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Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, said he is fully committed to talks between Ukrainian

and American officials in Saudi Arabia next week on ending the war.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, will lead the American delegation.

Earlier, Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least 20 people and wounded dozens, officials

said. The president of Latvia, Edgar Rinkovitz, said that some European countries should

introduce conscription to counter Russian aggression.

The new leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, called for peace and national unity after days of violent clashes between the

security forces and supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the deposed president.

More than 1,000 people have been killed overall, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human

Rights, a war monitor. That number includes about 700 al-Awhite civilians killed execution style by pro-government forces in the coastal strip,

Mr. Assad's sectarian stronghold.

Germany's incoming chancellor said he would welcome talks with Britain and France to share their nuclear weapons.

However, Friedrich Mertz added that any new arrangement would be supplementing

the existing American nuclear shield in NATO rather than replacing it. Mr. Meertz also added that

he would like to wrap up talks on forming his new coalition government by Easter, April 20th.

Britain's government outlined plans to reform the civil service. Pat McFadden, a cabinet minister,

told the BBC that underperforming officials would be given incentives to leave, and performance-related

pay will be introduced. He said overall civil service numbers would and could become smaller,

but denied any comparison to Elon Musk's

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