World

LONDON, UNITED STATES — Severe storms that tore through the US states of Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia left more than 25 people dead, leveling homes and businesses while knocking out power for tens of thousands, authorities say.

At least 18 people were killed in Kentucky in the storms Friday night, state governor Andy Beshear posted on X, while officials in Missouri said another seven were dead there.

Two people were also killed by falling trees in Virginia, local media reported.

Jamie Burns, 38, who lives with her husband and son in a trailer home in the town of London, Kentucky, fled to the basement of her sister's brick house while the storm destroyed 100 to 200 houses in the area.

"Things that have been here longer than I have, things that have been here for 30-plus years are just flat," Burns told AFP in a phone interview, her voice quavering.

"It's wild, because you'll look at one area and it's just smashed... totally flattened, like, not there anymore."

Drone footage shared by local media showed scenes of devastation in London, with houses leveled and reduced to splinters and tree trunks standing bare, shorn of branches.

More than 108,000 people were still without power across the three states late Saturday.

Eastern Kentucky, an area historically known for its coal mines, is one of the poorest regions in the country.

"A lot of us live in manufactured homes that aren't safe for tornado weather," said Burns.

 'One of the worst storms'

In Missouri, five people were killed in the major city of St. Louis, in what authorities said was one of the worst storms in its history, and two in Scott County, the State Highway Patrol said in a statement to AFP.

More severe weather was forecast for Sunday night and Monday.

Asked Saturday by a reporter whether it was the worst storm ever to hit St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer replied: "I would describe this as one of the worst storms,  absolutely. The devastation is truly heartbreaking."

She said 38 people in the city were injured and some 5,000 buildings damaged.

In one St. Louis neighborhood, a church was heavily damaged, according to CBS footage, and rescue workers continued to treat victims near the building Saturday morning.

"It's horrific for a tornado to come through here and cause this much damage to the residents and also to the church," Derrick Perkins, a pastor at the Centennial Christian Church, told CBS. "Our hearts are broken."

Bruce Madison, who also works at the church, said the community was coming together in the face of the tragedy.

"Right now, we're just praying for... everybody that they're trying to find right now."

While there were warnings ahead of the severe weather, Beshear had protectively declared a state of emergency Friday, the death toll may raise questions about whether sharp cuts by the Trump administration have left National Weather Service forecasting teams dangerously understaffed.

An estimated 500 of the 4,200 NWS employees have been fired or taken early retirement this year, according to the Washington Post.

The United States saw the second-highest number of tornadoes on record last year with nearly 1,800, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], trailing only 2004.

KYIV, Ukraine — The Kremlin on Saturday said a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be possible only after both sides reach an agreement, a day after Moscow and Kyiv held their first direct talks in more than three years, which did not result in a truce.

The first direct talks since the spring of 2022 -- shortly after Moscow's full-scale invasion that February -- between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul resulted in a concrete agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each.

Ukraine's top negotiator, Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, said the "next step" would be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin.

Russia said it took note of the request.

"We consider it possible, but only as a result of the work and upon achieving certain results in the form of an agreement between the two sides," the Kremlin's spokesman said.

Russia's top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky said that Moscow and Kyiv would "present their vision of a possible future ceasefire", without saying when.

The Kremlin said that first the POW swap must be completed and both sides need to present their visions for a ceasefire before fixing the next round of talks.

"For now, we need to do what the delegations agreed on yesterday" in Turkey, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that "this, of course, means first and foremost to complete a 1,000 for 1,000 swap".

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence Kirillo Budanov told broadcaster TSN he hoped the exchange would happen next week and that he saw no hurdles to the swap.

Fighting goes on

On Saturday, there were few signs of progress towards halting the fighting.

The bus was attacked near the city of Bilopillya, local community head Yuri Zarko told Suspilne TV. A family of three died in the attack, the authorities said.

Elsewhere on the frontlines, the Russian army said its troops captured Oleksandropil village in the eastern Donetsk region, where some of the most intense fighting in the war is ongoing.

Apart from Sumy, Russia pounded missiles and drones across eastern Ukraine, hitting the Kherson, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions, killing six and wounding more than a dozen. In Kherson, Russian shelling hit a truck carrying humanitarian aid on Saturday morning.

