Global Pulse

分类： world

  • A moderate earthquake shakes Japan, injuring more than 30 people in the Tokyo region

    A moderate earthquake shakes Japan, injuring more than 30 people in the Tokyo region

    In the early hours of Sunday, a moderate seismic event shook eastern Japan — including the densely populated Tokyo metropolitan area — leaving more than 30 people injured, most with minor harm, and triggering emergency responses across the region, Japanese government officials confirmed. No tsunami risk was issued following the quake.

    The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) recorded the preliminary magnitude of the earthquake at 5.9, placing its epicenter in southern Ibaraki Prefecture, roughly 70 kilometers (42 miles) below the Earth’s surface. U.S. geological monitoring bodies logged a slightly lower magnitude of 5.8.

    Regional prefectural authorities and Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency confirmed a total of at least 37 injuries across five prefectures: 15 in Tokyo, nine in Saitama, eight in Kanagawa, four in Chiba, and one in Ibaraki, the area closest to the epicenter.

    Most injuries occurred when sleeping residents were caught off guard by the sudden shaking, then fell or collided with furniture and doors while rushing out of bed in panic, officials reported. One notable exception, local newspaper Yomiuri confirmed, was an 80-year-old woman in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, who fell from her bed and sustained a serious hip injury.

    A 23-year-old man shopping in Tokyo’s Taito district told the Asahi newspaper that his mobile earthquake alert sounded just seconds before he felt a sharp vertical jolt. He recalled fearing falling merchandise from store shelves as the building shook around him.

    Transportation disruptions followed the quake: regional express trains connecting Tokyo to Narita International Airport and other local services serving Japan’s northeast experienced significant delays. However, high-speed Shinkansen bullet trains operated by East Japan Railway Co. continued running on their regular schedules with no interruptions.

    Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced via the social platform X that the government had established a dedicated task force to conduct a full assessment of potential structural damage across the affected region.

    In the wake of the event, the JMA issued a precautionary advisory, urging local residents to remain alert for the possibility of a second moderate earthquake over the coming seven days. The quake triggered mass emergency mobile alerts across eastern Japan, and shook buildings noticeably across Tokyo. Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed road traffic in nearby urban centers including Mito and Saitama remained largely normal in the quake’s aftermath.

    One reported piece of infrastructure damage was a ruptured underground water pipe in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, which flooded local streets. NHK footage confirmed the pipe has since been repaired and the leak has been contained.

    The Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed that no safety anomalies were detected at any of the roughly one dozen nuclear power plants and nuclear material handling facilities located across the affected region.

    The Sunday quake comes just one month after a far more powerful magnitude 7.1 seismic event hit the Kumamoto region on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, which left 38 people dead and 364 injured.

  • Macron pledges air defence as 13 killed in Russia, Ukraine strikes

    Macron pledges air defence as 13 killed in Russia, Ukraine strikes

    A sharp escalation of cross-border attacks has sent civilian casualties soaring to their highest level since the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with France stepping in Saturday to commit additional air defense interceptor missiles to help Kyiv shore up its vulnerable skies. The new escalation comes as rescuers continued the grim work of clearing rubble from a destroyed Ukrainian shopping center one day after a Russian drone strike left 16 dead and three still missing there.

    Across both sides of the frontline, at least 13 people were killed in strikes that unfolded overnight Saturday and through the day: seven fatalities in Ukrainian territory, four inside Russia, and two more in Russia-annexed Crimea. In Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, the aftermath of Friday’s attack on the crowded downtown shopping center stretched into a second day on Saturday. The strike, which the Ukrainian leader has condemned as a “cynical and despicable” double-tap attack, first ignited a massive blaze that sent bloodied survivors fleeing into the streets, then a second drone struck roughly 30 minutes later as first responders were beginning to arrive. On Saturday, mourners had already set up a makeshift memorial outside the gutted building, laying flowers and handwritten notes on the surrounding grass. Photos from the site show blackened goods still stacked on supermarket shelves beneath a cratered ceiling, surrounded by blown-out window frames and piles of twisted, charred metal cleared by recovery crews. Sixteen people have been confirmed dead, more than 100 wounded, and three remain unaccounted for, regional authorities reported.

