Russian authorities were on Monday evacuating civilians from more areas along the Ukrainian border, a week into Kyiv’s surprise cross-border incursion into Russian territory.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in southern Russia, said people living in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district were being relocated to safer places. This comes after the evacuations over the weekend of thousands of people living in the neighboring Kursk region.

“We’re having a disturbing morning – enemy activities on the border of Krasnoyaruzhsky district. I am sure that our military will do everything to cope with this threat. But to protect the life and health of our people, we are beginning to relocate people who live in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district to safer places,” he said in a statement posted on his official Telegram channel.

The incursion, which is now affecting two Russian regions, is seen as something of a game-changer in the conflict. The Ukrainian military has in the past regularly attacked targets inside the Belgorod region with drones and missiles, but until last week Kyiv had not launched any official ground incursions across the border in the two and half years since the start of the full-scale war.

The extent of the operation remains unclear.

An influential Russian military blog Rybar said on Monday that “apparently the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] is not shying away from plans to stretch our defensive formations, create the maximum number of points of tension, and attempt to break through in the east to cut Belgorod off from the north.”

Several Russian military bloggers reported an attempt by Ukrainian armed forces to attack a border crossing in the Belgorod region Monday morning, in the district that Russian authorities say is being evacuated.

The operation, which started last Tuesday, has been shrouded in mystery. Ukrainian officials have for days remained silent, refusing to comment on reports of Ukrainian troops operating inside Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally confirmed Kyiv’s troops crossed into Russia on Saturday, saying in his nightly address to the nation that “Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”

Diversionary tactic?

The reason for the attack is also unclear. Ukraine has been under increased pressure along the 600-mile frontline as Moscow continues its slow, grinding offensive, inching towards several strategically important towns and roads in eastern Ukraine.

The cross-border attack could be an attempt to divert Russian resources elsewhere. Given the spate of more negative developments from the frontline, the news of a successful incursion help Kyiv boost the morale of its troops and civilian population.

Moscow has been scrambling to contain the attack. Russian authorities imposed a sweeping counter-terror operation in the three border regions, but stopped short of declaring the incursion an act of war.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitoring group, said this was likely an attempt by the Kremlin to deliberately downplay the assault to prevent domestic panic or backlash over the fact that Russia was unable to defend its own borders.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin has refrained from officially declaring a state of war, has repeatedly demonstrated his unwillingness to transfer Russian society fully to a war-time footing, and has forgone declaring general mobilization as part of wider efforts to prevent domestic discontent that could threaten the stability of (his) regime,” the ISW said in its update.

The counterterrorist regime officially gives Russian authorities wider powers, including the ability to monitor telephone conversations and restrict communications and limiting the movement of people.

A fast-spreading wildfire continued to rage close to the Greek capital of Athens on Monday, prompting authorities to ask residents to evacuate their homes.

More than 500 firefighters, 152 vehicles, 29 water-bombing aircraft and a large number of volunteers are working to extinguish the blaze, which broke out Sunday near the town of Varnavas, north of Athens, fire authorities said.

Despite overnight efforts to contain the wildfire, officials warned Monday that it had “developed rapidly” and was heading towards Penteli, around 16 kilometers (about 10 miles) northeast of Athens.

Fires officials have not said how big the fire is, but Greek public broadcaster ERT estimates it exceeds 30 kilometers (about 19 miles).

Although wildfires are common in Greek summers, climate scientists say that unusually hot and dry weather linked to global warming make the blazes fiercer and more common. Greek authorities have battled dozens of blazes already this summer after enduring its hottest June and July on record.

The country’s climate crisis and civil protection minister, Vassilis Kikilias, warned over the weekend that “extremely high and dangerous weather conditions” would continue through Thursday.

Health minister Adonis Georgiadis said two dozen children were evacuated from a children’s hospital in Penteli and that health centers had been put on high alert. Two hospitals have been evacuated, fire officials said.

“Winds overnight remained strong creating dangerous conditions. Unfortunately, their intensity is expected to increase in the next few hours and the citizens of the areas where the fire is developing should in any case follow the instructions of the authorities,” fire service spokesman Vasilios Vathrakoyiannis said.

Officials also said that homes have been damaged, without specifying how many.

The wildfire has raised fears that Greece could be heading for a repeat of last summer, when blazes scorched through several regions and islands, including its heavily-forested national park, known as the “lungs of Athens.”

