World

OTTAWA — Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called early elections for April 28, pledging to defeat Donald Trump's drive to annex the United States's huge northern neighbour.

Carney, a former central banker, was chosen by Canada's centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the country's broader electorate.

That will now change as Carney brought parliamentary elections forward several months from October, and he made it clear that the barrage of threats coming from the US president and the trade war he has launched will be the crux of his campaign.

"I've just requested that the governor general dissolve parliament and call an election for April 28. She has agreed," Carney said in a speech to the nation, referring to King Charles III's representative in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.

Trump "wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let that happen" ,Carney said.

"We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump's unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty," Carney said.

"Our response must be to build a strong economy and a more secure Canada."

In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney will be hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority.

Trump has riled his northern neighbour by repeatedly dismissing its sovereignty and borders as artificial, and urging it to join the United States as the 51st state.

The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump's swirling trade war, with the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada, which could severely damage its economy.

"In this time of crisis, the government needs a strong and clear mandate," Carney told supporters on Thursday in a speech in the western city of Edmonton.

Poll favourites 

Domestic issues such as the cost of living and immigration usually dominate Canadian elections, but this time around, one key topic tops the list: who can best handle Trump.

The president's open hostility toward his northern neighbor — a NATO ally and historically one of his country's closest partners — has upended the Canadian political landscape.

Trudeau, who had been in power since 2015, was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives seen as election favorites just weeks ago.

But the polls have narrowed spectacularly in Carney's favour since he took over the Liberals, and now analysts are calling this race, overshadowed by Trump, too close to call.

"Many consider this to be an existential election, unprecedented," Felix Mathieu, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg, told AFP.

"It is impossible at this stage to make predictions, but this will be a closely watched election with a voter turnout that should be on the rise."

Poilievre, 45, is a career politician, first elected when he was only 25. A veteran tough-talking campaigner, he has sometimes been tagged as a libertarian and a populist.

Carney, 60, has spent his career outside of electoral politics. He spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs and went on to lead Canada's central bank, and then the Bank of England.

Smaller opposition parties could suffer if Canadians seek to give a large mandate to one of the big two, to strengthen their hand against Trump.

As for the US leader, he professes not to care, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Canada and other major trading partners on April 2.

"I don't care who wins up there," Trump said this week.

"But just a little while ago, before I got involved and totally changed the election, which I don't care about [...] the Conservative was leading by 35 points."

CARACAS — Venezuela announced Saturday it had reached an agreement with Washington to accept additional deportation flights from the United States, one week after more than 200 Venezuelans accused of being gang members were sent to El Salvador.

The flights were suspended last month when US President Donald Trump claimed Venezuela had not lived up to its promises, and Caracas subsequently said it would no longer accept the flights.

But then Washington deported 238 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organisation, to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a move deeply criticized by Caracas.

"In order to ensure the return of our countrymen with the protection of their human rights, we have agreed with the US government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with a first flight tomorrow," Venezuelan top negotiator Jorge Rodriguez said in a statement.

"Migrating is not a crime, and we will not rest until all those who want to return are home, and until we rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador," said Rodriguez, who is also the president of Venezuela's National Assembly.

Sunday's trip will be the fifth flight of migrants arriving in Venezuela since Trump took office in January. Since February, about 900 Venezuelans have been repatriated, most from the United States and some from Mexico.

"Tomorrow, thanks to the perseverance and persistence of our government, we will resume flights to continue rescuing and releasing migrants from US prisons," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Saturday.

"We will rescue a group of young men tomorrow, and next week, and the week after that."

MOSCOW — Moscow is hoping to achieve "some progress" at talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, a Russian negotiator told state media on Saturday, ahead of US officials holding separate talks with Ukraine and Russia on a possible ceasefire.

Moscow has rejected a joint US-Ukraine proposal of a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire, instead suggesting just to halt aerial strikes on energy infrastructure.

The US will hold parallel talks with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations on Monday in a bid to secure a breakthrough.

"We hope to achieve at least some progress," senator Grigory Karasin told the Zvezda TV channel, owned by Russia's defence ministry.

He said he and fellow negotiator, FSB advisor Sergey Beseda had a "combative and constructive" mood ahead of the talks.

Russia's choice of negotiators has raised questions, with the two figures outside of traditional diplomatic decision-making institutions like the Kremlin or the foreign and defence ministries.

