Blog

Singapore’s largest opposition party has decided to stand by its leader, voting to keep Pritam Singh in the role of secretary-general despite a court conviction that cost him his official parliamentary designation earlier this year.

The Workers’ Party held a meeting on Sunday where Singh addressed members and fielded their questions regarding his conviction before the vote was taken. A supermajority of the party’s cadres backed Singh in the decision, according to Workers’ Party Central Executive Committee member Gerald Giam, who spoke to local media.

“This decision reflects the considered judgment of the Party’s cadres, and the Party’s commitment to democratic principles and due process,” the party said in an official statement.

In February 2025, a Singapore court found Singh guilty of providing false testimony to a parliamentary committee in 2021 concerning a fellow party member. He had appealed the ruling, but the High Court rejected that appeal in December of last year.

Following the conviction, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong removed Singh from the designated role of Leader of the Opposition in January of this year, stating that Singh’s position had become impossible to maintain. In Singapore, it is the head of government — not the constitution or parliament’s standing orders — who designates who holds the Leader of the Opposition title.

Wong had urged the Workers’ Party to put forward a different lawmaker, one not connected to the controversy, to fill the opposition leader role. The party, which secured 10 seats in last year’s general election, declined to nominate anyone else. The party maintained in January that whoever leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament should naturally hold the Leader of the Opposition designation.

The position carries meaningful benefits and responsibilities, including additional financial allowance, dedicated staff support, and access to confidential government briefings.

In the rough waters of the Taiwan Strait, a coast guard officer named Yeh Chih-sheng boards his patrol vessel carrying something beyond standard equipment — temple charms blessed by deities long revered by seafarers for protection on the water.

Yeh serves as first mate aboard the CG1005, a 2,400-ton vessel stationed in Taiwan’s Penghu islands. His ship stands as part of Taiwan’s maritime defense line as China continues to press its claim of sovereignty over the democratically governed island.

When he’s not on duty, Yeh takes on a very different role — that of an assistant priest, known in Taiwanese as a “sio-huat,” at a Penghu temple dedicated to the Five Lords, guardian deities traditionally worshipped by coastal communities for calm seas and protection from disease.

Yeh’s connection to these deities goes back to his childhood, when he began assisting spirit mediums during religious rituals in which gods are believed to come down from the heavens and offer guidance.

“The Coast Guard is a tangible backing people can see,” Yeh said. “The Five Lords are a spiritual anchor in people’s hearts. Both help bring fishermen and ordinary people a sense of reassurance.”

That combination of professional duty and personal faith has grown increasingly meaningful for Yeh as China ramps up military pressure on Taiwan. Beijing has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, while Taipei firmly rejects those territorial claims — including China’s assertion that it has the right to conduct “law enforcement” patrols in Taiwanese waters.

The situation has drawn concern from the United States and some of its allies, who said last week that recent Chinese operations off Taiwan’s eastern coast posed a threat to regional stability. China’s defense ministry pushed back on Thursday, calling its coast guard patrols “lawful, legitimate and necessary.”

Reuters was given rare access to Yeh’s ship while it was anchored in Penghu, an island chain sitting in the Taiwan Strait — a critical waterway through which billions of dollars in trade flows annually.

Yeh described a changed reality at sea, saying Chinese warships and coast guard vessels now regularly cross what was once an informal dividing line — the median line — and come close to Taiwan’s 24-nautical mile contiguous zone.

“They have already erased the median line,” Yeh said. He added that his mission is to monitor and warn off Chinese vessels using tools like water cannons, loudspeakers, LED display boards, and radio communications, rather than escalating confrontations.

He said he follows the coast guard’s guiding principle of “not provoking and not yielding,” and he takes talismans and ceremonial command tablets from the temple with him whenever he goes out on patrol.

Standing near the temple’s Chienchiu Paochien — a ceremonial divine boat — Yeh drew a parallel between the sacred vessel and his coast guard ship, saying both exist to guard the Taiwan Strait and shield fishermen and everyday people from harm.

“What we protect is people’s sense of safety and peace of mind,” Yeh said. “With the coast guard and navy there, people can live normally.”

All 14 people aboard a helicopter owned by Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, died when the aircraft went down in Saudi Arabia early Sunday morning, according to the Saudi Ministry of Energy.

The crash took place at approximately 6 a.m. in Ras Tanura. Officials confirmed that every person killed was a Saudi national. Authorities have opened a formal investigation to determine the cause of the accident.

The helicopter was the property of Aramco, a company that is majority-owned by the Saudi Arabian government.

The crash comes at an already challenging time for Aramco. The company has been navigating disruptions caused by the Iran war, which has affected oil supplies and pushed prices higher. Aramco has stated that it managed to redirect some of its oil exports through a pipeline in order to work around the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that has seen disruptions as Iran has moved to assert control over it.

BANGKOK — A human rights organization is raising serious concerns about Vietnam’s growing use of broadly worded criminal laws to detain activists, critics, and others seen as threats to Communist Party rule, according to a new report released Monday.

The 88 Project, an organization focused on human rights conditions in Vietnam, recorded 56 politically motivated arrests in 2025 alone — the third year in a row that figure has climbed, and twice the number seen in 2022. Ben Swanton, co-director of the group, noted the report only counts cases where the arrested individual could be identified by name and the case monitored, meaning the true total is likely far greater.

The report describes Vietnam under leader To Lam as a government that “routinely weaponizes criminal law” to stamp out dissent. To Lam, who previously served as the country’s top security official, has held the position of general secretary of the Communist Party since 2024 and was also elected president earlier this year.

According to the report, much of the crackdown stems from the leadership’s fear of a popular uprising — the kind of so-called “color revolution” seen in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution or the Philippines’ 1986 Yellow Revolution.

That same fear is shared by Communist Party leadership in neighboring China, which has faced similar accusations of suppressing critics. Despite tensions over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, Vietnam and China agreed earlier this year to jointly “prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions,” according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency.

“With the ascendancy of To Lam, the country has become a literal police state that tolerates no dissent,” Swanton said. “This represents a serious regression from the period of relative openness in the 2010s when some dissent was tolerated and civil society groups were able to engage in policy activism.”

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the report’s findings.

The report highlights a growing reliance on Article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code, a law that makes it a criminal offense — carrying up to seven years in prison — to “abuse democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state.”

Once rarely enforced, New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a report last year that authorities have “enlarged the scope and application of Article 331 so that it reaches further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents … to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials.”

Human Rights Watch also described the trend as “a little known facet of the government’s expanding crackdown on ordinary people who are seeking to use social media and other peaceful means to publicly raise important social issues, including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption.”

Among those arrested under Article 331 last year were three men behind a YouTube channel called “Nguoi Da Tin” — translated as “The Messenger” — who were accused of uploading videos containing “distorted content” that violated the law, according to The 88 Project.

Other politically related arrests documented in the report include an activist representing the minority Montagnard community who was detained in Thailand and sent back to Vietnam, a writer accused of spreading “propaganda against the state,” and an individual who assisted residents of Ha Tinh province in filing complaints seeking fair payment for land seized to build a new highway.

“The Vietnamese government has dealt alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists, while displaying an increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners,” the report concluded.

Argentine President Javier Milei announced Sunday that he is replacing his chief of cabinet, tapping Interior Minister Diego Santilli for the top government post. The announcement came via a post on Milei’s X account.

Santilli steps into the role vacated by Manuel Adorni, who submitted his resignation Saturday following corruption allegations against him. The transition is scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

The leadership change comes at a difficult moment for Milei, whose approval ratings have been slipping amid the corruption controversy and growing tensions within his administration.