A security guard said he tried to save an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman as they were attacked by a man wielding a knife in London’s Leicester Square, one of the busiest tourist destinations in the English capital.

London’s Westminster Police said a man, believed to be the only suspect, had been arrested after the attack on Monday morning.

The guard, who gave his name as Abdullah, 29, told PA Media he was working at a nearby tea shop in the square when he “heard a scream” and saw the women being attacked by a man who appeared to be in his thirties.

“I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was (carrying) a knife, and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him,” Abdullah said.

Two other people came to help him hold the attacker down for “maybe three to four minutes,” he said, before police arrived and took him into custody.

Abdullah said he and the two others had given first aid to the girl before police took over.

“I just saw a kid getting stabbed and I just tried to save her. It’s my duty to just save them,” he said.

UK police remain on high alert after days of far-right riots earlier this month, spurred by disinformation around a deadly stabbing attack in the north of England.

The London Ambulance Service said it was called to the scene at around 11.36 a.m. Monday morning (6.36 a.m. ET), and that paramedics had taken the victims to a major trauma center.

In a later update, Westminster Police said that the 11-year-old girl will require hospital treatment but her injuries are not life-threatening, and that the second victim suffered more minor injuries.

“At this stage, there is no suggestion that the incident is terror-related,” it said.

In a major report last month, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) warned that violence against women and girls in England and Wales had reached “epidemic levels.”

Israel and the United States are preparing for a potential Iranian attack on Israel as efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza intensify, with talks set to resume this week amid intense diplomacy to avert a wider regional war.

Mediators have urged Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table in a renewed push to strike a ceasefire deal after the talks risked being derailed by the recent assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders which Iran and its Lebanese proxy have vowed to avenge.

Negotiations are set to resume in the Egyptian capital Cairo or the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday. Last week, the United States, Egypt and Qatar – key mediators in talks between Israel and Hamas – said they will use the meeting to present a “final bridging proposal” and urged both sides to attend.

A major Iranian attack reprisal against Israel could risk derailing the ceasefire talks that US officials have said were at an advanced stage prior to the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which Iran blamed on Israel. Israel hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility.

In a joint statement Sunday evening, France, Germany and the United Kingdom endorsed the calls for the warring parties to strike a deal, saying “there can be no further delay” given the simmering threat of a regional conflagration.

Whether the talks will proceed however is uncertain. Israel said it will send a delegation to the Thursday talks, but Hamas hasn’t confirmed attendance, even if has signaled that it still wants a deal.

Following Haniyeh’s assassination, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Haniyeh’s death would “not pass in vain,” and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that “blood vengeance” for the killing is “certain.”

There have been some indications that Iran may abandon plans to attack Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached. But the country’s mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehran’s retaliation to Israel’s suspected killing of Haniyeh is “totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire,” adding that it has a right to self-defense.

The US and Israel continued preparations for that scenario over the weekend. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine, the USS Georgia, to the Middle East and accelerated the arrival of a carrier strike group to the region, the Pentagon said Sunday evening. The US also released $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons and military equipment, months after it was appropriated by Congress. And on Monday, the Israeli military suspended vacation flights for permanent personnel in anticipation of an attack.

Iran’s UN mission said it hopes that its attack on Israel “will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”

“Direct and intermediary official channels to exchange messages have always existed between Iran and the United States, the details of which both parties prefer to remain untold,” it added.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah – the Iran-backed militant group in southern Lebanon – fired a barrage of about 30 rockets toward northern Israel Sunday night. Although rocket fire toward Israel from Lebanon has become a near-daily occurrence since the outbreak of war in Gaza, Israeli officials fear a larger-scale response from Hezbollah after the assassination of the group’s top military commander Fu’ad Shukr in a Beirut suburb last month

But as the world watched Iranian airspace and the Israel-Lebanon border, the worst of the weekend’s fighting was again confined to the Gaza Strip, as an Israeli strike on a mosque and school in Gaza City killed at least 93 Palestinians on Saturday, according to local officials.

With the number of Palestinians killed during 10 months of war edging closer to 40,000, Israel’s strike sparked global condemnation. Qatar and Egypt condemned the strike, calling it a violation of international law, and the US National Security Council said the White House was “deeply concerned” about reports of civilian casualties.” In the aftermath, the three mediators renewed their calls for the warring parties to agree to a ceasefire deal.

