Category World News

The Ukrainian army says it has struck a Russian oil refinery near the capital Moscow, a day after Russia launched massive, deadly attacks on Kyiv.

The Ukrainian army said on social media on Saturday that it hit a refinery in the Ryazan region as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”.

The Russian attacks on Ukraine’s capital on Friday killed at least six people and wounded nearly three dozen more, with residential buildings and other sites targeted.

Describing it as a “wicked attack”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 430 drones and 18 missiles, including ballistic and aeroballistic missiles, were used in the Russian assault.

The Ukrainian strike on the Ryazan refinery comes as the two countries have been trading attacks on energy infrastructure, particularly ahead of another punishing winter of war, as they seek to gain an advantage in the nearly four-year conflict.

Last week, Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-run electricity transmission systems operator, announced that most regions across the country would undergo power cuts as crews worked to repair infrastructure damaged in Russian strikes.

Drone attacks, front-line battles

Separately on Saturday, Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said Russian air defences shot down 25 Ukrainian drones over the region during the night.

“Falling debris caused a fire on the premises of one enterprise,” Malkov said on Telegram, adding that there had been no casualties.

Russia’s RIA news agency also reported that the situation at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine remained stable after one external power line had been switched off.

The Dneprovskaya power line supplying electricity to the plant was switched off as a result of the automatic protection being triggered, the plant said a day earlier.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army faced difficult battles this week in the southern Zaporizhia region.

Ukrainian forces were forced to withdraw from five villages after intense fighting against Russian troops in the area.

Zelenskyy said in a video posted on social media on Thursday that he had spent the day in Zaporizhia at the front line and met with troops and other army leaders.

Thousands of people have marched through the streets of the Brazilian city of Belem, calling for the voices of Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders to be heard at the United Nations COP30 climate summit.

Indigenous community members mixed with activists at Saturday’s march, which unfolded in a festive atmosphere as participants carried a giant beach ball representing the Earth and a Brazilian flag emblazoned with the words “Protected Amazon”.

It was the first major protest outside the conference, which began earlier this week in Belem, bringing together world leaders, activists and experts in a push to tackle the worsening climate crisis.

Indigenous activists previously stormed the summit, disrupting the proceedings as they demanded that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva take concrete action to ensure their territories are protected from growing threats.

Amnesty International warned in a recent report that billions of people around the world are threatened by the expansion of fossil fuel projects, such as oil-and-gas pipelines and coal mines.

Indigenous communities, in particular, sit on the front lines of much of this development, the rights group said.

The government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have recaptured two territories in the North Kordofan state from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the paramilitary group continues burning and burying bodies in Darfur’s el-Fasher to hide evidence of mass killings.

Footage circulating online this week showed army soldiers holding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades celebrating their takeovers of Kazqil and Um Dam Haj Ahmed in North Kordofan, the state where intense fighting is expected to rage over the coming weeks.

Kazqil, which had fallen to the RSF in late October, is located south of el-Obeid, the strategic capital city of the state in central Sudan, which the paramilitary group is trying to capture from the army.

أبطال القوات المسلحة من داخل ” كازقيل” بولاية شمال كردفان#السودان #السودان_ينتصر pic.twitter.com/wVflEodHK5

The fighting between the two rival generals leading the army and the paramilitary group, which started in April 2023, has increasingly turned east over the past weeks as the RSF solidifies control over the western parts of the war-torn country, now in its third year of a brutal civil war.

The fighting, fuelled by arms supplies from the region, has created what the United Nations has called the largest displacement crisis in the world. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed and injured. The UN has also confirmed starvation in parts of the country.

The RSF said last week it accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States and other mediators, with the announcement coming after an international outcry over atrocities committed by the paramilitary group in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan.

But the army has refused to agree to a ceasefire under the current battle lines, and both sides have continued to amass troops and equipment in the central parts of the country to engage in more battles.

The RSF launched an offensive against the Kordofan region at the same time as it took el-Fasher late last month, seizing the town of Bara in North Kordofan state as a crucial link between Darfur and central Sudan. The army had recaptured the town just two months earlier.