Santilli brings a lengthy political resume to the position. An accountant by training, he comes from the center-right PRO party, which was founded by former president Mauricio Macri. He has previously held positions including deputy chief of the City of Buenos Aires, congressman, senator, and security minister of the City of Buenos Aires.

In his own post on X, Santilli expressed his commitment to the administration’s agenda. “I am going to give everything so that this government continues to advance in the structural reforms that Argentina has needed for decades,” he wrote.

Adorni, the outgoing cabinet chief, is currently under investigation for alleged illicit enrichment, among other charges. He also drew public criticism over several personal trips taken with family members — including a first-class holiday to the Caribbean island of Aruba during the Christmas season and a private jet trip to Uruguay during Carnival.

Adorni has pushed back against the criticism, maintaining that his wealth was accumulated before he joined the government and that all personal travel expenses were covered with his own private funds.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — A father and his son have been pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building, surviving four days beneath the rubble left behind by Venezuela’s deadly earthquakes.

The dramatic rescue unfolded Sunday in La Guaira, offering a rare moment of hope for the French and American rescue crews working around the clock to find more survivors before time runs out.

Rescue workers carried both men through debris-covered streets on makeshift fabric stretchers, visibly exhausted and wearing masks, toward a waiting ambulance as onlookers gathered near the emergency vehicles.

La Guaira, a coastal state, was the hardest-hit area when the earthquakes struck on Wednesday, leaving at least 1,450 people dead and thousands more unaccounted for.

The rescue took approximately 12 hours of careful, painstaking work. Teams used specialized search cameras to comb through the unstable wreckage before safely reaching the two survivors.

“They are extremely weak, as any patient trapped under rubble for four days would be, so we are doing everything possible to rehydrate them and administer various medications during the extraction process, which is moving very slowly,” said a member of the French Civil Security.

The rescue operation in that area involved members of the French Civil Security alongside American responders from the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team in Virginia. That same team had rescued a mother and her 9-month-old baby just the day before.

Prior to removing the father and son from the rubble, rescuers set up intravenous drips and cleared surrounding debris. Other team members stayed close to the wreckage, searching for additional signs of life and staying in communication with colleagues working through the remains.

At least 33 people were rescued over the course of the weekend. However, tens of thousands are still reported missing, raising growing concerns that the window for finding survivors alive is closing fast.

Specialists warn that after 72 hours following an earthquake, the chances of locating victims alive under rubble drop sharply.

Residents across the Philippines are racing to put solar panels on their rooftops as electricity bills climb to painful levels, pushing the island nation to the top of the global rankings for solar panel imports.

The country’s leading power distributor, Meralco, has raised electricity rates by 10% since a conflict broke out in the Middle East in late February. For a typical household using around 200 kilowatt-hours per month — roughly the amount consumed by three people — electricity now eats up about 12% of monthly income.

Unlike most of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, the Philippines offers almost no government subsidies for power, leaving residents with some of the highest residential electricity rates in the region. Only Singapore has comparable prices, but Singaporeans have nearly 13 times the purchasing power of the average Filipino.

Adrian Sabatera, a 39-year-old software engineer, had considered going solar for years but held off due to the cost. As panel prices dropped and electricity bills kept climbing, he finally made the move — spending 570,000 pesos (about $9,300) on a system for the Manila home he shares with three others.

“I wouldn’t be shocked if a third of the middle-class population eventually finds their way to this setup,” Sabatera said.

The surge in rooftop solar installations has driven $407 million worth of panel imports in the three-month period ending in May — a 145% jump compared to the same period a year ago, according to trade figures from China, which supplies the bulk of the world’s solar panels. Even when overall Chinese panel exports fell 13% in May following the removal of a tax rebate, shipments to the Philippines actually grew by nearly a third.

While the Netherlands technically ranks as a larger market on paper, analysts note that it functions primarily as a transshipment hub rather than an end consumer.

INQUIRIES FLOODING IN

Philergy German Solar, a Manila-based installation company, reported receiving more than two-and-a-half times as many customer inquiries in the first five months of this year compared to the same stretch last year. At peak times, the company was handling as many as 3,000 inquiries in a single day, according to managing partner Jochen Staudter.

Staudter noted that customers are making up their minds “much faster than before” and predicted that “demand will continue to be driven by high electricity prices.”

According to Alnie Demoral, an analyst at energy think tank Ember, distributed solar capacity in the Philippines could nearly triple to 3,500 megawatts within two years — matching the country’s existing large-scale solar infrastructure. Loan repayment periods are also shrinking, from four years down to about 3.1 years, making the investment more attractive.

Currently, solar power accounts for less than 4% of the country’s total electricity consumption, according to government figures.

OBSTACLES REMAIN

A weakening currency has made the electricity crisis worse, since the Philippines depends heavily on imported coal and natural gas to generate power. That dependency has contributed to rising inflation and slower economic growth.

Manila entrepreneur Jason Porciuncula installed a 12-kilowatt solar system with battery storage back in January. When power prices hit record levels in May, his monthly electricity bill fell to just one-fifth of what he paid last summer — when bills reached 21,000 pesos.

Still, the industry faces real growing pains. Brenda Valerio, the Philippines director at New Energy Nexus, said installations are struggling to keep pace with demand due to hoarding of components, unpredictable equipment costs, and insufficient quality control.

Government loans for solar installations are available up to 500,000 pesos at a below-market interest rate of 5%, but private-sector employees are excluded from the program.

The biggest barrier remains the steep upfront cost, which typically exceeds the average annual household income of 353,200 pesos.

“The opportunity is real, but the upfront cost is often too high for a household or business, no matter how quick the payback time is,” Ember’s Demoral said.

(Exchange rate: $1 = 61.29 Philippine pesos)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Sunday that Russia has no intention of slowing its military push to seize full control of four Ukrainian regions, dismissing a recent Ukrainian proposal aimed at reducing the intensity of the ongoing conflict, now in its fifth year.

Speaking in an interview with Russian state television, Putin said Russia also needs to rapidly expand its air defense capabilities in response to a growing wave of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting the country’s oil sector. He maintained that Russia is handling the fuel supply disruptions caused by those attacks.

Earlier that same day, Putin acknowledged at a Kremlin meeting with government ministers and senior officials that the drone strikes had caused fuel shortages in several Russian regions — but insisted the situation was under control.

During the television interview, Putin addressed a Ukrainian proposal calling for both sides to stop launching long-range strikes as a possible step toward peace. He dismissed the idea, saying Moscow viewed it as nothing more than a tactic to ease military pressure on Ukrainian forces along the 1,250-kilometer (775-mile) front line.

“It is clear why this proposal is being made, because our counter-strikes deep into Ukrainian territory are much stronger, have greater impact and are, frankly, more destructive,” Putin said.

“Given their catastrophic shortage of personnel, the Ukrainian Armed Forces apparently believe this could be their salvation. But saving the Kyiv regime is not part of our plans,” he added.

A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not respond to a request for comment on Putin’s statements, as the request was submitted during late-night hours in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Zelenskiy sent Putin an open letter requesting a direct, face-to-face meeting — an invitation the Russian leader has turned down.

Putin framed Ukraine’s ongoing strikes as an attempt to pull Russian forces away from their core military goals, saying the attacks were “aimed at diverting our attention and forces from achieving the main objectives – the complete liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya.” That phrase refers to the Donbas region as well as the neighboring regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Putin has consistently demanded that Ukraine give up its remaining positions in the Donetsk region of Donbas as a fundamental condition for any peace agreement. Seven months after launching its 2022 invasion, Russia formally annexed all four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — though it only partially controls the latter two.

On the subject of Ukraine’s drone campaign, Putin said the top priority is to “quickly and significantly ramp up production of those air defence systems that are most needed.”

