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This is the BBC News with Fiona MacDonald.
Russia's brief Easter cease-fire with Ukraine has ended, with each side accusing the other of numerous violations. President Zelenskyy has now proposed a 30-day halt to long-range strikes on civilian infrastructure. James Reid reports. Vladimir Putin's surprise "Easter truce" appears to have been honored more in the breach than the observance. Both sides reported fighting in many areas. But President Zelenskyy said there were no air raid alerts in Ukraine on Sunday. He suggested this could be extended, with a 30-day halt to drone and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure. Previous such proposals have got nowhere, and a lasting cease-fire seems a distant prospect. But one man appears optimistic. President Trump, posting on social media, said "Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week." Israel's military has blamed professional failures, including a breach of orders, for the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers by soldiers in Gaza last month. The deputy commander of the unit involved in the attack on a convoy of ambulances and other vehicles has been dismissed. But the military claimed six of those killed were Hamas members, and troops believed they were facing an immediate threat. Paul Adams in Tel Aviv says the Palestinians are unlikely to be satisfied with this report. They have seen for a year-and-a-half evidence of what they believe to be a kind of trigger-happy approach by Israeli troops in certain situations. And they are not going to be convinced, even by the most detailed assessment from the Israelis. But what we heard today felt like a pretty frank, candid admission of failure, and a pretty detailed account of what happened in those rather confusing few hours. A group of nearly 30 left-wing French national and local politicians say Israel has revoked their visas, two days before they were due to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories. The politicians denounced the ban as a major rupture in diplomatic ties, and called on President Emmanuel Macron to intervene. Israel deported two British parliamentarians earlier this month for allegedly acting against the state. An international team of scientists is investigating the explosive power of the underwater volcanoes around the Greek holiday island of Santorini. Thousands of small earthquakes shut down the island earlier this year, which normally sees three million visitors annually. Dr. Isobel Yeo from the U.K. National Oceanography Centre is involved in the study. "Underwater volcanoes are incredibly hard to study. It's really logistically challenging to get to them. And the question which we're trying to answer is, because this volcano is underwater and it has lots of water circulating through it, what does that mean for how explosive and how dangerous future volcanic eruptions can be? You're listening to the World News from the BBC. The president of El Salvador has offered to repatriate 252 Venezuelans deported by the United States if Venezuela releases the same number of political prisoners. Nayib Bukele made the offer in a social media post directed to the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro. On Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from deporting another group of Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to criminal gangs in El Salvador. The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen say at least 12 people have been killed in U.S. airstrikes in and around the capital Sana'a. They said another 30 were wounded. The U.S. has been bombing the Houthis in response to their attacks on Red Sea shipping. The U.S. military's Central Command confirmed more airstrikes two days ago. The party of the former Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, has described a ban on its activities as arbitrary. The PPRD party rejected the government's accusation of complicity with the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels. It also denied Mr. Kabila recently visited the rebel-controlled city of Goma after almost two years in self-imposed exile. The PPRD's deputy secretary, Ferdinand Kambere, [compe...] condemned the government's decision. "We are an opposition party, so we disagree with this government and those who manage us today because they are managing us badly. We have the constitutional right to criticize the regime, but they do not want to recognize that anymore." The military government in Chad has signed a peace deal with two armed groups fighting to control gold deposits in the northern Miski region, bordering Libya. Under the deal, all mining permits have been cancelled and all mining activity suspended for a new survey to be carried out. The head of the Miski self-defense committee said the group had confidence in the new deal. BBC News. |