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The US and Russia have agreed to re-establish high-level dialogue between their armed forces. The announcement came after a meeting of senior US and Russian military officers in Abu Dhabi in the margins of talks about the war in Ukraine. In a statement, US European Command said the renewed dialogue would "provide consistent military to military contact as the parties work towards a lasting peace". This marks a significant rapprochement between the world's two largest nuclear powers and comes after President Donald Trump repeatedly voiced his desire to normalise relations between both countries. The announcement also came amid reports the US and Russia were negotiating a deal to extend a nuclear arms reduction treaty due to expire on Thursday. Throughout decades of crisis and confrontation, the US and Russia have often kept channels of communication open between their armed forces. The aim was to avoid misunderstanding and escalation. But those contacts were su...

Delegations from the United States and Iran concluded indirect talks in the Gulf Arab   state of Oman Friday. It was the first round of negotiations between the two sides since the US and Israel struck the Islamic Republic last summer .  The US and Iran have agreed to hold follow-on discussions after consultations with their capitals, an outcome cautiously viewed as a positive result by both sides, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The talks took place amid an American military buildup in the Middle East, and after US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran if it used lethal force against protesters  or refuses to sign a nuclear deal. Ahead of the talks, Iran’s foreign minister said his country “enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year.” “We engage in good faith and stand firm on our rights,” Abbas Araghchi wrote on X. Still, sharp language has persisted on both sides, with Trump saying on Thur...

On the morning of February 5, a Russian attack in Kharkiv damaged an energy infrastructure facility that provides electricity to the city. This caused power outages in some areas and temporarily halted public transport, including the metro and electric ground transport. This was reported to journalists by the city mayor, Igor Terekhov. According to him, the attack was carried out on an energy facility that supplies the city. As a result of the attack, serious damage was recorded to the energy infrastructure, which complicated the stable power supply. Emergency restoration work is currently underway in the city, in which energy services are involved. The mayor noted that due to the scale of the destruction, it is currently impossible to name the exact number of subscribers who remain without electricity, as damage assessment and network restoration are ongoing. He also clarified that houses that previously remained without heat and had priority electricity supply now do not ...

“The World Health Organization has long since ceased to operate as a professional and objective organization,” MK Limor Sonn Har Melech said during a Knesset discussion on the matter. US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee , informed the Israeli Health Committee that the United States would share all medical data with Israel if it decides to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), according to a Knesset press release on January 20. The release recounted an internal debate within the Israeli Health Committee, where committee chair MK Limor Sonn Har Melech  revealed that she had discussed the possibility of Israel leaving the WHO at length with Ambassador Huckabee. “In this conversation, a very clear message arose on the part of the new administration in Washington. The ambassador said that the United States was reexamining its entire relationship with UN institutions, whether it is UNRWA  or the WHO .”  She continued, “The current American appro...

Germany’s government on Wednesday rejected calls for a boycott of the football World Cup co-hosted by the United States, after President Donald Trump retreated from his threats to seize Greenland. A boycott of the tournament would not be “the right approach”, government spokesman Steffen Meyer told a press conference in Berlin. “Political disputes should be settled at the political level, and sport should be left to be sport.” This year’s World Cup is to be held between June 11 and July 19 in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Some German politicians had questioned whether the country should still participate after Trump last month stepped up his longstanding threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. He targeted eight European countries, including Germany, with tariffs for their opposition to his ambitions. But the US leader later withdrew his tariff threats and vowed not to take the Arctic island by force, after saying he had struck a “fr...

China is encircling Africa  with strategic ports that can service its warships as part of its strategy to expand its navy and military presence. Satellite images shared exclusively with The Telegraph show how Beijing has transformed ports across the continent over the past decade – from Lekki in Nigeria to Mombasa in Kenya. The civilian ports, which are often run by Chinese state-owned firms, are designed not just for trade but also to accommodate warships. Defence experts warn the expansion has created a network of potential naval bases capable of landing warships near key maritime routes, such as the Suez Canal .  The ports also give Beijing access to critical materials like copper and cobalt – vital for modern technology, ranging from fighter jets to smartphones. Many of the ports are linked to mines via Chinese-built rail and road projects, supporting China' s race against the US for high-tech resources. Control over the ports could allow Chine...

