Author: Disha Mishra

Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic has deepened its defence cooperation with Moscow, a Reuters review of travel records and employment data indicates. The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and September 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight. The booking records include the men’s passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix “20”. That denotes a passport used for official state business,…

U.S. President Donald Trump paused military aid to Ukraine following last week’s clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, potentially hampering Ukraine’s efforts to fend off Russia as he pivots towards warmer relations with Moscow. Trump upended U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia upon taking office in January, opening talks with Moscow. The reversal culminated in an explosive confrontation with Zelenskiy at the White House on Friday, in which Trump upbraided him for being insufficiently grateful for Washington’s backing. “President Trump has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada took effect on Tuesday, along with a doubling of duties on Chinese goods to 20%, launching new trade conflicts with the top three U.S. trading partners. The tariff actions, which could upend nearly $2.2 trillion in two-way annual U.S. trade went live at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT), hours after Trump declared that all three countries had failed to do enough to stem the flow of the deadly fentanyl opioid and its precursor chemicals into the U.S. China responded immediately after the deadline, announcing additional tariffs of…

Ukrainians faced a daunting new reality on Saturday following the White House clash between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump which plunged ties between Kyiv and its top military backer to a new low. Friday’s confrontation flared over differing visions of how to end Russia’s three-year-old invasion, with Zelenskiy seeking strong security guarantees from a Trump administration that has embraced diplomacy with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Ukrainians, many of them hardened by three years of war, rallied behind Zelenskiy in defiance but worried about the future of U.S. backing for Kyiv’s war effort. “The Americans don’t know the real…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s meeting with Donald Trump ended in disaster on Friday, after the two leaders clashed in an extraordinary exchange before the world’s media at the White House over the war with Russia. Zelenskiy had seen the meeting in the Oval Office as an opportunity to convince the United States not to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Instead U.S. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance laid into Zelenskiy, saying he showed disrespect, driving relations with Kyiv’s most important wartime ally to a new low. The Ukrainian leader…

Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish militant leader jailed by Turkey who called on Thursday for his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to dissolve and all groups to lay down arms, is an influential figure among the main Kurdish groups in northeastern Syria. Turkey hopes the statement will pave the way for Ocalan’s outlawed PKK to disarm, potentially ending the insurgency it has been waging against the Turkish state since 1984 and in which 40,000 people have been killed. Here’s a primer on Syria’s main Kurdish groups and their PKK ties. BORN IN CIVIL WAR After the start of Syria’s civil war in…

China’s defence ministry said on Thursday that drills which had alarmed Taiwan off its coast were “routine” and the island should stop complaining, as Taipei reported a surge in Chinese military activity, although no live-fire exercises. Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, said on Wednesday the Chinese military had set up a zone for “shooting” drills in the southwestern part of the Taiwan Strait, off the key areas of Kaohsiung and Pingtung. Taiwan condemned the move as dangerous, provocative and a threat to commercial flights and shipping, adding that it was given no prior notice. At…

A delegation of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party visited jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan on Thursday in his island prison, where he was expected to give them a statement that Ankara hopes will pave the way for his outlawed group to disarm. Broadcaster CNN Turk said it had learned that Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was expected to give a one-page statement saying that laying down arms was a necessity and calling for a democratic struggle on a political level. Turkey’s Justice and Interior Ministries said they could not verify the authenticity of the statement published by CNN…

Militant group Hamas said on Thursday it was ready to begin talks on the second phase of a ceasefire in Gaza after several hundred Palestinians were released from Israeli jails overnight in return for the bodies of four Israeli hostages. It was the final exchange of the six-week first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza that came into effect on January 19. Israel said on Thursday morning that three of the hostages whose bodies it had received overnight had been murdered in captivity and the fourth had been killed on the day of the October 2023 Hamas raid into Israel…

More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites. In the report, shared exclusively with Reuters, the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December. Some sites were on the…