Ukraine’s defence minister said that Kyiv agreed to two ceasefire agreements with Russia that were announced by the US on Tuesday and that Kyiv would welcome third countries supporting the implementation of the accords.
Anti-government protesters in Türkiye said they planned to keep up a campaign of demonstrations triggered by the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor — the biggest such opposition action in a decade — despite mass arrests and clashes with police.
The Trump administration sought on Tuesday to contain the fallout after a magazine journalist disclosed he had been inadvertently included in a secret group discussion of highly sensitive war plans, while Democrats called on top officials to resign over the security incident.
Ukraine agrees to ceasefire accords brokered by US
Ukraine’s defence minister said that Kyiv agreed to two ceasefire agreements with Russia that were announced by the US on Tuesday and that Kyiv would welcome third countries supporting the implementation of the accords.
The US said earlier it had made separate agreements with Kyiv and Moscow to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on strikes against energy facilities in the two countries.
“All parties have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” wrote Defence Minister Rustem Umerov on X.
He said, however, that Kyiv would regard any movement of Russian naval vessels beyond the eastern Black Sea as a violation of the spirit of the agreements and that, in such an event, it would have the right to self-defence.
He added: “All parties agreed to develop measures for implementing the Presidents’ agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities of Ukraine and Russia.”
Russia, however, said it could not trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it could only sign a Black Sea deal if Washington issued an “order” to him to respect it.
“We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelensky and his team to do one thing and not the other,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in televised comments.
It was not immediately clear whether Moscow’s demand risked derailing the deal. Zelensky has previously said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent his army into Ukraine in February 2022, is not to be trusted over peace moves.
Turks to carry on with protests triggered by jailing of mayor
Anti-government protesters in Türkiye said they planned to keep up a campaign of demonstrations triggered by the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor — the biggest such opposition action in a decade — despite mass arrests and clashes with police.
President Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that what he dismissed as their “show” would fizzle out.
But since the arrest of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu last week, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in squares, streets and university campuses nationwide each evening, chanting anti-Erdoğann slogans and calling not only for Imamoglu’s release but also for justice and rights.
Protesters, opposition parties, European leaders and rights groups have called the detention of Imamoglu, Erdoğan’s main rival, a politicised and anti-democratic move.
The gatherings are banned but have carried on nonetheless, almost entirely peacefully until the late hours when police have used clubs and pepper spray in response to projectiles and arrested more than 1,400 people.
“I’ll try to come as much as I can because the government has left us no justice,” said one university student at Istanbul’s Sarachane park.
“I was scared when I first came, thinking we might get arrested. But I’m not scared now,” she said.
At the main nightly protest at the park between city hall and a towering Roman aqueduct, most people have cheered speeches by opposition leaders while others, some 200m away, have chanted and faced off with hundreds of white-helmeted riot police.
Other people also told Reuters they expected to continue daily protests even as the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said that Tuesday would mark the last day of planned events at Sarachane.
The continued protests pose a potential bind for Erdoğan, who has called them “street terrorism”. He has tolerated little criticism from the streets since authorities violently shut down the anti-government Gezi Park protests in 2013.
After a Cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday, the president accused the CHP of provoking citizens and predicted they would feel ashamed for the “evil” done to the country once their “show” faded away.
The government has rejected claims of political influence and says the judiciary is independent.
The hitherto more reserved CHP has in recent days repeatedly urged people out to the streets, echoing a call on Sunday by Imamoglu before he was jailed pending a trial on corruption charges that he denies.
CHP chairperson Ozgur Ozel, who has given hoarse-voiced speeches from atop a bus at Sarachane park each evening, has said the last event there on Tuesday would be both “a great end and big kick-off” to new rallies elsewhere, vowing to fight on.
The United Nations Human Rights Office urged Turkish authorities to ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and assembly are guaranteed in line with international law.
However, a court on Tuesday jailed, pending trial, seven journalists, including AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, for “refusing to disperse despite warning during a demonstration”, a court document showed.
