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KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday he was canceling a part of his program in South Africa and returning to Ukraine after intense Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv.
Zelensky said on the Telegram app that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha would conduct all necessary meetings in South Africa to inform leaders about the situation in Ukraine.
Three people were wounded during a shooting in New York's Times Square, the Associated Press reported on Saturday, citing the New York Police Department.
One person was held in custody and being questioned over the shooting, the AP report said, citing the police, adding that no charges had been pressed yet.
The shooting took place at 1:20 a.m. ET (0520 GMT), the AP said. No details have been released so far on how it unfolded.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WARSAW:US President Donald Trump has invited new Polish President Karol Nawrocki to Washington at the beginning of September, the chief of Nawrocki’s cabinet said on Saturday.
Nawrocki, sworn in as Polish president on Wednesday, has on many occasions emphasized the importance of good Polish-US relations.
The new president, whose campaign was backed by Poland’s main nationalist opposition party Law and Justice, met Trump in the Oval Office shortly before the Polish election in May and got the US leader’s support for his candidacy.
“In an official congratulatory letter delivered on the inauguration day, US President Donald Trump invited Polish President Karol Nawrocki to the White House for an official working meeting on September 3, 2025,” Pawel Szefernaker wrote on X.
MELBOURNE: The leaders of New Zealand and Australia on Saturday discussed closer cooperation between they their expanding militaries against the backdrop of a recent extraordinary Chinese live-fire exercise near their shores.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon hosted his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese at the tourist city of Queenstown for their second annual bilateral leaders’ meeting.
Luxon said his country wanted closer military cooperation with Australia, a country he describes as New Zealand’s “only ally.”
“A big focus for us has been interoperability with Australia. We want to be a force multiplier,” Luxon told reporters.
“We want to be one, sort of, essential Anzac force essentially operating within our region,” he added, referring to the Australian New Zealand Army Corps in which the two nations’ soldiers first fought together during World War I.
The summit follows a Chinese naval flotilla firing weapons in February in the Tasman Sea, which separates Australia and New Zealand. The exercise forced commercial airlines to divert flights.
The Chinese navy rarely ventures so far south and the mission that partially circumnavigated Australia was seen as a demonstration of China’s growing military reach.
Albanese said last month that he complained to China’s President Xi Jinping during a state visit to Beijing about the lack of notice the Chinese had given of the live-fire exercise. Xi replied that Australia also engaged in exercises, referring to freedom of navigation missions conducted by Australian military in the disputed South China Sea.
Albanese and Luxon recognized their countries face the most unpredictable and dangerous strategic environment in decades and their alliance plays a critical role in protecting and advancing their shared interest in the region, they said in a joint statement.
The prime ministers also commended progress over the past year to intensify defense cooperation and integration.
While the statement did not mention China, the prime ministers confirmed their most important trading partner was discussed.
“Of course, the geostrategic competition, in particular between the great powers, is something that countries like Australia and New Zealand do discuss together and we cooperate politically,” Albanese said.
Luxon said “both countries have followed pretty much the same playbook” in their bilateral dealings with China.
“China’s an important world power. It’s important that we can engage,” Luxon said.
“We genuinely are able to have a conversation – I think a very mature one now – to say, look, we do have very different histories, we do have different systems, we do have different values, that does mean we do have differences. Good partners should be not afraid to talk about those things,” Luxon added.
Luxon announced in April a plan to make the New Zealand Defense Force more combat capable that would double defense spending to more than 2 percent of GDP. He described the rise from around 1 percent over the past two decades as “a big step up for us.”
In a demonstration of Tokyo seeking deeper strategic ties in the South Pacific, Japanese warships docked in New Zealand on Friday for the first time in almost 90 years.
Australia announced this week Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build a fleet of 11 Australian naval frigates with a contract expected to be worth $6.5 billion.
Australia’s most expensive defense expansion is a submarine deal with the United States and Britain that is expected to cost up to $245 billion. Under the trilateral partnership known by the acronym AUKUS, Australia will acquire a fleet of eight submarines powered by US nuclear technology.
US President Donald Trump has urged western countries to increase their defense budgets and rely less on the US for their security.
Albanese told reporters on Saturday: “If people argue that we should increase our defense spending, we are.”
SRINAGAR: Two Indian soldiers and a suspected militant have been killed in one of longest gunfights in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said Saturday.
The fighting began on Aug. 1 after Indian troops laid a cordon in southern Kulgam district’s Akhal forested area following a tip that a group of insurgents was operating there, officials said.
Multiple search operations in the area by soldiers triggered a series of firefights with militants, initially leaving one militant dead and seven soldiers wounded, officials said. Since then, intermittent fighting continued in the area as troops deployed helicopters and drones to combat an unspecified number of militants in the vast, forested area.
According to officials, two army soldiers were killed and two others injured on the eighth day, late Friday.
The Indian army in a statement on social media said the operation continued in the area on Saturday.
Officials did not give any other details. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the details.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is “Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.” Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Last month, India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah said in parliament that three suspected militants killed in a gunbattle in the disputed region were responsible for a shooting massacre in which more than two dozen people died and that led to a military clash between India and Pakistan earlier this year.
Before the April gun massacre in the Kashmiri resort town of Pahalgam, the fighting had largely ebbed in the region’s Kashmir Valley, the heartland of anti-India rebellion, and mainly shifted to mountainous areas of Jammu in the past few years.
The massacre increased tensions between India and Pakistan, leading to the worst military confrontation in decades and the death of dozens of people, until a ceasefire was reached on May 10 after USmediation.
The region has simmered in anger since New Delhi ended the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms while intensifying counterinsurgency operations.
