World

BRUSSELS — The prospect of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine under a United Nations mandate is "very hypothetical" at this stage, the UN's peacekeeping chief said on Tuesday.

European nations are working on plans to secure a potential ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine, which could include the deployment of a peacekeeping force.

"I think it's fair to say it's very, very hypothetical," Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations since 2017, told reporters in Brussels when pressed on the matter.

"The question is obviously there and it's being asked, and we think of it," he said. "But we're not planning anything."

A new summit of the so-called "coalition of the willing" being assembled by France and Britain will meet on Thursday in Paris.

Russia's negotiator in the latest round of talks with the United States on ending the conflict said on Tuesday that Moscow would aim to involve the UN in the process, without specifying what role it might play.

Any UN peacekeeping mission to Ukraine would first have to receive a mandate from the Security Council, stressed Lacroix, who said his teams had received no signals "at this stage" in that regard.

"We're not mandated to plan and I can't really know on what basis right now we would be planning anything," Lacroix said.

UISEONG — Inhabitants of a UNESCO-listed village were ordered to evacuate while a historic Buddhist temple was burned to the ground as South Korea scrambled to contain worsening wildfires, which are tearing across the country's southeast.

More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend; with four people killed as dry windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the countries worst-ever fire outbreaks, prompting the government to transfer thousands of prisoners. 

Early on Tuesday, acting Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong said the wildfires had "so far affected approximately 14,694 hectares with damage continuing to grow". 

The extent of damage makes the fires collectively the third largest in South Korea's history. The worst was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast.

"Strong winds, dry weather, and haze are hampering fire fighting efforts," Ko told a disaster and safety meeting.

The government declared a state of emergency in four regions, citing "the extensive damage caused by simultaneous wildfires" and thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate.

"The wind was so strong that I couldn't stand still," Kwon So-han, a 79-year-old resident in Andong told AFP. 

"The fire came from the mountain and fell on my house.

"Those who haven't experienced it won't know. I could only bring my body."

Late on Tuesday, authorities in Andong issued an emergency alert to residents of the historic Hahoe Folk Village,  a UNESCO-listed world heritage site popular with tourists,  as the blaze drew closer.

"The Uiseong Angye wildfire is moving in the direction" of that area, the alert said. "Residents are requested to evacuate immediately."

In Uiseong, the sky was full of smoke and haze, AFP reporters saw, with the Korea Forest Service saying that the containment rate for the fire in that area had decreased from 60 to 55 per cent on Tuesday.

Early in the morning, workers at the Gounsa Temple, which was more than a thousand years old, were attempting to move valuable artefacts and cover up Buddhist statues to protect them from possible damage.

"We used fire retardant blankets," Joo Jung-wan, a Gyeongbuk Seobu Cultural Heritage Care Centre worker told AFP, saying that a giant gilded Buddha statue was too large to move so had been carefully covered.

Hours later, an official at the Korea Heritage Service told AFP that the temple had been burnt down.

"It is very heartbreaking and painful to see the precious temples that are over a thousand years old being lost," monk Deung-woon told AFP.

Around 3,500 inmates from correctional facilities in the southeastern county of Cheongsong and Andong are being transferred to nearby prisons, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the justice ministry.

WASHINGTON — A US journalist was inadvertently included in a group chat in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and other top officials discussed upcoming strikes against Yemen's Huthi rebels, the White House has confirmed.

President Donald Trump announced the strikes on March 15, but in a shocking security breach, The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that he had hours of advance notice via the group chat on Signal.

"The message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain," National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said.

The White House said Trump "continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team," after the US president earlier said he did not "know anything about" the issue.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organisation like the Pentagon, took no responsibility for the security breach as he spoke to reporters late Monday.

He instead attacked Goldberg and insisted that "nobody was texting war plans," despite the White House confirming the breach.

Goldberg wrote that Hegseth sent information on the strikes, including on "targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing," to the group chat.

"According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 pm eastern time," Goldberg wrote a timeline that was borne out on the ground in Yemen.

The leak could have been highly damaging if Goldberg had publicized details of the plan in advance, but he did not do so even after the fact.