 'Real steps' needed

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sure that US counterpart Donald Trump would react to Putin's "cynicism" on Ukraine following the deadly minibus attack.

Putin declined to travel to Turkey for the meeting. Zelensky accused him of being "afraid" and Russia of not taking the talks "seriously".

"Yesterday in Istanbul, everyone saw a weak and unprepared Russian delegation with no significant powers. This must change. We need real steps to end the war," Zelensky said on Saturday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the outcome of the Istanbul talks during a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday, Russia's Foreign Ministry said, adding Moscow was ready to continue working with the US on the matter.

On Friday, Zelensky attended a European summit in Albania where he urged a "strong reaction" from the world if the Istanbul talks failed, including new sanctions.

Macron said European nations were coordinating with Washington on additional sanctions should Moscow continue to refuse an "unconditional ceasefire".

Both Moscow and Washington have talked up the need for a meeting on the conflict between Putin and US President Donald Trump.

Trump has argued that "nothing's going to happen" on the conflict until he meets Putin face-to-face.

During the Istanbul talks, the Ukrainian side said Russia was making "unacceptable" territorial demands.

Moscow claims annexation of five Ukrainian regions -- four since its 2022 invasion, and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

GOMA — Armed fighters from the M23 group, which has taken control of eastern DR Congo's key major town of Goma, on Saturday set about expelling thousands of people they say are illegals from Rwanda, AFP witnessed.

On Monday the group's military spokesman Willy Ngoma had presented to the media 181 men whom they referred to as "Rwandan subjects" illegally in the country at Goma's main sports stadium.

All of the men shown had ID papers from the DRC which the M23 asserted were bogus. An AFP reporter said the armed group had summarily burned the documents on the stadium pitch.

Several hundred women and children, relatives of those detained, joined them at the stadium aboard trucks chartered by the M23.

One of the men arrested, who gave his name only as Eric, had told AFP on Monday that he was from the town of Karenga, located in North Kivu, which is considered a stronghold of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda [FDLR].

The FDLR is an armed group founded by former Rwandan Hutu leaders of the 1994 Tutsi genocide.

Early Saturday, 360 people were loaded onto buses from Goma, Eujin Byun, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], told AFP.

The UNHCR stressed that "returns of refugees to their countries of origin must be safe, voluntary, and carried out with dignity, in accordance with international law".

The convoy crossed the border to Rubavu, in western Rwanda, an AFP correspondent reported.

"We will do everything to reintegrate them into society, so that they have the same responsibilities and the same rights as other Rwandans," Prosper Mulindwa, mayor of Rubavu district, told reporters.

The M23 and Kigali accuse Kinshasa of supporting the FDLR and have justified their offensive in eastern DRC by a need to neutralise that group.

The majority of the families expelled by the M23 are from Karenga, and had been prevented from returning there after the M23 took over Goma, according to security and humanitarian sources.

The families were living in a reception centre for displaced persons in Sake, some 20 kilometres from Goma, the sources said.

In March, 20 suspected FDLR fighters, dressed in Congolese Armed Forces uniforms, were handed over to Rwandan authorities by the M23.

Kinshasa denounced the incident as a "crude fabrication" intended to discredit its army.

PUEBLA, MEXICO — At least 21 people were killed in a multi-vehicle crash involving a trailer truck and a bus in the central Mexican state of Puebla on Wednesday, authorities said.

Eighteen people died at the scene and three more in hospital, Samuel Aguilar, an official with the Puebla state government, told reporters.

An unspecified number of injured were being treated in local hospitals, he said.

Highway accidents in Mexico have multiplied in recent years, often due to poor vehicle maintenance, dangerous driving or motorist fatigue.

In one of the deadliest crashes, a collision between a truck and a bus killed 38 people in the southeastern state of Campeche on February 8.

TURKEY — Germany's foreign minister said Thursday that Berlin was willing to "follow" US President Donald Trump's demand for NATO to ramp up its defence spending target to five percent of GDP.

Johann Wadephul said NATO chief Mark Rutte had laid out a plan to reach "the five percent that President Trump demanded, which he considers necessary".

"And we follow him there," Wadephul told a meeting of the alliance in Turkey.

Berlin's signal of support will put more pressure on other European allies and Canada to strike a deal on spending at a NATO summit in The Hague next month.

