Category Archives: World News

‘Scum-like guy’: North Korean leader’s sister attacks South Korea defence minister

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Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, issues blistering attack on Seoul and ‘reckless remarks’ by Suh Wook

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called South Korea’s defence minister a “scum-like guy” for talking about preemptive strikes on the North, warning that the South may face “a serious threat”.

Kim Yo-jong’s statement on Sunday came amid heightened tensions between the rival Koreas over the North’s spate of weapons tests this year, including its first intercontinental ballistic missile launch in more than four years.

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‘It is a war crime’: two young boys among neighbours shot dead during attempted evacuation

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Civilians fleeing in cars mown down in the town of Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, where 20 bodies were found on the streets

Halyna Tovkach, 55, is searching for the body of her husband, Oleg, 62. His death, she says, is part of a war crime in which Russian soldiers also killed two young boys and their mother.

The incident is said to have happened at 7.15 on the morning of 5 March in Bucha, a town north-west of Kyiv, when two families who were neighbours on Ivana Rudenka street tried to escape their hell.

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Dozens injured in fire at market in Somaliland

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Cause of blaze at Waheen market in Hargeisa, which destroyed hundreds of businesses, is not yet known

A massive fire tore through the main market in the city of Hargeisa in northern Somalia overnight, injuring about two dozen people and destroying hundreds of businesses, officials have said.

Images posted on social media showed flames and huge billowing clouds of smoke in the night sky over the city, the capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland.

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Ukraine claims Russia has ‘verbally’ accepted peace proposals, except on Crimea – as it happened

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Deputy defence minister says territory is ‘liberated from the invader’ as disturbing images in Bucha show bodies had been bound and hooded

At least 158 children have been killed and more than 254 injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, the country’s office of the prosecutor general has said.

The office said two of the fatalities were among 13 people killed when Russian forces fired at civilian cars on a highway in Chernihiv around 18 March.

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Ukrainian photographer Maksim Levin killed while covering war

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Levin, who worked for Ukrainian news website and contributed to Reuters, found dead in village north of Kyiv

Maksim Levin, a photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and who was a longtime contributor to Reuters, has been killed while covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He leaves behind his wife and four children.

His body was found in a village north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on 1 April, the news website LB.ua, where he worked, said on Saturday.

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Ukraine says it has recaptured city of Brovary but warns of mines left by Russians

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Key city east of Kyiv has been liberated, says mayor, as Zelenskiy says Russians withdrawing ‘slowly but noticeably’

A key city east of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has been recaptured from Russian forces, Ukrainian officials have said, but retreating troops were said to be heavily mining the lost territory in their wake.

The city of Brovary was said by its mayor to have been liberated with Ukrainian forces working to drive out the last Russian troops and clear the area of “military hardware”.

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UK prevents use of private jet linked to Russian oligarchs

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After recent seizures of aircraft and yacht, Grant Shapps grounds plane at Luton airport pending investigation

The transport minister, Grant Shapps, has said he has prevented the use of another private jet that has links to Russian oligarchs.

Shapps tweeted on Saturday: “We won’t stand by and watch those who’ve made millions through [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s patronage live their lives in peace as innocent blood is shed.”

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Pope Francis says visit to Kyiv ‘on the table’ after invitation from Zelenskiy

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Move would be highest-profile visit of a world figure since Vladimir Putin began invasion of Ukraine

Pope Francis has said he is considering visiting the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in what would be the most high-profile visit of a world figure since Russia invaded the country.

The head of the Catholic church was invited by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, along with Ukrainian religious leaders on 8 March.

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Russia to halt cooperation over International Space Station

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Director of space agency Roscosmos says partnership will be restored only when ‘illegal sanctions’ are removed

Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted.

Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.

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How the Islamic State trial could change the future of US terrorism cases

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As a Virginia jury hears horrific allegations, experts say the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh sets an important precedent

As the trial against the accused Islamic State fighter El Shafee Elsheikh began this week on American soil, jurors in a northern Virginia courtroom were quickly exposed to accounts of unimaginable brutality.

