Author: DW

A SpaceX rocket carrying a crew of three US astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut was launched into space from Florida on Sunday night. The crew is heading to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a six-month mission in Earth orbit. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endeavor was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral at 10:53 p.m. EST (0353 GMT Sunday). This is a developing story. More to follow… tg/wd (AP, Reuters) Source link

Kamala Harris’s speech marked a shift in tone and maybe a subtle shift in language, but not much more than that. Yet the week ahead could still be critical.The vice president spoke of the situation in Gaza as “devastating… a humanitarian catastrophe” and she had some pointed messaging for Israel – “it must increase flow of aid, restore basic services – no excuses”.She echoed some of what President Joe Biden said on Friday when he called for “more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses”.There was a tonal shift, but beyond that her speech did…

In a country like Ukraine, where entire cities are being bludgeoned to the ground, the human ramifications are so vast that they often overwhelm the ability of journalists to describe them. Instead, we rely on numbers – numbers, for example, from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine which reports that 10,582 civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale attack.We quote statistics from the Office of the President of Ukraine, which says 529 children have died as a result of the fighting since February 2022.It was in the city of Kharkiv, however, that I was confronted by…

Doctors in Gaza have told Sky News that the situation is “catastrophic”, and disease is spreading through refugee camps, particularly among children.So many of the hospitals in Gaza are now either closed or close to breaking point, that doctors have set up treatment tents on streets, with the little supplies they can get their hands on.Middle East latest updatesDr Rajaa Okashah is a paediatrician from northern Gaza, forced by the fighting to leave his home and move south to Rafah.It’s only a professional dedication to medicine and a sense of duty to his fellow Gazans that keeps him going. His…

Chaos ensued in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Sunday, with connectivity disruptions following an attack on the country’s main penitentiary which left most of its inmates at large. Gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer, has claimed responsibility for a surge in violent attacks which have engulfed the country recently. He said the aim was to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Henry was in the meantime in Kenya to shore up security support in facing the gang violence. Due for return, the prime minister’s whereabouts remain unknown. What do we know about the jailbreak? The latest in the string of violence was…

NASCAR bosses have revealed the glove driver Joey Logano during last weekend’s qualifying in Atlanta.Managing director Brad Moran showcased the glove to reporters after it was found in Logano’s car. Fellow driver Denny Hamlin had suggested it was found following a tip-off by a rival team. Logano wore the glove on his left hand, placing it outside the window of the car during last Saturday’s qualifying, in a move suspected of helping to create an aerodynamic blocker.It was black and webbed with an unknown material between every finger to optimise its effects.Logano’s rival Corey Lajoie said in Las Vegas on…

Following allegations by the government of Israel that a dozen staff members of the 13,000 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza were involved in October’s attack in Israel, the European Commission suspended payments to the aid organization for one month. On October 7, 2023, Hamas — which the European Union, Germany and other governments have designated as a terrorist organization — led attacks in Israel that resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people and the taking of more than 200 hostages. In response, Israel launched an assault on the besieged enclave which has since…

US vice president Kamala Harris has said there must be an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza as she called on the Israeli government to do more to increase the flow of aid, with “no excuses”.Ms Harris said a six-week ceasefire would get Israeli hostages out and get a significant amount of aid into the war-ravaged Palestinian territory. She said Israel needed to increase the flow of aid to ease what she described as “inhumane” conditions and a “humanitarian catastrophe”.Middle East latest – Houthis vow to sink British shipsThe vice president also said there is a “deal on the table” and Hamas…

Moscow was waging an “information war” against Germany by intercepting and releasing a sensitive discussion among high-ranking Bundeswehr military officers concerning Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. Reacting to the leak for the first time on Sunday, Pistorius accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of seeking to sow disunity and create divisions within Germany. “It is about using this recording to destabilize and unsettle us,” the German minister said, adding that he “hoped that Putin will not succeed.” Pistorius told reporters in Berlin the audio leak was part of Russia’s attempt to sow divisionImage: Matthias Schrader/AP/picture allianceThe head of Russian state broadcaster…

Police in Belgium arrested four teenagers on Sunday after they allegedly exchanged messages to plot a jihadi terror attack. The four suspects — three minors in their “late teens” and an adult man aged 18 — were arrested when police raided home addresses in Brussels, Ninove, Charleroi and Liege. A spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office told the AFP news agency that the details of the alleged attack were deemed “worrying enough to intervene.”  “It’s not that they were planning something tomorrow, but still imminent enough to intervene,” spokesperson Eric Van Der Sypt said.  Police raided the suspects’ homes and…