A key force behind the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, Ayman al-Zawahiri spent much of the past two decades with a $25m bounty on his head. The bespectacled Egyptian doctor was leader of al Qaeda for the second half of that period. But he is perhaps better known for his previous role
World
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, and former prime minister David Cameron are among the latest UK figures who have been added to Russia’s sanctions list. The foreign ministry says the 39 prominent Britons have been banned from entering Russia. It said it was acting in response to UK sanctions against
A ship loaded with grain has left the port of Odesa for the first time since the war began, the Ukrainian infrastructure minister has said. “The first grain ship since Russian aggression has left port,” Oleksandr Kubrakov wrote on Twitter. “Thanks to the support of all our partner countries & UN we were able to
Vladimir Putin’s annual Navy Day parade looks impressive from the banks of St Petersburg’s Neva river; it looks even better on state TV. No expense spared when it comes to showing the people of Russia quite how big and shiny their navy and armed forces are. Think back to April though and the loss of
Russia has invited the United Nations and the Red Cross to investigate the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war. The prisoners were being held by Moscow-backed separatists at a jail in the town of Olenivka, in eastern Donetsk, when it was hit by rockets early on Friday. Russia’s defence ministry said 50 prisoners
The pope has said he would be ready to resign one day if serious health problems prevented him from running the Catholic Church. Pope Francis said his advancing age and difficulty walking have ushered in a new, slower phase of his papacy. “I don’t think I can continue doing trips with the same rhythm as
Spain has reported Europe’s first monkeypox-related death of the current outbreak – and the second outside of Africa. The country’s health ministry confirmed the death on Friday, but did not release further details about the person. Brazil reported the first monkeypox-related death outside the African continent in the current outbreak, earlier on Friday. In its
Far from the frontline, married Ukrainian women who fled the Russian invasion are enduring their own war of separation and instability. Natalia Verdiev, a mother of two young boys, is among an estimated five million people to have left Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on 24 February. And because men aged from 18 to 60
It’s been a hard couple of months for Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian state TV journalist who burst onto an evening newscast in March holding up a banner against her nation’s actions in Ukraine, telling the channel’s millions of viewers that state TV was lying to them. She has no job, she is living off the
Ukraine says it is launching a counter-offensive in the south but as this gruesome war enters its sixth month people living on the frontline in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine fear the shelling will never end. And they worry they’ve been forgotten about and left behind in the face of a slowly advancing Russian
Russian forces have taken control of Ukraine’s second biggest power plant – and are pushing “maximum troops” into three key southern areas. The bold moves came amid expectations of a Ukrainian counter-offensive, with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowing to recapture the southern city of Kherson, which fell to Russia in the early days of the war.
Russia’s foreign minister has denied his country is responsible for the worldwide surge in food prices following its invasion of Ukraine as shipping companies continue to avoid the war-torn nation. Speaking during his visit to several African nations, Sergei Lavrov dismissed the “so-called food crisis” and accused the US and Europe of causing prices to
European Union members have agreed a plan for dramatic cuts in their use of natural gas in the event that Russia halts its supply to the continent. Under the deal agreed by the energy ministers in Brussels, member states will reduce their consumption by 15%. However, the deal has been done on a voluntary basis,
Russia has said it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 to focus on building its own orbital outpost. Yuri Borisov, who was appointed to lead the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos earlier this month, said during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that Russia would fulfil its obligations to other partners before
It’s five months since Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine and four since Russia published any kind of casualty count. 1,351 Russian servicemen killed, they said then, with no update since. No word on the missing either. “The families aren’t told where they’ve gone missing or the circumstances,” says Valentina Melnikova, who runs the Committee
Three people, including the suspected gunman, have been killed after a series of shootings in a suburb of Vancouver, Canadian police say. Most of the attacks were in the city of Langley, while another reported shooting was in neighbouring Langley Township. A total of four people were shot, reportedly including a woman who was left