- Oil rallies, stocks mostly retreat on Middle East tensions
- Phasing out teen smoking could save 1.2 mn lives: study
- 'Welcome relief': Asia producers hail EU deforestation law delay
- Japan PM slated to announce plans for 'happiness index'
- Turkish inflation falls less than expected in September at 49.4%
- Easing inflation lifts profit at UK supermarket Tesco
- Skiing calls on UN climate science to combat melting future
- China wine industry looks to breed climate resilience
- Tokyo rallies on weak yen, Hong Kong drops after surge
- Dutch airline KLM unveils 'firm' cost-cutting measures
- Carpe diem: the Costa Rican women turning fish into fashion
- Senegal looks to aquaculture as fish stocks dwindle
- Will AI one day win a Nobel Prize?
- Climate change, economics muddy West's drive to curb Chinese EVs
- Argentina's Milei vetoes university budget after huge protests
- TotalEnergies plans to grow oil and gas production until 2030
- 2024 Nobels offer glimmer of hope as global crises mount
- Tokyo rallies on weak yen, Hong Kong reverses after surge
- Tunisia readies for vote as incumbent Saied eyes victory
- High childcare costs in US weigh on women's employment
- US voters seek help with crushing childcare costs
- Taiwan shuts down for second day as Typhoon Krathon to land
- Supercharged storms: how climate change amplifies cyclones
- Biden official urges talks as US port strike enters second day
- Huge protests in Argentina over public university cuts
- Rally in oil prices loses steam on mixed day for global stocks
- South America treated to rare 'ring of fire' eclipse
- Biden official says port strike deal not as far as parties think
- Mexico's new president offers apology for 1968 student massacre
- Historic funding round values OpenAI at $157 billion
- Mixed US car sales in Q3 as industry hopes for post-election bounce
- Thunderstorms are a 'boiling pot' of gamma rays, scientists find
- Scientists unlock secret of 'Girl With Pearl Earring'
- Dolphins flash friendly grins when they're ready to play
- Facing backlash, EU moves to delay deforestation rules
- US private sector adds more jobs than expected in September: ADP
- Boys out of critical condition after Zurich stabbings
- Spain logs record summer tourism as inflow draws protests
- Hedi Slimane quits as Celine's artistic director
- Oil prices extend rally on Iran attack
- Spain welcomed record number of tourists this summer
- France says coming tax hikes on the wealthy to be 'temporary'
- Why are Thailand's roads so deadly?
- Oracle to invest $6.5 bn in Malaysian cloud services region
- Parkrun marks 20 years of a free weekly jog, run... or walk
- Oil extends rally after Iran attack, Hong Kong soars again
- Prostitutes, prospectors drive spread in DR Congo mpox capital
- Oil extends rally after Iran attack, Hong Kong resumes surge
- Extreme heat another form of death sentence in Texas jails
- Can music help plants grow? Study suggests sound boosts fungus
RYCEF | 0.14% | 6.91 | $ | |
RBGPF | 100% | 59.99 | $ | |
NGG | -1.85% | 68.78 | $ | |
VOD | -2.16% | 9.74 | $ | |
GSK | -2.15% | 39.45 | $ | |
AZN | 1.14% | 79.58 | $ | |
BTI | -1.33% | 35.97 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.04% | 24.78 | $ | |
RELX | -0.11% | 47.29 | $ | |
RIO | -0.48% | 70.82 | $ | |
BCC | -1.33% | 139.53 | $ | |
JRI | -1.12% | 13.38 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.04% | 24.93 | $ | |
SCS | -2.56% | 12.87 | $ | |
BP | 0.86% | 32.37 | $ | |
BCE | -1.13% | 34.44 | $ |
Strikes kill 21 in Ukraine's Odessa
Missile strikes slammed into a residential building and a recreation centre early Friday, killing 21 people and wounding dozens in Ukraine's Odessa region, in attacks swiftly condemned by Germany.
Two children were among the dead and six others among the injured, Ukrainian officials said, one day after Russia abandoned positions on a strategic island in a major setback to the Kremlin's invasion.