Trump team scrambles to handle fallout from Signal chat
The Trump administration sought on Tuesday to contain the fallout after a magazine journalist disclosed he had been inadvertently included in a secret group discussion of highly sensitive war plans, while Democrats called on top officials to resign over the security incident.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe — both of whom were in the chat — testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that no classified material was shared in the group chat on Signal, an encrypted commercial messaging app.
But Democratic senators voiced scepticism, noting that the journalist, Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted operational details about pending strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.
Committee members said they planned — and Gabbard and Ratcliffe agreed to — an audit of the exchange. The Senate’s Republican majority leader, John Thune, said on Tuesday he expected the Senate Armed Services Committee to look into Trump administration officials’ use of Signal.
“It’s hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified,” Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, said at the contentious hearing, which featured several sharp exchanges.
The revelation on Monday drew outrage and disbelief among national security experts and prompted Democrats — and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans — to call for an investigation of what they called a major security breach.
“I am of the view that there ought to be resignations, starting with the national security adviser and the secretary of defence,” said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon at the hearing.
But Trump voiced support for his national security team when questioned about the incident at a White House event on Tuesday, including for Michael Waltz, his national security adviser, who mistakenly added Goldberg to the Signal discussion.
Trump said the administration would look into the use of Signal, but said he did not think Waltz should apologise.
Sensitive information is not supposed to be shared on commercial mobile phone apps, and unknown numbers — such as Goldberg’s — should not have been included. Additionally, Signal’s ability to erase conversations would violate laws governing the retention of government records.
“This is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly toward classified information ... of this administration,” said the committee’s Democratic vice-chairperson, Mark Warner of Virginia.
Accounts appearing to represent Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ratcliffe, Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and senior National Security Council officials were assembled in the chat group, Goldberg wrote on Monday.
Gabbard acknowledged that she had been abroad during the chat, although she declined to say whether she was using a private phone.
It remained unclear why the officials chose to chat via Signal rather than the secure government channels typically used for sensitive discussions.
Republican Representative Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters that Hegseth needed to take responsibility for the breach, which he said put lives at risk.
Asked about the White House claim that no classified details were shared, Bacon responded: “They ought to just be honest and own up to it.”
Pope was so close to death that doctors considered ending treatment
Pope Francis came so close to death at one point during his 38-day fight in hospital against pneumonia that his doctors considered ending treatment so he could die in peace, said the head of the pope’s medical team.
After a breathing crisis on 28 February that involved Francis nearly choking on his vomit, “there was a real risk he might not make it”, said Sergio Alfieri, a physician at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.
“We had to choose if we would stop there and let him go, or to go forward and push it with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the highest risk of damaging his other organs,” Alfieri told Italy’s Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Tuesday.
“In the end, we took this path,” he said.
Francis (88) returned to the Vatican on Sunday after the most serious health crisis of his 12-year papacy.
He was admitted to Gemelli hospital on 14 February for a bout of bronchitis that developed into double pneumonia, an especially serious condition for him, as he had pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
Francis has been prescribed a further two-month period of rest since leaving hospital to fully heal. It has not been made clear how much he will be seen in public in the coming weeks.
Brazil’s top court weighs whether Bolsonaro will stand trial
A five-judge panel from Brazil’s Supreme Court began deliberations on Tuesday to determine if former president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest aides should stand trial for allegedly attempting a coup after his 2022 electoral defeat.
The judges are expected to decide by Wednesday whether to hear the charges filed last month against the former leader, accused of running a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
A ruling on the charges this week, if it happens, would represent extraordinary speed for a court long known for taking years to decide major cases. A criminal case involving dozens of politicians more than a decade ago took the Supreme Court months to accept charges after they were presented.
A swift decision on these charges would suggest the court “may conclude the trial before the end of the year”, said Ivar Hartmann, a law professor at Sao Paulo business school Insper. That would avoid a ruling in the run-up to Brazil’s next presidential election in late 2026.
Despite mounting legal challenges, Bolsonaro continues to assert his intention of running for office again. In 2023, a federal electoral court barred him from public office until 2030 for abusing his political power to discredit Brazil’s voting system during the 2022 presidential campaign.
The attempted coup charges, filed by Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet last month, alleged that a group led by the former army captain “sought total control over the three branches of government”.