The journalist said he was added to the group chat two days earlier, and received messages from other top government officials designating representatives who would work on the issue.

On March 14, a person identified as Vance expressed doubts about carrying out the strikes, saying he hated "bailing Europe out again," as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States.

 'Stunning and dangerous' 

Group chat contributors identified as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Hegseth both sent messages arguing only Washington had the capability to carry out the strikes, with the latter official saying he shared Vance's "loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."

And a person identified as "S M" -- possibly Trump advisor Stephen Miller -- argued that "if the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return."

As he spoke to reporters Monday Hegseth dodged questions about the leak, in which highly sensitive material was not only shared with a reporter but also on a commercial app rather than in secure military channels reserved for such communications.

The security breach provoked outrage among Democrats, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer describing it as "one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time" and calling for a full investigation.

Senator Jack Reed also slammed the leak, saying: "The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning and dangerous."

And Hillary Clinton -- who was repeatedly attacked by Trump for using a private email server while she was secretary of state -- posted the Atlantic article on X along with the message: "You have got to be kidding me."

GENEVA — The UN said Monday it and partners were seeking nearly $1 billion to provide life-saving aid this year for some 1.5 million Rohingya refugees and their hosts in Bangladesh.

The United Nations said that it and more than 100 partners were launching a 2025-26 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya crisis, amid "dwindling financial resources and competing global crises".

The appeal, it said in a statement, "seeks $934.5 million in its first year to reach some 1.48 million people including Rohingya refugees and host communities".

Around a million members of the persecuted and mostly Muslim minority live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, most of whom arrived after fleeing the 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.

"In its eighth year, the Rohingya humanitarian crisis remains largely out of the international spotlight, but needs remain urgent," Monday's statement said.

It stressed that "any funding shortfalls in critical areas, including reductions to food assistance, cooking fuel or basic shelter, will have dire consequences for this highly vulnerable population".

It could, it added, "force many to resort to desperate measures, such as embarking on dangerous boat journeys to seek safety".

The UN said that more than half of the refugee population in the camps are women and girls, "who face a higher risk of gender-based violence and exploitation".

And it highlighted that a third of the refugees are aged between 10 and 24, warning that "without access to formal education, adequate skills building and self- reliance opportunities, their futures remain on hold".

"Until the situation in Myanmar's Rakhine State is peaceful and conducive to returning safely and voluntarily, the international community must continue to fund life-saving assistance to refugees in the camps."

UISEONG, SOUTH KOREA — South Korean authorities said Monday they would deploy dozens of helicopters and thousands of firefighters and soldiers as they struggle to control multiple wildfires in the southeast, which have been burning for days.

Four people have been killed so far, with officials warning that high winds and rising temperatures were hindering efforts to put out the blazes.

In Uiseong, nearly 7,000 hectares of land has been affected and around 600 people evacuated, Lim Sang-seop, head of the Korea Forest Service, told a press briefing.

"A total of 57 wildfire fighting helicopters are to be deployed to extinguish the fire," he said, adding that more than 2,600 fire fighting personnel,  including soldiers, would be mobilised "to respond with all their might".

The fire had been partly contained but was still burning as of Monday afternoon.

An AFP photographer in Uiseong saw the sun obscured by thick black smoke, while helicopters were used to douse the flames.

The forest agency has issued "severe" fire warnings, its highest level, in multiple locations, including North and South Gyeongsang provinces, Busan and Daejeon.

A major wildfire claimed four lives over the weekend in Sancheong county, in South Gyeongsang province, about 250 kilometres southeast of Seoul.

That fire was also partly contained by Monday, but still burning.

The government declared a state of emergency in the affected regions, citing "the extensive damage caused by simultaneous wildfires across the country".

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was reinstated as acting president earlier Monday, visited the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, urging authorities to work together "until the wildfires are completely extinguished".

Sthe fires later Monday.

The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, urged authorities to "mobilise all means at their disposal to quickly and safely suppress the fires" and take further measures to prevent any additional wildfires.

Some types of extreme weather have a well-established link with climate change, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall.

Other phenomena such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms can result from a combination of complex factors.

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."