The edition of
Saturday 15 February 2025
16 stories, section by section, the most important first.
International
French President Emmanuel Macron announces an emergency summit in Paris, France, between European leaders following a controversial speech given by U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in which he criticized European leadership as the worst threat to Europe, particularly for imposing too much censorship and too little control over migration.
Hamas releases three Israeli hostages in exchange for the Israeli government releasing 369 Palestinian prisoners, most without criminal charges or convictions, as part of the first stage of the 2025 ceasefire.
A 14-year-old boy is killed and five other people are injured in a mass stabbing on a street in Villach, Carinthia, Austria. A 23-year-old man, an Islamic State member, is arrested.
Hundreds of White South Africans hold a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, in support of U.S. President Donald Trump's claims that the South African government is discriminating against the country's white minority.
Mass looting and sporadic gunfire is reported in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, as M23 rebels advance into the city. Mobs loot several facilities, including a World Food Programme depot.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Chief of the Ugandan military, claiming to act with the authority of his father, President Yoweri Museveni, threatens to invade the Democratic Republic of the Congo and take control of Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province, unless local forces surrender their weapons within 24 hours. Kainerugaba alleges that the Hema people are being killed.
A 37-year-old woman and her two-year-old child die as a result of injuries sustained in a vehicle-ramming attack in Munich, Germany, on Thursday.
The Congolese military withdraws from Bukavu heading south towards Tanganyika Province.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speak by telephone about the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Gaza war, the sanctions against Russia, and removing restrictions on each country's diplomatic missions. They also discuss preparations for a high-level summit in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time the U.S. and Russia had contact at the foreign minister level in almost two years.
Politics
Government leaders of the member states of the African Union elect Djiboutian foreign minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf as the organization's chairperson, succeeding Chadian Moussa Faki.
Business
Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner calls on Western sporting firms such as the National Basketball Association, Formula One, and Arsenal F.C. to cut sponsorship deals with Rwanda amid the conflict in Kivu.
The Law
Muhsin Hendricks, the first openly gay imam, is assassinated by two unidentified assailants while driving near Gqeberha, South Africa.
The Lebanese Armed Forces arrest over 25 people on suspicion of attacking a UNIFIL convoy and United Nations peacekeepers near Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut.
A man is shot dead at the Clemenceau metro station in Brussels, Belgium. The shooting is connected to the ongoing drug war in the city since the start of the year, which has already killed another person and wounded three more.
Environment
A crowd crush kills at least 18 people, including three children, and injures ten others at New Delhi railway station in New Delhi, India.
Stories adapted from Wikipedia’s Current events portal for 15 February 2025, by Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0.