Karasin is a career diplomat who now sits in Russia's upper house of parliament, while Beseda is a long-time agent at Russia's FSB security service.

The FSB in 2014 admitted that Beseda was in Kyiv during a bloody crackdown in the Ukrainian capital in the midst of the country's pro-EU revolution.

"We are going with the mood to fight for the solution of at least one issue," Karasin told Zvezda.

He said they were leaving for Saudi Arabia on Sunday and would return Tuesday.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is to leave hospital on Sunday and return to his residence in the Vatican, where he is to spend "at least two months" recovering, one of his doctors announced.

The 88-year-old pontiff has been in Rome's Gemelli hospital since February 14, when he was admitted with breathing problems, and he subsequently battled pneumonia in both lungs.

The Vatican said earlier that the pope on Sunday intended to wave and offer a blessing from Gemelli hospital.

The doctor, Sergio Alfieri, said on Saturday that "tomorrow, the pope will leave [the hospital] and return to Saint Martha's House" in the Vatican, where Pope Francis has his residential suite.

There, the head of the Catholic Church will have to observe "a long convalescence.... of at least two months," Alfieri told reporters.

Another doctor at the hospital, Luca Carbone, said the elderly pope's health "is improving" and "we hope that he will soon be able to resume his normal activities".

Alfieri said: "Further progress will take place at his home, because a hospital -- even if this seems strange -- is the worst place to recover because it's where one can contract more infections."

Resignation talk dismissed 

The fragile state of the pope's health had spurred speculation that he could step down, as his predecessor, Benedict XVI, did.

The current hospitalisation, the longest in Francis's papacy, has raised questions over who might lead the busy schedule of religious events leading up to Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar.

The pope has missed the Angelus prayers -- normally recited by the pontiff every Sunday -- for five straight weeks, for the first time since his election in March 2013.

The Vatican said earlier Saturday that the pope's appearance on Sunday would follow the Angelus prayers.

Previously, on Wednesday, the Vatican had said that Francis had suspended his use of an oxygen mask.

For most of the pope's hospital stay, including critical stages, the Vatican was publishing daily bulletins on the health of Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man.

On Monday, Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin told reporters that he had noted an improvement in Francis' health during a visit.

But asked whether the conversation had turned to the pope's resignation, he replied: "No, no, no, absolutely not."

BERLIN — Germany on Friday approved three billion euros in new military aid for Ukraine, just days before planned US-brokered talks with Moscow and Kyiv on a limited truce.

The money is earmarked for defence equipment for the country fighting Russian forces, including artillery munitions and air defence systems, government officials have said.

The three billion euros now released, after months of delay, come on top of four billion euros in Ukraine military aid already planned in the budget for 2025.

A further 8.3 billion euros were earmarked for Kyiv for 2026 to 2029 by a parliamentary budget committee, although this may be topped up with more spending from a major new fiscal package that passed a final hurdle Friday.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said the latest package would include units of the German-made Iris-T air defence systems that had yet to be built and would be delivered over the next two years. 

Germany has been Ukraine's second-largest supplier of military aid, worth some 28 billion euros so far, after the United States since Russia launched its full-scale invasion over three years ago.

But the situation has changed dramatically since US President Donald Trump has reached out to Russia's Vladimir Putin to end the war and frozen military aid for Ukraine, while casting doubt on the future strength of NATO ties.

Russia and Ukraine on Friday traded accusations of massive overnight attacks, three days before both sides will hold talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia on how to halt the war.

Both countries have said they agree with a 30-day pause in strikes on energy targets, though they have continued their aerial attacks unabated and each has repeatedly accused the other of breaking the truce, which has not been formally agreed.

Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has pushed through a spending "bazooka" worth hundreds of billions that also loosens Germany's so-called debt brake to bolster its own armed forces and keep backing Ukraine.

Merz's conservatives are in coalition talks with the SPD of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has also vowed that Germany would keep supporting Kyiv.

Ukraine "can rely on us and we will never leave it on its own," Scholz said at a European Council summit late Thursday. 

"It will also need a strong army in times of peace, and it must not be put in danger by any peace agreement."

The three-billion-euro package had been held up for months after Scholz's three-way coalition imploded last November amid bitter infighting, mostly on fiscal questions.

Earlier Friday, Germany's upper house of parliament gave the final approval to easing Germany's fiscal straightjacket for defence spending and for a 500-billion-euro infrastructure fund.