United States border security chief Tom Homan has announced that the administration of President Donald Trump will “draw down” 700 immigration enforcement personnel from Minnesota while promising to continue operations  in the northern state. The update on Wednesday was the latest indication of the Trump administration pivoting  on its enforcement surge in the state following the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis in January. Homan, who is officially called Trump’s “border czar”, said the decision came amid new cooperation agreements with local authorities, particularly related to detaining individuals at county jails. Details of those agreements were not immediately available. About 3,000 immigration enforcement agents are currently believed to be in Minnesota as part of Trump’s enforcement operations. "Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration, and as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a...

A recent Elon Musk decision to shut down Russian military-operated Starlink terminals in Ukraine has hammered Kremlin forces with internet access denial across a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) fighting front that has left commanders without means of communication and combat units unable to attack, Ukrainian mainstream news reports and milbloggers reported on Thursday. Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov, a high-profile Ukrainian electronic warfare expert, in Wednesday evening comments published on his personal Telegram channel, said practically all frontline Russian combat units dependent on the US-developed Starlink satellite system for digital communications no longer are able to transfer data via secure internet, while Russian sources said some formations had had to revert to paper maps and couriers carrying memory sticks between units. In late January, Beskrestnov, a private industry electronic warfare expert recently appointed as senior technical advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Mi...

Cuba is ready for “meaningful” dialogue with the United States but it is not willing to discuss changing its government, the Cuban deputy foreign minister told CNN on Wednesday, in comments that come as the Trump administration ramps up pressure  on the island with talk of regime change. “We’re not ready to discuss our constitutional system as we suppose the US is not ready to discuss their constitutional system, their political system, their economic reality,” Carlos Fernández de Cossío  said. He said the countries have not yet established “a bilateral dialogue” but they have had “some exchanges of messages” that were “linked” to the highest levels of Cuba’s government. His remarks come days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US “would love to see” regime change in Cuba although it wouldn’t necessarily act on it. It also comes as the Trump administration has ramped up pressure on the Caribbean island by trying to cut off oil deliveries there. The US ...

Dangote Refinery says it does not import refined petroleum products into Nigeria, insisting that all petrol and other fuels sold from its operations are fully refined locally. The clarification was made by the Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Refinery, Mr David Bird, during a news conference on Wednesday in Lagos, amid allegations over fuel importation and local refining capacity. Bird explained that materials often mistaken for imported fuel were, in fact, intermediate feedstocks used to optimise refinery operations. He said these include high catalytic sulphur gasoline and straight-run naphtha, unfinished components that undergo extensive processing at the Lekki-based facility before becoming market-ready products. “We do not import refined fuel. Everything sold as petrol, diesel or aviation fuel is refined here in Lekki to Nigerian and international Euro-V standards,” Bird said. According to him, the use of intermediate feedstocks is standard practice in complex and me...

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says more than 200 repair crews are working to restore power in Kyiv following widespread deadly Russian attacks targeting the country's energy sector. More than 1,100 apartment buildings in the capital are still without power, Zelensky said, adding that he had spoken to officials about supporting communities in other affected parts of Ukraine. In the eastern Ukrainian town of Druzhkivka, seven people were killed and fifteen injured in Russian cluster bomb strikes, the regional head said. Moscow has recently renewed its attacks after a week-long pause that US President Donald Trump had asked Vladimir Putin to observe as a fierce cold swept Ukraine. Meanwhile, US, Ukrainian and Russian officials are again meeting in Abu Dhabi to discuss details of a peace plan. However, there a few signs a breakthrough is imminent during the second round of such trilateral talks in the United Arab Emirates. Russia launched a full-scale invasion ...

French police raided X offices in Paris on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the company’s use of algorithms and its artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok. The search was carried out by the  Paris public prosecutor’s cybercrime unit , which then summoned Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino to give evidence on April 20, according to Reuters . French prosecutors had opened the probe in 2025 following a complaint by a lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms  on the platform were likely to have distorted the operation of an automated data processing system. Authorities are now examining suspected algorithm abuse and fraudulent data extraction by X or the platform's executives, prosecutors said. The investigation has also broadened to include Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Musk’s company xAI and integrated into the platform, Reuters said. Britain’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, also said on Tuesday in a ...