He also downplayed the impact of the strikes, saying: “All the strikes, wherever they hit our infrastructure, absolutely do not affect the situation on the front, on the line of combat contact.”

Putin said Russia is anticipating a renewed round of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, including a planned return visit to Moscow by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — but only after the “hot phase” of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran has concluded.

He also appeared to align with remarks made last week by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said no formal agreement came out of Putin’s talks in Alaska with U.S. President Donald Trump, though American proposals were discussed.

“Nobody signed anything, but we talked about certain possibilities for ending the conflict in Ukraine,” Putin said, adding that the U.S. side had asked Russia for compromises as part of those discussions.

Putin also suggested that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — with whom he held two days of talks this week — could play a role in facilitating peace negotiations. He made no mention of Ukraine’s claims that Russia is trying to draw Belarus more deeply into the conflict. While Belarus allowed Russian forces to use its territory during the February 2022 invasion, Lukashenko has pledged not to send Belarusian troops into combat.

By Vivian Sequera

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — She was lying on her bed, thinking about watching a Brazil soccer match, when the bedframe began shaking violently, like a mechanical bull.

Reuters journalist Vivian Sequera pressed herself against the mattress, fixed her eyes on the open window, said a prayer for her parents, shut her eyes, and braced for the ceiling to come down on her.

The two earthquakes that hit Venezuela on Wednesday evening arrived just 39 seconds apart — the first registering a magnitude 7.2, followed almost immediately by a magnitude 7.5.

Then, suddenly, it stopped.

She grabbed her phone and sent a message to her Reuters colleagues. The power had held — at least for the moment. In other parts of the area, electricity had already gone dark.

The walls of her apartment were left with long cracks running through them, resembling claw marks on fabric. As she made her way down the emergency stairwell from the sixth floor, the damage grew progressively worse. By the time she reached the ground floor, the glass doors had been completely shattered.

Outside, there was no cell signal. Anxiety set in. She photographed neighbors gathered in the street and documented damage to surrounding buildings before steeling herself to go back upstairs to retrieve her laptop and phone charger.

These were the fifth and sixth earthquakes she has covered since beginning her journalism career with newswires in 1991 in Caracas.

Each one, she said, shares a familiar pattern in its early moments: chaos, silence, pain, uncertainty, and thousands of stunned faces trying to process what just happened — followed by the arrival of foreign rescue teams, varying levels of government response, delays in aid, looting, and ultimately, burials.

TWO DAYS LATER: RANDOM, INDISCRIMINATE DESTRUCTION

Two days after the quakes, Sequera traveled to the city of La Guaira, roughly a 30-minute drive from Caracas — the area the government had designated as ground zero for the disaster.

The contrast she encountered was striking.

In some parts of the city, streets were clean, buildings were standing, and avenues were nearly empty, all bathed in soft Caribbean morning sunlight. Then, just one block away, structures on both sides of the road had been reduced to rubble.

The further her team ventured into the city’s parishes — Caraballeda and Los Corales — the more devastating the scenes became. In the early morning hours, near silence dominated the streets.

But as the sun climbed higher, voices grew louder and movement increased. Swarms of motorcycles carried aid and transported survivors through a backdrop of noise, disorder, and scattered sobbing.

Thousands of young people in shorts and t-shirts — some barefoot or wearing sandals — moved rocks from debris piles that towered more than 10 meters high. Others swung sledgehammers at concrete slabs in a desperate race to find anyone still alive beneath the wreckage.

Meanwhile, exhausted survivors sat motionless in plastic chairs under trees, seeking whatever shade they could find from the relentless midday Caribbean heat.

To cope, Sequera pressed handfuls of ice from a cooler in the car against her skin. She made a mental note: next time, bring two coolers.

Many residents of La Guaira expressed frustration over delays in the arrival of rescue equipment and food. There was also some looting reported in the disaster zone.

Standing amid the wreckage, she described the feeling that the mountains of rubble seemed immovable — and the question that kept surfacing: when can any of this be repaired?

What struck her most, she said, was the sheer and indiscriminate force of tectonic violence. It does not distinguish between neighborhoods, social classes, or religions. And yet it is also unpredictable — one building left completely intact while the one right next to it is entirely gone.

Back home, on her nightstand, a glass of wine sat untouched and upright. Nearby, photographs of her parents from when they were dating remained standing, along with a photo of her elderly mother at a flower market in Caracas.

Everything still in place.

She said she feels very fortunate.

Oil prices ticked upward on Monday following several days of exchanged military strikes between the United States and Iran across the Middle East, raising fresh concerns about the durability of the two countries’ short-term peace arrangement and once again slowing the flow of energy tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude futures gained 50 cents, or 0.69%, reaching $72.49 per barrel as of 2204 GMT. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 73 cents, or 1.05%, to trade at $69.96 per barrel.

The uptick in prices reflects growing market anxiety as the renewed hostilities between Washington and Tehran cast doubt on whether the fragile ceasefire arrangement between the two nations can hold, particularly given the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz as a global energy shipping corridor.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — On Sunday, a crowd of rescue workers and civilians gathered around a massive pile of rubble along Venezuela’s northern coastline — wreckage that looked much like the countless other collapsed structures left behind by two catastrophic earthquakes.

For days following Wednesday’s magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, search teams and local residents had seen no indication that anyone could still be alive beneath the concrete debris in La Guaira state, one of the regions hit hardest by the disaster.

Then Sunday brought an extraordinary development. Rescue crews from Virginia, France, and Venezuela reached into a gap in the rubble and pulled out a pair of dust-covered legs — and then the man they belonged to.

Workers carefully lifted the man from the structure where he had spent four days trapped, his body limp but his hand still clutching his phone. Rescuers placed him on a black tarp and began administering an IV.

Moments later, his young son was brought out — shirtless and barely conscious — passed over the heads of hard-hat-wearing rescue workers with the words “Fairfax County Urban Search & Rescue” printed across their backs.

“Slow, slow, gentle, gentle,” teams called out in a blend of Spanish and English as they moved the father and son through the watching crowd and into a waiting ambulance.

The rescue teams erupted in applause — a rare celebration during days of grim search efforts when the prospect of finding survivors had been fading.

Associated Press journalists Juan Pablo Arraez and Matías Delacroix were among those who witnessed the rescue firsthand. Arraez said the team had been combing the La Guaira area “trying to see if we can see any miracles” when they came upon the U.S. rescue crews and local civilians quietly working to free the two survivors.

“At this stage many begin to lose hope. You see that in their faces,” Arraez said, as helicopters passed overhead. “When somebody makes it out alive, this father and son. It’s more than a glimpse, it’s real hope for people.”

The back-to-back earthquakes represent the worst natural disaster Venezuela has experienced in decades. By Sunday, authorities had confirmed at least 1,450 deaths, with thousands more injured and many others still unaccounted for.

Disaster response experts note that the first 48 to 72 hours following a major earthquake are the most critical window for rescuing survivors, though people with access to food and water can sometimes survive much longer.

Amid the widespread grief, small but powerful moments of compassion and resilience have emerged. Venezuelan firefighters were seen carefully pouring water into the mouth of a dust-covered dog whose head was poking through cracks in the concrete.

One woman, after spending 70 hours buried beneath debris, was brought out on a stretcher sitting upright — smiling and waving to cheering onlookers as she was loaded into an ambulance.

LONDON — Andy Burnham, the Labour lawmaker widely anticipated to take over as Britain’s next prime minister, is preparing to share his governing vision on Monday, according to his office. The centerpiece of his pitch: shifting political power away from London and into the hands of regional communities across the country.

Burnham made his return to Westminster earlier this month after securing a parliamentary seat, and he stands as the sole declared candidate to succeed Keir Starmer. He could be taking up residence at Downing Street within a matter of weeks.

