World

US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday accused Russia of committing "crimes against humanity" in Ukraine, saying Moscow's forces had conducted "widespread and systemic" attacks on the country's civilian population.

She made the comments at the Munich Security Conference, days ahead of the one-year anniversary of Moscow sending its forces into Ukraine, unleashing war in Europe for the first time in decades.

Sean Penn premiered "Superpower", his admiring portrait of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at war, telling the Berlin film festival Saturday the movie was also a wakeup call about Americans' own fragile democracy.

The two-time Oscar winner was in Kyiv making a documentary about Zelensky's rise from comedian to national leader when Russia invaded nearly one year ago.

Turkish rescuers on Saturday pulled three people alive from the rubble 13 days after a massive quake killed tens of thousands, but one, a 12-year-old, later died.

More than 43,000 people died after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, the deadliest natural disaster in the region in centuries.

Global warming melts sea ice, which leads to further warming because water absorbs more heat than ice, creating what scientists call a "climate feedback loop."

A report released Friday contains what researchers believe is the most comprehensive list of feedback loops ever compiled and a stark warning that climate models may be underestimating their impact.

A painting by Marc Chagall, stolen by Nazis in occupied Poland and returned last year to the owner's family who quickly auctioned it off, is on display through 2023 at the Jewish Museum in New York.

The oil on canvas, which the Russian-born Chagall painted of his father in 1911 after moving to Paris, was sold last November for $7.4 million at the Phillips auction house, capping a tumultuous history.

A public inquiry on Friday found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government was right to use emergency powers to dislodge trucker-led protesters that jammed Canada's capital last year.

The self-styled "Freedom Convoy" of truckers rolled into the city last January from across Canada to express anger at Covid vaccine mandates, blocking trade routes and angering residents in downtown Ottawa.

Defense officials during the Trump administration were aware of other spy balloon incursions into U.S. territory — but never reported these incidents to the White House and never reached a definitive conclusion that they originated from China, according to a Friday report by the Wall Street Journal.

"Following the shootdown earlier this month of a Chinese high-altitude balloon, the Biden administration revealed these past incidents, but didn’t say where they had flown, and added that they likely went undetected by the previous administration," reported Vivian Salama. "Now it appears some intelligence officials at the Pentagon were aware of the incidents and harbored concerns that they were related to China, believing Beijing was using them to test radar-jamming systems over sensitive U.S. military sites. The data collected about the Trump-era incidents was limited to a basic assessment and therefore wasn’t shared more broadly within the government at the time."

A New Zealand mum has recounted the heartbreak of watching her two-year-old daughter being swept away in floodwaters unleashed by Cyclone Gabrielle, which has killed at least eight people.

The storm has faded into the South Pacific but left a trail of destruction and human suffering across New Zealand's North Island.

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he would talk to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the wake of the US Air Force shooting down what Washington says was a high-tech Chinese spy balloon earlier this month.

"I expect to be speaking with President Xi and... we're going to get to the bottom of this," Biden said in his most extensive public remarks since the incident on February 4.

A third inquiry into the death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda 50 years ago could shed new light on whether he was poisoned by political enemies, as alleged by some of his family.

The latest expert report, presented to a court on Wednesday, will be reviewed by judges in closed hearings ahead of a legally binding ruling on the poet's death in 1973 shortly before the Pinochet dictatorship came to power.

North Korea on Friday threatened an "unprecedentedly" strong response to upcoming US-South Korea joint military drills, describing them as preparations for war.

The warning came ahead of a tabletop exercise next week in Washington, in which the two allies will discuss responses to the use of nuclear weapons by Pyongyang.