World News

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli government ratified the Gaza ceasefire and hostage return deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, after a cabinet meeting that lasted more than six hours and ended in the early hours of Saturday.

Under the deal, bitterly opposed by some cabinet hardliners, a six-week ceasefire is due to take effect on Sunday, with the first of a series of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges that could open the way to ending the 15-month war in Gaza.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie and Alex Cornwell; Editing by Chris Reese)

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(Reuters) – Nicaraguan authorities swore in more than 1,400 masked civilians to form part of a new “volunteer” police force on Friday, raising concerns from human rights groups that President Daniel Ortega’s government is formalizing a paramilitary force.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Opposition figures and human rights groups have raised concerns that the force is an attempt to institutionalize armed civilians loyal to Ortega. They say some of the new recruits were implicated in the deadly suppression of anti-government protests that erupted in 2018.

BY THE NUMBERS

More than 4,000 people have been inducted into the force over just three days this week across the Central American nation, according to the government’s official news site.

CONTEXT

Changes to Nicaragua’s constitution that include the formation of the new force have been approved by the government-controlled legislature. Set to come into force in the coming weeks, the changes will concentrate power in the hands of Ortega, who has been in office since 2007, and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

KEY QUOTES

At a swearing-in ceremony on Friday in the small northern city of Ocotal, national police chief Francisco Diaz described the new force as one that will support existing police officers, and is voluntarily formed by civilians who will “defend peace and security.”

Gioconda Belli, a Nicaraguan poet and prominent opposition voice in exile in Spain, wrote on social media: “Without any scruples, Ortega and Murillo make 1,500 paramilitaries swear loyalty to them with their faces covered by balaclavas. A lawless, repressive army that has been given constitutional status.”

(Reporting by Gabriela Selser; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Rosalba O’Brien)

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s government announced on Friday Nigeria’s acceptance as a partner country in the multinational bloc of nations known as BRICS.

Brazil, which holds the bloc’s presidency in 2025, said in a statement that the African country has been actively “strengthening cooperation in the Global South and reforming global governance”, which has been a priority to Brazil.

“As the 6th largest population in the world and the 1st on the African continent, as well as one of the largest economies in Africa, Nigeria has converging interests with the other members of the group,” Brazil Foreign Ministry, known as Itamaraty, said in the statement.

Nigeria joins the BRICS in a status already held by another eight nations primarily in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia.

(Reporting by Isabel Teles; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people in Australia’s New South Wales state were without power on Saturday after a low pressure system brought damaging winds and heavy rains, sparking flood warnings.

Around 28,000 people were without power in Sydney, the state capital and Australia’s largest city, and 15,000 had no power in nearby Newcastle city and Hunter region, power company Ausgrid said on its website on Saturday morning.

The state’s emergency services agency fielded 2,825 callouts for assistance since Friday, mostly for fallen trees and properties with wind damage, it said on its website.

“It is still a dynamic situation, and I urge people in affected areas to stay up to date with the latest emergency warnings and follow the advice of emergency services,” federal emergency management minister Jenny McAllister said in a statement announcing disaster support funding.

Warnings for flooding, damaging winds and heavy rain were current for many parts of the state, the nation’s weather forecaster said, adding that winds with gusts up to 100 km/h were likely over alpine areas.

The alerts come after storms this week brought down trees and power lines and left 200,000 people without power in New South Wales, local media reported.

Climate change is causing heavy short-term rainfall events to become more intense in Australia, the country’s science agency said last year. The agency also warned of more extreme heat, coastal inundation, drought and fire weather in the bushfire-prone country of around 27 million.

(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s impeached president will appear at a hearing in a Seoul court on Saturday to oppose a formal arrest over last month’s imposition of martial law, his lawyers said.

Yoon, who has been in detention since he was apprehended on Wednesday in a massive law enforcement operation at his residence, faces potential rebellion charges linked to his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, which set off the country’s most serious political crisis since its democratization in the late 1980s.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and the military, requested the Seoul Western District Court to grant a warrant for Yoon’s formal arrest. Yoon is expected to argue that there’s no need for him to be in custody during an investigation at a hearing set for 2 p.m. this afternoon. The judge is anticipated to make a decision by late Saturday or early Sunday.

