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Ethiopia Turns Down Agreement on ‘Renaissance Dam’

Water flows through Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam as it undergoes construction work on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo
Water flows through Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam as it undergoes construction work on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo
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Ethiopia Turns Down Agreement on ‘Renaissance Dam’

Water flows through Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam as it undergoes construction work on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo
Water flows through Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam as it undergoes construction work on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo

Ahead of an anticipated round of talks on Renaissance Dam Monday, as revealed by Addis Ababa – Egyptian and Ethiopian officials released separate statements that showed "the continuing divergence between the two sides."

While Egypt described the Ethiopian stance as ‘incooperative’, Ethiopia restated that it couldn't sign a binding agreement on passing specific shares of waters from Renaissance Dam to the downstream countries.

Spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dina Mufti said that the negotiation among Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt will start on Monday, as reported by Ethiopian News Agency (ENA). He said Ethiopia was not willing to give up on its national interest for the sake of other parties under the US pressures.

Mufti added that the US severing ties with Ethiopia would impact the US, not Ethiopia.

Recent reports have said Egypt is trying to establish a military base in Somaliland. Commenting on this, Mufti said that Egypt establishing ties with any country doesn’t influence Ethiopia.

Ali Abdel-Aal, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told Al-Ahram daily newspaper that Ethiopia endorsed a negative approach that contradicts with goodwill. This approach lasted for around eight years that witnessed several rounds of talks.

He added that Egyptian understanding of the development needs of Ethiopians was met with intransigence and procrastination.

Abdel-Aal said that Egypt dealt diplomatically with the crisis and pushed towards negotiations.

Since 2011, there three countries have been negotiating to reach an agreement on filling and operating the Renaissance Dam – however, they failed to seal a deal.

Egypt and Sudan aspire to reach a comprehensive deal on the Renaissance Dam including its management but Ethiopia rejects this while Egypt considers that it has a ‘historic right’ in the river by virtue of deals signed in 1929 and 1959. Yet, Ethiopia relies on a signed agreement in 2010 that approves implementing irrigation and dams’ projects at the river. Egypt and Sudan refused this agreement.

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World

‘I Reject their Proposal,’ Says Trump after Iran’s Offer on Hormuz

US President Donald Trump walks out of the South Portico towards members of the press before departing from the new South Lawn helipad in Marine One at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 26 September 2026. EPA/Samuel Corum / POOL
US President Donald Trump walks out of the South Portico towards members of the press before departing from the new South Lawn helipad in Marine One at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 26 September 2026. EPA/Samuel Corum / POOL
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‘I Reject their Proposal,’ Says Trump after Iran’s Offer on Hormuz

US President Donald Trump walks out of the South Portico towards members of the press before departing from the new South Lawn helipad in Marine One at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 26 September 2026. EPA/Samuel Corum / POOL
US President Donald Trump walks out of the South Portico towards members of the press before departing from the new South Lawn helipad in Marine One at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 26 September 2026. EPA/Samuel Corum / POOL

US President Donald Trump on Saturday rejected a truce deal proposed by Iran that Tehran said could have reopened the Strait of Hormuz to shipping within a week if Washington met certain conditions.

The waterway is key to the world's energy supply and is now central to the conflict between the US and Iran, which is at a stalemate after nearly seven months.

"I reject their proposal," Trump told reporters outside the White House before leaving for a college football game. "They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they're losing so badly.

"They want to make a deal and I think that's fine. I like making a deal too," he said.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was on his way back to Tehran after attending the UN General Assembly in New York, told CBS News the proposal had been developed "in coordination" with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to an excerpt from the video interview shared by Iranian media.

Iran's plan calls for a cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, according to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met earlier in the week with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff.

He said the conditions were the same as those laid out in a memorandum of understanding signed with the US earlier this year, which called for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade.

On the seventh day of the truce, Iran would reopen Hormuz. Pezeshkian told CBS that the "process will begin from the very day they accept it."

In New York, Pezeshkian met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to his office, and said: "Iran has not walked away from the negotiating table but, given past experiences, it no longer trusts the United States."

Araghchi said at the UN: "Iran has conveyed to the United States, through Qatar, a concrete seven-day plan. If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days."

"The choice now rests with the United States. Iran does not accept coercion, threats or intimidation, and Iran will not surrender its sovereign rights under pressure," he added.

However, within hours of his comments The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was skeptical that Tehran would meet his demands and expects to renew the US bombing campaign.

Trump also posted an image to his Truth Social platform of a map showing the Strait of Hormuz circled and labelled "Trump Strait."

Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying: "We will not cease punishing the US until Iran's seven conditions are met."