Starmer announced last week that he would be stepping down — just two years after leading Labour to a sweeping parliamentary victory — as his public approval ratings declined sharply.

Burnham built his national profile as mayor of Greater Manchester, earning the nickname “King of the North.” His Monday address will place the devolution of power to regions and local communities at the heart of his leadership platform.

Beyond governance structure, Burnham is also expected to commit to a decade-long effort to improve living standards through reindustrialisation, expanded housing, infrastructure investment, and reform of utility services. His office described the focus as being not just about who holds power in Britain, but about fundamentally changing how the country is governed.

He plans to outline how he intends to “lift Britain back up to where it should be” and deliver the “circuit-breaker it needs,” along with a pledge to overhaul public procurement in ways that better support British workers and industry.

Should Burnham take office, he would become the seventh person to serve as British prime minister within a single decade. Many within his party believe he uniquely possesses both the personality and the vision needed to reconnect with voters and push back against the growing influence of Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.

Despite the ambitious agenda, economic realities may constrain how far Burnham can go. Britain’s economy has been strained by the fallout from the war in Ukraine and, more recently, the energy disruptions tied to the U.S. conflict with Iran, leaving little room for sweeping new spending commitments.

Burnham previously suggested the government should “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” though he later maintained those remarks had been taken out of context. He has also walked back earlier positions calling for widespread nationalisation or a near-term return to the European Union.

Housing minister Steve Reed said Sunday that Burnham intends to honor the commitments Labour made ahead of the 2024 election and to abide by the government’s fiscal rules — including keeping day-to-day spending in line with tax revenues and reducing national debt as a proportion of economic output.

“When it comes to the fundamentals, Andy has been clear he will stick to the fiscal rules that have delivered this country stability in the economy for the first time in over 15 years,” Reed told Sky News.

Pakistan’s military conducted an intelligence-driven ground operation along its border with Afghanistan on Sunday, then followed up with what officials described as “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts, resulting in the deaths of 29 fighters, according to a Monday report from the Associated Press citing government officials.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced the operation on the social media platform X, stating it was launched in direct response to a series of militant attacks that had taken place across the country.

Reuters, which reported on the AP account, noted it was unable to independently confirm the details at the time of publication.

CAIRO — Israel’s military has demolished an underground tunnel network belonging to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a southern Lebanon village, according to a Sunday joint statement issued by Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.

The strike hit a 200-meter (656-foot) tunnel located in the town of Majdal Zoun. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed in their statement that the United States was notified before the attack took place.

According to the Israeli statement, the tunnel was packed with hundreds of weapons and rocket launchers.

The operation followed earlier Israeli military strikes the same day, when forces targeted Hezbollah fighters carrying rocket-propelled grenades and hit a rocket launcher in the Nabatieh region of southern Lebanon.

Just days earlier, on Friday, a security deal brokered by the United States was reached between Lebanon and Israel. The agreement calls for a gradual Israeli pullback from certain parts of southern Lebanon while the Lebanese army moves in. However, Israeli forces would be allowed to remain in an expanded security zone for the foreseeable future.

Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem flatly rejected the deal, calling it a capitulation to Israel and vowing that his group would press on with armed resistance.

In his Sunday night statement, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would hold their position in the southern Lebanon security zone and would “continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure, remove threats from the northern communities, and safeguard the security of Israel’s citizens.”

The ongoing conflict has forced more than one million Lebanese residents out of their homes. Hezbollah and Iran have claimed that Washington committed to ending hostilities in Lebanon as part of a memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago to bring a halt to the broader war with Iran.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — At least four Palestinians, including a 13-year-old girl, were killed Sunday in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that the first strike hit a group of people in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, leaving two dead and one wounded.

A second Israeli strike in southern Gaza took the life of a man, health officials at Nasser hospital confirmed.

Also in southern Gaza, a 13-year-old girl named Eileen al-Farra died after being struck by shrapnel from Israeli tank shelling, Nasser hospital reported.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though it did state that one of the strikes targeted a “Hamas terrorist,” offering no further details.

Residents across Gaza described a Sunday marked by heavy tank shelling and the constant presence of quadcopters — small unmanned aerial vehicles — flying overhead.

While the most intense fighting in Gaza has subsided following a fragile ceasefire agreement reached in October between Israel and the Hamas militant group, Palestinians report new deaths nearly every day. Israel maintains that its strikes target Hamas and other militants who pose a threat or who have violated the terms of the ceasefire.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-led government, reports that more than 1,040 people in Gaza have been killed since the ceasefire went into effect. United Nations agencies and independent experts generally consider the ministry’s casualty data to be reliable. The ministry does not separate civilian deaths from militant deaths, but notes that women and children account for roughly half of all fatalities.

Israel has reported five of its own soldiers killed since the ceasefire began.

The current conflict was sparked by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Israel’s military response in Gaza has since resulted in the deaths of more than 73,050 Palestinians, including those killed after the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Pakistan’s military announced that its security forces launched an intelligence-driven ground operation along the border shared with Afghanistan, followed by what officials described as “calibrated strikes” targeting terrorist hideouts and safe havens in the area.

According to Pakistani authorities, the combined operation resulted in the deaths of 29 militants. The strikes were focused on known terrorist positions within the border region.

As of the time of the announcement, no response had been issued by officials in Kabul regarding the Pakistani military action.

Iran opted out of technical negotiations that were set to take place on Sunday, according to a statement carried by Iranian state television. An official from the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of Iran’s Supreme Leader cited two main reasons for the decision: recent attacks on Iran and conditions outlined in a memorandum of understanding with the United States that have yet to be satisfied.

Mehdi Fazaeili, the official who spoke to state TV, pointed to the frozen funds issue as a key sticking point. “For example one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds, if there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled,” he said.

The announcement signals continued tension in diplomatic efforts between Iran and the United States, with Iran making clear it will not move forward in talks until it believes the agreed-upon conditions have been honored.

At least four people lost their lives Sunday as Russian forces carried out attacks in two separate regions of Ukraine, according to regional officials.

In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and 16 others were wounded in strikes that tore through the area. Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov shared details of the attack on Telegram, posting images that showed a building engulfed in flames and portions of a neighborhood left in ruins.

Further north, in the Kharkiv region along Ukraine’s northeastern border — an area that has been repeatedly targeted by Russian forces — a missile strike hit the town of Zmiiv. That attack killed one person and left eight others injured, including two children, according to Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Authorities in the Kharkiv region also reported that a police officer was killed while working to coordinate the evacuation of residents in a community located to the north of Zmiiv.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the accounts provided by officials from either side of the conflict. Both Russia and Ukraine maintain that they do not deliberately target civilians in what has now become a more than four-year-long war.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — Rescue workers from Venezuela and around the globe are growing increasingly desperate in their search for survivors four days after two powerful earthquakes devastated the northern state of La Guaira.

Venezuelan authorities reported a death toll exceeding 1,400 as of Saturday, even as the government faced mounting criticism that its response has been insufficient. Much of the search effort has been driven by ordinary citizens looking for missing loved ones beneath the ruins of collapsed buildings. Online databases set up for families to report and track missing persons indicate thousands of people are still unaccounted for.

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez announced Sunday that 33 people had been pulled from the wreckage the previous day, though she stopped short of releasing a new total death count.

A rescue team from Virginia in the United States successfully freed a man and his son from the debris Sunday morning. The two survivors, coated in dust, were carefully transported on a black tarp into a waiting ambulance, where they received fluids through an IV as a large crowd looked on.

Aid organizations generally regard the first 48 to 72 hours following a natural disaster as the most critical window for finding people alive — though that timeframe can stretch longer if survivors have had access to food and water. The United Nations reported that more than 2,200 rescue workers from countries around the world had arrived by Saturday, with additional teams still coming in.