    Elsewhere in Ukraine on Saturday, four people died in fresh strikes on the frontline Zaporizhzhia region, while two people were killed in attacks on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv near Boryspil. That midday ballistic missile strike came while German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was in the capital for meetings with Zelenskyy and his Ukrainian counterpart, highlighting the persistent threat even to the country’s seat of government. In southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, a Ukrainian drone strike hit a residential home, killing two children and hospitalizing their parents, regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev called the attack “vile and cynical.”

    The surge in deadly attacks has underscored Ukraine’s growing critical shortage of advanced air defense systems, particularly the U.S.-made Patriot interceptors capable of shooting down the fast, hard-to-defend ballistic missiles Russia has increasingly relied on in recent months. These super-weapons travel faster than the speed of sound and reach their targets in minutes, leaving Kyiv residents too little time to reach underground shelters in most cases.

    Making the announcement of France’s new support on social media platform X, French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized that “it is crucial to provide Ukraine with all the necessary means to defend its skies and thwart this aggression.” The new interceptors will be brought to Ukraine ahead of a key meeting this coming Monday of the Coalition of the Willing, a air defense initiative co-led by France and Britain that brings together dozens of Kyiv’s international allies. The meeting will focus on new steps to ramp up diplomatic and economic pressure on Moscow to end its illegal invasion.

    Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have largely stalled in recent months. The United States, which previously brokered multiple rounds of direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, has shifted its focus to other regional tensions, particularly its escalating conflict with Iran, and senior officials have privately acknowledged that the conflict has proven far more intractable than previous U.S. leadership once predicted. The United Nations has confirmed that the total civilian death toll across the conflict zone has climbed to its highest monthly level this year since the first months of the 2022 full-scale invasion, a grim marker of the expanding human cost of the 4.5-year conflict.

  • Dozens of people abducted in attacks on villages in Nigeria, police say

    Dozens of people abducted in attacks on villages in Nigeria, police say

    Fresh coordinated attacks on multiple rural communities in Nigeria’s central Niger State have left at least 40 people dead and more than 100 others abducted, according to official police statements and local resident accounts obtained by the BBC. The violence, which unfolded shortly after Friday congregational prayers in the Borgu Local Government Area, was carried out by assailants dressed in military-style uniforms, targeting four villages: Dekara, Gidan Zana, Sabon Gida, and Masaka.

    Police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun confirmed that authorities are pointing to criminal bandit gangs as the primary suspects behind the assault. These groups have long operated across large swathes of northern Nigeria, carrying out kidnappings for ransom, looting, and targeted violence against isolated civilian communities. Local resident accounts detail a methodical attack: gunmen first entered Dekara immediately after prayers, rounded up residents, and forced them into nearby forested hideouts before advancing to adjacent villages to repeat the assault. Local state legislator Jafar Muhammad Shetiman Borgu later verified to the BBC that the attacks had indeed taken place.

    This latest incident marks an escalation of violent activity in the remote Borgu region, a strategically located area that shares borders with Kebbi State, Kwara State, and the Republic of Benin. The attack is unrelated to an earlier wave of abductions in the same local government area earlier this month, when Nigerian security forces rescued 145 people kidnapped from four other Borgu villages. That operation was part of a larger nationwide security push that freed a total of 308 abducted people across the region, including more than 160 captives taken from communities in neighboring Kwara State.

    Beyond the persistent threat from criminal bandit gangs, the Borgu area has also increasingly become a hub for activity by jihadist insurgent groups that have expanded their footprint from northwestern Nigeria into cross-border regions. Local officials report that jihadist fighters have begun entering civilian communities in recent months to impose strict religious restrictions, and Shetiman warned that the latest violence has sparked new fears that gunmen are actively working to recruit vulnerable young people into their ranks.

    The security crisis in Borgu has deepened over recent weeks: just seven days before this latest attack, local officials recorded more than 20 civilian deaths in another violent incident in the local government area. The region has long been a hotbed for mass abductions, including a high-profile 2025 November incident where gunmen seized more than 200 school pupils from a secondary school in Papiri, Niger State. Those children were eventually released after a month of captivity.

    Even after multiple sustained military and police counter-insurgency operations, large portions of Niger State remain largely inaccessible to security forces. Vast, unmonitored forested areas provide ideal hideouts for armed groups, who use these safe havens to launch regular raids on undefended, isolated rural communities. This persistent security gap has allowed violence and kidnapping for ransom to become endemic across north central Nigeria, posing one of the most pressing internal security challenges to the Nigerian government.

