World News

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Estonia on Tuesday to attend a summit of Nordic and Baltic leaders and to meet with Estonian President Alar Karis, Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported.

Estonia is hosting the summit in its capital, Tallinn. The country holds the rotating presidency of the NB8, a regional grouping of the five Nordic countries and the three Baltic states. It brought together the bloc’s prime ministers, along with Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian leader was accompanied by first lady Olena Zelenska, whom Estonia’s Foreign Ministry welcomed in a post on the social platform X.

The visit comes amid friction over Ukrainian drones, which have repeatedly strayed into the region in recent months as Kyiv steps up strikes on Baltic Sea ports Russia uses to export oil in a bid to make Moscow pay an economic cost for its war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia kept up its strikes across Ukraine. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, three people were killed and 25 others, including three children, were wounded in attacks over the past 24 hours, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional administration.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, three people were wounded when several districts came under attack overnight, said regional administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Russia launched 166 long-range strike drones and two guided missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. Air defenses shot down 146 of the drones, it said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 140 Ukrainian drones overnight. A woman was killed when a Ukrainian drone hit an apartment building in the Belgorod region, regional emergency officials said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also traveled to Tallinn, where he met his Estonian counterpart, Margus Tsahkna. The two discussed Ukraine’s security, pressure on Russia, and Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union, Tsahkna said.

“Estonia will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Tsahkna wrote on X. “As Putin intensifies his attacks and shows no sign of abandoning his imperial ambitions, our responsibility is to increase pressure, not offer concessions.”

In May, Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Estonia supports Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union and wants the bloc to keep advancing the process.

Separately, Zelenskyy said Monday that he had held positive talks with U.S. representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during a stopover at an airport in Moldova’s capital, describing them as focused on ending the war. In a social media post, he said the two sides discussed diplomatic prospects ahead of this month’s Group of Seven summit, and that he had briefed the U.S. side on Ukraine’s assessment of Russia’s intentions.

source

ANKARA, June 9 (Reuters) – The arch-rival leaders of Turkey’s main opposition – one of them elected and the other controversially court-appointed – both announced plans to address party lawmakers at competing meetings on Tuesday, in a stand-off that could deepen a crisis among President Tayyip Erdogan’s challengers. 

A Turkish court last month annulled the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 congress that elected Ozgur Ozel as chairman, citing irregularities. It also reinstated to the post Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the party’s divisive former leader who lost to Erdogan in the 2023 presidential election, in a move that hit financial markets and which critics described as politicised.

Both men had previously said they would address the weekly CHP meeting in parliament. MPs backing Ozel began gathering in the parliamentary hall several hours before it was due to begin at 1030 GMT. Kilicdaroglu then announced a new plan to hold a meeting at party headquarters, also in the capital Ankara.

“I am calling on all our party members, and every citizen whose heart beats for this country, to join us,” Kilicdaroglu said in an X post, setting a time of 1100 GMT for his meeting.

The opposition’s challenges could boost Erdogan’s prospects of extending his more than two-decade rule of NATO-member Turkey in elections scheduled to be held by 2028, but which analysts say could come earlier if the government seeks to take advantage of the CHP strife. 

Kilicdaroglu’s return and recent criticism of the party have enraged his detractors. 

The meeting could mark one of Ozel and his elected team’s last efforts to maintain control of the CHP, the party of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. 

The secular and centrist CHP, running roughly even with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted and conservative ruling AK Party (AKP) in polls, has also faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024 in which hundreds of members and elected officials have been detained as part of corruption charges that the party denies.

Kilicdaroglu has said he would purge the party of corruption, referring to the cases involving CHP-run municipalities. The ousted leadership denies the allegations and calls them a politically motivated and anti-democratic “coup” – a charge the government rejects, saying courts are independent.

The CHP has 138 deputies in the 600-seat assembly and around two-thirds of them voted after the court ruling to make Ozel head of its parliamentary group. 

Cavit Soydas, a CHP voter in the northeast village of Tekke, said on Sunday that Ozel “should fight through every possible legal means” to hang on to the party but if that fails “we are ready to go under the name of another party”. 

