World News

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration will allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, three sources familiar with the matter said, in a significant change to Washington's policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns.

The move by the United States two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20 follows months of requests by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to allow Ukraine's military to use U.S. weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border.

The change follows Russia's deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces, a development that has caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv.

The first deep strikes are likely to be carried out using ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles (306 km), according to the sources.

At least 50 people, a third of them children, have been killed in an Israeli strike in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya city, authorities said, as deadly bombardments hit the central and southern parts of the besieged Palestinian territory.

Gaza’s Government Media Office on Sunday said Israeli forces struck a multistorey residential building housing six forcibly displaced Palestinian families in Beit Lahiya.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that emergency workers were unable to reach the site of the attack due to the more than 40-day-old Israeli siege of northern Gaza.

With reports of several people trapped under the rubble, the death toll is likely to rise in the coming hours.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has been conducting genocide in the Palestinian territory for more than a year.

> Eight people have been killed and 17 others wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in Wuxi city, eastern China, police said.

> The attack occurred at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing County at about 6:30pm local time (10:30 GMT), the Yixing police said in a statement.

> Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school, who was meant to graduate this year, but had failed his exams.

> “He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” police said, adding that the suspect had confessed.

> This is the second deadly attack within a week after a man drove his car into people at a sport facility in the southern city of Zhuhai, leaving 35 people dead and injuring 43 others.

> And there has been a spate of other attacks in recent months.

> In October, in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in a knife attack at a supermarket.

> And the month before, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.

Archive link

> Viktor Orbán has turned Hungary into the main home for Chinese capital in Europe, capturing more than a quarter of all Chinese investment coming into the continent over the past two years.

> The outsized share, including a wave of investment into EV factories, has been a fillip to an otherwise struggling Hungarian economy hit by the EU withholding about €20bn of funding over rule of law concerns.

> Orbán’s challenge now is pulling off the diplomatic gymnastics required to simultaneously remain an ally to Xi Jinping and Donald Trump’s incoming administration of China hawks, while managing the threat of a chronic decline in EU funds.

> Even against the backdrop of his rule of law dispute with Brussels, Orbán has exacerbated tensions with other EU capitals by maintaining strong diplomatic ties with both Beijing and Moscow.

> Márton Nagy, economy minister and a former adviser to prime minister Orbán, told the Financial Times that China’s investments had helped maintain the country’s car industry as “a very strong core” of its economy, which is eventually expected to account for almost a third of GDP.

Archive link

Russia has launched a huge strike on Ukraine’s energy facilities and military infrastructure, Russian news agencies report, citing the Ministry of Defence.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said Russian forces launched about 120 missiles and 90 drones in a “massive” combined air attack – one of the largest barrages of the near-three-year war.

A Russian drone attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv killed at least two people and wounded six others, including children, Zelenskyy said, adding that “all areas” were left without power.

Explosions were heard across Ukraine on Sunday, including the capital, Kyiv, the key southern port of Odesa, and the country’s west and central regions, according to local reports.