World News

DUBAI, April 20 (Reuters) – Iran executed two men convicted of cooperating with Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and planning attacks inside the country, the judiciary’s news outlet Mizan reported on Sunday.

Mizan said the two, identified as Mohammad Masoum Shahi and Hamed Validi, were accused of belonging to a spy network linked to Mossad and had received training abroad, including in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

They had been convicted on charges including “enmity against God” and cooperation with hostile groups, and their death sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out, Mizan reported.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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SINGAPORE, April 20 (Reuters) – More than 20 vessels passed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, data from shipping analytics firm Kpler showed, the highest number of ships crossing the waterway since March 1.

• Among the vessels that made it through on Saturday, five of them last loaded cargoes from Iran ranging from oil products to metals. Three of them are liquefied petroleum gas carriers with one each heading to China and India.

• Panama-flagged tanker Crave, carrying LPG from the United Arab Emirates, is heading to Indonesia.

• Two of three tankers – Akti A and Athina – carrying refined products loaded from Bahrain and are heading to Mozambique and Thailand, respectively.

• Liberian-flagged tanker Navig8 Macallister is shipping about 500,000 barrels of UAE’s naphtha to Ulsan in South Korea.

• Liberian-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier Fpmc C Lord is carrying about 2 million barrels of Saudi crude and heading for Mailiao port in Taiwan.

• Indian-flagged Desh Garima loaded with about 780,000 barrels of UAE’s Das crude is heading to Sri Lanka.

• Vessel Ruby carrying Qatari fertiliser is heading to the UAE.

• Bulk carrier Merry M is carrying petroleum coke loaded from Saudi Arabia to Ravenna in Italy.

(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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TAIPEI, April 20 (Reuters) – The head of one of Taiwan’s top business groups said on Monday both Beijing and Taipei should leave politics out of resuming normal trade and tourism exchanges, after China unveiled new incentives for the island.

China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, announced measures this month which include easing tourism curbs and food imports, but said they had to be based on “opposing Taiwan independence”.

China refuses to talk to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te saying he is a “separatist”, and has stepped up political and economic pressure in recent years, targeting tourism and imports of food, as well as holding regular war drills.

“As soon as there is an opening up, it should be as much as possible be systematic and normalised to maintain the long-term stability of business and trade exchanges,” said Paul Hsu, chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce.

Flanked by representatives of the tourist and food sectors, he urged China to ensure stability in trade ties rather than sudden stops and starts, in comments to reporters in Taipei.

No matter which political party runs a city or county, China should offer equal treatment, especially in southern Taiwan, Hsu added, referring to a stronghold of Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China’s new steps came at the end of a visit to Beijing by Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun, which she described as a journey of peace, on which she met President Xi Jinping.

Taiwan’s government should also “proactively face” China’s offers of opening up, Hsu’s group, which represents more than a million companies, said in a statement accompanying the remarks.

Group members’ votes would go to whoever was good for Taiwan industry, Hsu said, adding that he was representing non-partisan industry voices.

“As long as you put forth good policies, we will offer support. But if you stand against us, I’m sorry, I can’t support you. We have a vote – we are a democratic society.”

Taiwan will hold key local elections in November, with the next presidential vote scheduled for early 2028.

On Sunday, Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said the government would address the “reasonable demands” of industry, but warned it not to “become tools manipulated and exploited by the Chinese communists”.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian strikes killed at least two people in Ukraine, officials said Sunday, as the Ukrainian military struck a drone factory in southwestern Russia.

A “massive” nighttime drone strike on Chernihiv in northern Ukraine killed a 16-year-old boy and wounded four others, according to the head of the city’s military administration.

Rescuers found the teenager’s body as they cleared away rubble, Dmytro Bryzhynskyi reported on Telegram on Sunday morning. He said the drone strike also wounded three women and one man. Several houses were set on fire, he added.

Russian drones also attacked the southern city of Kherson on Sunday, local officials reported.

A man died of his wounds after a drone hit a van driving through the city center, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional administration. A second man was hospitalized with blast injuries, regional authorities said.

Russia launched 236 drones into Ukrainian territory overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s air force reported. Of those, 203 drones were shot down while 32 hit targets in 18 separate locations, it said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine hit a drone factory in the city of Taganrog, Ukraine’s General Staff reported. The site lies some 55 kilometers (35 miles) east of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine in southwestern Russia.