Rutte has floated a proposal for allies to commit to 3.5 per cent of direct military spending by 2032, and an additional 1.5 per cent of broader security-related expenditure.

That overall plan has already got the backing of the United States.

It would hand Trump the headline figure he is demanding while giving enough wiggle room to European allies that are struggling just to reach NATO's current spending target of two percent of GDP.

Rutte declined to go into details of the discussions as foreign ministers gathered near the Turkish coastal resort of Antalya.

But he said broader spending, such as on infrastructure like bridges needed to move military hardware around, had to "be taken into account".

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that Italy had this week hit NATO's two percent spending target.

"This is the first step. Then it's possible to do more, it's possible to increase the money for defence," he said.

"I prefer to talk about security, because security is not only weapons."

Trump has rattled European allies worried about the menace from Russia by threatening not to protect countries that, in his eyes, do not spend enough.

None of NATO's 32 countries, including the United States, currently spend five percent of their GDP on defence.

Eastern members most worried about Moscow such as the Baltic states and Poland have already said they are willing to go beyond that level on direct military expenditures.

ISTANBUL — War rivals Ukraine and Russia are set to go into their first direct talks in more than three years on Thursday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin not included on the list of attendees.

Ukraine's President VolodymyrZelensky had challenged Putin to meet him in person in Istanbul, but the Russian delegation names only a lower-level team.

Putin's absence would diminish the importance of the first direct negotiations since a failed effort in the weeks after Russia's 2022 invasion.

Tens of thousands have been killed since the offensive started in February 2022. Russia has occupied about a fifth of Ukraine's territory in what is now Europe's worst conflict since World War II.

Putin had proposed holding talks on May 15 in Istanbul as a counter-offer after Ukraine and European nations last week called for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

Zelensky agreed, but said this week that if Putin did not attend himself, it would signal he was not genuinely interested in peace.

"This is his war... Therefore, the negotiations should be with him," Zelensky said.

The Kremlin delegation is set to be headed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Putin and ex-culture minister who was involved in the 2022 negotiations.

Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov -- who had all been rumoured as top negotiators after leading previous talks with the United States -- were not named in the Kremlin's delegation list.

Europe's sanctions warning

Medinsky is seen as influential in advancing Russia's historical claims over Ukrainian territory.

The other three negotiators were named as Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin and Igor Kostyukov, director of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.

European leaders have said new sanctions will be quickly imposed on Russia if the Istanbul talks do not produce results.

On the eve of the talks, Zelensky said he would decide Ukraine's next "steps" based on who represents Moscow.

"Ukraine is ready for any format of negotiations, and we are not afraid of meetings. Tomorrow - in Turkey," Zelensky said. "I am waiting to see who will arrive from Russia. Then I will decide what steps Ukraine should take."

Russia insists the talks address what it calls the "root causes" of the conflict, including the "denazification" and demilitarisation of Ukraine, two vague terms Moscow has used to justify its invasion.

It has also repeated that Ukraine must cede territory occupied by Russian troops.

Kyiv said it will not recognise its territories as Russian -- though Zelensky has acknowledged that Ukraine might only get them back through diplomatic means.

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will be in Istanbul on Friday. Rubio met Ukraine's Foreign Minister AndriySybiga at a NATO meeting in Turkey on Wednesday.

And US President Donald Trump on Wednesday indicated he could take a mediation role in Turkey.

"I don't know that he [Putin] would be there if I'm not there," Trump told reporters accompanying him on a Middle East tour.

"I know he would like me to be there, and that's a possibility. If we could end the war, I'd be thinking about that," he said.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday said the UK would begin talks with other countries on "return hubs" for failed asylum seekers.

"What now we want to do and are having discussions of... is return hubs, which is where someone has been through the system in the UK, they need to be returned... and we'll do that, if we can, through return hubs," Starmer told GB News television from Albania, where he is on an official visit.

Starmer is under pressure to cut the number of irregular migrants arriving on UK shores, many in small boats, amid the rising popularity of the hard-right and anti-immigrant Reform UK party.

Under Starmer's Labour government, Britain last July abandoned a scheme to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda.

Cracking down on irregular migrants had been set to top the agenda for Starmer's two-day visit to the southeast European nation.