Although the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted a Hamas command post and killed several fighters, the strike was a reminder that, despite its earlier claims to have dismantled Hamas in the north of the Strip, the militant group has reassembled in areas previously deemed clear.

Renewed talks

After Haniyeh’s assassination, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar – its leader in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack on Israel – as the new head of its political bureau, suggesting that Hamas’ most extreme faction had taken over, further dimming hopes of a ceasefire deal.

But, following the call from mediators last week to return to talks, Hamas requested a plan to implement the existing offer proposed by US President Joe Biden in July, rather than pursuing additional negotiations.

“Out of concern and responsibility towards our people and their interests, the movement demands the mediators to present a plan to implement what they presented to the movement and agreed upon on July 2, 2024, based on Biden’s vision and the UN Security Council resolution, and to compel the occupation (Israel) to do so, instead of going for further negotiation rounds or new proposals,” Hamas said in a statement Sunday.

But, despite growing pressure at home to help bring the hostages home, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stymied attempts to reach an agreement.

“Nobody knows what Bibi wants,” one Israeli source said, calling Netanyahu by his nickname.

As tremors shook the ground in parts of western Japan last Thursday, local and national government bodies leapt into action.

Meteorologists gathered and issued a temporary tsunami advisory. A special committee warned that another “major earthquake” could hit in the coming week – the first time in its history the body had issued this type of nationwide advisory. High-speed trains slowed down as a precaution, causing travel delays, and the country’s prime minister canceled his overseas trips.

In the end, the government lifted most advisories and reported no major damage from the 7.1-magnitude quake. But much of the country remains on high alert, preparing for a potential emergency during what is normally peak travel season during summer holidays – reflecting Japan’s laser-focus on earthquake preparedness.

However, some experts have cast doubt on whether such an advisory is necessary, or even accurate – and whether it risks pulling resources away from communities deemed lower risk.

Japan is no stranger to severe earthquakes. It lies on the Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

“Japan sits on the boundaries of four tectonic plates, which makes it one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world,” said Shoichi Yoshioka, a professor at Japan’s Kobe University.

“About 10% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher occur in or around Japan, so the risk is much higher than in places like Europe or the eastern United States, where earthquakes are rare,” Yoshioka said.

The worst quake in recent Japanese history was the 9.1 magnitude Tohoku earthquake in 2011 that triggered a major tsunami and nuclear disaster. About 20,000 people were killed.

Then there’s the looming threat of the Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake – the most powerful of its kind, with magnitudes that can exceed 9. Seismologists say this could come potentially within a few decades, though the science remains disputed.

Japan’s government has warned of the possible Nankai Trough quake for so many years that the possibility of it occurring has become common knowledge. But it’s also controversial – with some scientists arguing it’s ineffective to focus solely on the slim odds of a hypothetical earthquake in a specific part of Japan, especially when other parts of the country face similar threats but receive far less attention.

The ‘big one’

The Nankai Trough is a 700-kilometer long (435-mile) subduction zone, which refers to when tectonic plates slip beneath each other. Most of the world’s earthquakes and tsunamis are caused by the movements of tectonic plates – and the most powerful often occur in subduction zones.

In this case, the tectonic plate under the Philippine Sea is slowly slipping beneath the continental plate where Japan is located, moving several centimeters each year, according to a 2013 report by the government’s Earthquake Research Committee.

At the Nankai Trough, severe earthquakes have been recorded every 100 to 200 years, according to the committee. The last such quakes took place in 1944 and 1946, both measuring 8.1 in magnitude; they devastated Japan, with at least 2,500 total deaths and thousands more injured, as well as tens of thousands of homes destroyed.

By calculating the intervals between each major quake, the Japanese government has warned there is a 70% to 80% chance that Japan will be rocked by another Nankai Trough earthquake within 30 years, expected to be between magnitude 8 and 9.

But these forecasts, and the utility of even making long-term imprecise predictions, have faced strong pushback from some quarters.

Yoshioka, from Kobe University, said the 70%-80% figure was likely too high, and that the data drew from one specific theory, making it potentially more prone to errors. However, he had no doubt that “a major earthquake will occur in this area” in the future.

“I tell (my students), the Nankai Trough earthquake will definitely come, whether it’s your generation or your children’s generation,” he said.

