North Korea last year sent some 14,000 soldiers to fight alongside Russia in Kursk, and more than 6,000 were killed, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and Western sources. Ukrainian forces smashed across the border in August 2024 and held on to substantial pockets of territory for months. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in April that Russia had finally pushed them out, with help from the North Koreans. The significant North Korean role in Russia’s de-mining operations highlights the desire on both sides to further develop their military ties, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said last month would “advance non-stop”. Video published by the Russian Defence Ministry showed North Kor...

By Khalid Abdelaziz, Eltayeb Siddig and Nafisa Eltahir Reuters The paramilitary force battling the army in Sudan’s civil war is shifting its focus eastward after consolidating its grip over Darfur last month, reigniting violence and launching drone attacks across the country’s oil-producing southern areas. Escalating drone strikes and new deployments of troops and weapons by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army suggest both sides are now centring their efforts on Kordofan, a region comprised of three states that serves as a buffer between the RSF’s western Darfur strongholds and the army-held states in the east. The RSF  accepted a ceasefire  proposal by the United States last week after an international outcry over accounts that it had  killed large groups of civilians  as it overran al-Fashir, the army’s last significant holdout in Darfur. The army has not agreed to the ceasefire, which could provide a window for more deliveries of desperately nee...

By Jana Choukeir and Ahmed Elumami Reuters At least 42 migrants are missing and presumed dead after a rubber boat capsized off the coast of Libya, the International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday. Libyan authorities rescued seven survivors who had drifted at sea for six days after the vessel, carrying 49 people, sank near the Al Buri oilfield, an offshore facility north-northwest of the Libyan coast. IOM said the migrants were from Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Somalia. Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Gaddafi during a NATO-backed uprising. The number of migrants who drowned in the central Mediterranean had already surpassed 1,000 this year, the IOM said, and this week’s incident raised that toll “even further”. Across the entire Mediterranean, there were 2,452 such deaths in 2024, IOM data shows. “This tragic event, coming just weeks after other d...

By Mahmoud Isaa and Haseeb Alwazeer  Palestinian mother Hanan al-Joujou, 31, has to feed her three children in the dark with a flashlight as there is no electricity in Gaza even after last month’s  Israel-Hamas ceasefire . When they cannot afford to charge the flashlight, they go without food. “We stay in the darkness – once the sun sets and the Maghrib prayer is called,” al-Joujou said, referring to the Muslim sunset devotion. “If the light of the flashlight is available, we light it. If not, we go to sleep without dinner or light.” Her family has been without electricity since  war broke out more than two years ago , relying on candles when first displaced to the city of Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave. Eventually they gave up even that, fearing a fire hazard in their tent. “We tried a simple LED light, but it broke. We do not have the money to fix it. We tried to get a battery, but it’s expensive and unavailable,” al-Joujou said. Before the war, Gaz...

 By Mike Heuer UPI Women fleeing El Fasher in western Sudan are subjected to rape, starvation and deadly bombing, the United Nations reported on Tuesday. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces recently captured El Fasher after a 500-day siege and are using rape as a “weapon of war,” according to the  United Nations . “Women speaking to us from El Fasher, the heart of Sudan’s latest catastrophe, tell us that they’ve endured starvation, displacement, rape and bombardment,” said Anna Mutavati, U.N. Women regional director for East and Southern Africa. “Pregnant women have given birth in the streets as the last remaining maternity hospitals were looted and destroyed,” she added. “What the women tell us in that on their horrific journey, every step that they’ve taken to fetch water, to collect firewood or to stand in a food line has carried a high risk of sexual violence,” Mutavati said. “There is mounting evidence that rape is being deliberately and systematically used as a w...