The missiles struck the two buildings in the town of Sergiyvka about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Black Sea port of Odessa, which has become a strategic flashpoint in the now more than four-month-old war.
"The death toll in Odessa blast rose to 21," Sergiy Bratchuk, Odessa deputy chief of district, told Ukrainian television. A 12-year-old boy was among the dead, he added.
The country's head of emergency services, Sergiy Kruk, had earlier put the toll at 19. Thirty-eight people were wounded, including six children, he added on Facebook.
The strikes were launched by aircraft that flew in from the Black Sea, said Odessa military administration spokesman Sergiy Bratchuk.
"The worst-case scenario played out and two strategic aircraft came to the Odessa region," he said in a television interview, adding they had fired "very heavy and very powerful" missiles.
Russia made no immediate comment on the strikes.
- 'Inhuman' -
Germany said it was time the Russian population faced up to the truth of their government's "cruel" actions.
"The cruel manner in which the Russian aggressor takes the deaths of civilians in its stride and is again speaking of collateral damages is inhuman and cynical," said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
The strikes follow global outrage earlier this week when a Russian strike destroyed a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine, killing at least 18 civilians. President Vladimir Putin has denied Moscow's forces were responsible.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed a "new" chapter of "history" with the European Union, after Brussels recently granted Ukraine "candidate status" in Kyiv's push to join the 27-member bloc, even if membership is likely years away.
"We're not close. Now we are together," he told Ukraine's parliament.
"Our journey to membership shouldn't take decades. We should make it down this road quickly," Zelensky said.
The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen told Ukrainian lawmakers that membership was "within reach" but urged them to make anti-corruption reforms.
In a decision that immediately inflamed tensions further between Kyiv and Moscow, the UN's cultural agency inscribed Ukraine's culture of cooking borshch soup on its list of endangered cultural heritage.
- 'Borshch war' -
Ukraine considers the thick nourishing soup, usually made with beetroot, as a national dish although it is also widely consumed in Russia, other ex-Soviet countries and Poland.
UNESCO said the decision was approved after a fast-track process prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the "negative impact on this tradition" caused by the war.
"Victory in the borshch war is ours... (we) will win both in the war of borshch and in this war," said Ukraine's Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko on Telegram.
"To give the world a culinary example of 'modern Kyiv nationalism,' I will cite a fact: hummus and pilaf are recognised as national dishes of several nations," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram. "Everything is subject to Ukrainisation."
On the ground, four people died and three were wounded in shelling in Izium and Chuguiv, two districts of the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, in the last 24 hours, Kharkiv chief of district Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram.
Ukrainian officials also accused Russian forces of shelling relentlessly the city of Lysychansk in the eastern Donbas region.
Capturing the city would allow the Russians to push deeper in the Donbas, which has become the focus of their offensive since failing to capture Kyiv after their February invasion.
Sergiy Gaiday -- governor of the Lugansk region, which includes Lysychansk -- said the city continued to face heavy shelling.
- Donbas under fire -
"Evacuation from Lysychansk is not possible for now," he said. "The town is being ruined constantly," he added.
In Kyiv, authorities said schools in the Ukrainian capital would re-open at the start of the school year on September 1 for the first in-person classes since lessons went online after the invasion began.
Olena Fidanyan, head of Kyiv's education and science department, said territories adjacent to the schools will be checked for explosives and bomb shelters in schools will be restocked with water, medicine and other necessities.
On Thursday, Russian troops abandoned their positions on Snake Island, which had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the first days of the war and was also a strategic target, sitting aside shipping lanes near the port of Odessa.
The Russian defence ministry described the retreat as "a gesture of goodwill" meant to demonstrate that Moscow will not interfere with UN efforts to organise protected grain exports from Ukraine.
The conflict in Ukraine dominated the NATO summit in Madrid this week, where US President Joe Biden announced $800 million in new weapons for Kyiv and to "stick with Ukraine, as long as it takes to make sure they are not defeated by Russia".
A.Mykhailo--CPN