  • Fourteen killed in strike on Myanmar monastery

    Fourteen killed in strike on Myanmar monastery

    A devastating early Friday air strike carried out by Myanmar’s military on a rural monastery in central Myanmar has left 14 elderly civilians dead and multiple monks injured, according to accounts from opposition fighters and local emergency responders. The fatal attack, which hit the religious site twice, unfolded around 9 a.m. local time in Chhay Hoe O village, Myaung township of Sagaing region — roughly 70 kilometers west of the country’s second-largest city Mandalay, AFP reports. At the time of the strike, dozens of civilian worshippers had gathered at the monastery to take part in a meditation retreat marking the start of Buddhist Lent, a major annual observance in the majority-Buddhist nation. Local rescue workers confirmed all 14 people killed in the attack were between 50 and 70 years old. The casualty breakdown, shared by pro-democracy opposition fighter Nway Oo Myaung with AFP, counts 11 men and three women among the dead. Five victims hailed from the targeted village itself, while the other nine traveled from a nearby adjacent township. One anonymous opposition fighter who participated in post-strike search and rescue operations described a chaotic, dangerous scene. When first responders arrived to pull survivors from the rubble of the damaged monastery, military aircraft returned to carry out a second bombing run, putting rescue teams directly at risk. Myanmar has been mired in widespread civil conflict since the 2021 military coup that removed the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi from power. The entire country has operated under military-imposed martial law since the putsch, and the national military has repeatedly faced accusations of targeting civilian infrastructure and populated areas in its campaign against anti-junta opposition forces. Military officials have consistently denied these claims, asserting that their operations only target what they classify as legitimate military objectives. As of Saturday, Myanmar’s military leadership has not issued any public comment in response to reports of the monastery attack.

  • Dozens of civilians killed, kidnapped as jihadists clash in Nigeria

    Dozens of civilians killed, kidnapped as jihadists clash in Nigeria

    A deadly attack by a jihadist faction during Friday prayers in Nigeria’s central Niger State has left scores of civilians dead or kidnapped, according to survivor and lawmaker accounts shared with Agence France-Presse on Saturday. The violence unfolded when a clash broke out between two rival militant groups, creating a chaotic window that allowed dozens of captives and survivors to escape.

    Nigeria has grappled with a 17-year jihadist insurgency that began with Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising, one of the longest-running and deadliest extremist conflicts in Africa. While the insurgency was originally concentrated in the country’s northeast, where the 2014 mass kidnapping of 276 Chibok schoolgirls drew global outrage, the conflict has splintered and spread in recent years. The attack on Friday took place near Nigeria’s western border with Benin, a region that has seen a sharp spike in militant activity from local armed groups and extremist fighters moving north from the Sahel.

    Jibril Ahmad, a survivor of the attack on Dikera village in Borgu Local Government Area, described the sudden assault that came immediately after the community concluded its weekly Friday prayer. “Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakuwara, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us,” Ahmad recalled. He added that the attackers justified the killings by claiming village residents were not following what the group considers “true teachings of Islam.” The neighboring village of Binzi was also targeted in the coordinated assault, both Ahmad and Nigerian federal representative Jafaru Mohammed confirmed to AFP.

    Lakurawa, the group that launched the initial attack, is a little-understood extremist faction that regional security researchers have linked to the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), a major jihadist organization that controls large swathes of territory in neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The violence took an unexpected turn when a second local jihadist group, called Mahmuda, intervened and opened fire on Lakurawa fighters, the witnesses said.

    Many civilians were able to flee to safety as the two rival factions fought each other. “Many of us have escaped, while they were busy trying to confront the Mahmuda fighters,” Ahmad explained. Mohammed confirmed that the clash grew out of ideological divisions between the two groups: “some members of the Mahmuda group were against the doctrine of the Lakurawa and when they heard of what the Lakurawa were doing they fought them.” Despite the intervention, Mohammed said the civilian toll remained severe: “But as of now many of our people have been slaughtered and many have been kidnapped and taken into the bushes.”

