Author: AFP
The Ukrainian presidency’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday that Russia must show “very clearly” it wants peace in Ukraine following talks with the US in Saudi Arabia. “Russia needs to say, very clearly, they want peace or not, they want to end this war, which they started or no,” Yermak told reporters on the sidelines of the meetings in Jeddah, “Today, we demonstrated to all the world that we wanted peace,” he added.
China warned the United Kingdom on Tuesday against “provoking tensions” in the South China Sea after its foreign minister David Lammy called Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters “dangerous and destabilising”. “The UK should respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea and refrain from provoking tensions or sowing discord over regional disputes,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a daily news conference in Beijing.
The Palestinian Authority on Monday said Israel’s decision to halt the electricity supply to Gaza was “an escalation in the genocide” in the war-ravaged territory. The Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the Israeli Ministry of Energy’s decision to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip, considering it an escalation in the genocide, displacement and humanitarian disaster in Gaza”, which is controlled by Hamas and not the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
In their home in war-devastated Gaza City, Iman Farhat and her husband cherish the “paradise” brought by their newly-adopted baby, one of many orphans in the Palestinian territory after more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Wrapping five-month-old Jannah in a brightly coloured blanket, Farhat gently sang as she rocked her to sleep. “I chose Jannah just as she was,” the new mother said smiling, explaining the couple simply wanted to adopt a young child without preference for gender or physical appearance. “Her name was Massa, and I officially changed her name from Massa to Jannah,” which…
The German government said Monday that Israel’s decision to halt aid deliveries and cut off the electricity supply to Gaza could prompt a fresh humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory. Referring to the decision to stop aid, foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer told a regular press conference Gaza was “again threatened with a food shortage”. “We note with great concern the cutting off of electricity and the discussion about stopping the water supply,” she said. “Such steps are or would be unacceptable and incompatible with (Israel’s) obligations under international law,” Deschauer added. She said that Germany “calls on the Israeli…
US President Donald Trump, who wants to take over Greenland, is very erratic, the island’s premier said on Monday, the eve of the self-governing Danish territory’s legislative elections. “There is a world order that is faltering on many fronts — and a president of the United States who is very unpredictable — in such a way that makes people feel insecure,” Prime Minister Mute Egede told Danish public radio DR. In a speech to the US Congress last week, Trump reiterated his designs, arguing the US needed the vast Arctic island for reasons of national and international security and saying…
Kyiv will propose an aerial and naval ceasefire with Russia during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official told AFP on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has floated the proposal as a way to initiate talks to halt more than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. “We do have a proposal for a ceasefire in the sky and ceasefire at sea because these are the ceasefire options that are easy to install and to monitor and it’s possible to start with them,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. Zelensky, whose officials are…
Russia on Sunday claimed the capture of a village in Ukraine’s Sumy region after mounting a cross-border offensive while battling Ukrainian troops in its Kursk region. The defence ministry said in a briefing that its forces had “liberated” the small village of Novenke in Sumy region near the border with Kursk region.
A measles outbreak in the southwestern United States has killed two people and infected more than 200, prompting a top health agency to issue a travel warning. As of Friday, Texas had reported 198 cases and New Mexico 10, bringing the total to 208. Each state confirmed one death. Both were unvaccinated, and the New Mexico patient tested positive for measles posthumously. Although their official cause of death has not been released, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has classified it as a measles-related fatality. “More cases are expected as this outbreak continues to expand rapidly,” the CDC…
Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa late on Friday urged insurgents from toppled president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority to lay down their arms “before it’s too late” after clashes in the west of the country killed more than 220 people. In a speech broadcast on Telegram, the interim president also vowed to “continue to work towards monopolising weapons in the hands of the state, and there will be no more unregulated weapons”.