KRAMATORSK- For Ukrainian soldiers holding the frontline in the war-battered east of the country, the prospect of a 30-day ceasefire with Russia brought little relief – only distrust and suspicion. Senior Ukrainian and US officials walked away from high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia late Tuesday agreeing to present Russia with a proposal to halt more...
BEIRUT – At least 1,383 civilians, the vast majority of them Alawites, were killed in a wave of violence that gripped Syria’s Mediterranean coast, a war monitor said yesterday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians were killed in “executions by security forces and allied groups”, after a wave of violence broke out...
GENEVA – Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week. “I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital where...
SIBI – Pakistan security sources yesterday said the military had freed 190 train passengers taken hostage by gunmen on the second day of a siege in the mountainous southwest. More than 450 passengers were on board when a separatist militant group captured the train in a remote frontier district, with an unknown number of hostages...
EKURHULENI – A bus overturned in an area of Johannesburg near South Africa’s main airport early yesterday, killing at least 12 people, city officials said, with dozens more injured.The bus was carrying more than 50 people to work when it crashed on a busy road near Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport, officials said.Twelve people were...
MOGADISHU – Militants from Islamist group Al-Shabaab yesterday killed at least four people in an ongoing attack on a central Somali hotel hosting a meeting over the long-running insurgency, security and police said. Gunmen rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the building’s entrance in the Hiran region city of Beledweyne.Several armed men then entered and “started...
KAMPALA – Ugandan special forces have been deployed to South Sudan’s capital, the Ugandan army chief said yesterday, after rising tensions that have threatened a fragile peace agreement.Impoverished South Sudan has long been plagued by political instability and insecurity. However, concerns have risen sharply in the past week after clashes between forces allied to the...
GRIMSBY – Fires were raging yesterday after a cargo ship laden with toxic materials slammed into a tanker carrying flammable jet fuel in the North Sea, as questions mounted about how the accident happened.There were also growing fears that any spill from the collision could harm the local environment and coastline, home to seals, porpoises...
PARIS – The arrest yesterday of former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte by police acting on an International Criminal Court warrant tied to his deadly war on drugs, marks a success for the ICC, which has been struggling for almost 23 years against a lack of recognition and enforcement power. Backed by 125 member states, the...
QUETTA – Armed militants took more than 450 train passengers hostage and wounded the train driver in an attack yesterday in Pakistan’s volatile southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.In a statement claiming the assault, the Baloch liberation Army (BLA) said gunmen bombed the railway track and took control of the train in remote Sibi district. “Over...