MOSCOW — Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Kremlin security official, said in remarks released for publication on Monday that the world was getting very dangerous, but that Russia did not want a global conflict.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the biggest confrontation between the West and Moscow since the depths of the Cold War, though US President Donald J. Trump’s envoys are trying to negotiate an end to the war with Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, a kind of modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials, praised Mr. Trump and said it was encouraging that contacts had resumed with Washington.

But Mr. Medvedev, who has repeatedly hurled invective at Kyiv and Western powers while warning of the risks of an escalation of the war towards a nuclear “apocalypse,” said the West had repeatedly ignored Russian interests.

“The situation is very dangerous,” Mr. Medvedev told Reuters, TASS and the WarGonzo Russian war blogger in an interview at his residence outside Moscow.

“The pain threshold seems to be decreasing.”

“We are not interested in a global conflict. We’re not crazy,” said Mr. Medvedev, who served as Russian president from 2008 to 2012. “A global conflict cannot be ruled out.”

President Vladimir Putin remains the final voice on Russian policy, though Mr. Medvedev, now an arch-hawk, gives a sense of hardliners’ thinking within the Russian elite, according to foreign diplomats.

A cartoon hanging in the room where the interview took place showed Mr. Medvedev, a former lawyer who hails from Mr. Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, pointing a submachine gun at European leaders.

WORLD WAS SIMPLY ‘TOO MUCH’ IN JANUARY
Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump have both mentioned the risks of escalation over Ukraine, though European diplomats say that Moscow has skillfully played the escalation card to scare Ukraine’s allies from getting too heavily involved in the war.

“They say ‘No way — these Russians are making it all up’ — they are sowing horror stories and they will never do anything,” Mr. Medvedev said, adding that what the Kremlin calls the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine showed Russia would stand up for its interests.

Ukraine and its European allies cast the war, the deadliest in Europe since World War II, as an imperial-style land grab, and say that if Russia wins in Ukraine then it will one day attack NATO. Russia dismisses such claims as nonsense.

Conflict first erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution. Russia annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists battled Kyiv’s armed forces in eastern Ukraine.

When asked about the flurry of global events of January in Venezuela, over Greenland and elsewhere, Mr. Medvedev said that it had all been simply “too much.”

On Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a Russian ally, Mr. Medvedev said that if Mr. Trump had been “stolen” by a foreign power, then the United States would have clearly seen it as an act of war.

He also said Western claims of a Russian or Chinese threat to Greenland were false “horror stories” made up by Western leaders to justify their own behavior. — Reuters

THE UK TREASURY is offering its officials up to £100,000 ($136,790, $1 = 0.7310 pounds) to leave voluntarily as part of plans to cut hundreds of jobs in the finance ministry, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Monday citing people familiar with the plan.

British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves wants to trim about 300 of her department’s roughly 2,100 staff by 2030, the report said, citing several people familiar with the plan, adding that the cuts form part of a wider drive to cut 16% of administrative costs across Whitehall.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The UK Treasury did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

According to the FT report, the Treasury could still require some officials to be made redundant if voluntary departures fall short across its offices in London, Darlington, Norwich and Edinburgh.

“The Treasury is the largest it has been on record, so during this period of stability it’s now right we reduce our size back to more normal levels through a voluntary exit scheme, in line with the whole of government,” the Treasury told the FT. — Reuters

QUETTA — Pakistani soldiers were hunting down separatist militants on Monday who stormed schools, banks, and security installations, killing nearly 50 people, in a series of coordinated attacks across southwestern Balochistan province, the military said.

The attacks at the weekend brought Pakistan’s largest province to a near standstill as the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) struck nearly a dozen targets in one of their largest ever operations, killing 17 security officials and 31 civilians.

Pakistan’s military has killed 177 BLA fighters in three days of fighting, the interior ministry said on Monday.

Pakistan’s government and military have said the group has received support from India, threatening to escalate hostilities between the nuclear-powered neighbors who engaged in their worst armed conflict in decades in May.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said 22 more militants had been killed overnight in different areas of Balochistan, taking the total to 177.

“Security forces, police and intelligence agencies thwarted the nefarious intentions of terrorists by taking timely and effective action,” Mr. Naqvi said in a statement.

“The Indian agents and their facilitators will be completely eliminated.”

India’s foreign office had rejected the allegations on Sunday, saying Islamabad should instead address the “long-standing demands of its people in the region”.

OPERATION BLACK STORM
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, has faced a decades-long insurgency led by ethnic Baloch separatists seeking greater autonomy and a larger share of its natural resources.

The group claimed it had killed 84 members of Pakistan’s security forces and captured 18 others. Reuters could not independently verify the claim. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Attackers dressed as ordinary civilians entered hospitals, schools, banks and markets on Saturday before opening fire, Pakistan’s junior interior minister Talal Chaudhry said.

“In each case, the attackers came in dressed as civilians and indiscriminately targeted ordinary people working in shops,” he said, adding militants had used civilians as human shields.

The banned BLA said the attacks were part of a coordinated operation dubbed Herof, or “black storm”, targeting security forces across the province. — Reuters

DOHA — The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) plans to invest in five new venture capital funds as part of an expanded $3 billion venture capital program, the sovereign wealth fund said on Monday.

The new funds, called Greycroft, Ion Pacific, Liberty City Ventures, Shorooq and Speedinvest, are set to open offices in Doha in an effort to develop Qatar as a venture capital hub, it said in a statement.

The “Fund of Funds” initiative was unveiled in 2024 to attract venture capital firms to Qatar, build a robust environment for entrepreneurs and help diversify its economy away from fossil fuel revenues, as the country follows the path of other wealthy Gulf peers.

Qatar’s prime minister on Sunday announced an expansion of the fund to reach up to $3 billion.

“This year, we move from momentum to scale,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said as he opened the Qatar edition of the Web Summit technology conference.

The expansion would potentially target investments besides series A and B funding rounds.

“We are now expanding the scope to do later rounds, so that may open up conversations with a different set of managers,” said Mohsin Pirzada, the head of funds at QIA, in an interview with Reuters.

“We will continue to be quite flexible and support earlier stages as well, but there are sufficient pools of capital within the country to go after those types of opportunities,” he said, citing credit lending facilities.

The QIA has assets under management worth $580 billion, according to Global SWF, a sovereign wealth fund tracker, and late last year it launched its own AI-focused company Qai as it bets on the booming sector to drive economic diversification.

As part of its efforts, the country has launched a pilot computing credit program that provides free computing for startups that are based in Doha, which could be applicable to managers that are part of the Fund of Funds scheme.

The pilot program is going to be “a big differentiator in terms of what our program is offering vis-a-vis our peers in the region,” Mr. Pirzada said. — Reuters

CAIRO/GAZA — Cut off from family or urgently requiring hospital care, Palestinians stranded on each side of Gaza’s Rafah crossing waited with growing desperation for Monday’s reopening of the border as a delayed part of October’s ceasefire deal.

How fully crossings to and from Egypt will resume, and under what conditions, remains unclear with Israel retaining complete control of Gaza’s frontier, but for those waiting to travel even a partial reopening feels long overdue.

While Rafah was partially open early in the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants, it has been shut entirely since summer 2024 and only very small numbers have been able to travel to or from Gaza via Israel since then.

The people hoping to return to Gaza know it lies in ruins, their homes and neighborhoods destroyed in Israel’s two-year military campaign sparked by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Those seeking to leave know that new restrictions could maroon them abroad.

Yet, a mother cut off from family and grieving the death of her newborn son, a trader yearning to reunite with his fiancйe for a long-delayed wedding, and two people needing medical treatment abroad were all hopeful for the reopening.

EAGER TO GO HOME
Faten Hamed Abu Watfa, 43, has not seen her three children since she left Gaza nearly 10 months ago. Sitting in Egypt, she scrolls through photographs on her mobile phone, pictures of her two sons, aged 21 and 18, and her 15‑year‑old daughter, trying to bridge the distance that has kept her separated from them.

Abu Watfa left Gaza City’s al‑Karama neighborhood on April 5, 2024, hoping to stay away for no more than six to eight weeks while her mother‑in‑law received medical treatment. Instead, she became stranded in Egypt after the Rafah crossing closed.

