Ukraine carried out a prisoner exchange with Russia on Saturday, with seven soldiers and seven civilians coming home, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online posting. One of the soldiers was a woman who is five months pregnant, she added. She did not say how many Russians had …

Russia said on Saturday it expected commodity flows with China to grow and trade with Beijing to reach $200 billion by 2024, as Moscow faces mounting isolation from the West. China has refused to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine and has criticized the unprecedented Western sanctions on Moscow. The two …

Local media in Afghanistan reported on Saturday afternoon that an explosion had taken place in the west of Kabul killing at least one and wounding three people. According to local Afghan media, eyewitnesses said the blast took place near the Dehburi intersection in the Security District 3 in Kabul. The …

Jurgen Klopp hailed Liverpool’s resolve to overcome the difficulties posed by going for an unprecedented quadruple as a much-changed team beat Newcastle 1-0 to edge ahead of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. Naby Keita scored the solitary goal at St. James’ Park to take the Reds …

Russia believes the risks of nuclear war should be kept to a minimum and that any armed conflict between nuclear powers should be prevented, the TASS news agency quoted a foreign ministry official as saying on Saturday. Vladimir Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, said all nuclear powers …

The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region said several shells were fired on Saturday at a checkpoint near its border from the direction of Ukraine. Speaking in a video posted on his Telegram channel, governor Roman Starovoit said that there were no casualties or damage.

A British lawmaker who had been suspended from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party said on Saturday he had resigned after admitting he twice viewed pornography on his phone in the House of Commons “in a moment of madness.” The Conservatives suspended Neil Parish on Friday after he reported himself …

Iraq recorded 110 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said today, Saturday. In its daily epidemiological report, the Ministry registered 201 recovery cases and no deaths. The cumulative count of COVID-19 cases since the emergence of the virus in the country amounted to 2,325,092 of …

‘Tiger Meet’ war games are taking place in Greece Turkey will not participate in NATO drills amid escalating tensions with Greece, Turkish media reported on Saturday, citing security sources. Ankara was scheduled to send its F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to the annual ‘Tiger Meet’ drill, which will be held at …

French authorities say half of nuclear power plants are now offline for maintenance or defects, at a time of soaring demand for electricity amid the energy crisis in Europe. Energy supplier Electricité de France (EDF) said some 28 of the country’s 56 reactors were shut down due to routine maintenance …

Firefighters in New Mexico failed on Friday to pin back the flames of the United States’ largest wildfire, which is burning perilously close to a string of mountain villages. The blaze is the most destructive of dozens in the US Southwest that are more widespread and burning earlier than normal …

India seized $725 million from the local bank accounts of Xiaomi after a probe found the Chinese smartphone giant unlawfully sent money abroad in the guise of royalty payments, authorities said Saturday. India’s financial crime investigations agency began investigating the company in February and said it seized the money from …

Thousands of police and troops will be deployed under the state of emergency, the second to be imposed by the president in a bid to curb drug-linked violence. Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso has imposed a state of emergency in three provinces blaming drug-related violence. “I have declared a state of …

Sergey Lavrov, in an interview with Xinhua, says the US and NATO should stop arming Ukraine if they are interested in resolving the crisis. Russia’s foreign minister has again urged the United States and NATO to stop supplying Kyiv with arms if they are “really interested in resolving the Ukraine …

Russia said on Saturday that its artillery units had struck 389 Ukrainian targets overnight, including 35 control points, 15 arms and ammunition depots, and several areas where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated. Russia’s defense ministry said that its missiles had hit four ammunition and fuel depots.

The figures come as Beijing doggedly pursues a zero-Covid response leading to lockdown measures in several cities. China’s manufacturing activity slumped to its lowest level since February 2020, official data showed on Saturday, the latest sign of economic pain as Beijing doggedly pursues its zero-Covid response. The official Purchasing Managers’ …

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has once again warned that his country would preemptively use nuclear weapons if threatened. Kim called on Pyongyang’s top military brass to “maintain the absolute superiority” of North Korean armed forces so that they could “preemptively and thoroughly contain and frustrate all dangerous attempts and …

The Afghan Electricity Company announced on Saturday that electricity had been cut off in Parwan, Kabul, and 10 other provinces following the destruction of two electricity towers by terrorists last night. Afghanistan Electricity Company (Breshna) said in a statement that terrorists blew up two imported electricity towers in the Taghmeh …

Germany is considering sending long-ranged howitzers to Ukraine, a security source told Reuters on Friday, confirming a report published by Welt am Sonntag newspaper only days after Berlin first decided to supply heavy weapons to Kyiv. The move follows warnings by the Kremlin that Western arms supplies to Ukraine posed …

The case comes amid concerns that a continuing outbreak among US birds could lead to more human infections. The first known human case of H5N1 bird flu in the United States has been detected in a person in Colorado, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The …