By Roba EL HUSSEINI AFP Iraqis elect a new parliament on Tuesday in a vote that comes at a pivotal time for the country and the wider region, and which both Iran and the United States will be closely watching. Iraq has been unusually stable in recent years, as the nation tries to move past decades of war and repression under slain dictator Saddam Hussein and since the US-led invasion that toppled him. But even now, the country of 46 million people suffers from poor infrastructure, failing public services and endemic corruption. Many have lost hope that elections can bring meaningful change to their daily lives and see the vote as a sham that only benefits political elites and regional powers. Polling stations will open at 7:00 am local time (0400 GMT) and close at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT). Despite the scepticism, more than 7,740 candidates, nearly a third of them women, are running for the 329-seat parliament. Only 75 independents are running under an electoral law that many believe f...

By Guillaume DECAMME AFP Standing in the centre of rainy Kaliningrad, the isolated Russian exclave surrounded by NATO countries, Russian factory worker Alexander felt confident. Economically hit by being cut-off from its EU neighbours and physically isolated from the rest of Russia, officials and locals are putting on a brave face amid claims they are under siege from neighbours Poland and Lithuania. The Baltic states surrounding Kaliningrad, all NATO members, have been some of Ukraine’s staunchest backers since Moscow launched its offensive in February 2022. Poland and Lithuania “want to show off, display their strength, reinforce their borders”, said Alexander, 25, who did not give his surname. But his city is “certainly not one that surrenders”, he added, taking pride that Russia had far more weapons than its smaller neighbours. His defiance echoes the Kremlin’s relentless criticism of NATO. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has for years accused the military alliance of breaking...

A boat carrying members of the Rohingya community from Myanmar has sunk near the Thai-Malaysian border, with hundreds missing, seven dead and 13 rescued, the Malaysian maritime agency said on Sunday. Rescuers were combing an area of 170 square nautical miles near Langkawi island on Saturday after a boat with 300 people on board left Myanmar’s Rakhine state three days earlier, said the maritime agency head for the area Romli Mustafa. Images from the agency showed one survivor covered with a sheet and another on a stretcher. Myanmar’s impoverished Rakhine state has suffered years of conflict, hunger and ethnic violence mostly targeting the Rohingya Muslim minority community. Driven out of Rakhine state following a brutal 2017 military crackdown, some 1.3 million Rohingya live as refugees in densely-packed camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. Malaysian state media Bernama cited Kedah province police chief Adzli Abu Shah as saying people initially boarded a large vessel...

By Olena Harmash Reuters Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles in overnight  attacks on Ukraine , targeting substations that supply two nuclear power plants and killing seven people, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. “Russia once again targeted substations that power the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plants,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X. “These were not accidental but well-planned strikes. Russia is deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe.” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had launched more than 450 drones and 45 missiles. Three people were killed and 12 were wounded in the city of Dnipro when a drone hit an apartment building. Three were killed in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and one in Kharkiv region farther north, regional officials said. Energy facilities in the Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv regions were damaged, leaving thousands of people without power and water, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. Officials in...

More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv’s foreign minister said on Friday. Ukrainian officials say Russia has tried to bolster the force attacking its smaller neighbour by recruiting fighters from a variety of countries, sometimes through subterfuge. Andriy Sybiha said Russia was enticing Africans to sign contracts that he described as “equivalent to … a death sentence”, and urged African governments to warn their citizens. “Foreign citizens in the Russian army have a sad fate,” he wrote on X. “Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults’, where they are quickly killed.” South Africa said on Thursday  it would investigate  how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces after the men sent distress calls for help to return home. And Kenya said last month that some of its citizens had been detained in military camps across Russia after unknowingly getting caught up in the conflic...

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and JIM GOMEZ ,Associated Press Typhoon Kalmaegi brought fierce winds and torrential rains to Vietnam on Friday, days after the powerful storm battered the Philippines and left scores dead or missing. Areas in central Vietnam reported damaged buildings, electricity polls and fallen trees as Kalmaegi weakened to a tropical storm and moved into Cambodia. Vietnamese state media reported two deaths in Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces. In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a state of national emergency on Thursday as another potentially powerful typhoon was expected to slam into the Philippines’ western coast Sunday night or Monday morning. Kalmaegi left at least 188 people dead and 135 missing in the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country this year, the Office of Civil Defense said. Kalmaegi is expected to move through Laos and hit northeast Thailand in the afternoon. Thailand’s Meteorological Department advised people in the region t...