According to the military, Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at the Atlant Aero factory, which designs and produces strike and reconnaissance drones, as well as components for more powerful UAVs that can carry guided bombs weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 pounds).

Ukraine’s navy said it carried out the attack on the drone factory in southern Russia, using domestically manufactured Neptune cruise missiles.

“This defense enterprise is an important part of the Russian military-industrial complex, where drones were developed and manufactured,” the navy said in an online post.

It also posted images showing a huge cloud of smoke over the city, which it said was the impact of the strikes.

Three people were injured in a nighttime air attack on commercial infrastructure in Taganrog, according to the Russian regional governor, Yuri Slyusar. He did not specify what facility was hit, but said warehouses were set on fire following the strike.

Taganrog Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said the strike damaged “commercial enterprises” in the city, as well as a vocational school and multiple cars.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 274 Ukrainian drones during the night, as well as guided aerial bombs and a Neptune cruise missile. The ministry did not say how many struck targets.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry on Sunday launched an official inquiry into a mass shooting in Kyiv the previous day that killed six people and wounded at least 14 others.

A gunman wielding an automatic weapon killed six people and barricaded himself inside a supermarket with hostages in the Ukrainian capital before he was shot and killed by police, authorities said.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko described the attacker’s mental state as “clearly unstable.”

The 58-year-old gunman has not been named, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said he was born in Russia. Authorities worked to piece together a motive for the violence.

Several police officers were suspended for allegedly failing to respond appropriately in the initial stages of the shooting. Klymenko, the interior minister, described their behavior as “shameful and unworthy” of their role as police officers.

He said there was no plan to toughen gun ownership laws, arguing that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens had helped the country’s defense against Russia.

The mass shooting — unheard of in wartime Kyiv following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — took place in a busy central district of the city, outside an apartment block and a nearby shopping center, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled for safety.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies covered with emergency blankets before they were taken away.

Elsewhere, Zelenskyy responded with dismay to the Trump administration’s decision on Friday to extend its pause on sanctions on Russian oil shipments.

“Every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X, arguing that any additional revenue the Kremlin gets from oil sales “is directly converted into new strikes against Ukraine.”

“That is why it is important that Russian tankers are stopped, not allowed to deliver oil to ports. The aggressor’s oil exports must decrease, and Ukraine’s long-range sanctions continue to work toward that goal,” he added.

The so-called general license, intended to ease supply constraints resulting from the Iran war, means U.S. sanctions will not apply for 30 days on deliveries of Russian oil that has been loaded on tankers as of Friday. It extended a similar 30-day license issued in March for Russian oil that had been loaded by March 11.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM, April 19 (Reuters) – The Israeli military published for the first time a map of its new deployment line inside Lebanon on Sunday, bringing dozens of mostly abandoned Lebanese villages under its control, days after a ceasefire with Hezbollah took effect.  

There was no immediate comment from Lebanese officials or from Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israel and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to a U.S.-backed ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. 

The deal, which followed the first direct talks in decades between Israel and Lebanon on ​April 14, is meant to enable broader U.S.-Iran negotiations but with Israeli forces maintaining positions deep inside southern Lebanon. 

Stretching east to west, the deployment line on the map runs 5-10 km deep from the border into Lebanese territory, where Israel has said that it plans to create a so-called buffer zone.

Israeli forces ‌have destroyed ⁠Lebanese villages in the area, saying their aim is to protect northern Israeli towns from Hezbollah attacks. It has created buffer zones in Syria and in Gaza, where it controls more than half the enclave.

“Five divisions, alongside Israeli Navy forces, are operating simultaneously south of the forward defence line in southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah terror infrastructure sites and to prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel,” the military said in a statement accompanying the map.

Asked whether people who fled the Israeli strikes would be allowed to return to their homes, the Israeli military declined to comment. 

Lebanese civilians have been able to access some of the villages that fall on or beyond the Israeli-set line, but Israeli forces still prevent people from accessing most of those south of the line, a Lebanese security source said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that homes on the border exploited by Hezbollah would be demolished and that “any structure threatening our soldiers and any road suspected of (being planted with) explosives must be immediately destroyed”.  

Lebanon was dragged into the war on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Tehran, prompting an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 2,100 people, including 177 children, and forced more than 1.2 million to flee, Lebanese authorities say.

