Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced on Wednesday that Russia will increase the number of military instructors in Burkina Faso, a West African nation currently under military rule following a coup d’état in July 2022. During his visit to the capital city of Ouagadougou, Lavrov stated that Russian instructors are already working in the country and that their numbers will grow, while also training Burkinabe armed forces and law enforcement personnel in Russia.

In addition to providing military training, Russia plans to supply Burkina Faso with military products to bolster the country’s defense capabilities. Lavrov’s trip, during which he was accompanied by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yevkurov, included a meeting with acting President Ibrahim Traoré, as reported by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

Burkina Faso has been grappling with an ongoing and deadly internal conflict, with violence-related deaths doubling in the past year, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). In 2024 alone, hundreds of civilians have lost their lives in attacks, including around 170 in three villages in March and approximately 30 in separate mosque and church attacks in February.

The NRC has named Burkina Faso the world’s most neglected displacement crisis for the second consecutive year, with 6.3 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and over two million internally displaced.

US officials have long warned that both Russia and China are working to expand their influence in Africa. In 2019, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, then-head of US Africa Command, stated that Russia was using mercenaries and arms sales to gain access to natural resources on the continent. More recently, in March 2024, Africa Command cautioned Congress that Russia was aggressively working to expand its foothold in Africa, with several countries at risk of falling under its influence.

Lavrov also expressed gratitude to Burkinabe leaders for their assistance in resolving issues that allowed Russia to resume the activities of its embassy in Ouagadougou, noting that Burkina Faso was the first country to do so quickly and effectively as part of a program to reestablish Russian diplomatic missions in Africa.

As Russia faces isolation from much of the world due to its invasion of Ukraine, the country appears to be renewing its overtures in Africa, raising concerns among US officials about the potential geopolitical implications of growing Russian influence in the region.

Credit: CNN

A harrowing incident unfolded in Costa Rica this week as a gunman fatally shot his neighbor during a dispute outside their residences, leaving witnesses horrified. Terrifying footage captured the chilling moment when the enraged man pulled out a firearm and took the life of his neighbor in front of their homes at the Rio Palma condominium in Escazu, Costa Rica.

The minute-long video documented a woman emerging from her garage, passing by a parked pickup truck, while a neighboring couple shouted at her from their doorway. Tensions escalated as the woman stopped walking and engaged in a verbal exchange, prompting her husband, later identified as Eduardo Ramírez Zamora, aged 53, to intervene.

Initially attempting to restrain his wife, Zamora appeared to reconsider his actions, retrieving a gun from his waistband, loading it, and then discreetly concealing it once more under his clothing. The situation intensified as the Zamoras’ neighbors, Otoniel Orozco Mendoza and his wife, exited their residence and confronted the couple on the grassy driveways, exchanging heated words and gestures.

In a surprising turn of events, an Italian court in Florence has re-convicted Amanda Knox of slander, upholding the only remaining conviction associated with the brutal murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007. The court sentenced Knox to three years for slandering Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner, in a written statement following Kercher’s murder.

Knox, who had her 2009 murder conviction overturned in 2011, is not expected to serve the time, as she has already spent approximately four years in prison. The European Court of Human Rights had previously ruled in 2019 that Italian law enforcement violated Knox’s rights during questioning, leading to Italy throwing out her initial slander conviction. However, the country’s supreme court requested the Florence court to begin a new trial to determine whether slander had occurred in the note.

Accompanied by her husband, Christopher Robinson, with whom she shares two children, Knox arrived at the Florence court on Wednesday morning to attend the hearing. Speaking in Italian, with a voice that occasionally trembled, Knox made a 10-minute declaration before the court, explaining why she wrote the note naming Lumumba.

Knox emphasized that she had no intention of hurting Lumumba, whom she considered not only her employer but also a friend who had consoled her following her roommate’s death. She attributed naming him to exhaustion and confusion during an extensive police interrogation.

Prior to the hearing, Knox expressed her hope to clear her name once and for all of the false charges against her. She acknowledged that the hearing was taking place in the same courtroom where she had been previously reconvicted of a crime she didn’t commit.

Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were initially convicted of murder in 2009, a ruling that was overturned in 2011. She was again convicted of murder in 2014 before the country’s highest court definitively acquitted both Knox and Sollecito of murder in 2015. Rudy Hermann Guede, another individual involved in the case, was convicted and served 13 years for the murder before being released in 2021.

On social media, Knox had shared her statement, ending with the Italian idiom “Crepi il lupo!” which roughly translates to “May the wolf die,” a common way of wishing someone good luck.

The Israeli military has launched a new ground and air assault in central Gaza on Tuesday, intensifying its attacks amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in the region. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that fighter jets were targeting Hamas positions in the Bureij area, coinciding with ground forces operating in a targeted manner with intelligence guidance.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured during the Israeli operation, with casualties reported east of the Bureij and Al-Maghazi displacement camps. The local Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was overwhelmed with admissions, receiving more than six bodies and over 30 injured individuals, as confirmed by a CNN producer on the ground.

Among the casualties were a father and his 12-year-old son, who were killed when an artillery shell struck an apartment building east of Al Bureij, along with a boy, a girl, and a woman in her 20s. The hospital, struggling to cope with the influx of patients, called on the World Health Organization to visit and assess the situation.

Another CNN producer reported tank-fire in recent days from the east-west Netzarim corridor, which the IDF has carved through central Gaza towards neighborhoods south of Gaza City. The producer also mentioned a limited ground incursion in the same neighborhoods over the past three days.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, criticized the war’s loss of momentum and urged Israel to put more pressure on Hamas by pushing forward with its controversial operations in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Bennett argued that prolonging the war plays into Hamas’ hands and that the only way to achieve a ceasefire and hostage deal is to intensify pressure on the militant group.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza on October 7 in response to Hamas killing at least 1,200 people and abducting more than 250 others. Since then, Israeli attacks have claimed the lives of at least 36,550 Palestinians and injured another 82,959 people, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, although CNN cannot independently verify these figures.

As the humanitarian toll of the conflict continues to rise, the international community has expressed growing concern and criticism over Israel’s actions in Gaza. Bennett acknowledged that Israel is “paying an international price” but maintained that the country is trying to conduct “the most just war in history” while prioritizing the defense of its citizens.

Credit:CNN