UKRAINE: Russia has launched its second major drone and missile bombardment of the country in four days, officials said today, aiming again at the power grid and apparently snubbing US-led peace efforts as the fourth anniversary of the conflict’s outbreak approaches.

Russia fired almost 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles at eight regions on Monday night and early today, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

SYRIA: The army  declared an area east of the city of Aleppo a “closed military zone” today, signaling another escalation between government forces and fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Several days of clashes in Aleppo displaced tens of thousands of people last week, but they came to an end over the weekend with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from the contested neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud.

AUSTRALIA: Organisers of the country’s largest free literary festival cancelled the event today after more than 180 writers and speakers withdrew over the scrapping of an appearance by an Australian-Palestinian writer and academic.

The uproar began when the board of the Adelaide Festival, which runs Adelaide Writers Week, announced on January 8 that they had disinvited Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, “given her previous statements” and citing cultural sensitivities “at this unprecedented time so soon after” an anti-semitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi beach. 

FRANCE: Farmers steered some 350 tractors along cobblestoned Paris avenues towards the parliament building today in protest against low incomes and an European Union trade deal with South America that they say threatens their livelihoods.

The unions leading the protest said they were demanding ″concrete and immediate action″ to defend France’s food security.