Hezbollah has not disclosed its casualty figures. At least 400 of its fighters had been killed by the end of March, according to sources close to the group. 

Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. Its attacks killed two civilians in Israel while 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since March 2, Israel ​says.

(Reporting by Maayan LubellAdditional reporting by Nazih Osseiran in Beirut and Pesha Magid in the West BankEditing by David Goodman)

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LONDON (AP) — Senior Cabinet ministers on Sunday rallied around U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose leadership is teetering over his decision to give Britain’s most important diplomatic job to Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished politician and friend of Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer will face restive lawmakers in Parliament Monday to fight for his job after the explosive revelation that Mandelson was appointed ambassador to the United States despite failing security checks.

Starmer says he’s “furious” that he wasn’t told at the time, in January 2025, that an intensive vetting process had recommended Mandelson not be given security clearance. The Foreign Office, which oversees diplomatic appointments, cleared him anyway.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said that if Starmer had known, “he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador.”

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told Sky News on Sunday that Starmer “is a man of integrity and there is no way he would have proceeded” with Mandelson’s appointment had he known.

The top civil servant in the Foreign Office, Olly Robbins, was forced to resign on Thursday — though allies say he was just doing his job and is being made a scapegoat. Robbins is expected to give his own version of events to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

Simon McDonald, who was top civil servant in the Foreign Office until 2020, said Robbins had been “thrown under the bus.” He told the BBC that vetting information was highly sensitive and “would never be shared” with the prime minister or his staff.

All the main opposition parties have called on Starmer to resign. Right-of-center Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister’s position is “untenable.” Ed Davey, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, said Sunday that the government is “in perpetual crisis, and I don’t think they can get out of that unless Keir Starmer moves aside.”

Starmer’s Labour Party holds a large parliamentary majority, so power to topple him lies with his own lawmakers, who are already glum about the party’s dire poll ratings.

Starmer defused a potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers called for him to resign over the Mandelson appointment. But he could face a leadership challenge after local and regional elections on May 7, in which Labour is expected to do badly.

Some Labour lawmakers think it would be damaging to change leaders at a time of global instability, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and with three years until a national election must be called.

Others despair at the prime minister’s repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024. Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been forced into repeated policy U-turns.

Critics say the Mandelson appointment reveals the prime minister’s lack of judgment. Documents released by the government in March, after being forced to by Parliament, showed Starmer was warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, exposed the government to “reputational risk.”

But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with President Donald Trump’s administration.

He lasted less than nine months in the job. Starmer fired Mandelson in September 2025 after evidence emerged that he had lied about the extent of his links to Epstein.

The release of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Department of Justice in January brought more revelations, showing that Mandelson’s relationship with the financier continued even after Epstein’s conviction in 2008 for sexual offenses involving a minor.

Emails also suggested Mandelson had passed on sensitive, and potentially market-moving, government information to Epstein in 2009 after the global financial crisis.

British police launched a criminal probe and arrested Mandelson Feb. 23 on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

He has been released without bail conditions as the police investigation continues. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.

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By Anna Voitenko

KYIV, April 19 (Reuters) – Eight people including a child remain hospitalised in Kyiv after being wounded in a shooting that killed six people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Sunday.

A Russian-born man opened fire on passers-by with an automatic rifle on Saturday before barricading himself in a supermarket with hostages, where he was shot dead by police.

Police stormed the supermarket after unsuccessfully trying to negotiate with the suspect for 40 minutes, although officers were initially filmed running away from the incident, prompting the resignation of a police chief.

Klitschko said the wounded child, whose parents were killed in the shooting, was in moderate condition, while one of the adults was critical. “They are all receiving all necessary medical care,” the mayor said on Telegram.

BULLET HOLES STILL VISIBLE

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that the shooting, which happened in the capital’s leafy Holosiivskyi district, injured 14 people.

The supermarket has been cordoned off and remains closed. Bullet holes are visible in windows of the supermarket, and bloodstains can be seen nearby.

Flowers were left near a residential building a couple of hundred metres from the supermarket, where the shooter shot his first victims.

“I saw how people grabbed children from the playground and ran away. They screamed: ‘run away, hide’,” Daryna, a 31-year-old local resident, told Reuters. “People didn’t understand what was going on. They said that there was a man there, a man was shooting with a machine gun.”

