(Al Jazeera Media Network) President Vladimir Putin is set to win a record post-Soviet landslide victory in Russia’s election, cementing his grip on power, despite a large number of opponents staging a noon protest at polling stations.
Shortly after the last polls closed on Sunday, early returns pointed to the conclusion everyone expected: that Putin would extend his nearly quarter-century rule for six more years.
According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, he had some 87 percent of...
(BBC News) The first maritime humanitarian aid shipment to Gaza has been unloaded onto the shore.
The US charity behind the mission, World Central Kitchen (WCK), is co-operating with the United Arab Emirates.
The shipment contained 200 tonnes of food for Gaza, which the UN says is on the brink of famine.
Aid agencies have accused Israel of impeding aid deliveries, a charge denied by Israeli officials.
They say Israel is allowing aid through two crossings in the...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt his country’s presidential election by shelling Russian territory and using 2,500 soldiers to try to pierce Russia’s borders, promising to punish Kyiv for its actions.
Polls opened across 11 time zones in Russia on Friday to begin three days of voting with Putin almost certain to secure his fifth term since winning his first election in 2000 with dissent in...
(BBC News) The prosecutor in Donald Trump's election fraud case in Georgia can stay on the trial, if the lawyer she had an affair with quits, a judge has ruled.
Trump and his co-defendants had tried to get Fani Willis disqualified, saying her relationship with Nathan Wade — whom she hired — had compromised the integrity of the case.
Judge Scott McAfee disagreed, but said it did create an "appearance of impropriety."
He said either Willis or...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) The ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat wrapped up recently in Luang Prabang, the old capital of landlocked Laos, with an emphasis on the stalled five-point consensus agreed between the bloc and the Myanmar military shortly after it seized power in a 2021 coup.
An official from Myanmar attended the meeting for the first time since the military regime was shut out of the top summits for failing to take steps to end the crisis.
Democracy activists and...
(BBC News) US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has called for new elections in Israel, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritizing his "political survival" above the country.
Schumer, a Democrat and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, said Netanyahu had "lost his way."
He warned that huge civilian casualties in Gaza risked alienating allies and turning Israel into a global "pariah".
It is a sharp escalation in US criticism of Netanyahu's government. Officials in Washington, including...
(BBC New) The judge overseeing an election interference case against Donald Trump in Georgia has thrown out some criminal charges, but left most in place.
Judge Scott McAfee found six counts in the 41-count indictment against Trump and some of his co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, lacked detail.
But he said the charges can still be refiled at a later date.
Trump was among 19 people charged with a conspiracy to overturn the state's 2020 election results.
"The lack...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) An aid ship loaded with food has departed Cyprus heading for Gaza, after days of delay.
The Open Arms, owned by a charity of the same name, left Larnaca port early on Tuesday, towing a barge containing about 200 tonnes of flour, rice, and protein. The voyage is a test of a planned sea corridor to carry aid to a population on the brink of starvation.
Mostly funded by the United Arab...
(BBC News) Donald Trump will not fund Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion if he is elected US president again, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has said.
"He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war. That is why the war will end," the conservative premier said after meeting Trump in Florida.
The former US president has pledged to end the war "within 24 hours" if elected – but provided no details.
Orban is openly backing his long-term...
(Al Jazeera Media Network) Ukraine has rejected Pope Francis’s call to hold negotiations with Russia more than two years into its invasion, saying that Kyiv will “never” surrender.
“Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on social media Sunday, a day after the pope said Kyiv should “have the courage...