Elsheikh, prosecutors alleged, carried out terrorist acts that involved the grisly deaths of four Americans – the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as the aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

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What really happened at Geneva’s crucial biodiversity negotiations?

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Talks ahead of the key Cop15 summit on halting mass extinction of life were slow – and much has been asked of the developing world

For talks that are meant to be about halting the mass extinction of life on Earth, the slow pace of negotiations in Geneva ahead of Cop15, the major biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, later this year, was not a hopeful sign that meaningful action would follow. As discussions drew to a close this week, little progress was made on the targets and goals that are meant to herald nature’s “Paris moment”.

Rhetoric from rich developed nations about the need for ambition on halting biodiversity loss was not being followed through with resources, negotiators from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa complained.

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‘We feel safer’: how green energy is brightening refugee lives in Rwanda

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Solar panels and cleaner-burning stoves have reduced dangers faced by residents of three camps

“The camp has come from the dark into the light,” says Edson Sebutozi Munyakarambi, a refugee living in the Kigeme camp in southern Rwanda.

“Before the solar-powered street lamps, the camp was dark. Some people would come and steal things from the houses,” says Munyakarambi, who chairs the committee that represents the 16,000 people in the camp. “But now no one can rob people on the street corners and the children can study or play outside while they wait for their dinner.”

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How war in Ukraine is affecting food supply in Africa and the Middle East

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Prices of basics such as oil and wheat are shooting up and shortages are showing on supermarket shelves in Lebanon, Somalia and Egypt

When Lebanon’s Muslims sat down to their first iftar of Ramadan tonight, the meal in front of them will have cost significantly more than it did six weeks ago.

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Sri Lanka president declares public emergency after protests against economic crisis

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Declaration comes after hundreds of protesters clashed with police and the military

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared a nationwide public emergency, following violent protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Rajapaksa said in a government gazette notification late on Friday that he took the decision in the interests of public security, the protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and essential services.

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Argentina criticises UK refusal to talk about future of Falklands

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Argentine foreign minister calls for improvement in bilateral relations with Britain 40 years after conflict

British-Argentine relations will be stifled so long as the UK refuses to engage in discussions about the future sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, or if both sides continue to act as if the war happened only yesterday, the Argentine foreign minister has said.

Writing in the Guardian on the 40th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands in April 1982, Santiago Cafiero called for an improvement in bilateral relations.

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Israel security forces kill three Palestinians in West Bank

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Israeli police say the men were armed and were ‘killed in a shootout’ after tensions rise in the past week

Israeli security forces have killed three Palestinian gunmen in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said.

There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials. The Israeli police said the men were armed and were “killed in a shootout,” in the pre-dawn incident on Saturday.

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for new trial denied, judge rules

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Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror on her case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection

Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for a new trial has been denied, the judge in her Manhattan federal court sex-trafficking case said on Friday.

The daughter of the late British media baron Robert Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror in the case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection.

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Yemen’s warring sides accept two-month truce starting with Ramadan

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Agreement comes after significant escalation in bloody conflict between Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels

Yemen’s warring sides have accepted a two-month truce, starting with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to the UN envoy to the country.

Hans Grundberg announced the agreement from Amman, Jordan, after meeting separately with both sides in the country’s brutal civil war. He said he hoped the truce would be renewed after two months.

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China accused of launching cyber-attacks on Ukraine before Russian invasion

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UK government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre is investigating the allegations

China launched cyber-attacks on Ukrainian military and nuclear targets shortly before the Russian invasion, according to a report.

The UK government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre is investigating the allegations, which claim that more than 600 websites, including Ukraine’s defence ministry, were subjected to thousands of hacking attempts coordinated by the Chinese government.

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At least 53 culturally important sites damaged in Ukraine – Unesco

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True list of casualties of war, which include museums, churches and a Holocaust memorial, likely to be much longer

The UN’s cultural agency has confirmed that at least 53 historical sites, religious buildings and museums have sustained damage during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This is the latest list, but it is not exhaustive, as our experts are continuing to verify a number of reports” filed by Ukrainian authorities, a Unesco spokesperson told AFP as the body published a list of the 53 damaged sites in the north and east of the country.

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