MOSCOW (RT) – Russia’s opponents in the West are pushing everyone towards World War III, ignoring signals from Moscow, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.  “Frankly speaking, it would have definitely been better if they had heard them [the signals]. In any case, the world would not have to face the threat of World War III,” Medvedev said in an interview with TASS and RT. “In fact, this is where our opponents are actively pushing everyone,” he said, commenting on the idea that Russia’s tough response to Georgia’s 2008 aggression should have served as a strong signal to the U.S. and its NATO allies of the need to listen to Moscow’s concerns.

 

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KHARTOUM (Dispatches) – Sudanese news sources reported an explosion of the fuel tanks of airplanes at Khartoum Airport amid the tensions in the African country. A source in the Sudanese army has announced that the explosion occurred when the weapons warehouse of the rapid reaction forces was targeted by an air strike. The cities of Khartoum and Omdurman in recent days have witnessed a fierce conflict between the army forces and the Sudanese rapid reaction forces. It is said that seven civilians were killed in today’s clashes. Since the beginning of the war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on April 15, thousands of people have been killed, and more than 4 million have been displaced, especially in Khartoum and Darfur state.

 

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BAMAKO (AP) – Daesh terrorists have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, and their Al-Qaeda-linked rivals are capitalizing on the deadlock and perceived weakness of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement, United Nations experts said in a new report. The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have offered the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda affiliates a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario,” they said. That’s when a military coup took place in March and terrorists in the north formed Daesh two months later. The extremist terrorists were forced from power in the north with the help of a military operation, but they moved from the arid north to more populated central Mali in 2015 and remain active. The panel of experts said in the report that the impasse in implementing the agreement — especially the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants into society — is empowering an Al-Qaeda-linked group known as JNIM to vie for leadership in northern Mali.

 

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- President Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a deadly plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the volatile chief of the mercenary group.

Putin signed the decree bringing in the change with immediate effect on Friday after the Kremlin said that Western suggestions that Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an “absolute lie”. The Kremlin declined to definitively confirm his death, citing the need to wait for test results. Russia’s aviation authority has said that Prigozhin was on board a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening northwest of Moscow with no survivors exactly two months after he led a failed mutiny against army chiefs. President Putin sent his condolences to the families of those killed in the crash on Thursday and spoke of Prigozhin in the past tense.

 

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NEW DELHI (AFP) – At least nine people were killed Saturday after a train coach parked in southern India caught fire when a passenger tried to make tea, officials said. The coach, which had been detached from a train, was stationed at the Madurai railway yard in the southern state of Tamil Nadu when the fire broke out before dawn. “It was a single, stationary coach booked by a private tourist operator. Somebody tried to make tea and it caused the fire,” Madurai district spokesman Sali Thalapathi said. “Nine people have died, three of them are women. Nine others are injured but their injuries are not life-threatening.” None of the bodies had been identified so far, he added. Footage showed huge flames leaping out of the windows of the train carriage. Some passengers managed to escape the inferno in time. Local media reports said the passengers had illegally smuggled aboard a gas cylinder which exploded when they tried to use it.

 

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NEW YORK (AFP) – Four astronauts from four countries rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday. They are scheduled to reach the orbiting lab in their SpaceX capsule Sunday, replacing four astronauts living up there since March. A NASA astronaut was joined on the predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center by fliers from Denmark, Japan and Russia. They clasped one another’s gloved hands upon reaching orbit. It was the first U.S. launch where every spacecraft seat was occupied by a different country — until now, NASA had always included two or three of its own on its SpaceX taxi flights. A fluke in timing led to the assignments, officials said. “We’re a united team with a common mission,” NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli radioed from orbit. Moghbeli, a Marine pilot serving as commander, said her crew’s makeup demonstrates “what we can do when we work together in harmony.” With her on the six-month mission are the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.