President Joe Biden took the "painful decision" of greenlighting a prisoner swap Saturday with Caracas that freed seven Americans for two Venezuelans who are nephews of that country's first lady, a US official said.. "The president made a tough decision, a painful decision, to offer something the Venezuelans have actively sought" in the months-long swap negotiations, the official added.
Students demonstrated in Tehran and other Iranian cities Saturday against an ongoing crackdown on dissent over the death last month of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Islamic republic's notorious morality police.. On Saturday, riot police massed at major road junctions across the capital, as students demonstrated in Enghelab (Revolution) Square near Tehran University in the city centre to press for the release of arrested students.
Bodies strewn everywhere, a ceiling caved by blastwaves, classmates dragging each other to safety -- survivors of a suicide bombing in a Kabul study hall described scenes of horror after what should have been a typical exam. . - 'Never stop studying' - Arsalan, 18, who was writing his test in the courtyard of the centre, saw bodies of women strewn on the floor of the hall.
Ukraine on Saturday accused Russian forces of gunning down 24 civilians including children in an attack on a road convoy near the recently recaptured town of Kupiansk.. Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov put the preliminary death toll at 24 including, he said, a pregnant woman and 13 children, alleging: "Russians fired on the civilians at close range."
Russia was even more diplomatically isolated Saturday after President Vladimir Putin annexed four Moscow-held areas of Ukraine with Kyiv condemning the move and vowing to retake the territories.. He also vowed never to hold talks with Russia as long as Putin was in power.
The death toll of a suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom has risen to 35, the UN said Saturday, as Shiite Hazara women who bore the brunt of the attack staged a defiant protest against the "genocide" of their minority community.. Meanwhile on Saturday dozens of Hazara women defied a Taliban ban on rallies to protest the latest bloodshed in their community.
As Pete Belinda and his wife slowly walked down a road outside Fort Myers Beach on the southwestern coast of Florida, they each dragged a large suitcase behind them. . Fort Myers Beach is practically deserted now, traversed solely by emergency services vehicles and the handful of people who returned to their homes take stock of what they lost.
Dozens of women from Afghanistan's minority Hazara community protested in the capital Saturday after a suicide bombing a day earlier killed 20 people -- mostly young women from the ethnic group.. The western neighbourhood is a predominantly Shiite Muslim enclave and home to the minority Hazara community -- a historically oppressed group that has been targeted in some of Afghanistan's most brutal attacks in recent years.
Over a year after it was conceived as a ground-breaking response to Greece's notoriously unruly universities, a special campus police force has officially deployed -- to underwhelming results.. The squad of 1,000 officers deployed in September to four out of Greece's more than 20 university campuses.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's new title of prime minister, announced this week, could prove more significant abroad than inside the kingdom where he already wields enormous power.. Little is expected to change within the kingdom because of his new title, said Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham.