World

At Least 16 Killed in Russian and Ukrainian Strikes

A Ukrainian rescuer works at the site of a Russian attack on a five-story residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 26 September 2026, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/MAXYM MARUSENKO
A Ukrainian rescuer works at the site of a Russian attack on a five-story residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 26 September 2026, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/MAXYM MARUSENKO
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At Least 16 Killed in Russian and Ukrainian Strikes

A Ukrainian rescuer works at the site of a Russian attack on a five-story residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 26 September 2026, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/MAXYM MARUSENKO
A Ukrainian rescuer works at the site of a Russian attack on a five-story residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 26 September 2026, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/MAXYM MARUSENKO

Russian and Ukrainian strikes killed at least 16 people over the last 24 hours, both countries said Saturday, with the war still raging in its fifth year.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have stepped up attacks after the deadliest summer since 2022 -- the year Russia launched its invasion, starting Europe's worst war since World War Two.

US-led talks to end fighting have not led to a breakthrough and the Kremlin has repeatedly said it intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine.

Kyiv said Russian strikes had killed at least six people -- in northeastern Sumy, in Zaporizhzhia and in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where a 17-year-old girl was among the victims.

And in Kyiv, several people were wounded a day after a day-time Russian attack killed seven people. Moscow has intensified strikes on the capital as the city prepares for another winter of war.

Russia said Ukrainian strikes had killed four people in its Krasnodar and Belgorod regions.

Vladimir Saldo, appointed by Moscow to lead occupational authorities in the Kherson region, said a Ukrainian drone had hit a cafe in the village of Askaniya-Nova, near Crimea, Friday evening.

"Under the rubble, rescuers found the bodies of two young girls -- born in 2004 and 2006," he said on Telegram, adding that a man had also been killed in the same area.

Moscow-appointed official Yevgeny Balitsky said night-time Ukrainian strikes killed three more people in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

United Nations officials have warned about the increasing numbers of civilian victims in the war.

At the UN General Assembly this week, US President Donald Trump once again said that a deal between Moscow and Kyiv to end the war was "going to happen".

For many observers however, that prospect appeared distant, AFP reported.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that Russia was "escalating every single day".

In Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, residents of a typical Soviet-era apartment bock hit by a Russian drone were cleaning up their building -- already worried about what might come next.

Oleksandr Gorlachov, 43, had gone to his allotment plot outside the city Friday night.

Early Saturday morning however, he was woken up by a video call from his elderly parents -- who are both deaf -- and rushed back to help.

"I watched as my mother is standing there in her nightgown, my father in his underwear, outside the building in tears... and there are flames, everything is burning," he told AFP.

"The apartment is completely smashed up."

His mother, he said, is a seamstress.

"Her sewing machine was there. She was in tears because it's broken now. So, well, it's a tragedy. But in my family everyone is alive and for that I thank God," he said.

With mounting Russian attacks on the capital, his family is in "constant stress" and he tries to distract himself by planting tomatoes.

"They don't have enough land," he said, mocking Russia -- the world's largest country. "They want to simply wipe out our nation."

Despite Russia making life in Kyiv increasingly tough, Gorlachov said he "wasn't going anywhere".

But fellow resident Anastasiia Grygorovych -- woken up when her window "fell on me" -- had already fled her home-town of Gorlivka, now occupied by Russia.

Now she was considering leaving Ukraine altogether.

"In general, I'm already thinking that I need to leave," she said.

Russia's invasion has forced millions to flee their homes.

Kyiv also hit Russia with retaliatory strikes Saturday. Ukraine has struck deeper inside Russia this year, hitting as far as the Urals and Siberia.

Zelensky said Kyiv hit an oil refinery in the southern Russian Krasnodar region and a plant "supplying the occupiers" in the neighboring Rostov region.

The Ukrainian leader called on allies to adopt more sanctions on Moscow.

World

Russia's Lavrov Meets German Foreign Minister at UN

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo (not pictured), in Moscow, Russia, 09 February 2026. EPA/RAMIL SITDIKOV / POOL
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo (not pictured), in Moscow, Russia, 09 February 2026. EPA/RAMIL SITDIKOV / POOL
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Russia's Lavrov Meets German Foreign Minister at UN

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo (not pictured), in Moscow, Russia, 09 February 2026. EPA/RAMIL SITDIKOV / POOL
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Mahmoud Thabit Kombo (not pictured), in Moscow, Russia, 09 February 2026. EPA/RAMIL SITDIKOV / POOL

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his German counterpart Johann Wadephul at the UN on Saturday -- the first such meeting since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.

The talks took place as tensions between Berlin and Moscow spiralled in recent weeks, with Germany accusing Russia of orchestrating an attempted drone attack on Leipzig airport and each country ordering the closure of the other's consulate, AFP reported.

Lavrov, who will address the UN's gathering of world leaders in New York later in the day, last met with a German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in January 2022, less than a month before Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

Direct flights between Russia and Germany have been suspended since the invasion.

The meeting Saturday was closed to media, but Ukraine will likely have been top of the agenda.

Before the meeting with Lavrov, the German side demanded that media access be restricted and that the opening remarks not be recorded, Moscow's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to the Russian TASS news agency.

She said Saturday's meeting was initiated by Berlin.