Lawyers representing Bolsonaro have said he never supported any movement aimed at dismantling Brazil’s democratic rule of law or its institutions. Bolsonaro himself has denied any wrongdoing and called the case politically motivated.
“I hope for justice. There is no basis for the biased accusations made by the federal police,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Tuesday before heading to the court session.
But few of Bolsonaro’s allies believe the panel, which comprises just under half of the court’s Full Bench, will refuse to hear the case against him. The panel is largely composed of justices known for taking a tough stance on the alleged excesses of the hard-right movement led by Bolsonaro.
The charges against the former president followed a two-year police investigation and included 33 other people, with several high-ranking military officials among them.
They are accused of five crimes, including a violent attempt to abolish the democratic rule of law, coup d’état and damaging government property.
Investigators allege that the group’s plans included poisoning President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and killing Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case.
US visit to Greenland is unacceptable, says Danish PM
The US was exerting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland, said Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday, ahead of an unsolicited visit by a high-profile US delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory this week.
The visit to a US military base and a dog sled race will be led by Usha Vance, wife of Vice-President Vance, and includes White House National Security Adviser Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. It runs from Thursday to Saturday.
Trump on Monday reiterated his suggestion that the US should take over Greenland, saying the vast island was important for US national security. Frederiksen has rejected the proposal, saying it is up to the people of Greenland to decide their future.
“I have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist,” she told Danish broadcasters DR and TV2.
Greenland’s acting head of government, Mute Egede, has labelled the visit a “provocation”, as it coincides with government coalition talks and municipal elections scheduled for the following week.
“This is a charm offensive without the charm,” Noa Redington, an analyst and former adviser to previous Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, told Reuters.
“And everyone is upset because it’s so obvious that this is about intimidating the Greenlandic people and provoking Denmark,” he said.
Oscar-winning Palestinian director injured in attack and arrested
The Oscar-winning director of a documentary on the Israel-Palestinian conflict was arrested late on Monday after being injured during a raid by Israeli settlers on his village in the occupied West Bank, said a local official who was present.
Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning “No Other Land”, was attending a gathering for Iftar, the end of the daily Ramadan fast, at Susiya village near Hebron, when a group of settlers attacked the gathering, said Jihad Nawajaa, head of the Susiya local council.
“Dozens of settlers attacked the gathering at Iftar,” Nawajaa told Reuters by phone. “The young men came out to prevent them, and there were about eight injuries on our side.”
Israeli police arrested three men, including Ballal, who was injured during the standoff, he said.
“This is not the first time that the settlers attacked our gathering, but in the recent period the attacks have increased,” he said, adding that the settlers had stolen around 10 sheep from the village during the attack.
Monday’s incident was the latest in which Israeli settlers have been accused of raiding Palestinian or Bedouin villages and encampments in the West Bank, sometimes to steal livestock. Palestinians and activists who monitor such attacks say the police and army typically stand by without intervening.
Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker’s wife, said settlers had gathered around the family house and her husband had gone outside to prevent them from breaking in.
“The settlers attacked him and started beating him, and then they arrested him, we do not know anything about him,” she told Reuters.
“No Other Land”, a film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community, co-directed by Palestinian and Israeli directors, won the Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards. It was not immediately clear whether Ballal had been singled out because of the film.
Basel Adra, one of the film’s other co-directors, said he believed the settlers had taken the army to the family house as revenge for the film’s depiction of the Masafer Yatta area near to where Monday’s incident occurred.
US gives Syria list of conditions for partial sanctions relief
The US has handed Syria a list of conditions that it wants Damascus to fulfil in exchange for partial sanctions relief, six people familiar with the matter told Reuters, including ensuring foreigners are not in senior governing roles.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Levant and Syria Natasha Franceschi gave the list of demands to Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani at an in-person meeting on the sidelines of a Syria donor conference in Brussels on March 18, according to two of the people — a US official and a Syrian source familiar with the matter.
Reuters spoke to six sources for this story, including two US officials, a Syrian source, a regional diplomat and two sources in Washington familiar with the matter. They all requested anonymity to discuss the high-level diplomacy.