As expressions of solidarity poured in from across the globe, Pope Leo offered prayers for “the eternal rest of the deceased.” He added, “Likewise, I express my gratitude and encouragement to all those who are generously working in the search and rescue efforts.”

Rodriguez stated on state television Saturday that more than 14,000 military and police personnel are now patrolling La Guaira state, which has been closed to the public — requiring special permits to enter. Despite this, many residents in the disaster zones reported seeing little presence from their government.

The catastrophe presents an enormous challenge for Rodriguez, the former vice president who assumed office in January following the capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro by the United States. Venezuela has been mired in economic turmoil for over a decade, and significant portions of the population do not recognize the legitimacy of the political movement Rodriguez leads.

Scenes of anguish played out across the disaster zone. Some people climbed the ruins of buildings and called out names, hoping to hear a response. A thick layer of dust blanketed coastal communities, and as temperatures soared, more people began wearing masks as the smell of decomposition spread through the air. Elsewhere in La Guaira, workers loaded stacks of bodies — some in white bags, others without covering — onto white trucks from a dirt hospital parking lot, where they were being identified.

Lacking proper safety equipment, both civilian volunteers and rescue workers resorted to wearing motorcycle helmets while picking through debris.

Frustration with the government’s handling of the disaster boiled over in some areas. After state workers were seen taking selfies in front of flattened buildings before leaving without assisting, some angry residents physically blocked an excavator from departing a collapse site and removed the operator from the cab. Officials from the ruling party are known to frequently photograph themselves at government-related events.

The International Organization for Migration estimated that more than 6 million people could ultimately be affected by the disaster, including roughly 2 million in the capital, Caracas.

Experts noted that the damage was worsened by the rapid sequence of shallow quakes. Smaller aftershocks have continued to rattle Caracas and surrounding areas in the days since, including one registering 4.8 on Saturday.

Search and rescue teams and humanitarian aid have been arriving from Mexico, the United States, Brazil, El Salvador, France, and other nations.

On Saturday, Mexican rescue teams scaled collapsed structures and pressed into gaps in the crushed concrete, listening for any signs of life. “We’re rescuers from the Mexican military, if there’s anyone down there still alive, make noise or scream. Now!” one team member shouted into the rubble.

For survivors like Yonahí Regalado, the arrival of international teams offered a measure of hope. She had been calling out the names of her sister and 1-year-old nephew and godson since 1 a.m. the morning after the earthquakes — continuing until foreign aid workers began showing up. “It doesn’t matter who it is, whoever, whether it’s family or somebody else. If there is anyone alive, let’s get them out,” she said, as helicopters circled above.

Moments of compassion emerged amid the devastation. One video captured a Venezuelan rescuer reassuring a frightened elderly woman trapped under rubble who feared moving would cause the structure to collapse on her. “The roof won’t cave in. If it falls, I’ll be here with you,” he told her.

Simón Bolívar International Airport, which serves Caracas, sustained significant damage. Jeremy Lewin, a senior State Department official overseeing foreign assistance, told reporters that one runway is now operational as U.S. teams work to restore the airport’s full capacity. Lewin also said a U.S. Navy transport vessel is stationed off the coast and ready to receive airlifted survivors requiring medical care, calling the ongoing effort “a race against the clock.”

Qatar’s interior ministry announced Sunday that a Qatari national lost his life after suffering shrapnel wounds attributed to what officials described as “military operations in the area.”

The incident came to light after a boat carrying the deceased and one other individual was reported missing. Search efforts launched the day before ultimately led authorities to locate the vessel in the early morning hours of Sunday.

The second person aboard the boat survived but sustained injuries, according to the ministry.

Officials did not disclose the exact location where the incident took place. The ministry also stopped short of clarifying whether the shrapnel that struck the victims had any connection to Iranian drone attacks launched against U.S. military installations in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday.

Thousands of protesters were expected to flood the Serbian city of Kraljevo on Sunday, just one day after President Aleksandar Vucic announced his intention to resign and open the door to early presidential and parliamentary elections.

Vucic has held the reins of power in Serbia — first as prime minister, then as president — for 12 years. His tenure has been rocked by months of student-led demonstrations that were ignited by the deadly collapse of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad in late 2024, which claimed the lives of 16 people.

That tragedy has come to represent widespread frustration over what many citizens view as government corruption and mismanagement under Vucic’s leadership. The resulting wave of protests has grown into the largest Serbia has seen since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Vucic has consistently denied any wrongdoing or corruption.

“This is not just a political struggle but a fight between good and evil,” said Jelena Danicic, a Serbian language professor who met up with friends in the city center ahead of the rally.

Despite sweltering heat, crowds made their way into Kraljevo, where street vendors hawked T-shirts bearing the slogan “Students are winning.”

What started as a demand for accountability over the deaths in Novi Sad gradually evolved into broader calls for Vucic to leave office and hold early elections.

While many in the protest movement feel that Vucic’s announcement vindicates their efforts, they are not convinced he will truly exit the political stage. Political analysts suggest he may seek to run for prime minister and place a trusted ally in the presidency, allowing him to maintain his influence behind the scenes.

“I cannot imagine that he will step down and leave power to someone else,” said Marko Djokic, a 41-year-old IT professional who traveled back to his hometown specifically to take part in the demonstrations.

The situation in Serbia is drawing close attention from both the European Union and Russia. Serbia is a candidate for EU membership and sits just outside the bloc’s eastern border, but it also maintains deep ties with Russia and China — a delicate balancing act Vucic has long navigated.

Before Serbia can join the EU, it must strengthen the rule of law, create conditions for free and fair elections, crack down on corruption and organized crime, bring its foreign policy in line with EU positions, and normalize relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Both Brussels and Moscow are watching closely to see how the situation unfolds in the weeks ahead. The EU has spoken out against the use of force on peaceful protesters and has also expressed concern about press freedom and judicial independence in the country.

MOSCOW — Russia’s ruling party has announced its slate of lead candidates for a parliamentary election set to take place this September, placing a wounded Ukraine war veteran and a state television correspondent at the top of the ticket.

At United Russia’s pre-election congress, party chairman and former president Dmitry Medvedev revealed that Vladislav Golovin, a veteran of the Ukraine conflict, and Yevgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for state television, would head the party’s candidate list.

Golovin, 29, gained recognition through state media coverage beginning in 2022, when he served as a naval infantry platoon commander during the battle for the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol — a fight in which he sustained injuries. Poddubny was also wounded, suffering injuries in 2024 while covering combat in Russia’s Kursk region.

Rounding out the top five are Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin — both described as among Russia’s most prominent and well-regarded officials — and Maria Lvova-Belova, who serves as Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

United Russia has consistently captured large majorities in every national election it has entered, though polling data suggests the party is considerably less popular than President Vladimir Putin, who secured another presidential term in 2024 that keeps him in power through at least 2030.

Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and fuel supply disruptions caused by Ukrainian drone attacks, analysts expect United Russia to again win a commanding majority, aided by Putin’s backing and a parliamentary opposition that largely aligns with the Kremlin’s position on Ukraine.

While high-profile national figures frequently appear on United Russia’s candidate lists, they do not always claim seats in the lower chamber of parliament, known as the State Duma. Putin has spoken on multiple occasions about his desire to see Ukraine war veterans become part of Russia’s new political leadership class.

Thirty-three people have been rescued so far this weekend in the aftermath of Venezuela’s catastrophic twin earthquakes, the country’s interim president announced, among them several children. However, tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for, and rescuers say the critical window for finding survivors alive is rapidly closing.

The death toll from Wednesday’s dual earthquakes climbed past 1,400 as of Saturday, as international rescue teams flooded into La Guaira — the coastal state that bore the brunt of the destruction.