GENEVA — All 19 of the world's glacier regions experienced a net loss of mass in 2024 for the third consecutive year, the United Nations said Friday, warning that saving the planet's glaciers was now a matter of "survival".

Five of the last six years have seen the most rapid glacier retreat on record, the UN's World Meteorological Organisation said on the inaugural World Day for Glaciers.

"Preservation of glaciers is a not just an environmental, economic and societal necessity: it's a matter of survival," said WMO chief Celeste Saulo.

Beyond the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, more than 275,000 glaciers worldwide cover approximately 700,000 square kilometres, the WMO said.

But they are rapidly shrinking due to climate change.

"The 2024 hydrological year marked the third year in a row in which all 19 glacier regions experienced a net mass loss," the WMO said.

Together, they lost 450 billion tonnes of mass, the agency said, citing new data from the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service [WGMS].

It was the fourth-worst year on record, with the worst being in 2023.

Huge loss over 50 years 

"From 2022-2024, we saw the largest three-year loss of glaciers on record," Saulo said.

Glacier mass loss last year was relatively moderate in regions such as the Canadian Arctic and the peripheral glaciers of Greenland, but glaciers in Scandinavia, Norway's Svalbard archipelago and North Asia experienced their worst year on record.

Based on a compilation of worldwide observations, the WGMS estimates that glaciers, separate from the continental ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, have lost more than 9,000 billion tonnes since records began in 1975.

"This is equivalent to a huge ice block of the size of Germany with a thickness of 25 metres," said WGMS director Michael Zemp.

At current rates of melting, many glaciers in western Canada and the United States, Scandinavia, central Europe, the Caucasus and New Zealand "will not survive the 21st century", the WMO said.

The agency said that together with ice sheets, glaciers store around 70 per cent  of the world's freshwater resources, with high mountain regions acting like the world's water towers. If they disappear, that would threaten water supplies for millions of people downstream.

'Ignoring the problem' 

For the UN, the only possible response is to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"We can negotiate many things in the end, but we cannot negotiate physical laws like the melting point of ice," said Stefan Uhlenbrook, the WMO's water and cryosphere director.

He declined to comment on the return to office of US President Donald Trump, a climate change sceptic who has pulled the United States out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accords.

However, Uhlenbrook said that "ignoring the problem" of climate change "is maybe convenient for a short period of time", but "that will not help us to get closer to a solution".

For the inaugural World Day for Glaciers, the WGMS named a US glacier as its first Glacier of the Year.

The South Cascade Glacier in Washington state has been monitored continuously since the 1950s and provides one of the longest uninterrupted records of glaciological mass balance in the western hemisphere.

The US Geological Survey, the government body that studies the natural environment, has measurements there going back to 1958, while WGMS's records there began even earlier, in 1952.

LONDON — Senior military figures and European leaders gathered Thursday to thrash out plans for long-term peace in Ukraine, as the United States and Russia prepared for fresh talks on ending the war.

Around 30 military leaders from countries keen to help police any lasting ceasefire in Ukraine were to meet north of London, while on the other side of the Channel, EU leaders headed to Brussels.

The flurry of European activity comes with lingering concern about the United States' commitment to backing security on the continent, and fears of future Russian aggression against Baltic and Nordic countries.

Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia's Vladimir Putin both held talks with their US counterpart Donald Trump this week, and have indicated they are prepared to halt attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days.

But there has since been no let-up in strikes in the grinding three-year war, and both countries reported a barrage of new drone strikes overnight, as questions remained about the exact details of any lasting peace deal.

Trump, who has spooked European and NATO allies by his overtures to Putin and lukewarm commitment to European security, suggested on Wednesday night the United States could take over and run Ukraine's power plants.

Putin, for his part, has made an end to further Western military support for Ukraine a red line for Russia agreeing to a long-term truce.

Zelensky, who is on a visit to Norway and is due to address EU leaders in Brussels, has said that will make Ukraine vulnerable to further attack and warned against making concessions that would embolden Moscow.

 Air defences

In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to address the closed-door meeting of military leaders at the Permanent Joint Headquarters north of London.

Starmer has spearheaded efforts with French President Emmanuel Macron to form a so-called "coalition of the willing" to police any truce in Ukraine, and both say they are willing to put their own troops on the ground.