Shootings of this nature are extremely rare in Ukraine and the country’s security service said the incident was being investigated as a terrorist act. Police have not yet identified a motive for the crime.

PATROL POLICE HEAD RESIGNS

Yevhen Zhukov, the head of Ukraine’s Patrol Police – a division of the national police service whose duty is to patrol the streets – resigned on Sunday after social media circulated a video showing patrol officers running away after hearing gunfire, leaving civilians without protection.

Reuters could not independently verify the video.

“The police officers acted unprofessionally and disgracefully. As police officers, they should have been helping and rescuing our citizens. But they failed to assess the situation properly and left civilians in danger,” online media outlet RBC Ukraine quoted Zhukov as saying.

“As a combat officer, I have decided to submit my resignation from the position I currently hold,” Zhukov added.

Earlier on Sunday, minister Klymenko said the officers’ behaviour was “a disgrace to the entire system”. An investigation has been launched and decisions will be made regarding their superiors.

RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE

The shooting of civilians not far from central Kyiv has raised questions both about the public’s right to self-defense and about how the gunman was able to obtain a firearms permit, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

“The attacker’s mental state was clearly unstable. How he obtained the medical certificates required to renew his gun permit must be thoroughly investigated,” Klymenko said.

He said the ministry intends to prepare the final version of a bill on civilian firearms as he was certain that “people should have the right to armed self-defense.”

At present, Ukrainians can own only hunting weapons.

(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Christina Fincher and David Holmes)

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LUANDA, April 19 – Pope Leo on Sunday decried the intensification of the war in Ukraine, calling “for the weapons to fall silent and for the path of dialogue to be followed.”

The pope made the appeal after a Mass outside Angola’s capital Luanda that drew roughly 100,000 people.

The first U.S. pope also praised the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, to end fighting between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as a “reason for hope.”

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Jane Merriman)

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April 19 (Reuters) – There is currently no decision by Iran to send a negotiating delegation to Pakistan “as long as there is a naval blockade,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday, citing its reporter.

(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Hatem MaherEditing by Tomasz Janowski)

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LONDON (AP) — U.K. police said Sunday they are investigating whether a string of arson attacks on Jewish sites in London are the work of Iranian proxies, as the country’s chief rabbi said British Jews are facing a campaign of violence and intimidation.

The Metropolitan Police force says counterterror officers are probing fires at synagogues and other sites linked to the Jewish community, as well as an attack on a Persian-language media company.

No one has been injured in the blazes, the latest of which caused minor damage to a north London synagogue on Saturday night.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans said the attacks had been claimed online by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia.

“We are aware of public reporting that suggests this group may have links to Iran. As you would expect, we will continue to explore that question as our investigation evolves,” she said.

“I’ve spoken previously about the Iranian regime’s use of criminal proxies, and we’re considering whether this tactic is being used here in London,” she added.

Israel’s government has described Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, whose name means the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, as a recently founded group with suspected links to “an Iranian proxy” that has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The police force has deployed extra uniformed and plainclothes officers to northwest London after attacks in the past month on synagogues, Jewish charity ambulances and a Persian-language media organization critical of Iran’s government.

In the most serious incident, four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were torched on March 23 in the Golders Green neighborhood,

No one has been injured in any of the incidents, which all happened within a few miles of each other. Several people, ranging in age from teens to people in their 40s, have been arrested and charged.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said on X that “a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation against the Jewish community of the UK is gathering momentum.

“Thank God, no lives have been lost, but we cannot, and must not, wait for that to change before we understand just how dangerous this moment is for all of our society,” he added.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “appalled” by the attacks, and pledged that “those responsible will be found and brought to justice.

“This is abhorrent and it will not be tolerated. Attacks on our Jewish community are attacks on Britain,” Starmer said.

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia also posted a video claiming Israel’s London embassy was going to be attacked with drones carrying dangerous substances. Police said the embassy was not attacked, but the force shut the nearby Kensington Gardens park on Friday as officers examined discarded items including two jars containing powder. Police said nothing harmful was found.

The U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year to October.

Some security experts say Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia is likely a flag of convenience rather than a coherent group, and its claims should be treated with caution.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes said any “thugs for hire” who carried out such attacks would face justice.

“Let’s be really clear — it’s a mug’s game,” he said. “That’s what people who are now serving long prison sentences have found out, and the same fate awaits those responsible for these recent crimes.”

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