Before those more than 1,600 foreign rescue workers arrived, families and volunteers spent days pulling both survivors and bodies from collapsed buildings. Many complained of a lack of heavy equipment and minimal official support, while hundreds of aftershocks continued to cause additional damage and kept residents living in fear.

Venezuela’s government — currently led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who took over after her predecessor was removed by the United States in a January raid — had initially praised civilian volunteers for delivering aid to La Guaira. The government later significantly restricted access to the road leading to the area, citing traffic as an obstacle to emergency vehicles and limiting use of the roadway to accredited individuals only.

While the government has acknowledged hundreds of people as missing or trapped, a website run by the country’s political opposition listed just under 50,000 people as unaccounted for as of Sunday. That number represented a slight drop from Saturday’s figure of 55,000.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that more than 10,000 deaths could ultimately result from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes — a toll that would rank them among the deadliest in Latin America over the past century.

Rescue experts stressed that time is running out. “There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive,” said Sebastian Eugster, the leader of the Swiss rescue team, speaking to reporters on Saturday. His 80-member team had located multiple living survivors in the rubble with the help of eight search dogs, but was unable to extract them in time to save their lives. Saturday evening marked exactly 72 hours since the earthquakes struck.

Eugster said the Swiss team will coordinate with other rescue groups and local authorities to determine when to officially end rescue operations, though the team plans to stay in the region to assist with broader relief efforts.

Among those rescued were several children. The U.S. State Department celebrated the rescue of an infant by American crews on Saturday, sharing video footage on social media showing rescuers in helmets lifting a blanket-wrapped, crying baby from the debris.

A Colombian rescue team saved an 11-year-old boy named Moises, who had been buried roughly 3 meters — about 10 feet — underground. Rescuers used a scanner to pinpoint his location and removed him on a stretcher with a broken arm, his eyes covered with cloth to shield them from the sudden exposure to daylight. His mother and sister did not survive.

In the town of Caraballeda, Mexican rescuers pulled another 11-year-old boy from the ruins of a collapsed building, interim President Rodriguez announced late Saturday on social media, sharing video of crews carrying the child out on a stretcher. “In these hours each life is hope for Venezuela,” Rodriguez said. The government also shared footage of a young man being freed from debris by rescue workers.

Additional government videos showed Rodriguez meeting with international rescue teams, during which she provided the updated count of people saved on Saturday. Officials also reported that more than 3,000 people have been injured and a similar number are currently living in emergency shelters.

In Caraballeda on Saturday, U.S. rescuers worked side by side with civilian volunteers, some of whom were searching for their own missing family members. Rescuers had originally marked the rubble with the name of the apartment building that once stood there. By Saturday evening, they had updated the markings with codes indicating they no longer believed any living person remained in that section of ruins.

Pope Leo addressed worshippers gathered for the Angelus prayer in Rome on Sunday, expressing his desire to “express my closeness to the Venezuelan sisters and brothers affected by the recent earthquakes” and offering gratitude to all rescue workers involved.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief announced on social media that the EU had mobilized 5 million euros — approximately $5.9 million — in emergency aid, and that the EU’s Copernicus satellite system is being used to map the damage and guide assistance to the areas most in need.

A senior U.S. official said Saturday that a funding package worth hundreds of millions of dollars is expected to be announced within the next day or so, in addition to $150 million already committed by the Trump administration.

The disaster may carry political consequences for Rodriguez, who has presented herself as a force for change despite having previously served as vice president under her predecessor. Meanwhile, electrical power was gradually being restored across the region, though Venezuela’s power grid — weakened by years of underinvestment and economic sanctions — routinely suffers from failures that cause hours-long blackouts in parts of the country.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of Iraqi political figures have been taken into custody on corruption charges, according to a report Sunday from Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency.

Authorities said the arrests stemmed from a statement given by former Deputy Minister of Oil Adnan al-Jumaili, who himself was arrested last month. The report noted that the detained individuals “included members of Parliament whose immunity had been lifted.”

Early Sunday morning, Iraqi security forces locked down all entry points to Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone — the compound that serves as home to major government buildings and foreign embassies — and carried out raids throughout the area.

The state news agency later put the total number of arrests at 47, though it remained unclear whether all of those individuals were taken into custody on Sunday or whether some had been detained in earlier operations.

Officials released the names of 15 people who were arrested, among them 12 current members of Parliament, one former legislator, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and another senior official from the oil ministry. Several of the arrested lawmakers were affiliated with al-Sudani’s Shiite political bloc, while others belonged to the Azm Alliance, a prominent Sunni political party.

The specific charges each individual faces were not immediately disclosed.

Al-Sudani’s political bloc secured the largest number of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, but he ultimately withdrew from contention for a new term after a stalemate within the Coordination Framework — a coalition of Shiite parties with ties to Iran that originally helped bring him to power — over who should lead the country next.

Al-Sudani was succeeded by Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman with no prior political experience, who emerged as a compromise choice and received support from the United States.

The wave of arrests is expected to have far-reaching consequences across Iraq’s fragmented political environment, where corruption allegations are often entangled with broader struggles for power and influence.

A small aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in northeastern France on Sunday, leaving no survivors among the 11 people on board, officials confirmed.

The plane experienced a mechanical failure and “fell almost vertically” shortly after departing from the Nancy-Essey airfield, located on the edge of the city of Nancy, according to Yves Séguy, the prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region.

Séguy told broadcaster BFM-TV that the aircraft went down near a residential neighborhood close to the airfield. “Had it occurred just a few dozen meters away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties,” he warned.

Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the plane veered left after liftoff and struck the ground less than a minute later, coming to rest near nearby homes.

According to local newspaper L’Est Républicain, those killed included five parachuting instructors, five clients, and the pilot.

Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein told public broadcaster France Info that the passengers had been planning tandem jumps — a type of skydive in which two people, typically an experienced instructor and a first-time jumper, are harnessed together for the descent.

Klein also noted that some of the victims had family members and friends present at the airfield who watched the plane go down, resulting in “numerous” cases of psychological trauma.

Séguy said emergency responders were on scene immediately and were offering psychological support to relatives of those killed, while authorities also worked to gather witness accounts. “We are deploying all available resources,” he said, citing emergency medical teams, firefighters, police, and mental health professionals.

Flight tracking websites identified the aircraft as a single-engine Pilatus PC-6, a small plane commonly used to transport freight, passengers, and skydivers.

A nearby resident, identified by BFM-TV as John Curaku, said he was in his garden when he heard what sounded like an engine cutting out, followed immediately by a loud impact. He said he went to the scene and found “no signs of life,” with two victims found several meters from the wreckage. Police have since cordoned off the crash site.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Cabinet has unanimously voted to formally label the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a genocide, a significant diplomatic step that still requires approval from the country’s parliament.

The decision reflects the increasingly troubled relationship between Israel and Turkey. Turkey has long and aggressively pushed other nations not to officially classify the Armenian deaths as genocide, while Armenian advocates have worked just as hard to gain that recognition.

Scholars and historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives at the hands of Ottoman Turks around 1915 — an event widely regarded by academics as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey rejects that characterization, arguing the death toll has been exaggerated and that those who died were casualties of civil conflict and widespread unrest.

For many years, Israel deliberately avoided taking an official stance on the matter to preserve its relationship with Turkey. However, those ties have steadily deteriorated over the past two decades, and have grown especially strained in recent years amid ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and involving Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who brought the proposal before the government, spoke strongly in support of the recognition. “Despite the extensive and unambiguous historical documentation, the Armenian Genocide remains to this day the subject of an institutionalized campaign of denial and minimization, including a manipulative rewriting of history, mainly by the Turkish government,” he said.