    As of Saturday morning, local authorities had not released a confirmed casualty count. Niger State police confirmed they had received reports of kidnappings in the area, but said they had not been formally notified of any fatalities.

    The attack highlights the evolving and increasingly fragmented security crisis facing Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Twelve months before the assault, in August 2023, the Nigerian government announced it had “dismantled” the Mahmuda faction and another extremist group Ansaru, arresting their top leaders. While overall jihadist violence has declined from its peak a decade ago, during the height of Boko Haram’s insurgency, Nigerian security forces remain overstretched by multiple overlapping conflicts across the country.

    Extremist groups have expanded their foothold in northwest and central Nigeria in recent years, operating alongside large criminal networks of non-ideological bandit gangs that raid villages, steal livestock, and abduct residents for ransom. These bandits routinely impose illegal “taxes” on local farmers and miners to fund their operations, and the combination of criminal and ideological violence has destabilized vast rural areas. Late in 2024, the United States military launched airstrikes against jihadist targets in northwest Nigeria in an effort to curb the spread of extremism, but the campaign has not stopped factional violence.

    In the northeast, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province remain capable of large-scale attacks despite years of military pressure. Beyond the jihadist insurgency, Nigeria also faces persistent intercommunal clashes between farmers and herders over land and water resources in central regions, and a low-intensity separatist insurgency in the country’s southeast that has killed hundreds of people since 2020.

    Kidnapping for ransom has grown into a multimillion-dollar criminal industry across Nigeria, carried out by both small local gangs and transnational jihadist groups alike. Despite Nigerian laws that ban the payment of ransoms to kidnappers, both victim families and government officials have been repeatedly accused of making payments to secure the release of captives, a practice that has sustained the growth of the kidnapping economy.

  • Ukraine strikes kill two children after Russia’s deadly mall attack

    Ukraine strikes kill two children after Russia’s deadly mall attack

    The ongoing military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine has entered a new phase of escalating civilian harm, with a series of reciprocal drone and missile strikes leaving multiple non-combatants dead across both territories over the past 48 hours. The deadly sequence of attacks began Friday afternoon, when Russian unmanned aerial vehicles struck a crowded shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Initial casualty reports confirm 16 civilians killed, more than 100 others wounded, and at least nine people still unaccounted for after the strike ignited a massive blaze that gutted the multi-story commercial building.

    Just 30 minutes after the initial mall attack, a second Russian drone strike hit the same area, a move Zelensky condemned as a deliberate, cynical and despicable attempt to target first responders who had rushed to the scene to pull survivors from the wreckage. By Saturday, locals had erected a makeshift memorial outside the burned-out structure, laying flowers and handwritten notes for the victims. An AFP correspondent on site observed heavy machinery clearing debris of twisted, charred metal, with fire-blackened supermarket shelves still standing beneath a cratered ceiling and blown-out window frames.

    Overnight Friday into Saturday, fresh Russian strikes killed two additional civilians: one in the capital Kyiv and another near the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian internal officials confirmed.

    In response to the Russian attacks, Ukraine launched a wave of counter-drone strikes targeting Russian territory on Saturday. In the Yeysk district of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, one drone hit a residential home, killing two young children and hospitalizing their injured parents. Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev called the attack “vile and cynical” in a public statement confirming the casualties. A second, separate Ukrainian drone strike in Russia’s central Samara region left one person dead, according to local regional governor.

    Ukrainian forces have also expanded their targeting of Russian e-commerce logistics infrastructure, with a new strike hitting a warehouse owned by major Russian online retailer Ozon. The attack follows a month of repeated strikes on facilities belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest domestic e-commerce platform.

    The accelerating cycle of attacks has pushed the 2024 civilian death toll to its highest point since the opening months of the full-scale invasion, according to latest data from the United Nations. As Russian long-range strike operations intensify, Ukrainian military officials report their forces face growing challenges intercepting salvos of Russian ballistic missiles, prompting repeated calls for additional air defense support from Kyiv’s Western allies.

    Top leaders from Ukraine’s partner nations are set to hold a virtual summit this coming Monday, which marks Ukraine’s Independence Day, to discuss new packages of military and humanitarian support for the country amid the escalating violence.