After meeting Yoon at the detention center, Yoon Kab-keun, one of the president’s lawyers, said in a text message that Yoon had accepted his legal team’s advice to appear personally before the judge. The president plans to argue that his decree was a legitimate exercise of his powers and that accusations of rebellion would not hold up before a criminal court or the Constitutional Court, which is reviewing whether to formally remove him from office or reinstate him, his lawyer said.

Hundreds of supporters rallied overnight at the court, calling for Yoon’s release.

If Yoon is arrested, investigators can extend his detention to 20 days, during which they will transfer the case to public prosecutors for indictment. If the court rejects the investigators’ request, Yoon will be released and return to his residence.

Nine people, including Yoon’s defense minister, police chief, and several top military commanders, have already been arrested and indicted for their roles in the enforcement of martial law.

The crisis began when Yoon, in an attempt to break through legislative gridlock, imposed military rule and sent troops to the National Assembly and election offices. The standoff lasted only hours after lawmakers who managed to get through a blockade voted to lift the measure. The opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14.

If Yoon is formally arrested, it could mark the beginning of an extended period in custody for him, lasting months or more.

If prosecutors indict Yoon on rebellion and abuse of power charges, which are the allegations now being examined by investigators, they could keep him in custody for up to six months before trial.

Under South Korean law, orchestrating a rebellion is punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Yoon’s lawyers have argued that there is no need to detain him during the investigation, saying he doesn’t pose a threat to flee or destroy evidence.

Investigators respond that Yoon ignored several requests to appear for questioning, and that the presidential security service blocked an attempt to detain him on Jan. 3. His defiance has raised concerns about whether he would comply with criminal court proceedings if he’s not under arrest.

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OTTAWA (Reuters) – Former Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday announced that she would take part in the contest to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal Party.

Freeland, who was one of Trudeau’s closest political allies for a decade, quit last month after resisting his demands for more spending and wrote a letter denouncing his governing style.

Her unexpected departure prompted an uproar from Liberal legislators already unhappy about the party’s miserable showing in the polls after nine years in power and widespread voter unhappiness about high prices and a housing crisis.

The mutiny forced Trudeau to announce that he would step down once the party had chosen a replacement. He will stay in office until March 9, when the new leader is due to be unveiled.

“I’m running to fight for Canada,” Freeland said in a post on X, saying her formal campaign launch would be on Sunday.

Trudeau’s replacement is unlikely to be in office long, given polls show that the Liberals are set to be crushed by the official opposition Conservatives. The next election must be held by Oct 20 and could happen as early as May.

The challenge for Freeland, 56, will be to portray herself as different from Trudeau, given how closely they worked together after the Liberals took power in November 2015 and how often she backed him in public.

Her likely main opponent is former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who has never been part of the government and portrays himself as an outsider. He announced on Thursday he would be running.

Freeland had been finance minister since August 2020 and helped craft the government’s multibillion-dollar social spending program to help fight the pandemic.

She had previously been foreign minister and led the Canadian team that successfully renegotiated a trilateral trade deal with the United States and Mexico after then-President Donald Trump threatened to tear up the agreement.

She joined the government in November 2015, first serving as trade minister.

Before entering politics in 2013, Freeland worked as a journalist and in senior editorial roles with several media companies, including the Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, and Reuters, where she worked from 2010 to 2013.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Mark Porter)

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BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday that Elon Musk’s support for the far-right in Europe is “completely unacceptable,” adding to his previous criticism of Musk’s interventions in the German election campaign.

Musk has said over the past month that only the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, can “save Germany.” Last week, the tech billionaire livestreamed on his social media platform X a chat with Alice Weidel, the party’s candidate for chancellor in Germany’s Feb. 23 election, amplifying its message ahead of the vote.

His interest in Germany and politics elsewhere in Europe, after he poured money and energy into helping Donald Trump win the U.S. election, has set off alarm bells among politicians across the continent. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive also has demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ‘s government tyrannical, claiming Starmer should be in prison.