Saar pointed out that Israeli leaders — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have previously referred to the violence against Armenians as a genocide in personal statements. However, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has never put the matter to a formal vote.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Saar declared on Sunday, describing the recognition as a “moral and historical duty.”

He also noted that 32 other nations — among them the United States, Syria and Lebanon — have already officially classified the killings as genocide. It remains unclear when the Cabinet’s unanimous decision will be brought before parliament for a vote. Turkey had not issued any public response as of Sunday.

Israel and Turkey were once considered close allies, but that partnership began unraveling with the rise of Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prompting Israel to reconsider its long-held silence on the Armenian question.

The move comes as Israel itself faces genocide accusations from multiple fronts, including from the United Nations and Turkey, related to its military offensive in Gaza. Israel, a nation established in the aftermath of the Holocaust, strongly denies those allegations.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023. Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, reports that more than 73,000 people have been killed, with roughly half being women and children. Israel maintains that it does not deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Just last week, a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations accused Israel of intentionally shooting children in Gaza and repeated claims that Israel’s actions amount to genocide. Israel dismissed the report as a “libelous sham.”

Austria is lobbying the European Union to explore hosting Anthropic’s artificial intelligence system inside Europe, according to a Bloomberg News report published Sunday.

The effort is described as a response to moves by the United States to restrict foreign access to Anthropic’s most cutting-edge AI models.

Reuters, which first carried the report, noted it was unable to immediately verify the information independently.

LISBON — A 4.1 magnitude earthquake rattled southern Portugal’s Algarve region on Sunday morning, though authorities say there are no reports of injuries or property damage, according to the country’s sea and atmosphere institute, known as IPMA.

IPMA reported the quake struck at 7:59 a.m. and was felt by residents in the cities of Lagos and Portimao. Based on information available at the time, officials said there were no casualties or structural damage to report.

The earthquake’s epicenter was traced to the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 70 kilometers off Cape St. Vincent, according to IPMA.

Southern Portugal and the Lisbon region sit along a geologically active boundary where the Eurasian and African tectonic plates meet, though seismic activity in the area has been relatively quiet in recent years.

The region has a long history with destructive earthquakes. In 1755, a massive quake and the tsunami that followed it devastated the Portuguese capital, killing an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people — making it one of the deadliest seismic events in European history.

More recently, in 1969, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake — also centered off Cape St. Vincent — killed at least 13 people and left dozens more injured across the region.

Fourteen people lost their lives Sunday when a helicopter belonging to Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, went down in the city of Ras Tanura, according to the Saudi state news agency.

Officials have not yet identified a cause for the crash. Authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, though no further details have been released at this time.

Emergency authorities in France are on the scene of an incident involving a civilian aircraft in the northeastern town of Tomblaine, according to the local prefecture.

The incident was reported on Sunday. Local newspaper L’Est Republicain reported that the aircraft involved was transporting a group of skydivers and had crashed.

Further details are limited at this time as authorities continue to respond to the scene.

BEIRUT — A surprising proposal from President Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the Middle East: rather than continuing to support Israel’s prolonged conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Trump has suggested that Syria step in and handle the Iran-backed militant group instead.

Trump has indicated that the Islamist-led insurgents who toppled Syria’s longtime autocratic leader Bashar Assad roughly a year and a half ago — and who now lead a new Syrian government — would be more effective at eliminating Hezbollah than the Israeli military has been.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has firmly rejected the notion, insisting that Trump’s comments were taken out of context. Trump, however, has continued to push the idea.

While it remains uncertain just how committed the White House is to the proposal, the mere suggestion of a Syrian military incursion has triggered serious alarm in Lebanon. It has also unsettled Israel, which views al-Sharaa’s Islamist-led government with deep suspicion and has already seized a portion of southern Syrian territory since al-Sharaa came to power.

The situation has also inflamed tensions between Israel and Turkey — a key supporter of al-Sharaa’s government — as both countries maneuver to limit each other’s foothold in Syria. Top Israeli security officials held a meeting specifically to address the issue on Wednesday, according to a source who requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly.

On the sidelines of the G7 summit earlier this month, Trump voiced frustration with the pace of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, complaining that it has gone on too long and that “too many people are being killed.”

Since Hezbollah joined the broader Iran conflict with a March 2 attack on Israel, more than 4,000 people have died in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, among them hundreds of women and children. Israel maintains that its strikes are directed at Hezbollah and that it takes steps to minimize civilian casualties.

Trump was blunt in his criticism of Israel’s approach: “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”

He went further, saying: “I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. ‘Cause to be honest with you, I think they’d do a better job.”

Shortly after, on the opening day of U.S.-Iran talks held in Switzerland, Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst reported that Trump — during an interview — expressed frustration that Israel has been unable to “put Hezbollah away” and said he is “close to giving it to Syria,” believing al-Sharaa would handle it with more precision. The White House declined to elaborate and pointed back to Trump’s existing public statements.

Syrian officials moved quickly to contain the fallout. In a June 13 speech in Damascus, al-Sharaa stated clearly: “There are people spreading rumors that Syria will intervene in Lebanon. This is not true. We are calling for a permanent end to the war and the strengthening of institutions and for there to be economic ties and a calming of the situation in Lebanon.”

In a June 21 interview with the Emirati network Al Mashhad, al-Sharaa said Trump’s words had been misread. Trump “spoke about Syria’s role in finding a safe and peaceful solution, but the statement was misinterpreted as if Syria were going to invade Lebanon tomorrow morning,” al-Sharaa said. He added that Syria had “presented our vision for a solution to the United States, which is to stop the war and address the negative effects on Lebanon and Syria, and to find different economic, political and social solutions.”

The history between Syria and Hezbollah is deeply complicated. Hezbollah — alongside Iran — intervened in Syria’s 14-year civil war on behalf of Assad, while al-Sharaa led the insurgency trying to remove him. Despite that bitter past, Syria’s new leadership has said since taking power in December 2024 that it is focused on rebuilding the nation and has no desire to get drawn into regional conflicts or settle old scores.

When Israel and the U.S. launched their war against Iran — which set off a broader regional conflict — Syria deliberately stayed on the sidelines. In the early weeks of fighting, Syrian forces were sent to reinforce the border with Lebanon, officially to prevent weapons smuggling and stop the conflict from spilling over. In March, Syria accused Hezbollah of firing artillery shells across the border at Syrian army positions — a charge Hezbollah denied — but the standoff did not escalate further. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told The Associated Press in March that Turkey had stepped in to ease those tensions.

Al-Sharaa acknowledged in his Al Mashhad interview that Hezbollah’s decision to get involved in Syria’s civil war “was wrong,” but said he remained open to holding “dialogue” with the group and even to serving as a mediator among Lebanese factions debating the future of Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal.

Back in March, U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack had denied reports that Washington was floating the idea of Syrian intervention against Hezbollah. Since then, Trump has begun making the suggestion openly and publicly.

Randa Slim, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, was sharply critical of the proposal, calling it, “at best, driven by a profound ignorance of the dynamics on the ground.”

“Syria needs to focus on a myriad of complex and daunting challenges — not least rebuilding a shattered country and repatriating millions of refugees,” she said. “Syrian forces are far from a coherent military institution; they include thousands of foreign jihadi fighters of uncertain loyalty and discipline.”

The months following Assad’s ouster were marked by repeated outbreaks of violence between factions loyal and opposed to al-Sharaa, some of which escalated into sectarian attacks in which Sunni Islamist fighters aligned with the new government struck Alawite and Druze civilians. Those events stoked fears of cross-border violence among Lebanon’s Shiite, Christian, and Druze communities.

Many in Lebanon also carry painful memories of Syria’s decades-long military occupation of their country — a presence that began during the Lebanese civil war with initial backing from Lebanese authorities and Arab states, and did not end until 2005.

