Author: DW

Nigerian chess champion Tunde Onakoya appears to have broken the world record for the longest chess marathon, managing to play unbeaten for 60 hours on New York City’s Times Square. Onakoya, who is a child education advocate, bettered the Guinness World Record of over 56 hours in an effort to raise funds for underprivileged children. ‘I just couldn’t give up on them’ An enthusiastic crowd cheered him on as he achieved the feat Friday night. “I can’t process a lot of the emotions I feel right now. I don’t have the right words for them. But I know we did something…

An Israeli missile has struck Iran, in response to the unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend by the Iranians.It seems an airfield outside of the city of Isfahan was targeted, but Tehran has played down the incident and has indicated it has no plans to retaliate. On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson is joined by military analyst Sean Bell to find out what exactly happened in the latest attack and what it says about Israel’s and Iran’s respective military strengths.Plus, Niall speaks to Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn about where this leaves Middle East…

Following a probe led by the Czech Republic, EU leaders agreed this week to launch a task force to counter Russia’s efforts to interfere in June’s European elections. The decision came two weeks after the Czech Republic’s Security Information Service (BIS) reported that it had uncovered a network used by Russia to funnel cash to politicians across the European Union. Populists and nationalists in Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were reportedly paid to push pro-Russian narratives with the goal of influencing the upcoming elections and weakening the EU’s support for Ukraine in its defense against Moscow’s aggression…

Throughout his career Benjamin Netanyahu has been a generally cautious politician, either deferring decisions or taking the least incendiary options.There’s a school of thought in Israel that he had no choice but to act after the Iranian barrage of missiles and drones. To not do anything would have flown in the face of decades of Israeli security policy.How then to deal with the strike and balance different international and domestic pressures?Middle East latest: Worshippers in Tehran chant ‘death to Israel’ after strike Certainly, allies like the US were suggesting that after the successful interceptions and defence of the nation he…

Skip next section Russia likely to have lost 100 combat aircraft — UK intelligence04/20/2024April 20, 2024Russia likely to have lost 100 combat aircraft — UK intelligenceThe UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) on Saturday said that a Russian strategic bomber was likely to have been shot down by Ukraine’s air force. “This is the first instance of a strategic bomber being shot down by Ukrainian Air Defence Systems,” the MOD said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.  The Russian Air Force lost a Tupolev Tu-22M3 supersonic heavy bomber on Friday and claimed the crash was likely caused by technical…

The US House of Representatives will on Saturday hold a long-awaited and crucial vote on a major aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Voting on the foreign aid and arms bill, valued at $95 billion (€89 billion), is expected to begin at 1 p.m. local time (1700 GMT/UTC). If the vote in the House is successful, the package will then head to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where passage in the coming days is all but assured. US President Joe Biden has promised to sign off on it immediately. Why has the aid package stalled? Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has faced an uphill battle from hardline…

Iran has said Israeli involvement in Friday’s attack is still to be established and dismissed the drones used as like children’s toys.Foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed they took off from within Iran and only flew a few hundred metres before being shot down.Israel hasn’t commented but is widely believed to be behind the strike targeting an airbase and nuclear site near Isfahan.Middle East latest: Worshippers in Tehran chant ‘death to Israel’The US told a G7 meeting that Israel had told it about the attack “at the last minute”.Israel had been weighing up how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented drone and…

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo on Friday called on the European Union to help his country stop an influx of migrants via Russia. The Nordic nation closed its eastern border in mid-December after nearly 1,000 migrants had arrived without a visa through its frontier with Russia since August. Most of them were from the Middle East or Africa. The two neighbors share a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border and Helsinki has accused the Kremlin of weaponizing migration in response to Finland’s accession to NATO, triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the Finnish-Russia border at Lappeenranta in the Arctic with…

The relationship between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani government has been growing more and more strained since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. Many experts attribute the current tensions to the increase in cross-border terrorism originating from Afghanistan. But some of Islamabad’s recent actions have also embittered the Taliban regime — last year, Pakistan enforced trade restrictions on its neighboring country, expelled 500,000 undocumented Afghan migrants , and implemented stricter visa policies at border crossings. Last month, Pakistan launched rare airstrikes inside Afghanistan, targeting the  suspected hideouts of Pakistani militant groups, killing eight people, and prompting Afghan forces to…

A man who set himself on fire outside the New York courthouse where former US President Donald Trump is on trial has died.Maxwell Azzarello was “declared deceased by hospital staff”, police told NBC News in a phone call early on Saturday, local time.No specific time of death was given. Image: Maxwell Azzarello pictured on Thursday protesting outside the Manhattan court where Donald Trump’s trial is taking place. Pic: Getty Mr Azzarello, in his mid-30s, from St Augustine in Florida, threw conspiracy theory pamphlets in the air before setting himself alight in a designated protest area for pro and anti-Trump demonstrators…