Category World News

The Lebanese army arrested six people after gunmen attacked international peacekeepers patrolling in the south of the country, as a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation was to embark on a visit to the zone.

The army said in a statement on Saturday that its intelligence directorate had detained six Lebanese suspects in connection with Thursday’s attack, which saw six men riding on three mopeds opening fire on a UN peacekeepers’ patrol vehicle without hurting anyone.

It said it would not tolerate attacks on UNIFIL, as the UN force is called. For nearly five decades, its peacekeepers have acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon, with further monitoring of a ceasefire struck in November last year between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The arrests were made after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met a visiting UNSC delegation on Friday, signalling that its members would be embarking on a tour of southern Lebanon to check “the situation on the ground”.

Aoun said the delegation’s trip south would help it to “see the real picture of what is happening there”, after discussions on escalating tensions with Israel and the army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah.

Last year’s truce was supposed to see Israeli forces withdrawing from Lebanon as Hezbollah disarmed. However, Israeli forces continue to occupy at least five positions inside Lebanese territory and have conducted near-daily attacks across Lebanon that have killed more than 300 people, according to the UN.

Israel claims its operations are targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the armed group from rebuilding its military capabilities, but it has killed dozens of civilians in its attacks and destroyed residential buildings and critical infrastructure. UNIFIL has also recently complained of Israeli forces firing at or near its peacekeepers.

The UNSC visit to the country comes amid tentative signs of potential deeper engagement between Lebanon and Israel, with the pair holding direct discussions on Wednesday under the auspices of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism.

Aoun told UNSC delegates on Friday that his country had “adopted the option of negotiations with Israel” and that “there is no going back.”

Farchana refugee settlement, Chad – The Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) capture of el-Fasher, North Darfur state’s capital, has triggered a fresh wave of violence, destruction and displacement in Sudan’s devastating civil war.

This 30-month conflict between the paramilitary group and the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, displacing nearly 12 million people.

Thousands escaping the recent violence are seeking refuge in Chad, which already hosts more than 880,000 Sudanese refugees. Though now safe from immediate danger, many refugees struggle to survive as humanitarian funding continues to decrease.

Chad currently shelters almost 1.3 million forcibly displaced persons, including at least 760,000 Sudanese refugees who have arrived since April 2023. This massive influx, mostly women and children, strains a country already battling economic weakness, conflict and extreme weather events.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) collaborates with Chad’s government to coordinate humanitarian operations, transfer refugees from border areas to established facilities, and provide essential protection services and aid, including water, shelter, food and medical provisions. Work continues to move more than 237,000 refugees from temporary settlements near Adre to locations with better healthcare and educational access.

The malnutrition ward at the Farchana Hospital is currently treating at least 80 infants and children who need urgent care. These young patients receive continuous monitoring and specialised nutritional therapy throughout their recovery. However, funding for this vital programme will expire by late 2025, putting countless vulnerable children at risk.

“We need a lot of support to provide enough medicine for both refugees and the host community. The number of people here is overwhelming, and seasonal diseases and outbreaks make the situation even more difficult,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, a pharmacist from Al Jazeera state in central Sudan, who fled the war with his wife and children and now works at the Farchana Hospital. With resources severely limited, he becomes increasingly concerned about his fellow refugees’ health.

Water demand in the Farchana refugee settlement has risen dramatically. The dry conditions and ongoing arrival of new refugees from Sudan have worsened these shortages, with at least 41,000 new refugees arriving in 2025 alone.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said the United States remains Europe’s “biggest ally” despite stinging criticism of the continent in a major strategy document amid ongoing ceasefire talks on the Ukraine war.

Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar on Saturday, Kallas said some of the US National Security Strategy’s criticism of Europe, which included charges of lacking in “self-confidence” and facing “civilizational erasure”, a widely dismissed claim, were true, but insisted the EU and US should “stick together”.

“I think we haven’t always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there. We are the biggest allies,” she said, adding that the goal of the US should be to help Europe “correct its current trajectory”.

The document, which said Europe might one day lose its status as a reliable ally, struck a similar tone to the offensive launched by US President Donald Trump’s administration against Europe earlier this year as it pressed for countries to up their NATO contributions, accusing them of taking advantage of Washington’s generosity amid the Ukraine war.

Trump has taken a lead in efforts to end the war, which started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, coming up with a plan that involves Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not been able to win on the battlefield in return for security promises that fall short of Kyiv’s aspirations to join NATO.

US officials are holding a third straight day of talks on Saturday with Ukrainian counterparts who have pushed for revisions to that draft, as a follow-up to five hours of talks in Moscow on Tuesday, which confirmed Russian President Vladimir Putin is not giving up on his maximalist demands and territorial claims.

After the second day of talks on Friday, Washington had said “real progress” would depend on “Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings”.

Referring to previous US pressure applied on Kyiv to cede to Russian demands, Kallas told the Doha Forum that placing “limitations and stress on Ukraine actually does not bring us long-lasting peace”.

“If aggression is rewarded, we will see it happen again, and not only in Ukraine or Gaza, but all around the world,” she said.

Kallas said that Europe, which is nervous of a spillover from the war, had been “underestimating its own power”.