More than 10,000 of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s supporters rallied in the capital Belgrade on Wednesday to back the populist’s policies after a year of anti-government protests. Gathered in front of parliament, the Vucic supporters, many of whom travelled to the capital in buses organised by Vucic’s party, waved national flags and chanted “Vucic, the Serb” and “Serbia” as loudspeakers played patriotic songs. “You are those who are defending peace, stability and the constitutional order,” parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic, a top Vucic ally, told the crowd. The rally was the biggest pro-government gathering so far this year with more than 10,000 participants, according to Reuters witnesses. But the crowd was outnumbered by a big anti-corruption demonstration on Saturday that drew tens of thousands of students and activists, the Reuters witnesses said. The protests began a year ago after a railway station roof collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 peopl...

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE and JILL COLVIN, Associated Press Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in generations. In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises. With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office on Jan. 1. “My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty,” Mamdani declared to a roaring crowd at his victory party. “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utte...

BY ILLIA NOVIKOV AP  Ukraine has received more U.S.-made  Patriot air defense systems  to help it counter Russia’s daily barrages, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as Russian drones killed a man and injured five of his family members, including two children, in the latest nighttime attack. Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line following its  full-scale invasion  of Ukraine nearly four years ago has killed thousands of civilians. It has also  targeted the energy supply  to deny civilians heat and running water in winter, as well as disrupt industrial production of Ukraine’s newly developed drones and missiles. The sophisticated Patriot systems are the most effective weapon against Russian missiles. Zelenskyy has pleaded with Western partners to provide more of them, but production limitations and the need to maintain stockpiles have slowed their delivery. “More Patriots are now in Ukraine and being put into operation,”...

By Nafisa Eltahir Reuters A global hunger monitor on Monday confirmed famine conditions in al-Fashir, the Sudanese city taken by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a lengthy siege, as well as Kadugli, another besieged city in Sudan’s south. The finding is the first time the U.N.-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has determined that the cities are in famine, though in December it had confirmed famine in camps for displaced people in al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur. A war that began two-and-a-half years ago between the RSF and the Sudanese army has caused severe hunger and malnutrition to spread across Sudan, as well as displacing millions of people and triggering waves of ethnically charged violence in Darfur. The IPC is the internationally recognised standard for measuring the severity of hunger crises, and its findings have provoked criticism from Sudan’s government, which is backed by the army. FOOD SUPPLIES CUT OFF DURING SIEGE The IP...

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Angela Christy M Reuters A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif early on Monday, killing at least seven people and injuring about 150, provincial authorities said on Monday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 28 km (17.4 miles) near Mazar-e Sharif, which has a population of about 523,000. “A total of 150 people injured and seven martyred have been reported and transferred to health centres as of this morning,” said Samim Joyanda, the spokesperson for the health department in Samangan, a mountainous northern province near Mazar-e Sharif told Reuters. The toll was based on hospital reports collected as of Monday morning, he said. The USGS issued an orange alert in its PAGER system, which is an automated system that produces information on the impact of earthquakes, and indicated that “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread”. Past events with this ale...

Survivors fleeing the Sudanese city of El-Fasher told AFP on Saturday that paramilitary fighters separated families and killed children in front of their parents, with tens of thousands still trapped following the city’s fall. Germany’s top diplomat Johann Wadephul described on Saturday the situation in Sudan as “apocalyptic” while fresh satellite images suggested mass killings were likely ongoing, five days after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized El-Fasher. At war with the regular army since April 2023, the RSF pushed the military out of its last stronghold in the vast Darfur region after a grinding 18-month siege. Since the takeover, reports have emerged of summary executions, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions, while communications remain largely cut off. “I don’t know if my son Mohamed is dead or alive. They took all the boys,” Zahra, a mother of six who fled El-Fasher to the nearby town of Tawila, told AFP in a satellite phone interview....