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever and Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Additional reporting by Mirac Dereli in Tekke; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Alexandra Hudson)

source

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, June 9 (Reuters) – Israeli authorities are directly involved in settler attacks that have killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, while Israeli security forces provide protection to settlers, a U.N. inquiry said on Tuesday.

The report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli authorities have enabled settler attacks through financial and military support, in a climate of impunity fostered by judicial and law-enforcement bodies.

It said attacks on Palestinian villages and agricultural land have surged since 2023, rising by 130%, including incidents involving groups of masked assailants. Israeli security forces have routinely accompanied settlers and acted as a shield for the violence, the report said.

The Israeli Prime Minister Office and military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Israel rejects charges that its troops shield settlers during attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, saying such actions are rogue incidents that violate military protocol and are investigated. Israeli and Palestinian rights groups say such investigations rarely lead to punishment.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, where Palestinians hope to build a state. Most countries and the U.N.’s top court consider such settlements a violation of international law, which Israel disputes citing historical and biblical ties to the land. 

At least seven Palestinians were killed and 832 injured last year, with violence continuing into 2026 in the form of near-daily attacks, according to the United Nations.

“The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in settler attacks amounts to a de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers,” the report found.

It said such violence has been used to advance state policy, including the unlawful occupation, displacement of Palestinians and the annexation of Palestinian territory.

The Commission documented cases of assaults, abductions and abuse of Palestinian children by settlers. In one incident on April 19, 2025, a 12-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother were abducted at knifepoint, dragged to an olive grove and tied to a tree with plastic restraints until their family intervened.

   In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, in its strongest findings to date on the conflict.

The Commission also said settlers committed or threatened sexual violence to instil fear and harassed Palestinian women.

“The relentless, daily assaults by Israeli settlers against Palestinians are intolerable — and must end,” said the commission’s head, S. Muralidhar, an Indian former senior judge. He urged the international community to pressure Israel to dismantle settlements and outposts and curb the violence.

Despite periodic condemnations and the dismantling of some unauthorized outposts, Israeli authorities have not taken sustained measures to stop the attacks, the report said.

HAMAS VIOLATIONS

The report said it was also gravely alarmed by serious abuses it documented in the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory, by the militant group Hamas which controls it.

Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings.

The commission found that Hamas-affiliated forces were involved in at least 60 of 249 documented cases of executions and severe physical violence in 2024 to 2025, including beatings with metal pipes and bone-breaking as punishment for alleged collaboration with Israel or looting aid.

In two instances, 11 men were publicly executed. The Commission said these acts amount to war crimes and violations of international law.

The Commission found that October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and other armed groups, which killed 1,200 people and involved hostage-taking and destruction of property, amounted to war crimes. The attacks precipitated an Israeli assault on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of the territory.

A previous report by the Commission found that Israel had committed genocide during its military offensive in Gaza, and that senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts. Israel rejected those allegations as “scandalous”.

(Reporting by Olivia Le PoidevinAdditional reporting by Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem and Nidal Mughrabi in CairoEditing by Peter Graff)

source

BEIRUT, June 8 (Reuters) – Lebanese President Joseph Aoun made a rare direct appeal to the Israeli government and its people to come to the negotiating table to end the war, warning in a CNN interview aired Monday that a military solution “will never provide you with security and safety.”

“We are ready, we are willing, we are committed. Are you? If you are, let’s sit and talk,” said Aoun.

The Lebanese government is in direct talks with Israel, mediated by Washington, to reach a full cessation of hostilities, despite opposition by armed group Hezbollah, which is fighting Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Aoun said he would not meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before reaching an agreement to end the war. He said any deal would be a non-aggression pact and not a full peace deal.

“We need to end the state of hostility between Lebanon and Israel. Forever. And this (pact) could be a path forward for a just and lasting peace,” Aoun said.

Aoun said Lebanon would move in line with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which offers normalization with Israel across the Arab world in exchange for Palestinian statehood and Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territories.