Satellite images reveal mass graves

More than two and a half weeks after fully capturing el-Fasher from the army, the RSF has continued to dispose of bodies in large numbers.

An analysis of satellite imagery released by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) on Friday exposed four new locations where paramilitary fighters are disposing of bodies in and around el-Fasher.

Activities consistent with body disposal are visible at the University of Alfashir, a structure on the edge of Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people, a neighbourhood near al-Hikma Mosque, and at Saudi Hospital, where RSF forces massacred hundreds.

The HRL could not conclude how many people the RSF had killed or how quickly, but it said the observations are alarming, given the fact that the whereabouts of many civilian residents remain unknown.

🚨ATROCITY ALERT🚨@HRL_YaleSPH has identified four new locations where the RSF is disposing of bodies in and around El Fasher. #KeepEyesonSudan

🛰️@Vantortechhttps://t.co/y5gaMRlBm2 pic.twitter.com/OsCVb1ihTf

Nathaniel Raymond, the lead researcher of that report, said an estimated 150,000 civilians are unaccounted for, and daily monitoring of city streets shows no activity in markets or water points, but only RSF patrols and many bodies.

“We can see them charred. So the question is, where are the people and where are the bodies coming from?” he told Al Jazeera.

Representatives from the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group have signed a peace deal in Qatar with the ultimate goal of putting an end to years of fighting.

Qatar and the United States announced the “comprehensive” deal in Doha on Saturday, setting it up as a roadmap to stop the deadly fighting and improve the dire humanitarian situation in the Central African nation.

The two sides have been holding mediated talks for months, and signed a truce deal in July that must still be subjected to more negotiations over exactly how it will be implemented.

Addressing a press conference in Doha on Saturday, Qatar’s Minister of State Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi said the latest agreement enhances the process in order to “find peaceful solutions through dialogue and understanding” to re-establish calm in the DRC.

He said the different sides achieved progress on several substantial topics in order to build on previous agreements discussed and signed over the past several months.

The agreement includes eight implementation protocols, two of which have already been signed, including one on ceasefire monitoring and another on prisoner exchange.

The rest of the protocols are expected to be discussed and finalised over the coming weeks. They will include a timeline as well as details on how different processes will work, how humanitarian aid will be allowed to reach the ailing population, and how to enable the return of refugees and internally displaced people.

Restoring state authority, implementing economic reforms, reintegration of armed groups into the government and the elimination of foreign groups are among other protocols that will need to be finalised.

Both sides have agreed to establish an independent committee to implement the peace process, and also to provide recommendations for recompensation within the framework of national reconciliation, which will be in line with the constitution of the republic, Qatar’s Al-Khulaifi said.

Massad Boulos, a senior advisor and envoy for US President Donald Trump who represented Washington in the talks, thanked the state of Qatar and other stakeholders who assisted the process, including the African Union and the state of Togo.

He told the conference in Doha that the agreement comes amid joint efforts with Qatar that have also yielded results in other areas, including the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas.

“Today is a historic occasion in many ways,” he said, referring to the framework deal on DRC as a “launching pad” for an eventual peace deal that will be built based on previous and ongoing negotiations.

“People were expecting some immediate results on the ground, but this is a process, this is not a light switch that you can turn on and off, and there are many angles to it,” Boulos said.

Reporting from Goma, Al Jazeera’s Alain Uakyani said the peace agreement has inspired hope among the population in the DRC, but not for any immediate and tangible changes on the ground.

The BBC is in turmoil. A leaked dossier exposing a misedited speech of United States President Donald Trump and other editorial concerns has triggered resignations at the top – and a $1bn lawsuit threat from the US leader. Why the leak surfaced now, and who steps in next, are still open questions. Most importantly, will the BBC be able to recover from this moment?

Contributors:
Ben de Pear – Former editor, Channel 4 News
Jane Martinson – Professor, University of London
Karishma Patel – Former newsreader, BBC
Tom Mills – Author, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service

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