International News from Saturday, May 24th, 2025

French police were investigating a possible arson attack as being the main cause for a power outage which hit the Alpes-Maritimes region in southern France on Saturday, including Cannes which is hosting its world-famous annual film festival.

Russia and Ukraine each exchanged 307 of their service personnel on Saturday on the second day of a prisoner exchange that, when completed, is set to be the largest such swap in the three-year war between the two countries. U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested the prisoner swap - which should see 1,000 prisoners released on each side over three days - could herald a new phase in stop-start efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Saturday's swap was announced by Russia's defence ministry, and separately by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a post on social

The Trump administration issued orders on Friday that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria, after President Donald Trump this month pledged to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after a devastating civil war.

Rescuers on Friday pulled out all 260 mine workers who had been stuck for more than 24 hours in an underground shaft in South Africa, the mine's operator said.

Russia launched dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight in one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring at least 15 people.

Eighteen people were injured in a knife attack in Hamburg station on Friday evening, Germany's Bild newspaper reported, and local police confirmed they had arrested the suspected assailant.