Tag: conflict

Israel offers bitter rival Lebanon aid after blasts

JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israel on Tuesday offered humanitarian aid to Lebanon, with which it is still technically at war, following the huge explosions that rocked Beirut, killing dozens of people and wounding thousands. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed his National Security Council to make contact with UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov “in order to clarify how Israel can further assist Lebanon”. Earlier, Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi […]

Gunmen kill at least 20 farmers in Sudan’s Darfur: tribal chief

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — Gunmen killed at least 20 people, including children, who were visiting their farms in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region for the first time in years, a tribal chief said Saturday. “Two months ago the government organised a meeting between the original landowners and those who took their fields” during the long-running war in Darfur, Ibrahim Ahmad told AFP by telephone. “An agreement was reached whereby the landowners would return to their fields […]

TikTok denies sharing Indian user data with Chinese govt

by Bhuvan BAGGA NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — TikTok denied Tuesday sharing Indian users’ data with the Chinese government, after New Delhi banned the wildly popular app in a sharp deterioration of relations with Beijing two weeks after a deadly border clash. “TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and have not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese government,” […]

Saudi coalition says intercepts Huthi missile on Riyadh

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — The Saudi-led military coalition said Tuesday it had intercepted and destroyed drones and ballistic missiles launched into the kingdom by Yemen’s Huthi rebels, including one fired towards Riyadh. Witnesses told AFP that they heard blasts at dawn from their homes in the capital. Coalition forces “managed… to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Huthi militia from Sanaa towards Riyadh in a deliberate hostile operation,” coalition spokesman […]

China, India agree to reduce tensions after deadly clash

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — China and India have agreed to reduce tensions a week after clashes on their disputed Himalayan border left 20 Indian troops dead in brutal hand-to-hand fighting. The June 15 battle, reportedly fought with fists, clubs and rocks, was the first time troops have been killed on their border since 1975 and marked a major deterioration in ties between the two Asian giants. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that […]

China releases 10 Indian soldiers after border battle: reports

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — China has freed 10 Indian soldiers seized in a high-altitude border clash in the Himalayas which left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, media reports said Friday. The release follows several rounds of talks between the two sides in a bid to ease tensions after the battle on Monday, in which scores of troops from the two sides fought with nail-studded batons and hurled rocks at each other. The 10 […]

India says 20 troops killed in deadliest clash with China in decades

by Bhuvan Bagga and Jalees Andrabi with Parvaiz Buhkari in Srinagar and Jing Xuan Teng in Beijing NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese forces along the disputed Himalayan frontier, the Indian army said Tuesday, in the deadliest clash between the nuclear-armed neighbours for more than four decades. Both sides blamed each other for Monday’s clash in the precipitous, rocky terrain of the strategically […]

India says three soldiers killed in clash on Chinese border

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Three Indian soldiers have been killed in a “violent face-off” on the Chinese border, the Indian army said Tuesday following weeks of rising tensions and the deployment of thousands of extra troops from both sides. Brawls and face-offs flare on a fairly regular basis between the two nuclear-armed giants over their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier, which has never been properly demarcated, but no one has been killed in decades. The Indian […]

N. Korea to cut communication lines to ‘enemy’ South: KCNA

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea will cut military and political communication lines to “enemy” South Korea on Tuesday, state media said, after threats over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. Pyongyang “will completely cut off and shut down the liaison line between the authorities of the North and the South, which has been maintained through the North-South joint liaison office,” as well as other communication links “from 12:00 on June 9, 2020,” […]

South Sudan: an unexplored Eden of biodiversity

by Nick Perry PICTURES BY TONY KARUMBA Agence France-Presse BOMA, South Sudan (AFP) — The light plane banked sharply to circle back over the plains. The pilot had spotted something below: antelope, first one, then many, the stragglers of a million-strong migration across this vast wilderness. But there are other wonders out here on the savanna. A trio of extremely rare Nubian giraffe lumber by, the seldom-seen, majestic giants casting long shadows over the grasslands. “There’s […]

ICRC warns of dire humanitarian crisis in northeast Syria

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross warned Thursday of a worsening crisis in northeast Syria, where water cuts, food shortages and depleted health services are proving as dangerous as coronavirus. Home to sprawling displacement camps hosting tens of thousands of people, including families of Islamic State group members, the Kurdish-held northeast has been hard hit by nine years of war. A COVID-19 outbreak, which the United Nations says has infected […]

UK plans mass singalong for locked-down VE Day

  LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britons will be urged to join a national singalong from their doorsteps and hold 1940s-style tea parties to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day or Victory in Europe Day, under a coronavirus-appropriate programme unveiled Wednesday. Queen Elizabeth II will make a televised address to the nation on May 8 to mark the day the Nazis surrendered, bringing an end to World War II in Europe. It will be followed […]