World Echo

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that countries in the region were capable of resolving their problems collectively and peacefully, stressing that they did not need external guardianship, state news agency IRNA reported. Speaking at the international Iran Corridor 2026 conference in Tehran on investment opportunities and financing for rail and road corridors, Pezeshkian said: “We do not need a custodian. Regional countries can sit together and solve their problems.” Pezeshkian said the world had become “very small” and that nations must work to create conditions for peace, security and stability for present and future generations. “No country benefits from war,” he said, noting that conflict, violence, and bloodshed did not lead to progress. He praised efforts by regional leaders to enhance security and governance, citing cooperation among countries, including Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pak...

Bangladesh’s largest party conceded defeat Saturday, clearing the way for nationalist leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister after a landslide election victory. Election Commission figures showed Rahman’s Tarique Rahman-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had won 212 seats in Thursday’s polls, the first since a deadly 2024 uprising toppled the long rule of Sheikh Hasina. The BNP alliance secured 212 seats compared with 77 for an alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami, according to official results. Rahman, 60, returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in exile in Britain, marking a dramatic political comeback. He is expected to deliver a victory speech later Saturday. He is the son of former president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981, and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, a dominant political figure for decades. Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who has headed the country since the uprising, said Rahman “would help guide the country toward stability, inclusiveness, ...

The mother of two infants found dead in a freezer in eastern France has been charged and placed in pre-trial detention, a prosecutor told AFP on Friday. The case is the latest suspected instance of infanticide to emerge in France in recent years. Prosecutor Cedric Logelin told AFP the 50-year-old woman was charged late on Thursday, a day after she was arrested in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and admitted to freezing her newborns. No one else has been charged, he added. The grim discovery was made after the woman, who had nine children from three different fathers, had abruptly left the family home in the eastern town of Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont in December. She left behind four of her children, aged 14 to 20, their father and a fifth child from another relationship. On Tuesday, a family member discovered the body of a newborn in a freezer. After the family raised the alarm, police discovered a second body in the same freezer, wrapped in a bag. Suspicion quickly focu...

The British government's ban on pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is unlawful, London's High Court ruled on Friday after a legal challenge by the group's co-founder. Palestine Action was proscribed in July, having increasingly targeted Israel-linked defence companies – particularly Elbit Systems – in Britain, with "direct action", often blocking entrances, or spraying red paint. The ban had put Palestine Action on a par with Islamic State or al Qaeda and made it a crime to be a member, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Lawyers representing Huda Ammori, who co-founded Palestine Action in 2020, argued at a hearing last year that the move was an authoritarian restriction on the right to protest. The High Court upheld two grounds of challenge, including that the ban was a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Read: Australia urges calm after violent...

Turkey detained 16 people and seized assets worth about 300 million lira ($6.9 million) on Friday in an investigation into alleged money laundering linked to content shared on the OnlyFans platform, prosecutors said. The probe, led by a department investigating terrorism financing and money laundering crimes, targeted 25 suspects and two companies in operations across eight provinces, including Istanbul, Ankara and Antalya, the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office said. Prosecutors said suspects generated income by sharing explicit content on social media and directing users to paid platforms, including OnlyFans and private messaging channels such as Telegram. Read: PM calls for boosting agri ties with Türkiye OnlyFans has been blocked in Turkey since June 7, 2023, by a ruling of an Istanbul court on the grounds that it hosted content deemed contrary to public morality and family values. Despite the ban, suspects were found to have accessed the platform via virtual private network...

Tens of thousands of cars are being exported from China to Russia under gray-market schemes that often circumvent Western and Asian government sanctions and automakers' commitments to exit the Russian market, according to registration data reviewed by Reuters and interviews with five people involved in the trade. The sanctions and company pledges came in reaction to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But a thriving trade in these vehicles – from Toyotas 7203.T and Mazdas 7261.T to German luxury models – continues partly through informal networks enabling Russian dealers to order them through Chinese intermediaries, the interviews and data from Russian research firm Autostat show. Most are made in China - where many international brands build vehicles with local partners - or are shipped through there after being manufactured elsewhere, according to the data and sources. A growing number are zero-mileage "used" vehicles – new cars registered as sold in China by dealers...