Robert Geller, a seismologist and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, was more skeptical, calling the Nankai Trough earthquake a “made-up construct” and a “purely hypothetical scenario.”

He also argued that earthquakes don’t occur in cycles, but can take place at any place and time – meaning there’s little point calculating when the next quake will come based on when previous ones have occurred.

It’s a point of contention in the scientific community; seismologists have long relied on the idea that stress accumulates slowly along a fault between two tectonic plates, then is suddenly released in earthquakes, a cycle known as the “stick-slip” process – though more recent studies have shown that’s not always the case.

Even if there is a potential threat on the horizon, the odds are extremely low, with both Yoshioka and Geller calling the public safety measures taken in the past week excessive or unnecessary.

It is true that after one earthquake, a second, larger one can follow – which is why authorities issued the unprecedented warning last Thursday, Yoshioka said. But even then, the probability of the Nankai Trough earthquake happening the next day is low – perhaps increasing from the typical risk of one in 1,000 to one in a few hundred. That’s still less than a 1% chance, he said.

The danger of overblowing these low odds is that, “You would be like the boy who cried wolf,” Geller said. “You’d be issuing these warnings of a slightly larger than normal probability over and over and over again, and the public would get tired of you in a big hurry.”

The public prepares

However, there are no signs of public fatigue yet, with people nationwide on high alert.

Yota Sugai, a 23-year-old college student, said seeing the warning on television “made me feel a sense of urgency and fear, like a wake-up call.” After Thursday’s quake, he secured emergency supplies like food and water, monitored online maps for hazardous areas, and considered visiting his relatives in coastal areas to help them plan evacuation routes.

⁠“The recent earthquake on New Year’s Day reminded me that you never know when the earthquake will hit. It made me realize the terrifying power of nature,” he said, referring to the 7.5 magnitude quake that hit the Noto Peninsula on January 1 this year – killing hundreds, including dozens who died after the quake from related causes.

Student Mashiro Ogawa, 21, took similar precautions, preparing an “emergency kit” at home and urging her parents to do the same. She’s going to avoid beaches for now and change the furniture in her home, such as moving shelves away from her bed and lowering their height, she said.

⁠“It didn’t feel like a close issue before, but now it feels very real,” she said.

Part of the reason people are taking this so seriously is because of how many earthquakes rock Japan, and how fresh they feel. The 2011 disaster left major scars on the national psyche, which are compounded by new major quakes every few years.

“Each time, we witness the tragic loss of lives, buildings being crushed, and tsunamis causing devastation, leaving a lasting impression of fear,” said Yoshioka, from Kobe University. “This fear is likely shared by many citizens. I think this contributes significantly to why Japan is so prepared.”

It’s why “the Japanese government also emphasizes preparation to avoid another major tragedy like the 2011 earthquake,” he added. Japan is largely recognized to be a world leader in earthquake preparedness and resiliency, from its infrastructure and building codes to its relief and rescue systems.

Megumi Sugimoto, an associate professor at Osaka University specializing in disaster prevention, said that preparedness starts in school – with even kindergartens holding evacuation and earthquake drills for toddlers.

“It’s not only (earthquakes and) tsunamis, but other disasters occur frequently, especially in the summer season,” she said, pointing to typhoons, severe rain and flooding. Public awareness and precautions, like stocking up on emergency supplies, can help protect people from “any type of disasters,” she said.

But there’s still work to be done. Sugimoto and Geller, from the University of Tokyo, both pointed to the Noto earthquake as exposing gaps in Japan’s response systems, with road collapses that stranded the worst-hit communities, and many displaced residents still without homes months afterward.

And, they said, the obstacles in Noto point to the risk of focusing too much attention on the Nankai Trough, when other parts of the country are just as threatened.

For instance, Sugimoto used to work in Fukuoka, on the southwest island of Kyushu. The area where she lived has experienced damaging quakes in the past, despite not being labeled as one of the high-risk areas near the Nankai Trough.

Because of that, “people didn’t prepare well,” she said. And whereas the Nankai Trough area received government funding for quake preparations, “the Fukuoka area where I was living is not supported by the central government.”

Geller added that while the emphasis on Nankai has made people in that region well-prepared, it’s “bad for rest of the country. Because people think, Nankai is very dangerous, but we’re OK here in Kumamoto, or in the Noto Peninsula,” he said.

