Cuba held a traditional rally on Sunday to commemorate one of the revolution’s most important anniversaries but former president Raul Castro was conspicuously absent. It was the first time in at least 30 years that 95-year-old Castro had not attended the event, and no explanation was given. President Miguel Diaz-Canel read a congratulatory message from Castro to his compatriots at the rally, held in the eastern city of Pinar del Río. The annual event commemorates the July 26, 1953 assault led by...

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to...

The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Berlin prosecutors said the suspect had previously sought to join Islamic State. The attack happened a few hundred metres from a party near the city’s...

Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv early on Sunday, setting off fires and wounding at least three civilians, while attacks on other parts of Ukraine later killed at least two people, local officials reported. The strikes come as Ukraine’s successful drone attacks have stalled the Russian army’s advances in an expanded campaign inside Russia that has been causing fuel shortages and piling pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Kremlin-installed...

Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez returned to his country on Sunday, almost eight months after US President Donald Trump controversially pardoned his 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. Hernandez arrived on a private flight at Palmerola Airport near the capital Tegucigalpa and was greeted by his family and supporters, Agence France-Presse journalists observed. “We are very happy and very excited” to welcome him back, said Eva Amador, 56, a supporter of the former president,...

A centuries-old monastery in southern Thailand is the country’s latest cultural landmark to be inscribed on Unesco’s World Heritage List, which will aid in the site’s conservation, the government said on Sunday. Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan in Nakhon Si Thammarat province is Thailand’s ninth World Heritage site, but its first in the nation’s southern region, the Thai foreign ministry said in a statement. “Its inscription will further strengthen cooperation at both the national and local...

In an unprecedented move, China has placed a Polish university alongside defence contractors on an export control list targeting entities linked to the European security sector. Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (PWr) was among 14 European Union entities added to a dual-use export control list by the Chinese commerce ministry on Friday. The ministry said the additions, effective immediately, were in response to EU sanctions imposed on Thursday against 14 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong...