Europe

Kyiv: Four people were killed and five others wounded Friday in a Russian drone strike targeting eastern Ukraine. Local sources reported that the strike targeted the city of Cherkasy in the Donetsk region, killing four people, including a child, and wounding five others. Two houses were also damaged. According to the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, the dead included a 32-year-old man, his five-year-old son, and two of their neighbors. It is worth noting that reports from Ukraine and Russia regarding the situation on the ground are conflicting, and it is impossible to verify this information from an independent source due to the ongoing war and fighting since February 2022.

Gulf

Davos: Saudi Arabia officially announced Friday that it will host the World Economic Forum International Meeting on Cooperation and Growth, in Jeddah on 22-23 April. The announcement was made at the conclusion of the 56th WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, where Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal Al Ibrahim outlined details of the Kingdom's first regular high-level international forum, initially announced at the 2025 Annual Meeting. Al Ibrahim highlighted the importance of continuing international dialogue to accelerate global growth and invited participants to contribute actively, noting that the Jeddah meeting will build on momentum from the WEF special meeting hosted in Riyadh in 2024.

Asia

Makassar, Indonesia: Rescuers have found the bodies of all 10 people were on board a chartered plane that crashed into a mountain in Indonesia at the weekend, a local official said Friday. The turboprop plane, chartered by the fisheries ministry, was carrying seven crew and three civil servants, when it lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday. The aircraft crashed into Mount Bulusaraung on the island of Sulawesi. Eight bodies were recovered earlier this week as rescuers combed the mountain's steep slopes, their efforts hampered by the tough terrain and poor weather conditions. The bodies of the two remaining missing people were found on Friday and would be recovered, said local rescue official Andi Sultan. The plane's black box was located on Wednesday and could shed light on what caused the plane to crash shortly before it was due to land in the city of Makassar, the local search and rescue agency said. Debris from the plane, including its fuselage, parts of the tail and windows were found on Sunday near the mountaintop. Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands. The country has a poor aviation safety record, with several fatal crashes in recent years. A helicopter carrying six passengers and two crew members crashed in September shortly after taking off from South Kalimantan province, killing everybody on board. Four people were killed less than two weeks after the September crash when their helicopter crashed in the remote Papua district of Ilaga.