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KYIV (Reuters) – Russian forces executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war, Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Sunday. Lubinets said on the Telegram messenger app that Russian troops shot the five unarmed soldiers after capturing them. He gave no details, but will report this fact to the UN. “Russian war criminals who shoot Ukrainian prisoners of war should be brought before an international tribunal and punished […]

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa – also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – in Damascus on Sunday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said, without providing further details. Photographs and footage shared by the ministry showed Fidan and Sharaa, leader of Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which led the operation to topple Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, walk ahead of a crowded […]

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s outgoing President Klaus Iohannis said on Sunday he was “optimistic” he would soon designate a prime minister from a pro-European governing majority after the ruling Social Democrats returned to coalition talks. Three votes to elect Romania’s president and parliament descended into chaos when a little-known far-right pro-Russian politician won the first presidential round on Nov. 24, prompting Romania’s top court to annul it on suspicion of […]

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian drones struck a major Russian fuel depot for the second time in just over a week on Sunday, according to a senior Russian regional official, as part of a “massive” cross-border attack on fuel and energy facilities that Kyiv says supply Moscow’s military. The strikes came days after Russia launched sweeping attacks on Ukraine’s already battered energy grid, threatening to plunge thousands of homes into […]

Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms. The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized […]

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s membership of NATO is “achievable”, but Kyiv will have to fight to persuade allies to make it happen, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainian diplomats in a speech on Sunday. Ukraine has repeatedly urged NATO to invite Kyiv to become a member. The Western military alliance has said Ukraine will join its ranks one day but has not set a date or issued an invitation. Moscow has […]

(Reuters) – Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa hosted Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on Sunday in another effort to reassure minorities they will be protected after Islamist rebels led the ouster of Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago. Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as “a new era far removed from sectarianism”. Sharaa heads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main group […]

(Reuters) – Mozambique’s death toll from Cyclone Chido has risen to 94, news agency AFP said on Sunday, citing the country’s disaster management agency. The cyclone had made landfall in northern Mozambique a week ago and Mozambique’s institute for natural disasters on Thursday had given the death toll at 73. The Indian Ocean archipelago Mayotte bore the brunt of the storm. Officials in Mayotte, which is one of France’s poorest […]

MADRID (Reuters) – Players with winning tickets in Spain’s huge Christmas lottery draw on Sunday celebrated with sparkling wine, cheers and hugs in a 200-year-old tradition that marks the beginning of the Christmas season. The total prize pot in the state-run National Lottery event reached 2.71 billion euros ($2.83 billion) this year, slightly more than last year’s 2.59 billion euros. The top prize, known as “El Gordo” (The Fat One), […]

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country. Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family’s decades-long […]