The Israeli official who spoke anonymously said Israel is watching for signs that Syria might try to reclaim its old political role in Lebanon, but emphasized that Israel’s primary concern remains Hezbollah itself.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Soldiers were sent to enforce the shutdown of a prominent news organization’s offices in Uganda’s capital on Sunday, acting on orders from the country’s military chief, who declared that all media outlets in the East African nation “will follow the rules.”

Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the eldest son of President Yoweri Museveni, has held the position of top military commander since 2024. In the days following Museveni’s swearing-in for a seventh straight term, Kainerugaba has issued a string of directives typically associated with a head of state, signaling a tightening of his personal authority.

Troops appeared outside the Kampala offices of the Daily Monitor newspaper early Sunday morning. The publication is owned by Nation Media Group, a company headquartered in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Taking to X — his go-to platform for public statements — Kainerugaba made his position clear: “I have the power in Uganda to shut down ANY media house I want to. I have had this power since 2017. This power was given to me by my great father.”

He followed that with a blunt warning: “From now on ALL media in Uganda will follow the rules!”

Beyond the Daily Monitor, Kainerugaba said his closure order also applied to local television broadcaster NTV, another outlet operating under the Nation Media Group umbrella.

The National Association of Broadcasters released a statement confirming that at least six publishing and broadcasting organizations — all belonging to Nation Media Group — had been forced to close. “We are deeply concerned about this action and its impact on the media ecosystem,” the group said.

Kainerugaba has openly stated his intention to succeed his father as president, a prospect that appears increasingly realistic as the 81-year-old leader leans more heavily on his son’s military clout.

Earlier this month, Kainerugaba took action against a well-known attorney who had attempted to hold him accountable over his alleged involvement in rights violations against opposition figure Kizza Besigye. Besigye was taken into custody in Nairobi in 2024 and has since faced treason charges that he contends are politically motivated. His lawyer, Erias Lukwago, was removed from his home and later charged with an offense connected to concealing treason.

Museveni has governed Uganda since 1986 and has given no indication of when he plans to step down. With no serious challengers within the ruling party, many observers believe the military will play a decisive role in determining who leads the country next.

Those close to Kainerugaba describe him as a disciplined military figure who avoids showy displays of wealth and takes a hard stance against government corruption. He received his military training at schools in the United States and Britain before taking command of a presidential guard unit that has since grown into an elite special forces organization. Outside of his military role, he founded a political activist group called the Patriotic League of Uganda, whose supporters and members include figures ranging from the parliamentary speaker to government ministers.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine continued its intense drone campaign against Russia on Sunday, igniting a major oil refinery in the country’s south and leaving at least two people dead, according to Russian officials.

Kyiv has been conducting large-scale, long-range drone strikes aimed at squeezing Russia’s fuel supplies and disrupting military logistics — a strategy Ukrainian authorities describe as an effort to pressure the Kremlin into peace negotiations.

Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev of Russia’s Krasnodar region reported that wreckage from intercepted Ukrainian drones touched off a fire at a refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, a town located east of occupied Crimea. Regional officials said the falling debris claimed one life in Slavyansk and left another person injured in a nearby village.

Photos and videos spreading across Russian social media appeared to show a massive plume of black smoke rising over what users identified as the Slavyansk refinery. The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the authenticity of those images.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged that Ukraine carried out the Slavyansk strike. He also stated that a second refinery was hit — this one located in Russia’s Yaroslavl region, roughly 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

“Tonight, our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Zelenskyy posted on the Telegram messaging platform. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”

Over recent months, Ukraine has significantly intensified its long-range strikes on Russian military production sites and energy infrastructure. The goal, according to Western officials, is to cut into Moscow’s income from its now fifth-year invasion and force Russian civilians to feel the toll of the war. Those officials say the campaign has helped slow Russian advances on the battlefield and increased pressure on the Kremlin.

The Slavyansk facility ranks among southern Russia’s most significant refineries, handling close to 4 million tons of crude oil annually, according to the operator’s website. It also serves as a critical supplier of petroleum products — including fuel oil, naphtha, and marine fuel — destined for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports.

Russian authorities did not immediately release information about the reported strike on the Yaroslavl refinery. However, local Gov. Mikhail Evraev announced Sunday morning that some roads connecting Moscow to the regional capital of Yaroslavl had been temporarily shut down following what he described as “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones.”

Yaroslavl’s airport also shut down briefly overnight, joining several other airports in southern and western Russia that were temporarily closed, the country’s civil aviation authority reported.

In a separate incident, Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia’s Belgorod border region killed one person and wounded another, according to acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev.

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that its forces intercepted 213 Ukrainian drones overnight across Russian territory, occupied Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas.

On the other side of the conflict, Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles at Ukraine during the night. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were successfully shot down, the air force said.

France’s public health agency, Sante Publique, announced Sunday that the country has recorded 1,000 excess deaths connected to the intense heatwave that has been scorching much of Europe — and officials say that number will almost certainly climb.

In releasing its early death toll figures, Sante Publique noted that the majority of those who died were elderly. The agency added that it anticipates the mortality numbers to increase as additional data becomes available regarding deaths that occurred in residential care facilities and private homes.

Across Europe, people have been suffering through dangerously high temperatures during a heatwave tied to dozens of deaths. The extreme heat has also shattered temperature records, disrupted power generation, and caused damage to infrastructure throughout the continent.

Scientists have described the heatwave — which began on June 20 — as the worst ever documented in Europe, a region where the climate is warming at a faster pace than the global average.

While the heatwave has been shifting eastward, France’s weather agency reported that the most extreme heat has eased in most parts of the country. However, some areas in the northeast remained under a heatwave advisory.

Health Minister Stephanie Rist cautioned in an interview with La Tribune newspaper that the health consequences of the extreme heat could persist for up to 10 days even after temperatures return to normal.

“The episode is not finished,” she also told broadcaster BFM.

Sante Publique confirmed that while most of the deaths involved people aged 65 and older, the health impacts of the extreme heat were felt across all segments of the population.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces moved in the early hours of Sunday morning to arrest politicians, lawmakers, and high-ranking government officials as part of what security and legal sources are calling the opening phase of a major anti-corruption campaign directed by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

Elite units from the Counter Terrorism Service conducted raids on homes located inside Baghdad’s heavily secured Green Zone, detaining multiple individuals, according to sources who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss sensitive matters with the press.

As of Sunday, no official statement had been released regarding the arrests.

Al-Zaidi, who assumed the role of prime minister in May, has made a public commitment to confronting deep-rooted corruption — one of the most enduring problems facing Iraq’s government, despite pledges from numerous administrations over the years to hold wrongdoers accountable.

Sunday’s raids were carried out under direct orders from al-Zaidi after Iraqi judicial authorities issued arrest warrants targeting what sources described as suspected corruption networks operating within the government.

The operation follows a series of recent arrests of senior officials, including a deputy oil minister who was taken into custody on corruption-related charges. According to three sources, those earlier arrests led to the issuance of new warrants that were then executed on Sunday.

The Green Zone, where Sunday’s raids took place, serves as home to parliament, foreign embassies, and the prime minister’s office, and is where many senior Iraqi officials, lawmakers, and political figures maintain residences or workplaces.

A senior source cited by the state news agency INA said that some of Sunday’s arrests stemmed from testimony given by Adnan al-Jumaili, the deputy oil minister for refining affairs, following his detention on corruption charges. According to INA, al-Jumaili’s statements pointed to a broader network of officials allegedly involved in corrupt activities.

Some individuals managed to escape before security forces arrived, prompting authorities to seal off entrances to the Green Zone and expand their search. The three sources indicated that the anti-corruption campaign is expected to press forward over the coming days.