Global News

By Anastasiia Malenko, Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa Reuters Ukraine said on Tuesday its biggest cross-border assault of the  war  to date had taken control of 74 settlements in Russia’s region of Kursk and was still advancing, making gains of one to three km in the last 24 hours. Ukraine blindsided Moscow by pouring thousands of troops into the western  Russian region of Kursk  last week. The surprise operation has given Ukraine its biggest battlefield gains since 2022 after months on the backfoot. Kyiv’s account jarred with the picture painted by Russia where Major General Apti Alaudinov  said  Ukraine’s troops had been halted, while the defence ministry said attacks had been repelled at villages about 26 to 28 km (16 to 17 miles) from the border. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv’s forces had rounded up Russian prisoners of war who could be swapped for captured Ukrainian fighters, touting what he described as an expanding “exchange fund”. “Des...

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) urged countries to step up their donations in response to the world’s largest displacement crisis in Sudan, warning on Tuesday that inaction could cost tens of thousands of lives. The IOM has received just 21% of the support it needs to provide crucial aid to the Sudanese, already plagued by conflict and now facing hunger, disease and floods, Mohamed Refaat, who leads the IOM’s Sudan mission, told a briefing. “The international community is not doing enough,” Refaat said. “Without an immediate massive and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,” he added. Some one in five people have been displaced in Sudan, with 10.7 million people internally displaced and 2.3 million having fled across borders, according to the IOM. A conflict in Sudan that erupted in April 2023 has unleashed waves of ethnic violence and created  famine-like conditions  across the cou...

By Yuliia Dysa and Tom Balmforth Reuters Ukraine said on Monday its biggest cross-border assault of  the war  had captured 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of Russia’s Kursk region and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to be forced into making peace. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine is trying to undermine Russian stability with its incursion into the south of the country and warns that Ukraine will receive “a worthy response”. With Russia still struggling to repel the surprise assault a week after it began, Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by video link and said the advance into Russian territory was ongoing. “We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region. Currently, we control about 1,000 square kilometres of the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said in a video published on Zelenskiy’s Telegram account. He provided scant other detail, continuing Kyiv’s strat...

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Elon Musk’s much-awaited interview with former President Donald Trump was marred by technical glitches on Monday, with people unable to join the audio conversation on X’s Spaces platform. Eighteen minutes into a conversation that was supposed to start at 8 p.m. EDT., Musk posted on X that the platform was experiencing a “massive” denial-of-service attack (DDOS), which is a federal criminal act that involves flooding a site with data to overwhelm it and knock it offline. Outage tracker Downdetector reported a spike in reports of X being inaccessible to users starting before the interview but it could not be immediately verified whether this was due to a malicious attack. The rest of X appeared to be operating normally, and X users questioned whether there was a DDOS attack or if the Spaces event was just overwhelmed with people trying to listen in. Musk had been promoting the event earlier in the day, calling it a conversation rather than an ...

Democratic Republic of Congo said on Sunday it had begun talks with Zambia a day after its southern African neighbour sealed their common border, blocking a key export route for Congo, the world’s second largest copper producer. Zambian Trade Minister Chipoka Mulenga announced a temporary border closure on Saturday after a Congolese ban on imported soft drinks and beer led to demonstrations by Congolese transporters in the town of Kasumbalesa on the Zambian border. “Talks between the Congolese and Zambian governments have started since this Sunday via videoconference to lead to the rapid reopening of the borders,” the Congolese trade ministry said in a statement. “In the hours that follow, the two parties will meet in Lubumbashi in Haut-Katanga to find a lasting solution regarding trade.” Congo’s Trade Minister Julien Paluku Kahongya said in a statement earlier on Sunday that his ministry had received no formal notice of a trade dispute from Zambia before it announced the closure. ...

By Kanishka Singh and Nathan Layne Reuters  The campaign of Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Saturday some of its internal communications were hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without providing direct evidence. The campaign statement came shortly after news website Politico revealed it began receiving emails in July from an anonymous source offering authentic documents from inside Trump’s operation, including a report about running mate JD Vance’s “potential vulnerabilities.” “These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. Reuters has not independently verified the identity of the alleged hackers or their motivation. The Trump campaign referred to a Friday report from Microsoft  (MSFT.O), ope...

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school compound housing displaced Palestinian families killed around 100 people, the  Gaza  Civil Emergency Service said on Saturday. Israel said around 20 militants had been operating at the compound. Video from the site showed body parts scattered around and more bodies being carried away and covered in blankets on the floor. Empty food tins lay in a puddle of blood, and burnt mattresses and a child’s doll lay among the debris. In another video, men prayed over a dozen body bags laid out on the ground of the Tabeen school complex. The territory’s Civil Emergency Service, which has a credible record in stating casualty numbers, and the Hamas-run government media office said in separate statements that the complex had been attacked as its occupants were performing dawn prayers. “So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are unidentified remains,” Palestinian civil de...