Global News

By Mahmoud Issa and Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters She spends her lessons in the wintry cold on the floor of a crowded tent, her teacher interrupted by regular gunfire and explosions from Israeli-controlled territory less than 1,000 metres away. But Toulin Al-Hindi, 7, is grateful to be in school at last after more than two years of war. She is one of some 400 children attending lessons at the makeshift North Educational School, set up in blue plastic tents in the ruins of northern Gaza’s community of Beit Lahiya, within eyesight of the “yellow line” held by Israeli forces. During a recent lesson, more than a dozen girls sat on the floor in two rows in one small tent, keeping warm in sweaters and puffy jackets, their notebooks out in front of them on a handful of slatted wooden crates. They cheerfully sang out numbers while their teacher drew shapes on a chalkboard. “Although we do not sit on chairs, thank God we started attending school,” said Toulin. “During the war, there were no sch...

US President Donald Trump urged Cuba on Sunday to “make a deal” soon, pledging to cut off all oil and money flowing to the communist-run island after the toppling of Havana’s key ally, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The threatening social media post drew an angry retort from Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said “no one” would tell his country what to do. Washington has imposed economy-crippling sanctions on its island neighbor for decades, but Trump has ramped up the pressure in recent days. US special forces seized Maduro and his wife last week in a lightning raid that left dozens of the ousted Venezuelan president’s security personnel dead — many of whom were Cuban. Though Maduro’s allies have become interim leaders, Trump has claimed the United States now actually controls Venezuela, through a US naval blockade of its vital oil sector. “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” Trump said Sunday morning on his Truth Social platform. “I strongly suggest...

 The U.S. has launched another round of retaliatory strikes against the Islamic State in Syria following last month’s ambush that killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter in the country. The large-scale strikes, conducted by the U.S. alongside partner forces, occurred around 12:30 p.m. ET, according to U.S. Central Command. The strikes hit multiple Islamic State targets across Syria. Saturday’s strikes are part of a broader operation that is part of President Donald Trump’s response to the deadly ISIS attack that killed Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, and Ayad Mansoor Sakat, the civilian interpreter, in Palmyra last month. “Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement Saturday. A day earlier, Syrian officials said their security forces had arrested the milit...

The U.S. needs to own Greenland to prevent Russia or China from occupying it in the ​future, President Donald Trump said on Friday. “We are going ‌to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. Because if we ‌don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump told reporters at the White House while meeting with oil company executives. Trump ⁠said the U.S. must ‌acquire Greenland, even though it already has a military presence on the island under a 1951 agreement, because ‍such deals are not enough to guarantee Greenland’s defense. The island of 57,000 people is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. “You defend ownership. You ​don’t defend leases. And we’ll have to defend Greenland. If ‌we don’t do it, China or Russia will,” Trump said. Trump and White House officials have been discussing various plans to bring Greenland under U.S. control, including potential use of the U.S. military and l...

By Stuart WILLIAMS AFP Iranian protesters on Thursday stepped up their challenge to the clerical leadership with the biggest protests yet of nearly two weeks of rallies, as authorities cut internet access and the death toll from a crackdown mounted. The movement, which originated with a shutdown on the Tehran bazaar on December 28 after the rial currency plunged to record lows, has spread nationwide and is now being marked by larger-scale demonstrations, including in the capital. The protests have troubled the authorities under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, already battling an economic crisis after years of sanctions and recovering from the June war against Israel. US President Donald Trump meanwhile threatened on Thursday to take severe action against Iran if its authorities “start killing people”, warning Washington would “hit them very hard”. That message came after rights groups accused Iranian security forces of shooting at demonstrators, with the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights...

By Renee Hickman and Maria Alejandra Cardona Tensions between Minnesota and federal officials deepened on Thursday over a U.S. Immigration agent’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old mother of three in Minneapolis, an incident that drew condemnation from local officials and sparked widespread protests in the state and beyond. State and federal officials offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, in which an unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good in a residential neighborhood. At the ​time she was shot, Good was participating in one of numerous “neighborhood patrols” organized by local activists to track, observe and film ICE activities, according to Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota-based Community United Against Police Brutality and a paralegal for the National Lawyers Guild. The ‌Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said on Thursday it had initially agreed with the FBI to conduct a joint investigation into the...

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and JILL LAWLESS – Associated Press The United States seized two sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela in back-to-back actions in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, officials said Wednesday, and is removing sanctions to enable the shipping and sale of oil from the South American country to markets worldwide. U.S. European Command announced the seizure of the merchant vessel Bella 1 for “violations of U.S. sanctions” in a social media post. The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a U.S. blockade on sanctioned oil vessels around Venezuela. Then, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revealed that U.S. forces also took control of the tanker Sophia in the Caribbean. Noem said in a social media post both ships were “either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it.” Noem said that both ships are part of a large “ghost fleet” of sanctioned vessels that carry oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela in defi...