  • Pope Leo praises San Marino as model of freedom and common good

    Pope Leo praises San Marino as model of freedom and common good

    On a historic one-day visit to the world’s oldest continuously existing republic, Pope Leo XIV delivered an address to local authorities that framed the micro-state of San Marino as a timeless example of civic virtue and political freedom. Fully enclosed within Italy’s borders, this 35,000-person nation carries a political heritage stretching back to the 4th century, shaped by its unique power-sharing governance structure. Pope Leo’s Saturday trip marked only the third papal visit to San Marino, following journeys by Pope St. John Paul II in 1982 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

    Opening his remarks, the pontiff anchored San Marino’s founding legacy to Saints Marino and Leone, two early Christian figures whose work laid the foundation for a community built on the core values of individual freedom, reciprocal respect, and collective solidarity. He explained that the pair translated Christian teachings into a radical new model of community and political life, one that remains embedded in the republic’s national identity 17 centuries later. Describing the nation as a “laboratory of good politics,” Pope Leo highlighted San Marino’s distinct system of governance: a 60-member national parliament that elects two joint heads of state (captains regent) every six months, an institutional design intentionally created to prevent the dangerous concentration of political power.

    Against a global backdrop of rising polarization, eroding trust in institutions, and growing social division, Pope Leo argued that small, cohesive political communities like San Marino offer critical lessons for the modern world. He praised the nation’s identity as a society rooted in “respect for one’s own freedom and that of others and above all on respect for the sacred Will of God,” noting that its centuries-old republican experiment has sustained a culture of civic responsibility unmatched in many larger modern nations.

    The pope paired his celebration of San Marino’s legacy with a pointed warning to modern societies about growing threats: rising violence, deepening social fragmentation, and ideological and economic systems that prioritize individual self-interest and the accumulation of power over the common good and the inherent dignity of every person. “We live in a world wounded by many conflicts,” he stated, pointing to rising violence, societal closure, and growing fear of marginalized groups and outsiders. He urged Christians worldwide to respond to these challenges through intentional practices of forgiveness, cross-community solidarity, and consistent care for the most vulnerable members of society.

    Consistent with longstanding Vatican social teaching, Pope Leo explicitly called for all public life and policy to uphold the dignity of every human person “from conception to natural death” — phrasing that is widely associated with the Catholic Church’s official opposition to abortion and euthanasia. This comment comes three years after San Marino voters approved a 2021 referendum legalizing abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a landmark policy shift that overturned a decades-old national ban in one of the world’s most culturally Catholic countries. While the pontiff did not directly reference the controversial 2021 referendum, he reiterated his core message: that all political, social, and economic systems must center human dignity as their core purpose, warning that systems which claim to advance freedom often end up failing to serve people and the collective public good.

    Pope Leo closed his address by commending the small rural communities of the San Marino-Montefeltro region, which have organized mutual support networks and cooperative initiatives to counter the challenges of rural depopulation and declining local public services.

    The report was filed by correspondent Zampano from Rome.

  • Somali pirates hijack oil tanker off Yemen in latest attack

    Somali pirates hijack oil tanker off Yemen in latest attack

    A new hijacking attributed to Somali pirates has underscored a sharp resurgence of maritime banditry across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean, with an Eritrean-flagged oil tanker becoming the sixth commercial vessel seized since mid-April, a senior Somali maritime security official has confirmed to the Associated Press.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak publicly about the incident, the official confirmed that six armed pirates boarded the M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday. The hijacking took place roughly 136 nautical miles, or 252 kilometers, east of Yemen’s coastal city of al-Mukalla, after which the hijacked tanker was steered toward the coast of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

    The hijacked tanker, operated by UAE-based Qatrat Alnada Almasi Ship Management, already faced U.S. Treasury Department sanctions imposed last year. The vessel was designated over allegations it forms part of an Iranian “shadow fleet” — a network of unregistered or obscurely owned vessels used to ship Iranian petroleum products in violation of American trade restrictions.

    Aboard the Sibu 1 at the time of the seizure were 20 crew members, hailing from a range of nations: 16 Indian nationals, one Syrian, one Sudanese, one Iraqi, and one crew member whose nationality has not yet been confirmed. Details of the tanker’s last port of departure and intended final destination remain unclear as of Friday.