“So, it has the effect of lulling everyone into a sense of false security, except in the supposedly imminent area.”

Sudan is at a “breaking point,” a United Nations agency said Monday, as a growing number of people need food, water, shelter and medical care in a country devastated by intensifying war.

Over eight million people have been displaced since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last year, plunging the country into what the UN has called “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.”

“Without an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months,” Othman Belbeisi, the Middle East and Africa director for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement. “We are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,” he added.

At least half of the displaced are children in a war tarred by “appalling levels of rights violations, ethnic targeting, massacres of civilian populations and gender-based violence,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, the UN-backed Famine Review Committee said at least one refugee camp in Sudan’s Darfur region is experiencing famine, which the agency has only declared twice in Sudan’s history. In May, the World Food Programme said people in that region had been forced to eat grass and peanut shells to survive.

“Over the next three months, an estimated 25.6 million people will face acute food insecurity as the conflict spreads and coping mechanisms are exhausted,” the IOM statement said. “Many other places” in Sudan are also at risk of famine, it added.

Armed forces are also blocking urgently needed aid deliveries to Sudan, and the IOM said it needs additional funding to reach those in need. Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said a key bridge used by aid workers to reach the Darfur region collapsed last week after severe flooding.

The warning comes as a new round of ceasefire talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia are expected to begin this week in Switzerland, the AP reported Monday. The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed militia that spearheaded the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s, has agreed to attend the talks, but Sudan’s military has not.

“This was the only safe route for humanitarian aid to reach Central & (South) Darfur,” the agency said Monday in a post on X. “This adds another major obstacle to our efforts in delivering life-saving aid to Sudan.”

A Sudanese government delegation met over the weekend with US officials in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah in a bid to convince the military to attend Wednesday, but no breakthrough was achieved, according to the AP.

“We’ve had extensive engagement with the SAF,” Tom Perriello, the US special envoy for Sudan, told reporters Monday, according to the news agency. “They have not yet given us an affirmation, which would be necessary today for moving forward.”

“We have not given up hope that SAF will attend the talks,” he added.

Thousands of doctors have gone on strike across India to demand better protection for health workers after a trainee medic was raped and murdered in eastern West Bengal state.

The resident doctor’s body was found last Friday with multiple injuries and signs of sexual assault in a seminar hall at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the city of Kolkata, local police said. One suspect has been arrested.

On Monday, medical associations in multiple states urged doctors at government hospitals to stop providing all elective services indefinitely as they called for the case to be fast-tracked through the courts and for the establishment of a protective committee for health workers.

“Around 300,000 doctors across the country have joined the protest and tomorrow we expect more to join,” said Dr. Sarvesh Pandey, general secretary of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA).

Images showed doctors in Kolkata and the capital Delhi holding signs reading: “Save our doctors, save our future.” In the southern city of Hyderabad, doctors held a candlelight vigil.

Many of the doctors also highlighted incidents of violence toward health workers and threats of physical abuse by angry patients or their family members.

A survey in 2015 by the Indian Medical Association found 75% of doctors in India had faced some form of violence, local media reported at the time.

“The murder of this young lady doctor is not the first, neither it would be the last if corrective measures are not taken,” the association said in a letter to the health minister, posted on X on Tuesday, as it called for an enquiry into doctors’ working conditions and an impartial investigation of the brutal murder case.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she was shocked to learn the trainee doctor had been killed in the hospital and backed protesters’ calls for the case to be fast tracked.

India has struggled for years to tackle high rates of violence against women, with a number of high-profile rape cases drawing international attention to the issue.

According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 31,516 rape cases were recorded in 2022, an average of 86 cases per day.

And experts warn that the number of cases recorded are just a small fraction of what may be the real number, in a deeply patriarchal country where shame and stigma surround rape victims and their families.

Perhaps India’s most infamous case in recent years was the 2012 gang-rape of a medical student who was beaten, tortured and left to die following a brutal attack on a public bus in New Delhi.

The case and ensuing nationwide protests drew international media scrutiny – and prompted authorities to enact legal reforms. The rape law was amended in 2013 to broaden the definition of the crime and set strict punishments not only for rape but also for sexual assault, voyeurism, and stalking.

Despite these changes, rape cases remain prevalent in the country – with victims and advocates saying the government is still not doing enough to protect women and punish attackers.