Day News Recap: Ukraine under renewed attack as Middle East tensions and market jitters deepen

Russian strikes killed civilians across Ukraine, with a hit on a busy shopping centre in Kryvyi Rig leaving six dead and more than 90 wounded, while separate missile and drone attacks were reported in Pechenihy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv as the toll rose further.  🔗  🔗

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In Kyiv, local authorities said Russian ballistic missile strikes killed 17 people and injured more than 40 in and around the capital on Thursday, underscoring the scale of the latest wave of attacks.  🔗 Moscow said any peace plan must reflect what it calls the realities on the ground, signalling no shift in its position despite renewed diplomatic pressure.  🔗

The United States is deepening its military and economic pressure on Iran, with President Donald Trump threatening new sanctions, the Treasury redesignating Hezbollah as an Iranian proxy and targeting a funding network, and a new carrier strike group arriving in the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗 Iran said any fresh US economic measures would bring a devastating response and President Masoud Pezeshkian argued the war should end from a position of strength.  🔗  🔗

Regional tensions also widened elsewhere, as Yemen’s government and the Houthis traded attacks in an intensifying conflict, while Israel drew fresh international criticism over settlement and Gaza decisions. Britain, Australia and Canada condemned Israel’s plan for more than 1,200 homes in the E1 settlement area, and the same three countries also criticised Israel’s decision not to investigate the April 2024 strike on a Gaza aid convoy.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗

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In the wider Middle East and Europe, Croatia arrested a second Ukrainian suspect linked to the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, adding to a cross border legal fight, while Russia held missile drills near the disputed Kuril Islands, prompting a Japanese protest.  🔗  🔗 The United States also imposed additional sanctions on the International Criminal Court, drawing condemnation from the UN and the EU.  🔗

Security and justice stories elsewhere included US authorities saying they thwarted an alleged ISIS linked plot against the New York State Capitol and charged Jessica Bowie of Albany, and Australian police charging a 27 year old dual Russian Australian citizen over an alleged attempt to pass Ukrainian military information to Russian linked contacts.  🔗  🔗 In Hong Kong, Lee Cheuk yan and Chow Hang tung were convicted of inciting subversion in a case tied to Tiananmen vigils, while China rejected a US claim that Myanmar scholar Min Zin had been wrongfully detained.  🔗  🔗

Natural disasters and health crises added to the grim picture. Eight people were killed when a charter plane crashed near a remote radar site in western Alaska, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck southern Peru and injured three, and tornadoes hit parts of New York and Delaware as severe weather battered the northeastern United States.  🔗  🔗  🔗 The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo worsened, with the UN warning of faster spread, more than 2,500 deaths and attacks on health workers.  🔗

Political developments continued across Africa and Asia, with Nigeria’s Peoples Democratic Party facing an internal crisis as its election campaign began, Bangladesh’s parliament electing BNP veteran Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as president, and Mongolia hosting a UN desertification summit as drought deepened.  🔗  🔗  🔗 The Taliban released two UN staff detained in Herat, Iran executed a man over a January protest case in Isfahan, and the UN Security Council held a second straw poll in the race to choose the next secretary general.  🔗  🔗  🔗

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In the Americas and Europe, French police clashed with migrants on a northern beach during a Channel small boat interception, while a French Guiana national pleaded guilty in Maryland to identity theft and passport fraud and another French national was indicted in Utah over alleged threatening calls to businesses.  🔗  🔗  🔗 In the United States, Trump ordered a 90 day tariff free beef import window to try to cut ground beef prices and separately touted congressional wins and White House personnel changes.  🔗  🔗

Other developments included a new group of Israeli settlers moving into Kadim in the occupied West Bank two decades after evacuation, and the UN and human rights groups continuing to watch the fallout from the Hong Kong and ICC cases.  🔗  🔗  🔗

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