    This hijacking comes just three days after Somali pirates seized another commercial vessel, the Cameroon-flagged general cargo ship Lutuf, off Somalia’s northern coast. Maritime tracking data shows the Lutuf carried 10 people on board, including six Indian crew, one Turkish national, one Georgian national, and two Serbian armed security guards.

    The Sibu 1 hijacking fits a clear pattern of escalating pirate activity stretching back four months. The current wave of attacks began on April 21, when the Palau-flagged tanker Honor 25 was seized off Somalia’s coast. Pirates followed that seizure with captures of the Sward on April 26, the Eureka on May 2, the Asana on July 17, and the Lutuf earlier this month.

    Notably, the attacks have taken place increasingly far from Somalia’s traditional territorial waters, indicating expanded operational reach for pirate groups. The Eureka was hijacked while anchored off Yemeni territory, and the Asana was seized approximately 65 nautical miles, or 120 kilometers, southwest of al-Mukalla, Yemen.

    Data from the International Maritime Bureau underscores the outsized impact of this renewed Somali piracy surge. The organization recorded 38 total incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea across the globe in the first half of 2026, five of which were full hijackings. Over that period, Somali pirates held 94% of all crew members taken hostage worldwide, the bureau reported.

    In a statement released Friday, Puntland’s Security Ministry sought to distance local authorities from the resurgence of piracy, claiming that forces outside of Puntland’s control are behind the recent wave of attacks. The ministry did not name any specific group or country responsible for enabling the attacks, and AP has not been able to independently verify this claim.

    Puntland officials also confirmed they have deployed additional security forces along the region’s lengthy coastline in response to the crisis. The statement also condemned recent airstrikes that hit civilian fishing boats and local infrastructure near coastal communities where hijacked vessels are being held. The ministry called on the nations responsible for strikes near the coastal town of Garacad on August 18 and 20 to publicly explain the actions, though it did not identify which country carried out the attacks, and the allegations remain unconfirmed independently.

  • Russian attacks on Ukraine kill 2 people a day after deadly shopping mall drone strike

    Russian attacks on Ukraine kill 2 people a day after deadly shopping mall drone strike

    The ongoing full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen another deadly spike in targeted strikes against civilian and infrastructure targets across Ukrainian territory, with two additional civilians confirmed killed in a wave of overnight attacks launched by Moscow, just 24 hours after a devastating assault on a crowded central Ukrainian shopping center left 16 dead.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed in a Saturday statement that one civilian was killed and a second injured after Russian ballistic missiles struck critical railway infrastructure in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. In a contrasting official statement, Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its military forces had successfully targeted a military-use locomotive depot in the strike.

    In recent weeks, Russian forces have deliberately ramped up ballistic missile attacks against Kyiv, taking advantage of a critical shortage of U.S.-manufactured Patriot air defense interceptors in Ukraine’s arsenal. These interceptors are the only system Ukrainian air defenses currently operate that is capable of reliably intercepting and destroying Russian ballistic missiles.

    Beyond the Kyiv strike, local Zaporizhzhia regional officials confirmed Saturday that one additional civilian was killed in an overnight Russian drone attack on a village in the southern region. Zelenskyy added that three more people were wounded in a separate drone assault on a civilian minibus in Zaporizhzhia, the region’s administrative capital.

    The new round of Russian attacks came one day after Russian strike drones hit a busy shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, a major city in central Ukraine that is Zelenskyy’s hometown. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, updated the casualty toll in the early hours of Saturday: the death toll had risen to 16, 130 additional people were wounded, and nine people remained unaccounted for as of Saturday morning.

    Zelenskyy condemned the attack as a deliberate “double-tap” strike, a tactic where an initial wave of attacks hits the target, followed by a second strike timed to arrive when first responders and rescue workers have arrived on scene to treat casualties and clear debris. The Ukrainian leader added that a large fire that spread across 9,000 square meters of the shopping center had been fully extinguished, and search and rescue operations were continuing to recover missing victims.

    Kryvyi Rih has been repeatedly targeted throughout more than four years of full-scale war, with one of the deadliest previous attacks recorded in April 2025, when 20 people — including nine children — were killed in a Russian strike.

