International
WAR: Russian Strikes Kill Eleven People In Rebel-Held Syria
Russian air strikes have killed at least 11 people including seven civilians, on Sunday on Syria’s northwest, in retaliation for deadly drone attacks blamed on rebel forces, a war monitor said.
“Six civilians were killed in Jisr al-Shughur and three rebel fighters were killed nearby by Russian air strikes,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
Ahmed Yezidi of the civil defence in Jisr al-Shughur, a city in rebel-held Idlib province, said the strikes killed nine people, without specifying whether fighters were included in the toll.
A fruit and vegetable market in the city was hit by the Russian strike, said the Observatory and an AFP correspondent at the scene.
Yezidi called it “a direct attack on the popular market, which is a basic source of income for farmers” in the area.
One civilian and one rebel fighter were also killed in a strike on the outskirts of Idlib city, said Abdel Rahman, whose Britain-based monitor has a wide network of sources inside war-torn Syria.
At least 30 civilians were wounded in Sunday’s strikes, he said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise.
Russian forces, which back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were responding to rebel drone strikes over the past week that killed four civilians including two children, according to Abdel Rahman.
Damascus, with Russian and Iranian support, has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests.
The last pocket of armed opposition to the regime includes large swathes of Idlib province and parts of the neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, headed by ex-members of Syria’s former Al-Qaeda franchise, is the dominant group in the area but other rebel groups are also active, with varying degrees of Turkish backing.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.
All seven people on board a tourist helicopter were killed when the aircraft crashed in a remote area of northern Kenya on Wednesday morning, authorities confirmed.
The Eurocopter EC130 B4 was flying on a safari route from the Loisaba Conservancy to the Ewaso Nyiro area in Samburu County when it went down at approximately 9:13 a.m. local time near Mount Ololokwe. The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said the helicopter was carrying six passengers and one pilot. Police later confirmed there were no survivors.
Five of the victims were American citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. Among those killed were José Alberto Suárez, a senior executive with Telemundo (NBCUniversal), and Michele Sensi-Contugi, director of Ecuador’s National Intelligence Center, who was travelling with his wife, Stephany Hollihan. Both she and her husband died in the crash.
The aircraft was operated by Lady Lori Helicopters and was carrying guests of the luxury safari company &Beyond. Rescue teams, including the Kenya Red Cross, faced difficult terrain and a fire at the crash site during recovery operations.
An official investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi said it is providing consular assistance to the families of the American victims.
International
Trump Annex Strait of Hormuz “New US Territory”
The development follows Trump’s recent comments that he would declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
US President Donald Trump has declared the Strait of Hormuz a “new US territory.”
Trump on Tuesday shared a map graphic on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, labelling the Strait of Hormuz a “NEW U.S. Territory”.
The same graphic was also posted by the official White House account on X.
The image shows a blue-highlighted map of the strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with a circle around the narrow passage and the words “NEW U.S. Territory” displayed prominently.
The development follows Trump’s recent comments that he would declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
Speaking at a political rally in New York State on Friday, Trump said,
“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”
International
Zambia’s Hichilema leads presidential vote count
Hichilema had 54.82% or 1,056,812 of the declared votes, figures showed, putting him on track for re-election without a second-round runoff if he keeps the overall majority.
Photo: Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema greets United Party for National Development (UPND) supporters during their election campaign launch in Lusaka, Zambia, June 28, 2026. Credit : REUTERS
Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema was well ahead in counting for national elections on Sunday with nearly half the constituencies declared, the electoral commission said.
Reuters reported that Hichilema had 54.82% or 1,056,812 of the declared votes, figures showed, putting him on track for re-election without a second-round runoff if he keeps the overall majority.
His main challenger, Brian Mundubile, was in second place with 43% or 830,841 of the declared votes, with 105 out of 226 constituencies announced by around 1500 GMT.
The presidential vote — held alongside parliamentary and local elections on Thursday — is seen as a test of whether Hichilema’s economic gains since a pandemic-era debt crisis are enough to win him a second term in Africa’s second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia temporarily halted vote counting on Friday, citing violence against officials and the theft of ballot papers.
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