Foreign News
European leaders to visit US to discuss war in Ukraine, Trump says
European leaders will visit the United States on Monday or Tuesday to discuss ways to end the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump has said.
The US president added that he would also speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin “soon”, as well as signalling that his administration was ready to move to a second phase of sanctions on Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the sanctions were the “right idea”, and urged European nations to stop buying Russian energy.
It comes as Russia launched its largest aerial bombardment on Ukraine of the war so far, killing four and hitting Ukraine’s main government building in Kyiv for the first time.
After the attack, during which Russia fired at least 810 drones and 13 missiles at Ukraine, Trump said he was “not happy with the whole situation”.
“Certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday individually,” Trump said. It was not clear to whom Trump was referring.
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine since Trump and Putin held a summit in Alaska last month.
Speaking to ABC News, Zelensky said that European partners continuing to buy Russian oil and gas was “not fair”.
He added: “We have to stop buying any kind of energy from Russia, and by the way, anything, any deals with Russia. We can’t have any deals if we want to stop them.”
Zelensky also welcomed Trump’s plans to impose secondary tariffs on countries that trade with Russia – aimed at frustrating Moscow’s ability to fund the war.
“I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries who continue to make deals with Russia, I think this is the right idea,” he said.
Russia has sold around $985bn (£729bn) of oil and gas since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in March 2022, according to the think tank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
The biggest purchasers have been China and India. The EU has dramatically reduced – but not completely stopped – purchases of Russian energy. In June, Brussels laid out plans to end all purchases by 2027.
Last month, the US imposed tariffs of 50% on goods from India as punishment for continuing to buy Russian oil. The Indian government has said it will continue to pursue the “best deal” on buying oil for the economic interests of its population.
And at a meeting in Beijing last week, Russia said it would increase supplies of gas to China.
Zelensky’s intervention comes as the OPEC+ group of oil producing nations, which includes Russia, has again agreed to increase production, a move which will put downward pressure on oil prices.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that the US was looking for more support from the EU to impose secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil.
Bessent said that if EU nations increased sanctions and secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, “the Russian economy will be in total collapse, and that will bring President Putin to the table”.
He added: “We are in a race now between how long can the Ukrainian military hold up, versus how long can the Russian economy hold up.”
[BBC]
A car has crashed into a crowd of rugby league supporters in the eastern Australian city of Newcastle, injuring 10 people, including three children.
New South Wales police said on Saturday that two of the injured – a five-year-old girl and a 67-year-old man – were in a critical condition and the other eight were in stable condition in hospital.
Police said they had arrested the 18-year-old man driving the vehicle and were investigating what happened. They said the crash was not believed to be related to “terrorism”.
The crowd had gathered to farewell the local rugby league side, the Newcastle Knights, ahead of their grand final against the Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
Newcastle Lord Mayor Gavin Morris said the driver, a rugby league fan, had lost control of his vehicle and had been taken into custody.
“He was revving the car, he was excited, he was a supporter, he was there for the joy of the moment,” Morris told the national broadcaster ABC.
“Somehow he lost control of the car … and he’s gone into the crowd,” he added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “My thoughts are with everyone injured or involved in the horrible incident this morning in Newcastle.”
“Rugby league brings people together, and this should have been a weekend of excitement and pride for Newcastle fans,” he wrote in a social media post.
[Aljazeera]
Polls have opened in Latvia for an election taking place against the backdrop of perceived security threats from Russia and a nationwide cost-of-living squeeze.
Saturday’s vote is the first electoral test for Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs after coming to power in May this year when his predecessor resigned due to a backlash from stray drone incursions from Ukraine.
Kulbergs, whose right-wing United List party is currently polling at about 20 percent, is expected to hold onto his position, but the decline of two allies in his current coalition means he is set for a complicated negotiation over the makeup of any future government.
Polls opened at 05:00 GMT and will close at 17:00 GMT. The results are not expected to change Latvia’s pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course.
