Ten humanitarian corridors have been agreed upon to evacuate civilians from Ukraine's besieged southern cities, Ukraine's deputy prime minister said Saturday.

In a Telegram post, Iryna Vereshchuk said the civilians could cross into safe regions through the corridors, adding they could use private vehicles to leave Mariupol for Zaporizhzhia, while buses would be sent to Berdyansk.

Vereshchuk said the evacuation corridor would also remain open for those seeking to leave Melitopol, Enerhodar and Tokmak for Zaporizhzhia, while corridors in Luhansk would open if Russian troops agree on a cease-fire.

At least 1,626 civilians have been killed and 2,267 injured since Russia launched its war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to UN estimates.

More than 4.3 million Ukrainians have also fled to other countries, with millions more internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency./aa

Libyan authorities have exhumed 11 bodies from a mass grave in the coastal city of Sirte.

In a statement, the General Authority for Research and Identification of Missing Persons said the mass grave was discovered on Friday in Sirte's Al-Giza Al-Bahriya District, adding that the corpses will be taken to laboratories for forensic investigation.

On December 17, 2016, the Libyan Government of National Accord announced the complete liberation of Sirte from the Daesh/ISIS terrorist group.

Discoveries of mass graves are common in war-torn Libya, especially in Tarhuna city, a former stronghold for warlord Khalifa Haftar.

According to Libyan official sources, Haftar’s forces and affiliated militias committed war crimes and acts of genocide in the period between April 2019 and June 2020./aa

Amnesty International has called on the Tunisian authorities to drop “politicized” investigations of lawmakers.

On Friday, a Tunisian military court slapped lawmaker Abdul Latif Al-Alawi with a three-month prison term.

“The Tunisian authorities must end political persecution of members of the parliament and respect, protect, promote, and fulfil their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, in line with the country’s international human rights obligations,” Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

The London-based rights group said at least 20 MPs who participated in a plenary session on March 30 “to protest President Kais Saied’s power grab” are facing criminal charges.

Saied denounced the session as a “failed coup attempt” and has dissolved the parliament since.

Close to two dozen parliamentarians have either been summoned or interrogated, Amnesty said.

Morayef slammed the investigations as “politically motivated”, noting that they amounted “to judicial harassment and are an attempt to stifle peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association by members of the parliament that President Saied first suspended and has now dissolved by decree.”

She described the investigations as “deeply worrying repressive moves by Tunisian authorities” which “must be immediately dropped.”

Tunisia has been in the throes of a deep political crisis since July 25, 2021 when Saied dismissed the government, suspended parliament, and assumed executive authority, in a move decried by opponents as a “coup.”/aa

The crew of the first entirely private mission to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) arrived on Saturday after a flight of more than 20 hours, live images from the U.S. space agency NASA showed.

The space travelers had an unplanned wait of about 45 minutes at a distance of 20 meters from the ISS because of a problem with a video camera needed for the docking maneuver.

The Ax-1 mission blasted off on Friday from Cape Canaveral in Florida in a Crew Dragon space capsule, boosted by a Falcon 9 rocket.

It carried the first wholly private crew, made up of Spanish-American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, U.S. entrepreneur Larry Connor, Israeli entrepreneur and pilot Eytan Stibbe and Canadian investor Mark Pathy.

The mission is run by private spaceflight company Axiom, U.S. space agency NASA and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX.

The four members on board are due to stay at the ISS for about a week and carry out scientific experiments.

NASA chief Bill Nelson welcomed the launch as the beginning of a "new era" paying tribute to what he described as a "historic launch."

"This journey is the culmination of long hours of training, planning, and dedication from the crew and the entire Axiom Space team, our partners at SpaceX, and of course, a credit to NASA’s vision to develop a sustainable presence in low-Earth orbit," said Axiom Space chief Michael Suffredini.

While at the ISS, the crew is due to meet German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who has been on the ISS since November and is scheduled to remain there until the end of April.

Others currently stationed on the ISS are U.S. astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron and three cosmonauts: Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov.

The Axiom co-pilots each paid about $55 million for the flight, according to media reports.

Axiom Space was founded by former NASA executive Suffredini and Iranian-American entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian in 2016.

The company is positioning itself as a major player in the space market in the future, planning its own commercial space station. NASA has already contracted the company to build a commercial ISS module.

Axiom Space commander Lopez-Alegria distanced himself from the term "space tourists" before the mission, saying it was not a vacation for the crew./DPA

Russia has blocked a request by the United Nations Security Council for "independent investigations" into the alleged massacre of several hundred civilians in Mali by the Malian army and Russian paramilitaries, diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Saturday.

Mali's army announced on April 1 that it had killed 203 "militants" in Moura, in central Mali, during an operation in late March.

However, that announcement followed widely shared social media reports of a civilian massacre in the area. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has alleged that Malian soldiers and foreign fighters executed 300 civilians there between March 27 and 31.

The request for a U.N. investigation had been included in a statement drafted by France and submitted for approval Friday by the Security Council.

But Russia, supported by China, "didn't see the need" for the text and considered it "premature," given that an investigation has been opened by the Malian authorities, one diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

On Friday, Russia congratulated Mali on an "important victory" against "terrorism," and it described as "disinformation" allegations about the massacre, as well as claims about the involvement of Russian mercenaries.