“But we cannot jump from A to B directly. We have to go through different steps,” Aoun said.

LEBANESE DYING FOR IRAN’S INTERESTS, AOUN SAYS

The war erupted on March 2 when Hezbollah fired on Israel in support of its ally Tehran. Israel responded with an air campaign and ground operations that have left swathes of southern Lebanon occupied.

More than 3,600 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon and more than one million Lebanese are displaced. The U.S. declared a ceasefire on April 16 but fighting has continued, and Lebanon says Israel has carried out nearly 3,500 strikes since the truce was announced.

Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday in retaliation for Hezbollah fire on northern Israel, triggering a 24-hour direct exchange of fire between Iran and Israel that threatened to wreck Washington’s efforts to reach an agreement with Tehran to end their more than three-month-old war.

Aoun told CNN that Lebanon sought a good relationship with Iran based on mutual respect and non-interference, and said Lebanon’s people were being killed to serve Iran’s interests.

In an earlier clip from the interview aired on Friday, Aoun accused Iran of using Lebanon as a bargaining ​chip in its talks with the United States, in some of ‌his toughest criticism yet of Tehran.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; editing by Barbara Lewis and Sanjeev Miglani)

source

KYIV, June 8 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday he had a “positive” conversation with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and praised what he called their readiness to work on a settlement of the Ukraine war in the coming weeks.

“A very positive conversation,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app of the conversation during a stopover in the Moldovan capital Chisinau.

“Grateful for the readiness to work as actively as possible already in the weeks to come to give a boost to diplomacy for ending Russia’s war against Ukraine,” he wrote.

Zelenskiy was returning to Kyiv from talks in London with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany on how to move forward with a settlement of the more than four-year-old war.

The three leaders supported a proposal for a meeting between Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to secure a ceasefire, and said Europe would play a role.

U.S.-brokered talks on the Ukraine conflict, overseen by Witkoff and Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, have been stalled, with Washington clearly focused on the conflict in Iran.

In his comments, Zelenskiy said he understood much of the world’s attention remained concentrated on Iran, “but our common goal regarding peace in Europe is on the agenda”.

He said he and the U.S. envoys discussed the prospects of talks at the forthcoming G7 summit in the French resort of Evian and expressed thanks to the United States and for the “positive assessment of Ukraine’s position”.

(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Ron Popeski and Alistair Bell)

source

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.

Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.

The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.

That’s because Trump, whose party faces elections later this year, wants to wind down an unpopular war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ease gas prices. Iran says a full ceasefire in Lebanon is key to any deal.

Netanyahu, who also faces elections this year, is under pressure to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and prove that he is winning the war with Iran and its allies. He also needs to manage relations with Israel’s most important ally without appearing to kowtow to it.

When the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the allies appeared shoulder to shoulder.

Netanyahu said the goal was to degrade the Islamic Republic’s military, eradicate its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and topple its government. Trump announced the death of Iran’s supreme leader in the opening barrage and urged Iranians to “take back” their country.

But it soon became clear that while Trump was seeking a quick win — like the one he secured in Venezuela — Netanyahu wanted to vanquish Iran and its allies, even if it required an extended conflict.

As Iran withstood weeks of heavy strikes and kept the Strait of Hormuz closed, Americans and Israelis grew increasingly frustrated — but for different reasons.

In the U.S., the price of gas and other goods soared as even some erstwhile supporters accused Trump of breaking a campaign promise and plunging the U.S. into another Mideast quagmire. He has pushed back against those critics as rising anger threatens Republicans in November’s congressional elections.

In Israel, anger grew over Netanyahu’s failure to secure a lasting victory in the wars sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which happened on his watch. More than two years on, Hamas still rules part of Gaza, Hezbollah still fires rockets and Iran’s government and nuclear program remain intact, despite heavy losses.

The collision course runs through Lebanon, where fighting still rages between Israel and Hezbollah despite ceasefire announcements.

Iran wants Lebanon included in any wider regional truce, a demand Trump seems to have accepted in order to get a deal. Iran has threatened to attack Israel again if it keeps striking Lebanon.