About 1.5 million people are eligible to vote in the country’s 11th parliamentary election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Latvian politics are highly fragmented, with parties rarely seeing above 20 percent vote share and coalitions being the norm.
This year, 14 electoral lists are contesting the election, but polls indicate only seven are likely to enter parliament, with the rest expected to fail to meet the minimum 5 percent vote threshold.
Rising living costs, low wages, strains on the healthcare system and long-term population decline have all featured prominently in campaign debates.
Most parties in Latvia are pro-Ukraine; however, the populist Sovereign Power party – which says it wants Ukraine to win but argues money spent supporting Kyiv would be better spent at home – looks likely to become the country’s second-biggest party, with more than 9 percent of the vote. Most other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Sovereign Power.
Latvia First, a pro-Ukraine and populist nationalist party currently polling at about 9 percent, could be a potential coalition partner for PM Kulbergs.
The Progressives, a pro-European social democratic party, are polling at 6 percent.
Ethnic Russians make up roughly one in four Latvian citizens, but their vote, which has traditionally been cast along identity-based lines, looks set to be made according to economic and social issues.
Latvia is the poorest of the Baltic states, and it has sharply increased its defence spending since Russia invaded Ukraine, now allocating nearly 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence.
[Aljazeera]
A flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel was diverted to Saudi Arabia after issuing a distress signal, in what appeared to be a hijacking attempt, on Wednesday.
The Flydubai flight FZ1073 was diverted as it flew from Dubai to Tel Aviv through Jordanian airspace, prompting Israel to deploy warplanes, the Reuters news agency reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said one of the pilots had stabbed the other and then tried to crash the plane. He added that Israel was preparing for other “potential threats” after the incident.
There has been no official confirmation of a hijacking attempt, however.
Flydubai said an altercation had occurred on the flight deck and that all passengers were safe and accounted for. The plane was secured by on-duty crew travelling onboard, it added.
At Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport, where the plane landed, officials said both the plane’s captain and the first officer had been hospitalised after sustaining injuries. Both were taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk carried by the Saudi state-run Alekhbariya television.
The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the countries normalised ties in 2020. Here’s what we know about what happened.
Footage taken onboard the plane appears to show the captain of the aircraft lying on the ground with several stab wounds, and a passenger with a bloody wound to the head.
In another video, passengers weep and cry out in distress as the aircraft shakes.
Yasmin Abukasis, the mother of one of the passengers onboard, said her daughter Miriam thought she was going to die. “The plane started to lose control,” she told journalists at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, before other pilots onboard took control of the aircraft.
Flight tracking data indicated the plane descended over 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds around two and a half hours after leaving Dubai. Flightradar24 said on X that an initial general emergency signal designated by code 7700 was issued at around 05:31 UTC and was later changed to another emergency signal with code 7500 declaring “unlawful interference”.
Passenger Dalia Shpigel told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that some people seated towards the front of the plane broke into the cockpit after the plane began to descend and they realised something was wrong.
“An hour before landing, we felt that there was no control over the plane, that it was starting to jump,” she said. “The guys saw that the plane had begun to dive and broke into the cockpit.”
Netanyahu said he later spoke to one of the Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit and overpowered one of the pilots who was reportedly trying to sabotage the aircraft’s systems.
“I salute these heroes who demonstrated extraordinary resourcefulness and courage,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “They saved many lives and prevented a major disaster.”
Timeline of events
03:05 – Flight FZ1073 takes off from Dubai05:21 – Altitude fluctuations begin05:22 – Aircraft drops more than 14,000 ft in under 30 seconds05:31 – Signal from aircraft changes to 7700 (general emergency)05:38 – Signal changes to 7500 (unlawful interference)06:45 – Aircraft lands at Tabuk Regional Airport
[Aljazeera]
Landslide Early Warnings issued to the Districts of Kandy, Kegalle, Matale and Ratnapura
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