Scholz has said it’s important to “stay cool” over personal attacks, but that Germany’s way forward “will not be decided by the owners of social media channels” but by German voters.

Asked on Friday about Musk’s interventions, he said it’s important to “criticize the right thing.”

“What we must criticize is not that a billionaire, or a billionaire from other countries in a global world, expresses his opinion — but what he says,” Scholz said at a news conference. “He supports the extreme right throughout Europe, in Britain, in Germany, in many, many other countries, and that is something that is completely unacceptable.”

“This endangers the democratic development of Europe, it endangers our community, and that must be criticized,” Scholz said.

Polls show AfD in second place ahead of the election, with support of about 20%, but Weidel has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the party.

Center-right opposition leader Friedrich Merz also has criticized Musk’s endorsement of AfD. Merz’s Union bloc leads polls and he is the favorite to become Germany’s next leader.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday.

It said that Russia would retaliate, but that all the missiles had been intercepted, resulting in no casualties or damage.

Moscow has said it will respond every time Ukraine fires ATACMS or British-supplies Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia.

Ukraine first used those weapons to strike at Russian territory in November after obtaining permission from Washington and London. Russia replied by firing a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, and has said it may do so again.

The defence ministry said that over the past week, Russia shot down 12 ATACMS, eight Storm Shadows, 48 U.S. HIMARS rockets, seven French-made Hammer guided bombs and 747 drones. Reuters could not verify those figures.

It reported for the first time that Russian forces had captured the village of Slovianka in eastern Ukraine, one of eight Ukrainian settlements it said had been taken in the past week.

The statement said Russia had carried out eight major strikes in the past week on parts of Ukraine’s gas and energy infrastructure that it said were supporting military facilities and the Ukrainian defence industry.

Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile attack killed at least four people and partially destroyed an educational facility in the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern-central Ukraine on Friday. At least seven others were hurt, some of them seriously, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.

(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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By Michael Holden and Sam Tobin

LONDON (Reuters) – Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group officially begins at the High Court in London on Tuesday, with King Charles’ younger son set to appear as a witness himself at the trial next month.

Harry is suing News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful activities carried out by journalists and private investigators working for its papers, the Sun and the defunct News of the World, from 1996 until 2011.

Harry has said he wants to get to the truth, after about 40 other claimants, including actor Hugh Grant, settled cases to avoid the risk of a multi-million pound legal bill that could be imposed even if they won in court but had rejected NGN’s offer.

“They have settled because they’ve had to settle,” he told the New York Times Dealbook Summit last month. “One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability because I’m the last person that can actually achieve that.”

The NGN case is the latest lawsuit in Harry’s war with the British press which began shortly after his marriage to his American wife Meghan in 2018.

Harry and Meghan stepped down from royal duties in March 2020 and moved to California, where they now live with their two children, a decision the prince says was largely due to intrusion, harassment and incitement to hatred from the tabloids.

Critics say he is seeking vengeance on papers for their coverage about him and his barbed comments against other members of the royal family after he used documentaries, his memoir and interviews to criticise editors and senior executives.

The eight-week trial will at first consider “generic issues” such as phone hacking and unlawful information gathering at the papers, whether senior NGN figures knew about it, and whether incriminating evidence had been deliberately destroyed.

It will also examine allegations NGN misled police and provided false statements to a public inquiry into media ethics held from 2011-12.

Specific evidence relating to Harry and another claimant, Tom Watson, a former Labour Party deputy leader, will then be scrutinised, with the prince himself expected to give evidence for at least two days, while former prime minister Gordon Brown is also expected to appear as a witness.

“His claim will be fully defended, including on the grounds that it is brought out of time,” a spokesperson for NGN said of Harry’s lawsuit.

The spokesperson said Watson had never been a target of hacking, and the allegation that emails had been unlawfully destroyed was “wrong, unsustainable, and is strongly denied”.

PHONE HACKING

The fifth-in-line to the throne has already successfully sued Mirror Group Newspapers for hacking voicemail messages on his phone and for other unlawful invasions of privacy, winning substantial damages.

