Headline

Russian Strikes Kill Five In Ukraine

Published

4 months ago

June 7, 2025

Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles, drones and bombs across Ukraine early Saturday, killing five people in a major attack that the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, described as unprecedented.

Russian forces have accelerated attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, with the Kremlin vowing to retaliate over a brazen attack on its air bases last weekend.

In Kharkiv, Mayor Igor Terekhov counted 48 Iranian-made drones, two missiles and four guided bombs before dawn in the city of some 1.4 million residents located less than 50 kilometres from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine..

“Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the beginning of the full-scale war,” Terekhov posted on Telegram around 4:40 am (0140 GMT), adding that drones were still buzzing overhead.

The Russian strikes pummelled homes and apartment blocks, killing at least three people and wounding 17 more, the mayor said. A woman was also pulled alive from the rubble of a high-rise building.

Kharkiv region Governor Oleg Synegubov said the wounded included two children.

“Medical personnel are providing the necessary assistance,” he wrote.

The northeastern city was already reeling from an attack on Thursday that wounded at least 18 people, including four children.

In the southern port city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed a couple and damaged two high-rise buildings, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

And in Dnipro, two women, aged 45 and 88, were injured in strikes, according to local officials.

Rescuers in the western city of Lutsk, near the Polish border, meanwhile discovered a second fatality from Friday’s strikes, describing the victim as a woman in her 20s.

The aerial bombardments come days after Ukraine launched a brazen attack well beyond the frontlines, damaging nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases and prompting vows of revenge from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine has been pushing for an unconditional and immediate 30-day truce, issuing its latest proposal during peace talks in Istanbul on Monday.

But Russia, which now controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, has repeatedly rejected such offers to end its three-year war.

The Kremlin said on Friday the Ukraine war was “existential” for Russia.

– Ceasefire hopes dim –

The comments are Moscow’s latest to dampen hopes for a breakthrough amid a flurry of meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, as well as telephone calls between President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, aimed at stopping the fighting.

“For us it is an existential issue, an issue on our national interest, safety, on our future and the future of our children, of our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, responding to remarks by Trump on Thursday comparing Moscow and Kyiv to brawling children.

Ahead of the talks this week in Istanbul, an audacious Ukrainian drone attack damaged nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases, including thousands of kilometres behind the front lines in Siberia.

Putin had told Trump he would retaliate for the brazen operation, 18 months in the planning, in which Ukraine smuggled more than 100 small drones into Russia, parked them near Russian air bases and unleashed them in a coordinated attack.

Putin has issued a host of sweeping demands on Ukraine if it wants to halt the fighting.

They include completely pulling troops out of four regions claimed by Russia, but which its army does not fully control, an end to Western military support, and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed the demands as old ultimatums, questioned the purpose of more such talks and called for a summit to be attended by him, Putin and Trump.

AFP

Headline

Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Clashes Escalate After Alleged Air Strikes

Published

2 days ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday.

On Thursday, two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and another in the southeast of the country. The following day, the Taliban-run defence ministry blamed the attacks on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of violating its sovereignty.

“In retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul,” Taliban forces are engaged “in heavy clashes against Pakistani security forces in various areas” along the border, the Afghan military said in a statement.

Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind Thursday’s attacks, but called on Kabul “to stop harbouring the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil.”

The TTP, trained in combat in Afghanistan and claiming to share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, is accused by Islamabad of having killed hundreds of its soldiers since 2021.

Taliban officials from Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost, and Helmand provinces — all located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan — confirmed that clashes were ongoing.

“This evening, Taliban forces began using weapons. We fired first light and then heavy artillery at four points along the border,” a senior official in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, told AFP.

“Pakistani forces responded with heavy fire and shot down three Afghan quadcopters suspected of carrying explosives. Intense fighting continues, but so far, no casualties have been reported,” he continued.

– Uptick in violence –

In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Earlier this year, a UN report said the TTP “receive substantial logistical and operational support from the de facto authorities”, referring to the Taliban government in Kabul.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament on Thursday that several efforts to convince the Afghan Taliban to stop backing the TTP had failed.

“We will not tolerate this any longer,” Asif said. “United, we must respond to those facilitating them, whether the hideouts are on our soil or Afghan soil.”

Earlier Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several districts in northwest Pakistan that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

AFP

Headline

Taliban Attacks Kill 23 In Northwestern Pakistan

Published

2 days ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several northwestern districts that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

The attacks, which included a suicide bombing on a police training school, were carried out on Friday in several districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

Militancy has surged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the withdrawal of US-led troops from neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021 and the return of the Taliban government in Kabul.

Eleven paramilitary troops were killed in the border Khyber district, while seven policemen were killed after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the gate of a police training school, which was followed by a gun attack.

Five people, including three civilians, were killed in a separate clash in Bajaur district, security officials told AFP on Saturday.

The Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attacks in messages on social media. The group is separate from but closely linked with the Afghan Taliban.

The attacks came hours after Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan of “violating Kabul’s sovereign territory”, a day after two explosions were heard in the capital.

Pakistan did not say if it was behind the blasts in Kabul, but said it had the right to defend itself against surging border militancy.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation that authorities in Kabul deny.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Including Friday’s attacks, at least 32 Pakistani troops and three civilians have been killed this week alone in the border regions.

AFP

Headline

US Threatens To Sanction Countries That Vote For Shipping Carbon Tax

Published

2 days ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The United States on Friday threatened to impose sanctions and take other punitive action against any country that votes in favor of a carbon tax on maritime transportation to be implemented through a UN agency.

“We will fight hard to protect our economic interests by imposing costs on countries if they support” the Net Zero Framework, said a joint statement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his counterparts at the departments of energy and transportation.

Members of the London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO) are set to vote next week on the adoption of the Net Zero Framework (NZF) agreement aimed at reducing global carbon emissions from the shipping sector.

Washington, however, described the proposal as imposing “a global carbon tax on the world.”

Since returning to power in January, US President Donald Trump has reversed Washington’s course on climate change, denouncing it as a “scam” and encouraging fossil fuel use by deregulation.

In the statement, Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Trump administration “unequivocally rejects” the NZF proposal.

They threatened a range of punishing actions against countries that vote in favor of the framework, including: visa restrictions; blocking vessels registered in those countries from US ports; imposing commercial penalties; and considering sanctions on officials.

“The United States will be moving to levy these remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations,” the statement said.