World News

MOSCOW, June 6 (Reuters) – The Russian-installed management of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant said on Saturday that it had restored the Ferrosplavnaya-1 power line, which supplies electricity to the plant.

“All systems and equipment at the ZNPP are operating normally,” the management said via its Telegram channel.

A temporary local ceasefire, brokered by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was declared on Friday to allow repairs to the power line.

A few hours after the incident was reported, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom accused Ukraine of deliberately violating the ceasefire through a drone attack that left at least three people injured.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, was seized by Russian troops in the early weeks of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Each side has since accused the other of undertaking military actions to compromise nuclear safety.

The plant generates no electricity, but needs external power to ensure ​that nuclear fuel at the site does not overheat.

The latest ​ceasefire was the ⁠sixth negotiated since late last year to carry out repairs to the power lines.

(Reporting by Anastasia Lyrchikova, Editing by Louise Heavens)

source

PARIS (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a D-Day anniversary speech on Saturday to appear to link immigration by sea to the wartime liberation of Europe, warning that the freedom won by Allied troops could prove temporary if leaders failed to defend it.

Hegseth, speaking at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer in northwestern France during commemorations for the 82nd anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landings, said that today, “different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies.”

“Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive,” he said.

“When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?” he added. “I pray not, and I believe not.”

Hegseth did not use the word immigration, but his remarks echoed broader Trump administration criticism of Europe over migration, borders and what U.S. officials have described as censorship of nationalist and far-right voices.

On Saturday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office condemned U.S. Vice President JD Vance for blaming immigration for the killing of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old British student stabbed to death in Southampton, even though both Nowak and his killer were British.

In December, the Trump administration’s national security strategy warned that Europe faced the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and could become “unrecognizable” within 20 years.

source

LONDON (AP) — British police said Saturday that six more people have been charged with violent disorder at a protest over the stabbing death of a university student who was handcuffed by officers as he lay dying.

Police were pelted with chairs, cans, rocks and flares on Tuesday by some of the hundreds of people attending a protest in the English southern coastal city of Southampton, where 18-year-old Henry Nowak was killed in December.

Many in Britain and beyond were angered by police body-worn video showing Nowak being handcuffed moments before he became unconscious and subsequently died.

Nowak’s death has spurred heated debates about policing, race and knife crime in the U.K. Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed to police that he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak, who was white. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded man as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.

Digwa, 23, was convicted of murder for stabbing Nowak with a Sikh dagger and sentenced this week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term. But the case has been seized on by anti-immigration activists and politicians, who claim there is bias against white people in the justice system.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called the street violence in reaction to the case “disgraceful and completely unacceptable. Authorities have urged the public to heed a call by Nowak’s family not to use his death to stir up violence and disorder.

In total, police said, 11 people have been charged with disorder at the Southampton protest this week.

On Friday, Starmer’s office condemned comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for Nowak’s death. Vance said in a post on social platform X that there should be “righteous anger” in response to the murder, which he blamed in part on “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

In a statement issued in response to Vance’s comments, Starmer’s office criticized people “trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets.”

source

U.S. Central Command said on social media Friday night that Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, with U.S. forces intercepting six of the missiles and a seventh failing to reach its target. The military said there were no reports of harm to U.S. personnel.

The ballistic missiles were fired after the U.S. earlier in the day shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward Strait of Hormuz.

“The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” U.S. Central Command said on social media.

Kuwaiti’s military said forces were intercepting missiles and drones attacking the country, while Bahrain activated air raid sirens and told residents to move to the nearest safe location and follow official instructions.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it targeted the Ali Al Salem airbase, which hosts U.S. forces in Kuwait, and the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in the tiny Gulf island nation of Bahrain, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

U.S. Central Command said it hit the radar sites, including an island in the strait, “to defend against further attacks.”

Despite the attacks raising new concerns that the ceasefire could collapse, Trump told reporters Friday that “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well.”

“We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” Trump said at an event with farmers in Wisconsin. “The very tough way is maybe the easier way, but we’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.”

Asked on Friday why it was taking so long, Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” it was because “it’s a very hard thing for them,” citing their “great independence” and the fact that “they’re strong, they’re proud.”