That case saw him become the first senior British royal for 130 years to appear as a witness in court when he provided testimony over two days in June 2023.

There is potentially more at stake for Murdoch’s newspaper group. In 2011 it issued an unreserved apology for widespread phone hacking carried out by journalists at the News of the World which Murdoch shut down.

Since then NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering by the News of the World, and settled claims brought by more than 1,300 people.

But it has always denied any unlawful activity at the Sun, and the upcoming trial will be the first to examine specific allegations against the paper which was previously edited by Rebekah Brooks, now head of News Corp’s British arm.

She was found not guilty in 2014 of phone hacking following a criminal trial, and NGN’s lawyers have accused Harry’s legal team and others of trying to turn the lawsuit into a re-run of old cases and the public inquiry.

The judge previously ruled that Harry could not bring allegations against Murdoch himself. Brooks will not be giving evidence but other current and former NGN staff will be appearing.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Alison Williams)

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LONDON (Reuters) -The trial to determine Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group begins at the High Court in London on Tuesday with King Charles’ younger son set to appear as a witness once again.

The case is one of several Harry and his U.S. wife Meghan have brought against media organisations since 2019 in what he has described as his mission to rid the British press of senior executives and editors he accuses of abusing their power.

Here is a summary of their cases:

NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS – UNLAWFUL INFORMATION GATHERING 

Harry is suing News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful information gathering by journalists or private investigators working for its papers, the Sun and the defunct News of the World, from 1996 until 2011.

The High Court has ruled that Harry could not sue NGN for allegations of phone hacking, nor pursue allegations against Rupert Murdoch himself and also rejected his argument that there had been a secret deal between the publisher and senior royals. But the judge allowed most of Harry’s case to continue.

Initially Harry was one of about 40 claimants, but all the others have since settled with the exception of former Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson.

The eight-week trial will consider the specific claims of the fifth-in-line to the throne and Watson, as well as generic allegations of wrongdoing by NGN staff, including editors and other senior figures. NGN has always denied unlawful activity at the Sun.

MIRROR GROUP NEWSPAPERS OVER PHONE HACKING

Harry won substantial damages and legal costs after he successfully sued Mirror Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, for hacking his voicemails and other unlawful information gathering between 1996 and 2011.

The prince, who was one of about 100 claimants, became the first senior British royal for 130 years to appear as a witness in court during the trial in June 2023.

The High Court ruled in his favour in December 2023, agreeing that editors had known about the wrongdoing.

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS – NUMEROUS ALLEGED UNLAWFUL ACTS

Seven high-profile public figures, including Harry and singer Elton John, are suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, over allegations of phone tapping and other unlawful activities.

ANL, which denies any wrongdoing, unsuccessfully tried to have the cases thrown out on the basis that they were brought too late. 

The trial is due to take place in early 2026 with the legal costs in the case set to exceed 38 million pounds ($48 million).

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS – LIBEL CLAIMS

Harry successfully sued ANL for libel over a 2020 Mail on Sunday article which accused him of having snubbed the Royal Marines, with ANL apologising and paying damages.

The prince launched another lawsuit against ANL in February 2022, over a Mail on Sunday article that accused him of trying to mislead the public about a separate legal battle with the government over his police protection.

He withdrew his claim in January last year, having failed to have ANL’s defence thrown out.

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS – PRINTING MEGHAN’S LETTER

Meghan won a privacy claim against ANL in February 2021 after its Mail on Sunday tabloid printed extracts of a letter she had written to her estranged father in 2018. The publisher’s appeal was rejected.

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

As well as his cases against the press, Harry has also been involved in a High Court fight with the British government after the specialist police protection he had previously received in Britain was removed when he and Meghan stepped down from their royal duties and moved to California in 2020.

In February last year, the court ruled the decision was lawful and two months later refused him permission to challenge that decision.

However, the Court of Appeal said last June it would hear his challenge following a direct application from his lawyers. The appeal is due to be heard in April.

($1 = 0.7974 pounds)

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Alison Williams)

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