Russia claims village near embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut
Russia says it has captured a village on the northern outskirts of Bakhmut as it intensifies efforts to surround the front-line city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The village of Blahodatne, which is about five kilometres (three miles) north of Bakhmut, was captured with the help of aerial support, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine’s government, and Al Jazeera could not independently verify the account.
The announcement came three days after the head of Russia’s Wagner Group said the mercenary force had seized Blahodatne in an attack Ukraine said it had repelled.
French protests intensify against pension age rise
France has seen a second wave of protests and strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Anti-government corteges were as loud and as big, if not louder and bigger than on the first day of action.
The number of marchers was expected to surpass the 1.12 million recorded 12 days ago.
Eight key unions took part in the strike, which disrupted schools, public transport and oil refineries.
The CGT trade union said half a million protesters had gathered in Paris alone, although authorities put the number at 87,000, and put the total number across France as high as 2.8 million.
But for all the mass mobilisation, it is still far from clear if the protesters can force Mr Macron to back down. The government can withstand any number of “days of action” like this so long as they take place along the predictable and orderly lines that they have so far.
Mr Macron’s government is pushing ahead with its pension age reforms in the face of opinion polls that suggest two-thirds of voters are opposed to the changes, which begin their passage through the National Assembly next week.
Without a majority in parliament, the government will have to rely on the right-wing Republicans for support as much as the ruling parties’ own MPs.
Hours before the main protest began in the Place d’Italie in central Paris, thousands of marchers turned out in Toulouse, Marseille and Nice in the south, and Saint Nazaire, Nantes and Rennes in the west.
Iran dancing couple given 10-year jail sentence
An Iranian couple in their 20s have been given jail sentences totalling 10 years after posting a video of themselves dancing in the street.
They were reportedly convicted for promoting corruption, prostitution and propaganda.
The video showed them dancing by Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Tower.
Authorities are handing heavy sentences to people seen to be involved in protests after the death of a woman who was detained by morality police.
The couple did not link their dance to the ongoing protests in Iran.
A source has confirmed to BBC Monitoring that the couple’s arrest came after they posted the video to their Instagram accounts, which have a combined following of nearly two million.
Anti-government protests – labelled “riots” by Iran’s regime – swept across the country after Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody in September last year. She was arrested in Tehran for allegedly violating the rule requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf.
Astiazh Haqiqi, 21, and her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, are said to be convicted of “promoting corruption and prostitution, colluding against national security, and propaganda against the establishment”.
The family home of Ms Haqiqi, who lists her profession as a fashion designer, was raided before the arrest.
It is unclear how long the sentence is for each of the separate convictions they are facing. They have each been sentenced to a total of 10 and a half years – a combined sentence for the charges.
If their verdicts are upheld, they will have to serve the longest one of those sentencing terms.
According to reports, they were also handed a two-year ban on using social media and leaving the country.
Death toll from Pakistan mosque bombing rises to 100
The death toll from a suicide bombing at a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has risen to 100, a medical official says, as the South Asian country faces a mounting security challenge from armed groups.
“So far, 100 bodies have been brought to Lady Reading Hospital,” the spokesman for the largest medical facility in the city, Mohammad Asim, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The vast majority of those killed in Monday’s bombing were police officers, he said.
Kashif Aftab Abbasi, senior superintendent of police operations in Peshawar, told Al Jazeera that more than 225 people were injured in the blast.
The roof of the mosque, which was located inside a government security compound, collapsed in the bombing, and rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to recover many of the bodies, authorities said.
Reporting from Peshawar, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the rescue operation had largely shifted to recovery.