Among the conditions placed by the US were Syria’s destruction of any remaining chemical weapons stores and cooperation on counter-terrorism, said the two US officials, the Syrian source and both sources in Washington.
Another demand was making sure foreign fighters were not installed in senior roles in Syria’s governing structure, said the US officials and one of the sources in Washington.
Syria has already appointed some foreign ex-rebels, including Uyghurs, a Jordanian and a Turk, to its defense ministry — a move that alarmed foreign governments.
Washington also asked Syria to appoint a liaison to assist US efforts to find Austin Tice, the US journalist who went missing in Syria over a decade ago, according to the two US officials and both sources in Washington.
In return for fulfilling all the demands, Washington would provide some sanctions relief, said all six sources. The sources did not specify what relief would be offered, and said Washington did not provide a specific timeline for the conditions to be fulfilled.
US sanctions three Iranian officials allegedly involved in death of FBI agent
The US has imposed sanctions on three Iranian intelligence officers for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of former FBI Special Agent Robert Levinson, said the US Treasury and State departments in press releases on Tuesday.
The sanctions on Reza Amiri Moghadam, Gholamhossein Mohammadnia, and Taqi Daneshvar of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security are the latest linked to the disappearance of the former FBI agent, who Washington believes was abducted in Iran and died in captivity.
As a result of the sanctions, any property of the men under US jurisdiction must be blocked and Americans are generally barred from dealing with them. Foreign persons also risk blacklisting for dealing with them.
Levinson, who was working as a private investigator, disappeared in March 2007 after travelling to an island controlled by Iran for a meeting seeking information on alleged corruption involving former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The three sanctioned individuals all played a role in Levinson’s abduction, detention and probable death, as well as efforts to cover up Iran’s responsibility, said the Treasury Department.
Trump administration to lay out defence of Venezuela deportations
Trump's administration faced a deadline on Tuesday to explain to a judge why its deportation flights carrying Venezuelan migrants did not violate a judicial order to halt such removals, a day after it argued that any disclosure of further details would jeopardise US national security.
Washington-based US District Judge James Boasberg last week instructed Justice Department lawyers to give him a justification for the administration’s failure to return two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members deported to El Salvador on 15 March despite his order blocking such deportations for two weeks. The administration has said the flights were carried out under a little-used 18th century law.
Boasberg also has sought more details on the timing of the flights and how many Venezuelans were aboard to help him determine whether the administration violated his order.
The judge gave the administration the option of invoking the state secrets privilege, a doctrine that limits the disclosure of sensitive information in civil litigation, and justify its decision to do so. In court papers filed late on Monday, the Justice Department said it would be invoking the privilege, writing that Boasberg’s inquiry was judicial overreach infringing upon the executive branch’s authority over diplomatic and national security matters.
“Disclosure of this information could reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to the foreign relations interests of the United States,” wrote Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a declaration filed with the judge.
Following Tuesday’s deadline for the administration’s explanation, lawyers for the Venezuelan migrants who brought the legal challenge to the deportations will have until 31 March to respond. Boasberg has warned of potential consequences if he concludes that the administration violated his order, but has not specified what those would be.
The case has emerged as a major test of the Republican president’s sweeping assertion of executive power. With his party holding a majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate and largely falling in line behind the president’s agenda, federal judges often have emerged as the only constraint on Trump’s wave of executive actions.
After Boasberg temporarily halted the deportations, Trump called for the judge’s impeachment in a process that could lead to his removal. In response, US Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement rebuking Trump and stating that appeals, not impeachment, are the proper response to disagreements with judicial decisions.
EU ‘must acquire all means to defend itself against military aggression’
Europe must acquire all means to defend itself against military aggression, European Council President Antonio Costa said on Tuesday, adding that peace without defence is an illusion.
“If Russia considers that Ukraine’s borders are just a line on a map, why should it respect any other country’s borders?” he said at a European Policy Centre event in Brussels.
Costa called for boosting Nato’s European pillar.
“Now it’s clear that the best way to protect our transatlantic alliance, is to strengthen the European pillar of Nato, is to become more autonomous, to become more sovereign, to be less dependent of others, namely on the United States,” he said.