Russia has said it will not accept the presence of any NATO troops foreign soldiers in Ukraine but Washington has not yet indicated whether it would be willing to provide a security backstop.

Despite Trump going cold on support for Ukraine, the United States is looking at acquiring additional air defence systems for Kyiv to counter Russia's ballistic missiles.

"This is extremely important," said the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who is pushing member states to meet a Ukrainian request for two million shells worth five billion euros .

According to a White House readout, Zelensky on Wednesday asked Trump for help in obtaining US-made "Patriot missile systems" to bolster its current stock provided by the United States, Germany and Romania.

At the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov questioned whether Europe, where governments are looking at steep increases in domestic defence spending, was committed to ending the fighting.

"For the most part, the signals from Brussels and European capitals concern plans to militarise Europe," he said.

 Talks

UK armed forces minister Luke Pollard said Washington and Kyiv were "closer than ever" despite Zelensky's public dressing down in the Oval Office last month and concerns about Trump's intentions for Ukraine.

"Now the ball is really in Russia's court here. They're the ones that aren't seeking an immediate ceasefire," he told Sky News.

Peskov said the next talks between Russia and the United States could take place on Sunday or early next week, as Washington is also due to hold talks with Kyiv in Saudi Arabia in the coming days.

In the meantime, attacks continue by both sides.

Ukraine's air force said Thursday that Russia launched 171 drones over its territory overnight, with two people were killed in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions and several others wounded.

A drone attack in the town of Kropyvnytsky, far from the front line, wounded 10, including four children.

"With each such launch, the Russians expose to the world their true attitude towards peace," Zelensky wrote on social media.

Russia meanwhile said its air defence units had shot down 132 Ukrainian drones in several regions across the country.

Two people were wounded in the southwestern city of Engels and schools and a hospital were damaged, it added.

GOMA — The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has taken control of the mining hub of Walikale in DR Congo, local sources said Thursday, despite attempts to broker a ceasefire this week.

The seizure of the town of around 60,000 people late on Wednesday marks the farthest west the anti-government group has advanced into the interior of the Democratic Republic of Congo since it emerged in 2012.

It comes just after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame held surprise talks in Doha on Tuesday, expressing their support for a ceasefire.

But the terms of any truce remain unclear, with mediator Qatar saying further negotiations were necessary.

"Walikale-centre is occupied by the M23... We retreated to avoid human losses," an officer in the DRC's military (FARDC) told AFP, saying its forces were now around 30 kilometres (20 miles) away in Mubi.

A separate security source confirmed the capture and also said fighting took place in Mubi on Thursday.

The offensive had already caused mining group, Alphamin, this month to evacuate its employees and halt operations at the world's third most productive tin mine.

The Bisie site produces the tin ore cassiterite and is located in the Walikale district of North Kivu province.

The halt in mining drove up prices of tin, while concerns rise over the supply chain of the valuable metal used to solder electronic components onto printed circuit boards.

The boom in the electronics and renewable energy sectors is fuelling growing demand, according to analysts.

The region also has several gold mines.

The M23 fighters "are in the neighbourhoods of Walikale", Fiston Misona, a civil society representative from the community, said early Thursday.

Another resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they saw groups of armed fighters "through the windows" of their house.

A Doctors without Borders [MSF] base was "caught in the crossfire" during the fighting but no injuries were reported, local official Marco Doneda said.

"The MSF team is concerned about the influx of those wounded in the coming days and hours," he said.

Ceasefire bid

The M23 has waged a lightning push over the last few months in the mineral-rich eastern DRC, driving the Congolese army out of much of North and South Kivu provinces and raising fears of a wider regional war.

The DRC government has accused Rwanda of backing the M23 in order to seize valuable mineral resources.

Rwanda denies providing the M23 with military support, but a UN experts' report has said that Rwanda maintains around 4,000 troops in the DRC's east to assist the armed group.

On Tuesday, Kagame and Tshisekedi met in Doha for talks mediated by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

The two African heads of state, whose previous attempts at talks collapsed at the last minute,  expressed their support for "an immediate and unconditional ceasefire", a statement from the three countries said.

No details have emerged on the terms of how the ceasefire will be implemented, as it would also have to involve the M23 on the ground to succeed.

The meeting between the two heads of state came after peace talks between Kinshasa and the M23, due to have been held in the Angolan capital Luanda on Tuesday, were cancelled.

The last time the Congolese government and the M23 held talks was in 2013.