Earlier this week Starmer unveiled tough new immigration policies that include cutting overseas care workers, doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement in the country and new powers to deport foreign criminals.

The speech was widely seen as an attempt to fend off rising support for anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage's hard-right Reform UK party, which made gains in local elections this month.

Labour vowed in its general election manifesto last year to significantly reduce net migration, which stood at 728,000 in the 12 months to last June.

It had peaked at 906,000 in 2023 after averaging 200,000 for most of the 2010s.

In addition to high levels of legal migration, the UK has also seen unprecedented numbers of irregular migrants.

More than 12,500 migrants have made the perilous Channel crossing so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the UK's interior ministry.

BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that his government will seek to make Germany's military "the strongest conventional army in Europe" at a time of rising geopolitical uncertainty.

In his first major parliamentary address since being inaugurated last week, Merz said his government would "provide all financial means necessary" to build up the long-underfunded German military.

His government has already cleared the way for hundreds of billions of euros in extra funding by getting a fiscal plan passed by the last parliament.

"Strengthening the Bundeswehr [armed forces] is our top priority," Merz said. "The German government will provide all the financial resources the Bundeswehr needs to become Europe's strongest conventional army.

"This is appropriate for Europe's most populous and economically powerful country. Our friends and partners also expect this from us. Indeed, they practically demand it," he said. 

BEIJING — Colombia formally agreed on Wednesday to join China's vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, as Beijing draws Latin America closer in a bid to counter the United States.

Latin America has emerged as a key battleground in US President Donald Trump's confrontations with China, and the region is coming under pressure from Washington to choose a side.

China has surpassed the United States as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru, Chile and other Latin American nations, and two-thirds of countries there have signed up to Chinese leader Xi Jinping's Belt and Road infrastructure drive.

On the sidelines of a major gathering of regional leaders in Beijing on Wednesday, Colombia became the latest country to join the massive global initiative.

Colombia's foreign ministry hailed the agreement as a "historic step that opens up new opportunities for investment, technological cooperation, and sustainable development for both countries".

And after a meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Xi urged the countries to take the opportunity of Colombia formally joining the "Belt and Road Initiative family" to enhance their cooperation, Beijing's state media said.

Posting a video of the signing to social media platform X, Petro wrote that "the history of our foreign relations is changing".

"From now on, Colombia will interact with the entire world on a footing of equality and freedom," he wrote.

The BRI is a central pillar of Xi's bid to expand China's economic and political clout overseas.

For more than a decade, it has provided investment for infrastructure and other large-scale projects around the world, offering Beijing political and economic leverage in return.

Last year, Xi inaugurated Latin America's first Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru -- a symbol of the Asian superpower's growing influence on the continent.

'Defenders of free trade'

This week's China-CELAC Forum in Beijing has seen China cast itself as the defender of the multilateral order and the backer of the Global South, with Xi pledging on Monday $9.2 billion in credit towards development.

That pledge was part of a broad set of initiatives aimed at deepening cooperation, including on infrastructure and clean energy.

Beijing will also cooperate in counterterrorism and fighting transnational organised crime, Xi said, as well as enhancing exchanges such as scholarships and training programmes.

During a meeting with Chilean President Gabriel Boric on Wednesday, Xi said that the "resurgence of unilateralism and protectionism is severely impacting the international economic and trade order", according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

"As staunch defenders of multilateralism and free trade, China and Chile should strengthen multilateral coordination and jointly safeguard the common interests of the Global South," Xi told Boric.

Also in attendance at the China-CELAC forum was Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a five-day state visit.

Addressing delegates, Lula said his region did not "want to repeat history and start a new Cold War", adding: "Our goal is to be an asset to the multilateral order for a global good".

In talks with Lula on Tuesday, Xi said the two countries should "strengthen cooperation" and together "oppose unilateralism", according to Chinese state media.

The United States and China have faced off in Latin America, including over the Panama Canal, which Trump has for months vowed to reclaim from alleged Chinese influence.

Washington considered a Hong Kong company's operation of ports at both ends of the interoceanic waterway to be a threat to its national security, but Beijing has dismissed the claims.

And China's market regulator is looking into a deal by Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison to offload 43 ports in 23 countries — including its two on the Panama Canal -- to a US-led consortium.

The world's two largest economies are two of the top users of the canal, through which five percent of all global shipping passes.