“There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do. They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while,” he said in the interview.

Trump said the Iranians still have 21% to 22% of their missiles.

The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, in an encounter Friday with militants in southern Lebanon.

The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, also threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz because Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon.

Besides the drone interception in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military said earlier Friday that its forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Iran in the Indian Ocean as the United States seeks to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods.

The U.S. also targeted Iran’s energy sector with new sanctions on a group of people, firms and tankers.

PHOTO- AP

source

By Ahmed Elimam, Jana Choukeir and Phil Stewart

DUBAI/WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) – U.S. forces struck Iranian coastal radar sites on Saturday after shooting down drones launched by Iran toward the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military said, in the latest escalation complicating efforts to end the war between the two countries.

The U.S. military believes the four Iranian drones were targeting regional maritime traffic, a U.S. official told Reuters. U.S. Central Command said on X that the U.S. then struck Iran’s surveillance sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island, which are both on the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in largely indirect negotiations to secure an interim deal to halt the three-month-old war that would leave issues including Iran’s nuclear programme to further negotiations.

As part of any agreement, Tehran wants access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, the lifting of a U.S. blockade on its ports and leverage over the strait. Iran has effectively blocked the strait, where about a fifth of the world’s oil transited before the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump is facing mounting domestic political pressure due to rising gas prices to bring the unpopular war to an end. He told NBC that while most of Iran’s drone and missile manufacturing facilities had been destroyed, the Iranians still have access to about a fifth of their missiles.

“They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say percentage wise, maybe 21%-22% of their missiles. It’s a lot of missiles, but it’s not what it was when we first attacked,” Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” program, according to excerpts released by the network on Friday.

When asked why Iran’s leaders — if as desperate as he has portrayedthem — were not more inclined to strike a deal, Trump said: 

“Because they are strong. They’re proud. There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do, they’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while.”

Israel and the U.S. launched the war with strikes on Iran in late February.

FIGHTING FLARES ACROSS REGION DESPITE CEASEFIRES

In a parallel conflict in Lebanon, Iran-aligned armed group Hezbollah said on Friday it had carried out two attacks on Israeli troops in south Lebanon, including near the recently captured Beaufort Castle, while Lebanese security services said Israeli airstrikes hit towns across southern Lebanon.   

Iran has reaffirmed support for Hezbollah while demanding that Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon. Tehran has made a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah a condition for any peace deal with Washington to resolve the regional war, now in its fourth month, and restart shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel erupted at the start of March, two days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Hezbollah said its actions were in support of Tehran.  

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem this week rejected a U.S.-brokered pact between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting in Lebanon. The deal did not provide for an Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations.

Israel has kept up strikes in southern Lebanon, and it has said its forces would not withdraw or halt operations in the country amid increasing friction with the U.S.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri said on Friday he would agree to the withdrawal of the group from southern Lebanon if Israeli troops simultaneously left territory they occupy in the country. 

Along with Lebanon, residents of Gaza, northern Israel and Kuwait have all been under fire this week, despite U.S.-arranged ceasefires that Trump said involved “shooting in a more moderate manner”, rather than a total halt to fighting.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Aidan Lewis and Nathan Layne; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

source

Israeli Security Cabinet Nixes Vote on Lebanon Ceasefire Proposal After Hezbollah Chief Rejects It  

Israeli ministers refrained from approving a proposed ceasefire arrangement during a security cabinet meeting on Thursday after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem publicly rejected the framework, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers that “at the moment there is no agreement.”   

The proposal, developed during Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington, would establish security zones in Lebanon without a Hezbollah presence, requiring the group to withdraw from areas south of the Litani River.   

According to participants in the meeting, Netanyahu told ministers that Israel was still waiting for Hezbollah to formally accept the proposal before it could be brought forward for government approval.   

“At the moment there is no agreement,” Netanyahu said, according to participants in the meeting. “Hezbollah opposes it, and therefore I am not bringing it for a decision. If it agrees, I will bring it for your approval.”   

Ministers ultimately did not vote on the proposal after learning of Qassem’s rejection.   

Earlier Thursday, the Hezbollah leader denounced the plan and the negotiations that produced it.   

