Author: Daily Sabah With DPA

At least four people have been killed in a Russian missile attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum, authorities said on Tuesday. Two dozen people were injured in the strike on the city centre of Izyum, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said on Telegram. A ballistic missile hit an administrative building and damage was also caused to a five-storey residential building, he said, adding that more victims are still believed to be under the rubble. Izyum was occupied by Russian troops from April to early September 2022 and was badly affected by the fighting. Ukraine has…

Iran has showcased a new medium-range missile, capable of reaching any part of Israel, the ISNA state news agency reported on Sunday. The Etemad missile has a range of 1,700 kilometres, ISNA reported. “Our missile technology is designed solely to ensure that no one dares attack us,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said at a ceremony to present the missile. Iran’s self-proclaimed “axis of resistance” against its arch-enemy Israel is considered to have been severely weakened by recent blows to allies in Lebanon and Syria. Tehran is also facing a dire economic situation, which could deteriorate further if US President Donald…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a fresh appeal to the West, urgently requesting more support, after another week when more than 1,400 Russian airstrikes targeted his country. “Every day, Russia attacks Ukraine with drones, missiles and aerial bombs,” he said in statement shared on his Telegram channel on Sunday. Accompanying the statement was a video showing images of death and destruction in Ukrainian cities. Russia attacked Ukraine with around 50 missiles, nearly 660 drones and more than 760 glide bombs in the past week, he said. “Russia will not stop on its own. The world must force it to end…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned on Sunday of the effects of US punitive tariffs on world trade. “The global exchange of goods and commodities has proven to be a great success story that has enabled prosperity for all of us,” he told journalists at a meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his Chequers country residence outside London. “That is why it is important that we do not divide the world with many customs barriers, but that we make this exchange of goods and services possible in future as well.” US President Donald Trump had earlier announced punitive tariffs…

Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence service on Saturday rejected allegations of involvement in mass protests in Slovakia against the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico. HUR posted on Telegram that allegations by the Slovakian authorities were false. It cautioned against “hostile propaganda.” On Friday, Fico said he had evidence that networks with ties to Ukraine were seeking to destabilize Slovakia and overthrow his government. He charged that the organizers of the latest series of mass protests against the Bratislava government were not only closely linked to the Slovakian opposition but also to the so-called Georgian Legion, a volunteer association of Georgians…

Russia launched a wave of missiles, glide bombs and drones across Ukraine overnight, killing and injuring several people as well as damaging buildings, local official said on Saturday. Three people were killed and 10 injured, including children, when a missile hit a residential building in the central city of Poltava, authorities there said. In the north-eastern city Sumy, not far from the Russian border, two people were killed in an attack, while another person died in a drone assault in the eastern city of Kharkiv. There was also severe damage in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya and in the…

French consumer inflation accelerated to a five-month high in January largely on energy and manufactured product prices, but harmonized inflation remained stable below the European Central Bank’s 2% target, provisional data showed. Figures released from the statistical office INSEE on Friday showed consumer prices registered an annual increase of 1.4% in January, following December’s 1.3% rise. The 1.4% was the highest since last August, when prices grew 1.8%. Nonetheless, inflation stayed slightly below economists’ forecast of 1.5%. The rebound in prices of manufactured product and a further acceleration in those of energy were partly offset by the slowdown in prices…

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has warned of possible armed conflicts in space. At the European Space Conference in Brussels, she said that space is just as contested as land, sea, air, or cyberspace. There is already hybrid warfare in space, for example through the disruption of satellite-based navigation systems, she added. Kallas also recalled an incident in which Russia tested an anti-satellite missile. The EU must therefore prepare to defend its security in space as well, she said. “The security of our satellites is the security of our societies,” the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs added. To…

The head of UNRWA on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to stop Israel from enforcing a ban that will prevent the UN Palestinian aid agency from operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, two days before it is set to take effect. Implementing the legislation passed by the Israeli parliament “will heighten instability and deepen despair in the occupied Palestinian territories at a critical moment,” Philippe Lazzarini told the most powerful UN body in New York. He called for a “decisive intervention in support of peace and stability” in the region. Israel moved to bar the…

The US will take a “big interest” in the war in Sudan, because “failed countries become a haven of extremist activity”, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said. Lammy confirmed he had had “a brief conversation” with incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the conflict in the region. Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including the vast western Darfur region. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said there are grounds to believe both government forces…