Putin laments "serious blunders" in top general's killing, says he'll meet Trump "any time" on Ukraine war
CBSN
Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies over the Ukraine-orchestrated killing of a senior general in Moscow. Lt. General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military's chemical and biological weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday, the boldest assassination claimed by Kyiv since the start of the conflict.
"Our special services are missing these hits. They missed these hits. It means we need to improve this work. We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen," Putin said at his end-of-year press conference, addressing a string of attacks inside Russia on high-profile Kremlin backers amid Russia's war in Ukraine.
Ukraine has been linked to previous attacks in Russia, including the August 2022 car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina and an explosion in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023 that killed high-profile military correspondent Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky.
Damascus — A CBS News team drove through a Syrian military airbase on the outskirts of capital city Damascus Monday, and the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes was abundantly clear. Israel has said it's determined to destroy weapons and other military hardware that ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad and his father spent half of a century accumulating, before it can fall into the hands of extremists.
Johannesburg — Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, one side in a civil war that's torn the African nation apart for more than a year and created one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, are accused of raping scores of women and girls and using some as sex slaves in a new report by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based rights group says the paramilitary forces' use of sexual violence in the country's South Kordofan state since September 2023 constitutes war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
The death toll in the French territory of Mayotte from Cyclone Chido is "several hundred" and may run into the thousands, the island's top government official told a local broadcaster Sunday.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was discharged from the hospital Sunday after undergoing surgery to stop a brain bleed.
A U.N. envoy on Sunday called for a quick end to Western sanctions against Syria as the country's new leaders and regional and global powers begin to chart a path forward following the fall of President Bashar Assad.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian rebel group that spearheaded the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad's government but is designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others.
Isak Andic, the founder of Spanish clothing retailer Mango, one of Europe's largest fashion groups with nearly 2,800 stores worldwide, died Saturday in an accident, the company said.
Despite two weeks of U.N.-sponsored talks in Saudi Arabia's Riyadh, the participating 197 nations failed to agree early Saturday on a plan to deal with global droughts, made longer and more severe by a warming climate.
South Korea's parliament on Saturday impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his stunning and short-lived martial law decree, a move that ended days of political paralysis but set up an intense debate over Yoon's fate, as jubilant crowds roared to celebrate another defiant moment in the country's resilient democracy.
Eastern Syria — CBS News was among the first news outlets to speak on Thursday with Travis Timmerman, an American who was feared dead by family and friends, days after he was freed from a notorious prison in Syria. He said he had spent seven months jailed by the regime of now-ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad before rebels broke down his cell door.
Bolivia's former anti-narcotics chief was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face federal drug trafficking charges in a New York court.