Israel is determined to keep the theaters separate and continue its campaign in Lebanon, where it has occupied large swaths of the south, until the threat from Hezbollah has been eliminated.

The tensions spilled into the open last week, when Trump acknowledged holding a tense call with Netanyahu about Lebanon. He admitted to using expletives and calling the Israeli leader “crazy,” saying he’d grown frustrated that Israel’s war on Hezbollah threatened the Iran talks.

In a series of interviews, Trump made clear that he was not happy about Israel’s Sunday strike in Beirut, which came without warning and hit a residential building, killing two people and wounding 20, according to Lebanese authorities.

He then urged restraint from Israel after Iran launched its first barrage of missiles later that day. “I call all the shots,” not Netanyahu, Trump told the Financial Times.

Hours later, Israel bombed Iran.

Trump had initially urged restraint in order to calm markets and keep negotiations from falling apart, according to a person familiar with the U.S.-Israel deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive conversations.

Israeli officials made the counterargument that the U.S. would not tolerate attacks without a swift response. The person added that it was also understood by both sides that not responding to the Iranian strikes would put Netanyahu in a difficult position politically.

Netanyahu has downplayed any perceived differences.

After the latest strikes, he told reporters in Hebrew that “Israel has a full right to self-defense, and we are exercising it to the extent necessary.”

“I say this to you, just as I say this, with appreciation and respect, in my good conversations with my friend, President Trump,” he added.

It’s not the first time that Trump has been publicly at odds with Netanyahu about a military operation.

In March, less than three weeks into the conflict, Trump was riled by Netanyahu’s decision to attack a critical Iranian gas field, which prompted Iran to retaliate against energy infrastructure in the Gulf.

“I told him, ’Don’t do that,’” Trump said at the time. “We get along great. It’s coordinated, but on occasion he’ll do something.”

While Trump publicly disagreed with the decision, two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly said the U.S. was made aware of Israel’s plans ahead of the attack.

It’s unclear whether the latest dispute will cause lasting damage.

“It’s not so uncommon for the U.S.-Israel relationship to have these kinds of tensions. What’s so different right now is how publicly it’s playing out,” said Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He noted that Trump has had similar public spats with other heads of state, including close allies.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations at Israel’s Bar-Ilan and Reichman universities, said he doubted the rift seriously threatened the alliance. He said Netanyahu had been careful not to push things too far.

“If there was a big threat, like if Israel were to continue the war in Iran and drag the U.S. into it, that would have been a different situation,” he said. “But that is not happening.”

He noted, though, that there are still “basic disagreements between Netanyahu and Trump on Iran, Lebanon and Gaza” that remain unanswered.

___

Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed.

source

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — As Israel and Iran traded fire on Monday in the most serious escalation since a shaky ceasefire in April, war-weary Israelis fell back on familiar routines from the last round of war with a sense of resignation and apathy. In the morning, they ran for shelter as missile alerts blared. Afterward, some stayed home and while others ran errands or took their kids to the park, seeking to maintain some normalcy.

In Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial and cultural hub, the usually bustling streets were more subdued than normal, with fewer customers at shops and other businesses than regular weekdays. The muted atmosphere stood in contrast to the festive, rainbow-colored decorations that adorned the city ahead of its annual Pride parade, scheduled for June 12.

Hours earlier, missiles were launched from both Yemen and Iran toward Israel. They came after Israel over the weekend struck Beirut’s southern suburbs, where it said Hezbollah, an ally of Tehran, had military infrastructure.

“We’re not normalizing it,” Liron Eldad, a mother of two, said of the conflict, as she joined other parents at a playground in Tel Aviv, next to a public bomb shelter. But, she said, “we can’t just sit there and be bitter.”

It was an almost ordinary pattern after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. The fighting, air raid sirens and disruptions to daily life have left many people in Israel weary and hopeless.

Eldad said she had lost faith in the country’s leadership and is hoping for political change following elections in October. “It’s clearly not working, what we’re doing, and instead we’re getting deeper and deeper into wars,” she said.