“The result of the direct, humiliating and disgraceful negotiations is rejected by broad parts of the Lebanese people,” Qassem said.   

He further criticized the proposal, stating, “The Washington declaration conditions the basic principles that America and Israel want, toward the subjugation of Lebanon to the Greater Israel project.”   

The security cabinet meeting took place against the backdrop of continued fighting in southern Lebanon. During the session, ministers were informed of the death of Capt. Eitan Shmuel Lamberg, an Armored Corps officer who was killed in southern Lebanon.   

According to Ynet, news of Lamberg’s death reinforced opposition to the ceasefire proposal among some ministers participating in the discussion.   

At the same time, Ynet reported that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that achieving a ceasefire under the current circumstances would represent a significant accomplishment.   

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir attended only the opening portion of the cabinet meeting and made few remarks, officials familiar with the discussion told Ynet.  

source

Hezbollah Engineering Commander Abed Harb Killed in strike, IDF Says  

Israel announced the killing of Abed Harb, the commander of Hezbollah’s engineering unit,  on Friday.   

According to the Israeli military, Harb was killed in a strike in Lebanon. The military said he oversaw Hezbollah’s engineering unit and was involved in activities targeting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops operating in southern Lebanon.  

“Harb commanded the engineering unit that was responsible for assembling and deploying explosives intended to harm IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon,” the military says.  

The military also reported that the Israeli Air Force struck a launcher used by Hezbollah to fire rockets at troops in southern Lebanon. The IDF released footage of the operation and said the strike was carried out overnight.  

The operations came after Israel’s security cabinet met Thursday to discuss a proposal developed during Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington. The framework would establish security zones in Lebanon without a Hezbollah presence and require the group to withdraw from areas south of the Litani River.  

The cabinet did not vote on the proposal after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected it.  

According to participants in the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers that the proposal would not be brought forward for approval unless Hezbollah formally accepted it.  

“At the moment there is no agreement,” Netanyahu said, according to participants in the meeting. “Hezbollah opposes it, and therefore I am not bringing it for a decision. If it agrees, I will bring it for your approval.”  

Earlier Thursday, Qassem denounced both the proposal and the negotiations that produced it.  

“The result of the direct, humiliating and disgraceful negotiations is rejected by broad parts of the Lebanese people,” Qassem said.  

During the cabinet session, ministers were informed of the death of Capt. Eitan Shmuel Lamberg, an Armored Corps officer killed in southern Lebanon.  

According to Ynet, notification of Lamberg’s death strengthened opposition among some ministers to the ceasefire proposal under discussion.  

The meeting concluded without a vote, while Israeli military operations in Lebanon continued. 

source

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese-made humanoid robots are making waves with their ability to do backflips, direct traffic, and even make coffee as the companies developing them seek ways to expand and dominate the market.

Robot makers in China say they have thousands of orders from both the government and private businesses for humanoids that can do such things as sort parcels at postal centers, as the country finds ways to cope with an aging population and rising labor costs. However, some experts believe demand for humanoids lags the capacity to build them.

China and the United States dominate research for what Morgan Stanley estimates is a $5 trillion humanoid robots market.

By some measures, the U.S. holds an upper hand in developing the artificial intelligence for such robots’ high-level computing power, or “brains.” But as the world’s factory floor, China leads in mass production capacity, supplies of hardware and harvesting of data for training robots.

The Shanghai-based startup Matrix Robotics makes humanoid robots that employ AI. Its flagship humanoid robot, the “MATRIX-3,” stands nearly 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) tall and is equipped with hands able to make finely controlled movements. They are priced at around $99,000 per unit.

Customers for the roughly 1,000 orders it has received include coffee chains and hotels, its founder and CEO Allan Zhang, who formerly worked for Tesla, said at a recent robotics expo in Macao.

So far, Matrix has made only a few hundred of the robots, though it said it will be capable of delivering 5,000 units within this year, depending on the number of orders.

EngineAI, a startup based in southern China’s Shenzhen, says its full-sized humanoid robots could be used as security guards and museum guides. They also perform, with dancing and boxing.

A basic edition of its humanoid costs 180,000 yuan ($26,600). “The next step will be to move into more real-life scenarios,” said Issac Li, EngineAI’s head of brand and marketing.