“It’s an indescribable feeling, that one will go back to be reunited with his children and family, to the country, to the place where he lived and grew up.”

Her return, however, will not be to the home she left behind. Abu Watfa said her house was torched by Israeli forces, leaving only the concrete pillars standing.

“When it rains, they put something like tar on the roof to keep the water from dripping on them, because the situation would be really difficult,” she said.

“I am ready to enter Gaza, be searched and get tired, not for a day, but for a whole week… to be dragged around during the journey back, until I reach Gaza and see my children and my father safe and sound.”

Many families who arrived in Cairo early in the war never expected to remain for so long. Some depleted their savings, while others found themselves divided, with relatives trapped on opposite sides of the Rafah border.

“I love Gaza, and I don’t see any other place that feels like home,” said Mohammad Talal al‑Burai, 28, a currency trader whose house in Jabalia in north Gaza was destroyed.

Despite fears of a relapse into fighting and concerns that poor internet and communications could disrupt his work, Mr. Burai registered with the Palestinian embassy in Cairo as soon as the Rafah crossing reopened.

“Going back to live in a tent? I don’t care,” he said. “I can’t wait to take my father into my arms and place a kiss on his forehead,” Mr. Burai told Reuters.

Mr. Burai postponed his wedding after the war erupted in October 2023. His mother remains in the United Arab Emirates, receiving medical treatment.

“I will go ahead with my marriage, but I may not hold a party since my mother might not be able to join us,” he said.

DESPERATE TO LEAVE
For others, the chance to cross is a matter of life and death.

Tamer Al-Burai, 50, who is a cousin of Mohammad Al-Burai’s father, suffers from obstructive sleep apnea and relies on Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine, to help him breathe normally during sleep by keeping the airway open.

“My health has become much worse because there is no power and no fuel,” he said. His family left for Egypt two years ago, but he was unable to follow because the crossing remained shut.

“I have appealed to humanitarian groups, to the WHO, to the Palestinian Authority – to anyone – so that I can leave, save my life, and reunite with my family,” Mr. Al-Burai said.

Thousands of Gaza Palestinians have registered with the World Health Organization to travel for treatment. Gaza’s health ministry said at least 20,000 patients, including children and cancer patients, are awaiting evacuation.

Among them is Noor Daher, 31, a graphic designer from Gaza City with a chronic heart defect. “My heart beats even harder now,” he said. “I am hopeful my problem will finally end.”

For many, the reopening came too late.

Dalia Abu Kashef, 28, died last week while waiting for her name to appear on the Rafah crossing list for a liver transplant.

“We found a volunteer – her brother – who was ready to donate part of his liver,” said her husband Muatasem El-Rass.

“We were waiting for the crossing to open so we could travel and do the surgery, hoping for a happy ending. But she deteriorated badly and died.” — Reuters

BEIJING — China’s former justice minister Tang Yijun was sentenced by a Chinese court to life in prison on Monday for taking bribes, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court in the southeastern coastal Fujian province said Mr. Tang had illegally accepted property worth more than 137 million yuan ($19.71 million) between 2006 and 2022, and abused his position to seek benefits for entities and individuals in areas such as company listings, land buybacks, bank loans and case handling, according to CCTV.

“Tang’s actions constituted the crime of bribery,” the court said in its ruling, adding that the sums involved were “particularly huge” and caused “particularly serious losses” to the interests of the state and the people.

Mr. Tang was also deprived of political rights for life and had all of his personal property confiscated, CCTV said.

The sentence comes as President Xi Jinping presses ahead with a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that has ensnared a string of high-ranking officials in recent weeks.

The country’s anti-graft watchdog said over the weekend it had opened a probe into Wang Xiangxi, minister of emergency management – a rare case of a sitting minister falling under investigation.

Last month, China said its top general Zhang Youxia was being investigated, in the highest-profile purge to date of senior military leadership.

Mr. Tang, 64, started his career in the eastern Zhejiang province, where he spent over three decades and rose to become the province’s deputy Communist Party chief. He later served as governor of Liaoning province before being appointed justice minister in 2020.

Mr. Tang came under investigation in April 2024 for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, a term commonly used to refer to corruption. He was expelled from the Communist Party later that year. — Reuters