
Kurdish PKK fighters burn their weapons at Iraq ceremony: AFP
"Thirty PKK fighters, four of whom were commanders, burned their weapons," said the correspondent who was present at the brief ceremony in a cave near the city of Sulaimaniyah in the autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
AFP

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Ya Libnan
an hour ago
- Ya Libnan
Israeli police strip-searched 3 women arrested during a protest in Tel-Aviv
Protestors block a road during an anti-government rally calling for action to secure the release of Israeli hostages held captive since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in Tel Aviv on August 12, 2025. (Jack GUEZ / AFP) Police strip-searched three female protesters after their arrest Thursday night at a Tel Aviv demonstration demanding a Gaza hostage deal, according to a Friday report. The women were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, Haaretz said, a charge that doesn't typically lead to strip-searches, even though police have the authority to conduct them. The women were arrested with two other men who were not strip-searched, the paper said. Two of the protesters said that they were required to pull down their pants and lift their shirts. Efrat Safran, one of the detainees, told Haaretz they were warned that ''If you resist, we'll use reasonable force.' We were left with no choice but to comply.' Safran added that this was her fourth protest-related arrest, but she had never previously been asked to undress. Another detainee said the officer justified the search as necessary to ensure she was not a danger to herself or others. According to the report, police said the search was a lawful and routine procedure, applied to all detainees, to prevent detainees from having objects that could harm them or others in the holding cell. The protesters' lawyer argued that since the detainees were suspected only of public order offenses, which do not legally justify a strip search, the procedure was an unnecessary violation of their rights. Times of Israel / AFP


Ya Libnan
4 hours ago
- Ya Libnan
Trump drops ceasefire demand, adopts Putin's position on Ukraine
US President Donald Trump reversed course after his meeting in Alaska with Russia's Vladimir Putin by abandoning his demand for a ceasefire and adopting a Kremlin position calling for a full peace deal to end the Ukraine war. The leaders of France, Germany and the UK are set to host a video call Sunday to discuss the way forward. Donald Trump on Saturday dropped his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine in favor of pursuing a full peace accord – a major shift announced hours after his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin yielded no clear breakthrough. Prior to the high-stakes meeting in Alaska, securing an immediate cessation of hostilities had been a core demand of Trump and European leaders including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky , who will now hold talks with the US president in Washington on Monday. The shift away from an urgent ceasefire would seem to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal – a strategy that Ukraine and its European allies have criticised as a way to buy time and press home Russia's battlefield advances. 'It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up,' Trump posted on his Truth Social platform after the Alaska talks. Before the summit, Trump had warned of 'severe consequences' if Moscow did not accept a ceasefire. In a call with European leaders on his flight back to Washington, Trump said the US was prepared to provide security guarantees for Ukraine – an assurance German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed as 'significant progress.' But there was a scathing assessment of the summit outcome from the European Union 's top diplomat Kaja Kallas , who accused Putin of seeking to 'drag out negotiations' with no commitment to end the bloodshed. 'The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon,' Kallas said. The New York Times, citing two European officials briefed on Trump's call with European leaders, said the president had expressed support for Putin's proposal for Ukraine to cede territory it controls to Russia in exchange for an eventual ceasefire. Zelensky back in White House Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on August 18, 2025. © Ben Stansall, AFP (File) The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky's talks with Trump in Washington on Monday. An EU source told AFP that a number of European leaders had also been invited to attend. The Ukrainian president's last visit to the White House in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US help against the Russian invasion. Zelensky said Saturday after a 'substantive' conversation with Trump about the Alaska summit that he looked forward to his Washington visit and discussing 'all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.' In an interview with Fox News after his sit-down with Putin, Trump had suggested that the onus was now on Zelensky to secure a peace deal as they work towards an eventual trilateral summit with Putin. Czechoslovakia in 1938 with Sudetenland. Weiner Holocaust Library. The deal struck by the then British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, and his French counterpart, Édouard Daladier, with the German leader Adolf Hitler handed Hitler territory in Germany's neighbour Czechoslovakia in return for what Chamberlain erroneously boasted would be 'peace in our time'. Within months Nazi Germany would take control of much of the rest of Czechoslovakia and in less than a year the whole of Europe would be at war. 'It's really up to President Zelensky to get it done,' Trump said. 'And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it's up to President Zelensky.' The leaders of France, Britain and Germany are due to host a video call Sunday for their so-called 'coalition of the willing' to discuss the way forward. In an earlier statement, they welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit, but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire. 'We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia's war economy until there is a just and lasting peace,' the statement said. Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with Kyiv announcing Saturday that Russia had launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile during the night. Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been 'timely' and 'very useful.' 'The conversation was very frank, substantive, and, in my opinion, brings us closer to the necessary decisions,' he said. In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any 'behind-the-scenes intrigues' that could disrupt what he called 'this emerging progress.' (FRANCE 24 with AFP)


LBCI
16 hours ago
- LBCI
France urges Israel to drop West Bank settlement plan
France's foreign ministry Saturday called on Israel to drop a plan to build thousands of new homes in the West Bank, calling the project "a serious violation of international law." A ministry spokesman said that France "condemns with the utmost firmness" the Israeli decision to build 3,400 homes in a particularly contentious area of the occupied West Bank. Several countries have said that the project, called E1, undermines hopes for a contiguous future Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. AFP