Most humanoid robots are still performative rather than functional, falling short of working in messy, unpredictable environments, said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the New America think tank focused on Chinese technology.

“The use cases of these robots are still so limited,” said Chibo Tang of the venture capital firm Gobi Partners, which invests in technology startups including robotics companies. “Without the demand and without that scale from the market, these companies are not able to really go into mass production.”

China had more than 140 humanoid robot manufacturers and more than 330 models in 2025, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Last year, the Chinese government even publicly warned about the risk of a bubble in the industry given the lagging state of commercialization and applications.

Corporate and academic labs are buying humanoid robots for research. And in China, many of the more than 2 billion yuan ($295 million) worth of orders in 2025 came from state-owned enterprises for use in places such as power plants, data centers or for entertainment, Morgan Stanley said.

“The economics are tough: humanoid robots remain expensive to produce, fragile in operation, and dependent on highly structured environments to function,” Sacks explained. There’s “a long way to go to get to a level of functionality where people will actually feel comfortable having them in their homes providing care for elderly or children,” she said.

The more viable commercial path will more likely be through industrial and logistics settings, Sacks said. But many factories in China and elsewhere already are equipped with non-humanoid robotic arms that perform repetitive single functions and may not need many humanoid robots.

In Japan and in the U.S., humanoid robot startups are also struggling to find buyers in industrial and other work settings.

Yet over the past year, real-world deployment of humanoid robots in China has accelerated.

Chinese people are relatively “used to this rapid change in terms of technology,” said Ye Tian, an ex-Apple engineer and founder and CEO of the Chinese startup RoboScience, which focuses on developing the systems behind AI-powered robots.

As the technology matures, humanoids could perform heavy-lifting and mundane tasks in warehouses, factories and ports, said Lian Jye Su, with the technology research group Omdia.

Humanoid robots also can fill in gaps where work is dangerous or repetitive, Matrix’s Zhang said. There’s also a “very large household market” for handling chores in hundreds of millions of homes in China, he believes.

In Beijing, freelance social media content creator Yang Ning recently tried out a cleaning service with a helper robot with mechanical arms and hands. It can do simple tasks like organizing shoes, folding clothes and changing garbage bags, but it’s accompanied by a human cleaner.

Watching the robot sort shoes at her doorway was “amazing,” she said. Still, she thought the helper robot was not that efficient and was “a bit too big and difficult to move around in a small house.”

Last year, Chinese humanoid robots accounted for around 85% globally, according to a recent research report by Barclays.

Startups in China have the advantage of massive state support, in line with the ruling Communist Party’s 2026-2030 five-year plan targeting the frontiers of technology, including advancements of humanoid robots.

Of the more than 13,000 humanoid robots shipped in 2025, AGIBOT and Unitree, two of China’s leading robotics companies, each shipped over 5,000, while U.S. rivals like Figure AI and Tesla each shipped a few hundred or less, according to Omdia.

Morgan Stanley expects China’s humanoid sales to more than double this year to around 28,000 units. Omdia forecasts that annual shipments of advanced robots could surpass 1 million units by the early 2030s.

Some robot makers say they are already profitable. Unitree said it made 1.7 billion yuan (around $250 million) in revenue last year, with a profit of over 278 million yuan ($41 million).

Robot makers argue that as production of humanoid robots increases, costs will drop. Using more locally made parts also helped make Chinese robots 20% or more cheaper than foreign models on average, Morgan Stanley said. It estimates the average price could fall to about $21,000 by 2050, from $46,000 last year.

Some humanoid robots in China were priced at below $6,000.

A report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies said while China’s humanoids are already cheaper than those made elsewhere, they are still “far too expensive for widespread deployment.”

Another challenge for manufacturers is to accumulate enough good data to train more robots.

Wang Xiaogang, co-founder of the Chinese AI software company SenseTime and chairman of ACE Robotics, said his company is collecting a lot of human-centric data from factories, retailing and offices settings that could guide advanced robots to perform complicated functions.

For humanoid robots to learn more than single tasks, data from a wide variety of scenarios in public and private settings with a reasonable level of difficulty is needed, said Eric Guo, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based AI² Robotics. But that could take years to massively scale up.