Across Israel on Monday, schools were closed and hospitals paused all non-urgent procedures, moving some patients underground as Israeli air defense systems intercepted missiles overhead.

After Iran said it would halt offensive operations against Israel, those restrictions were lifted and school was set to resume on Tuesday. By Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also suggested that Israel’s military raids had stopped, but said the country would respond “with force” to any future Iranian attack.

Still, the brief return to war put Israelis on edge. “I feel like I’m stuck in a place where you have no control over your life,” said Rana Raslan, a doctor and mother who was also at the Tel Aviv playground.

Many here also blamed Netanyahu and his allies in government for reigniting the conflict. After Israel struck Beirut over the weekend, Iran warned it would retaliate for the attack, which Israel launched in defiance of Washington’s request to stand down from major strikes near the Lebanese capital.

“The behavior of the government and the prime minister, and the way he’s brought us into unending wars and his constant lies to his infantile base, don’t help me sleep well at night,” said Moshe Regev, 63, a retired economist who was visiting the beach in Tel Aviv.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251. More than 72,700 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza since then, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government whose numbers are generally considered reliable by the international community.

Several blocks from the shore, 75-year-old Shlomi Yakobi, a fruit and vegetable seller, praised Netanyahu’s performance as prime minister over the past three years. It was a tumultuous period that would have caused a lesser leader to crack, said Yakobi, who has owned his own stall in Tel Aviv’s Carmel market for half a century.

“People are hiding at home instead of going out,” he said, as he sold apricots to a handful of tourists. His business has suffered because of the war, Yakobi said, adding that the country had no choice. Sometimes he ends up with a surplus of produce, which he donates to the synagogue next door.

“For two years now, you never know what’s going to happen in the next five minutes,” he said.

source

DAKAR, June 8 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday said confirmed Ebola deaths had climbed to 101 and that the presence of armed groups was continuing to hinder the response in the hardest-hit province.

The outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola was announced on May 15, though officials have since said it went undetected for weeks, leaving health authorities behind the curve and struggling to bring it under control.

It is unfolding in three provinces long beset by armed conflict: Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu.

In its latest situation report published on Monday, Congo’s government said there had been 35 new confirmed cases in the previous 24 hours, including 10 deaths. That brought the total number of confirmed cases to 550 and the total number of confirmed deaths to 101.

The cases have been recorded in 17 of Ituri’s health zones as well as in seven health zones in North Kivu and one health zone in South Kivu.

Mistrust and resistance have hampered the response, with attacks on burial teams and treatment centres reported. The latest such attack occurred on Sunday, a source familiar with the government response said, with a burial team targeted at the Nyamurongo cemetery in Bunia, leaving two people seriously injured and two vehicles damaged. 

The situation report said the presence of armed groups in Djugu, Irumu and Mambasa – all in Ituri – was continuing “to limit humanitarian access in multiple health zones affected or at risk.”

It said that Bunia, the capital of Ituri, was relatively calm.

Earlier on Monday, Africa’s top public health agency said the number of confirmed Ebola cases in Congo had risen to 544.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention gave Congo’s confirmed Ebola deaths as 88.

(Reporting by Congo newsroom and Anait Miridzhanian; Writing by Robbie Corey-Boulet; Editing by Alexander Winning and Daniel Wallis)

source

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Cristina formed Monday in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Nicaragua, forecasters said.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Cristina had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph). It was centered 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Managua, Nicaragua, and about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of San Salvador, El Salvador.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Puerto Sandino to the Guatemala/El Salvador border.

Cristina was forecast to bring rainfall of 4 to 8 inches, with maximum totals of about 12 inches (30 centimeters), across coastal Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala through Thursday.

Cristina was the second tropical storm affecting the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Tropical Storm Boris was spinning off the coast of Mexico on Monday and was expected to make landfall there on Tuesday.

source

June 8 (Reuters) – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling party, Civil Contract, has secured 49.81% of the vote in the parliamentary elections, country’s central election commission said on Monday.

The opposition party Strong Armenia has secured 23.29% of the vote, it said.

(Reporting by Reuters)

source