Europe is dramatically stepping up spending on defence because of concern that the US, which had guaranteed Europe’s security since the end of World War Two, was no longer keen to do so, shifting its attention to the Indo-Pacific.
Israel Parliament approves Budget as hostage families protest
Israel’s Parliament gave final approval to the long delayed 2025 state Budget on Tuesday, in a turbulent session that showed how legislators and the country remain divided over the fate of hostages still held in Gaza and the wider political landscape.
Parliament, known as the Knesset, passed the Budget by a 66-52 margin. Failure to approve the Budget by March 31 would have triggered snap elections.
The debate took place in a stormy sitting of the Knesset, where families of some of the hostages protested from behind a screen in a public gallery, holding up posters and photos of their loved ones. Opposition legislators held up signs in the main chamber with “59”", the number of hostages still in Gaza since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
About 24 of the hostages are believed to be still alive.
Ahead of the vote, security forces dragged away protesters who lay across the road leading to Parliament to demonstrate over the hostages as well as recent moves to dismiss Israel’s domestic intelligence agency chief and the attorney general.
Israel’s military resumed its campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza last week, shattering a two-month ceasefire. On Tuesday, the army told residents in all northern border towns in Gaza to evacuate, saying Palestinian rockets had been fired at Israel from the area.
The return to fighting has led to mass protests in Israel demanding a return to negotiations to bring back the remaining hostages and bodies.
The total Budget will be 756 billion shekels ($206.5-billion), or 619 billion shekels excluding debt servicing — a 21% rise in spending over 2024. The defence budget alone will be a record 110 billion shekels, while the deficit is set at 4.9% of gross domestic product.
Carney promises Canadian defence spending boost if he wins election
Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday promised an “unprecedented acceleration of investment” in Canada’s armed forces if his ruling Liberal Party wins a general election on 28 April.
Trump, who is threatening to impose tariffs on Canada and often muses about annexing the country, complains that Ottawa does not spend enough on defence.
“Our sovereignty faces the greatest threats in generations. The world is becoming more divided and dangerous, and this plan will help ensure that Canada is strong at home, strong abroad,” said Carney.
“We’re defending our borders, our sovereignty, our minerals, our water, our land, our way of life,” he told a televised press conference at a shipyard in the Atlantic port of Halifax.
Carney, who did not give precise details of how much his government would spend, also said that Canada would buy new submarines and heavy icebreakers and modernise an outdated and inefficient military procurement system.
Ottawa, which regularly fails to meet recruitment goals, would overhaul the process of attracting new members of the military and would give all serving members a pay raise, said Carney, but gave no details.
Former Austrian finance minister handed four-year prison term
Austria’s top court on Tuesday sentenced former Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser to four years in prison, dismissing his appeal against his 2020 conviction on corruption charges.
Austria’s Supreme Court upheld allegations of corruption raised against Grasser but halved the original sentence of eight years handed down against the former political star. That verdict had not been legally binding pending appeal.
Despite the reduction, the sentence is one of the longest ever issued to a prominent political figure in Austria.
In 2020, a lower court found Grasser guilty of fraud, accepting illicit gifts and falsifying evidence, in a scandal centring on the role he played during the sale of thousands of state-owned homes to private investors two decades ago.
Grasser has always denied the charges, which centred on him allegedly passing on information to bidders about the process.
He called the ruling a miscarriage of justice and vowed to appeal it at the European Court of Human Rights.
Grasser (56), who was Austria’s finance minister between 2000 and 2007, was once a darling of the political right in the country and is married to an heiress of the Swarovski family.
Heathrow Airport fire not a criminal matter, say UK police
British police said a fire which caused Heathrow Airport to close for 18 hours last week was no longer being treated as a potentially criminal matter.
Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, shut on Friday after a fire at a nearby substation cut its power supply, stranding over 200,000 people, costing airlines millions of pounds and prompting questions over the resilience of UK infrastructure.
On Friday, London’s Metropolitan Police said the counter-terrorism unit would lead the investigation into the causes of the fire, given the critical nature of the incident.
Reporting back on Tuesday, the police said it was no longer treating the fire as a potentially criminal matter.
“Following enquiries to date, officers have found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature,” said the police statement. DM