“The mass production capability in (the) robotic area is still at the very early stage,” Guo said.

___

Associated Press video journalists Olivia Zhang and Wu Jia in Beijing contributed to this report.

source

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observed sea trials of a new warship repaired after a failed launch last year and vowed to accelerate efforts to build a nuclear-armed navy, state media said Saturday, showcasing his expanding military capabilities ahead of a visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim visited the 5,000-ton destroyer Kang Kon on Thursday as it underwent capability tests. Photos released by the agency showed him accompanied by his increasingly prominent teenage daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju Ae, whom South Korean officials say may be being groomed as his successor.

Kim Jong Un called for “rapidly developing” naval forces capable of playing a larger role in the country’s nuclear deterrent and dealing a “deadly blow at the enemy any moment under the water or on the water,” KCNA said. He said the navy was a key focus of a new five-year defense plan approved at a ruling party congress earlier this year, which he said includes building larger 10,000-ton-class destroyers and developing unspecified “underwater secret weapons.”

The agency did not report any direct remarks by Kim about Washington or Seoul amid persistent tensions over his nuclear ambitions and a prolonged freeze in diplomacy. The report came a day after North Korean and Chinese state media confirmed that Xi would visit North Korea on Monday, the latest sign of Beijing’s efforts to reinforce ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor. In recent years, Kim has prioritized relations with Russia, notably by sending troop s and military equipment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Xi’s trip was announced a day after North Korea unveiled what South Korea’s military assessed as a new uranium-enrichment facility for producing nuclear bomb fuel. During a visit to the unspecified site, Kim pledged to expand the country’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate,” a move that experts say reflects his desire to cement North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state ahead of Xi’s visit.

Kang Kon is the second of two destroyers North Korea unveiled last year, following the Choe Hyon, whose development Kim hailed as a major step toward expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military. State media said the ships are designed to carry a range of weapons systems, including anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons as well as nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, though some experts have questioned their effectiveness in active duty.

Kang Kon was damaged during a botched launching ceremony in May last year at the northeastern port of Chongjin, triggering a furious reaction from Kim, who called the failure “criminal.” North Korea said Kang Kon was relaunched in June after repair, but outside experts have questioned whether the ship is fully operational. Kim has called for building two more 5,000-ton-class destroyers.

source

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Sherpa guide who survived a week on the treacherous slopes of Mount Everest was recovering at a hospital in Nepal’s capital on Friday, while his family angered by a delay in rescue efforts sought legal action against those responsible.

Dawa Sherpa was found Thursday crawling in the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above Everest base camp, a week after he went missing. The 57-year-old was flown to a Kathmandu and reunited with his family. He was being treated for frostbite, dehydration and problems in his thighs but was stable and recovering, HAMS Hospital said in a statement.

His family said they were upset that the search had not begun earlier and filed a police case against Dawa’s employer, the Kathmandu-based Himalayan Traverse company, and a complaint at the Department of Tourism, which handles mountaineering in Nepal.

“Action needs to be taken by the mountaineering department. It was negligence of the company that resulted in so much delay in starting rescue,” Dawa’s nephew, Karma Gelje Sherpa, said. “If he had been a foreign climber, rescue would definitely have been organized much faster and prompt, but he happened to be an old Nepali.”

Himalayan Traverse could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.

Dawa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though two other foreign climbers who were with him did. They were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled.

Dawa’s last location was a spot called Yellow Band above the Camp 3, which is located at 7,200 meters (23,622 feet). The base camp is at 5,300 meters (17,388 feet).

Dawa was last seen with British climber Chris Thrall and a Polish climber identified by local media as Mariusz Chmielewski. Thrall said in his Instagram post that he had to help the Polish climber down the mountain because he was in bad shape and had frostbites.

“He (Dawa) had been in death zone for 19 hours and at that point, a decision was made that we needed to descent through the Icefall,” he said earlier this week, explaining why he did not go up the mountain to look for Dawa.

When helicopters were finally sent to look for him, they could not find him.

It was not clear why the men were on the mountain when authorities had removed the ladders on the path on May 29.

Dawa’s family had already given up hope and they were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

source