Bamako denies the presence of mercenaries from the Russian group Wagner in Mali, acknowledging only the presence of Russian "instructors" and "trainers" under a bilateral cooperation agreement with Moscow dating from the 1960s.

For more than a week, the U.N. has been demanding access to the area to investigate under its Security Council mandate, to no avail./AFP

For the second year in a row, global levels of the potent greenhouse gas methane rose to a record high in 2021, scientists in the United States observed, hitting the highest levels since scientists began measuring these emissions nearly four decades ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

Methane, the second biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, is generated by the production, transport and use of fossil fuels, but also from the decay of organic matter in wetlands, and as a byproduct of ruminant digestion in agriculture.

At last year's COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, participants agreed to a Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 – but notable emitters including China, Russia, Iran and India have not signed on.

"Our data show that global emissions continue to move in the wrong direction at a rapid pace," said NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad in a statement.

The annual increase in atmospheric methane during 2021 was 17 parts per billion (ppb), the largest rise recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983, said NOAA.

Across 2021, atmospheric methane levels averaged 1,895.7 ppb, around 162% greater than pre-industrial levels.

"We can no longer afford to delay urgent and effective action needed to address the cause of the problem – greenhouse gas pollution," Spinrad warned.

It's estimated about 30% of methane comes from fossil fuel production – making it a clear target for lessening the impacts of the climate crisis in the short term.

Meanwhile, carbon dioxide levels continued to increase at historically high rates.

NOAA found that the global surface average for carbon dioxide during 2021 was 414.7 parts per million (ppm), which is an increase of 2.66 ppm over the 2020 average.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are now comparable to where they were 4.3 million years ago, during the mid-Pliocene epoch.

At that time, the sea level was about 23 meters (75 feet) higher than today, the average temperature was 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times, and large forests occupied areas of the Arctic.

Methane is far less abundant but around 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The "atmospheric residence time" of methane is approximately nine years, compared to thousands of years for carbon dioxide – therefore controlling methane is critical to influencing the rate of climate change in the near future.

Methane also contributes to the formation of ozone at the ground level, which in turn is the main ingredient in smog and has harmful effects on the environment and people's health.

Previous NOAA methane research indicated that biological sources of methane – such as from wetlands – are the main driver of increasing methane post-2006.

This is worrying because it may signal a feedback loop caused by more rain over tropical wetlands, which in turn generates yet more methane – a cycle that would become largely outside of human control./AFP

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi will visit Algeria on Monday to sign an agreement to ramp up gas imports, two sources said, as Rome steps up efforts to tap alternative flows following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Draghi will travel with a delegation that is expected to include the head of Italian energy group Eni, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Energy Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani, a government source said.

Italy, which sources about 40% of its gas imports from Russia, has been scrambling to diversify its energy supply mix as the conflict in Ukraine escalates.

Earlier this week Cingolani said Italy was talking to seven countries to secure more gas with some talks "in a very advanced stage."

Di Maio and Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi have both visited Algeria in recent weeks to discuss strengthening energy ties.

Algeria is Italy's second-biggest gas supplier and the Transmed pipeline has been pumping Algerian gas to Italian shores since 1983. It has a daily capacity of more than 110 million cubic meters (mcm) but currently transports less than 60 mcm.

Rising domestic consumption, underinvestment and political instability, including the closure of a pipeline to Spain over a dispute with Morocco, have capped Algerian exports.

But last year Italian imports rose 76% to 21.2 billion cubic metres (bcm) – 29% of overall flows. Rome has said it is looking to secure 9 bcm more from the North African country.

"Draghi will sign the institutional agreement between the countries and then Eni and Sonatrach will complete the technical aspects," the source said.

The source said the agreement would also include co-investments in renewable energy projects.

State-owned Algerian oil and gas company Sonatrach has been in discussion with state-controlled Eni over how to increase gas supply to Italy in the short and medium term.

Eni, which holds long-term gas contracts with Sonatrach, announced a significant discovery in the Algerian desert in March with around 140 million barrels of oil in place.

But doubt has been cast on how far capacity can be ramped up in the short term.

"Production can be raised fast using infill techniques to enhance output at wells already producing and fields not yet producing can be fast-tracked," a second source said./Reuters

Forty victims found in a Ukrainian mass grave in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha were civilians who "did not resist," according to the nation’s capital police chief.

Police are investigating mass graves in Bucha, according to Andriy Nebytov, who said Russian forces "regularly fired on civilians."

Some civilians were killed during shelling of the city by Russian artillery. Among those killed were civilian men and women between the ages of 40 and 60, he said.

Nebytov said some of the bodies found in Bucha will be sent for autopsies to determine the causes of the deaths.

He noted that bullet wounds to the head and body were found on victims -- an indication they were killed by an automatic weapon or a sniper’s rifle.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow are facing vehement criticism from the international community after Ukraine accused Russian forces of committing "genocide" and "war crimes" in Bucha.

Russia has rejected the allegations as a "fake news attack," arguing that the images that have drawn global outrage were staged after Russian forces withdrew from the city.

At least 1,611 civilians have been killed since Russia started a war against Ukraine on Feb. 24, and 2,227 injured, according to UN estimates, with the true figure feared to be far higher.

More than 4.3 million Ukrainians have fled to other countries, with millions more internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency./aa