Alexander Lukashenko has given his first public remarks defending his grounding of a Ryanair flight last week, accusing the west of launching a “hybrid modern war” against Minsk and calling the backlash over the incident a “planned provocation”. Addressing a session of parliament, Lukashenko also appeared to suggest the plane could have been shot down because...
Gaza could take “years” to rebuild, United Nations officials have warned, as rights groups say intense Israeli bombing of the strip has severely damaged health, education, water and energy facilities. Hospitals, schools, desalination plants, power and sewage plants have been impacted, international NGOs and Gaza officials have said. It has meant that swathes of the strip already have no water or electricity, while untreated sewage from some plants...
Rockets and tank fire streamed out of Gaza, and Israeli pummelled the enclave with airstrikes as fierce fighting between the two sides entered a third day in the worst violence since the 2014 war. The death toll in the conflict reached 59, with 15 children among those who have lost their lives. All but one of the children were killed in...
The international criminal court has sentenced a former militia leader and child soldier from Uganda to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a landmark judgment. The presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, said the panel of judges had considered sentencing Dominic Ongwen to life imprisonment, the court’s harshest...
The first of the 12 jurors who convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in the killing of George Floyd has broken his silence, likening the ordeal of having to watch and rewatch the video of the Black man’s death during the trial to attending a funeral every day. Brandon Mitchell, known as juror 52...
A sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina has shot and killed a black man while serving a search warrant, authorities said, raising tensions over policing in the wake of the Derek Chauvin trial and Ma’Khia Bryant killing. The deputy in Elizabeth City, close to the Atlantic coast, was placed on leave pending a review by the state bureau of...
Ten of Hong Kong’s most senior pro-democracy activists including the media mogul Jimmy Lai have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 18 months for organising or attending “unauthorised assemblies” during mass protests that rocked the city in 2019. In the latest blow to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, the individuals were either ordered to jail...
A Saudi court’s decision to sentence an aid worker to 20 years in prison for allegedly using a satirical Twitter account to mock the Riyadh government has been linked to the infiltration of Twitter by Saudi agents in 2014, in a case that has drawn the attention of senior US officials. Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a 37-year-old aid...
The half-brother of Jordan’s head of state King Abdullah II is believed to have been placed under house arrest amid reports of an alleged coup attempt. Authorities in the state detained several people on Saturday over what officials called a threat to the country’s “security and stability,” with Prince Hamzah bin Hussein – a former crown prince –...
Accompanied by a blaring horn and cries of “God is great”, in the early hours of Monday morning, it finally budged. An Egyptian and international salvaging team has succeeded in partially freeing a vast container ship that had become stuck on the banks of the Suez canal for six days, holding up tens of billions of dollars’...