    Large, coordinated Russian strikes across Ukraine have become a near-weekly occurrence throughout this summer. Friday’s shopping center attack came just 24 hours after Russia launched a massive nighttime assault against Kyiv using dozens of missiles and drones, which also killed 16 civilians. The capital has faced near-constant bombardment in recent weeks: 17 civilians were killed in a strike on Kyiv and its surrounding suburbs just over two weeks ago, and another nine died in a separate attack on the city two days prior to that. A recent update from the United Nations released last week listed Kyiv as one of the hardest-hit Ukrainian cities in July, with at least 54 civilian fatalities and 202 injured recorded across the capital and its surrounding areas.

    In a shift that has moved active hostilities back onto Russian sovereign territory, Ukraine has recently ramped up its own long-range drone strikes against Russian energy and commercial targets, creating widespread fuel shortages across Russia and sowing unease among the Russian general public. Beyond targeting key oil processing and storage facilities, Ukrainian drones have recently struck warehouse facilities owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest domestic e-commerce retailer.

    On Saturday, Russian independent online news outlet Astra reported that a Ukrainian drone strike sparked a large fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s Samara Oblast. Local Russian regional officials confirmed that damage had been recorded at an unspecified “industrial site” in the region, as well as at a logistics center owned by Ozon, Wildberries’ largest domestic competitor in the Russian e-commerce market.

  • Indian workers in Israel demand accountability after murder of Indian caregiver

    Indian workers in Israel demand accountability after murder of Indian caregiver

    The fatal stabbing of 49-year-old Indian caregiver Rajeev Acharya at the hands of an Israeli national has triggered a collective appeal from the country’s migrant worker community in Israel, demanding full legal accountability and urgent safeguards for foreign laborers, India’s NDTV has reported.

    The attack, which took place on July 23, targeted Acharya at the home where he worked caring for an elderly Israeli couple. Israeli law enforcement has formally indicted Avior Zaken, the grandson of Acharya’s elderly employers, on charges of premeditated murder under Israel’s penal code, after prosecutors alleged he repeatedly stabbed the caregiver with a sharp weapon.

    Nearly a month following the killing, India’s diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv released a statement via the social platform X confirming it was maintaining close coordination with Israeli officials. The embassy noted that Israeli authorities had already taken the suspect into custody, with an ongoing investigation working to establish a complete account of the incident’s details and context.

    In their formal appeal, Indian migrant workers in Israel have outlined three core demands: that Israeli prosecutors pursue a full, uncompromised prosecution of Zaken, that fair and timely compensation be awarded to Acharya’s surviving family back in India, and that systemic changes be implemented to shield all Indian foreign workers from future violence and abuse. The appeal specifically highlights the unique vulnerability of Indian domestic and care workers in the country, who typically reside within the private homes of their employers, leaving them exposed to unregulated harm with limited access to outside support.

    The killing comes amid a rapidly expanding bilateral labor agreement between New Delhi and Tel Aviv that has accelerated sharply since the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In May 2023, months before the Gaza campaign began, the two governments signed a deal to send more than 42,000 Indian workers to Israel, with 34,000 allocated to the construction sector and 8,000 to elderly care. The flow of Indian labor to Israel surged dramatically after November 2023, when the Israeli government revoked thousands of work permits held by Palestinian laborers, creating an acute nationwide labor shortage. In response to the shortage, the Israeli Builders Association formally requested that the Israeli government secure an additional 50,000 to 90,000 Indian laborers to fill gaps in the workforce.

    For millions of working-age Indians grappling with persistent high unemployment and stagnant low wages in India’s domestic labor market, positions in Israel offer a rare opportunity to earn higher incomes and send critical remittances back to extended family in India. Thousands of Indian workers have therefore moved to fill open positions in Israel since 2023.

    However, the expansion of the labor pact has sparked widespread domestic and international criticism of the Indian government. In 2024, several of India’s largest trade unions, which collectively represent more than tens of millions of Indian workers across all sectors, issued a formal call for the Indian government to halt all new placements of Indian workers in Israel, arguing that the policy makes India complicit in what the unions describe as Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Indian government has also faced sustained activist pressure over its decision to continue supplying military equipment to Israel throughout the Gaza campaign.

    As of August 2025, NDTV confirms that more than 20,000 Indian workers have already arrived in Israel since the start of the Gaza campaign. A new bilateral agreement signed in February 2026 projects that the total number of Indian laborers in Israel could reach 100,000 by 2028, a four-fold increase from the 2023 original pact.