An American citizen has been detained in Belarus after being accused of attempting to sneak into the country on a cargo train by Belarusian authorities.

The 27-year-old unnamed American man was traveling in the empty carriage of a train from neighbouring Lithuania when he was found by custom officers at Maladzyechna train station, Belarus’ customs authority said in a statement on Monday.

The man, identified as a “border violator,” was promptly detained by customs officials before being handed over to the border service for further investigation, the statement said.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration secured the release of two US citizens who were being held prisoner in Belarus. One American, who was not named out of a request for his privacy, was among a group of three political prisoners freed in February, while Anastassia Nuhfer was released in January.

The state department has advised Americans not to travel to Belarus, citing the Belarusian authorities’ arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the risk of detention as key factors.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government has long been accused of a crackdown on dissidents and opposition detaining scores of them.

Europe’s longest-serving leader extended his 31-year rule in Belarus in January, with Lukashenko winning a presidential election that was widely denounced as a sham by his exiled opponents and Western countries.

Under the first Trump administration, the US had sought diplomatic rapprochement with Minsk. Those efforts were put aside after Lukashenka self-proclaimed electoral victory and massive crackdown on protesters and civil society in August 2020, which Trump administration officials condemned at the time.

The Chinese military on Tuesday said it had begun conducting joint exercises involving its army, navy, air force, and rocket force to “close in on” Taiwan from “multiple directions,” according to a statement posted on the Eastern Theater Command’s official social media account.

The drills mainly focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, assault on maritime and ground targets, and blockade on key areas and sea lanes so as to test joint operations capabilities of its troops, the post said.

“It is a stern warning and forceful deterrence against ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces, and it is a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity,” the People’s Liberation Army said in the statement.

China claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its own and has vowed to take control of the island, by force if necessary.

Its military in recent years has ramped up regular patrols as well as military exercises in the air and waters around the island.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Israel has launched a strike on Beirut for the second time in days, further testing the shaky ceasefire with Hezbollah struck four months ago.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were killed, including a woman, and seven injured in the strike early Tuesday, which Israel said had targeted a Hezbollah militant.

Two missiles hit the top three floors of a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s national news agency NNA reported. Witnesses told Reuters that no evacuation warning was issued ahead of the strike and that families who lived there have now fled to other parts of the city.

Israel’s military said in a statement the militant had allegedly “recently directed Hamas operatives and assisted them in planning a significant and imminent terror attack against Israeli civilians.”

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack. “Israel’s persistence in its aggression requires us to exert more effort to address Lebanon’s friends around the world and rally them in support of our right to full sovereignty over our land,” he said.

The US State Department said on Tuesday that Israel was defending itself from rocket attacks that came from Lebanon and that Washington blamed “terrorists” for the resumption of hostilities, Reuters reported.

“Hostilities have resumed because terrorists launched rockets into Israel from Lebanon,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to Reuters, adding Washington supported Israel’s response.

The attack comes just days after Israel launched its first strike on the Lebanese capital since a ceasefire with Hezbollah came into effect in November. Israel accused Hezbollah of launching two rocket attacks from southern Lebanon that crossed Israel’s border, a claim the Iran-backed group denied.

“We will not allow firing on our communities, not even a drizzle … We will attack everywhere in Lebanon against any threat to the state of Israel, and we will ensure that all our residents in the north return to their homes safely,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.

The Lebanese army called Friday’s strike on the southern Dahieh neighborhood “a blatant and repeated violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and the security of its citizens, a challenge to international law, and a flagrant breach of the ceasefire agreement.”

The US-brokered ceasefire agreement brought about a significant reduction in violence following more than a year of cross-border strikes and months of a full-scale war.

However, Israel has continued to conducted dozens of strikes – mostly in southern Lebanon – on what it calls Hezbollah targets, and maintains a military presence at multiple locations in southern Lebanon, despite having agreed to withdraw as part of the deal.

A colossal fire erupted Tuesday in a Malaysian suburb outside Kuala Lumpur due to a burst gas pipeline, prompting evacuations of nearby homes.

The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights in central Selangor state was visible for miles. National oil company Petronas said in a statement that the fire broke out at one of its gas pipeline at 8:10 a.m.

It said in a brief statement that the affected pipeline has been isolated. Three gas stations nearby the fire site were not affected but have been temporarily closed as a precautionary measure, Petronas said, adding that investigations are still underway.

The Selangor Disaster Management unit said in a statment that the blaze spread to several houses in a nearby village, and efforts were efforts being made to rescue trapped residents. It added that several people suffered burns and will be taken for treatment, but the extent of the full damage is being assessed, and said that the valve to the pipeline has been shut, and that will eventually snuff out the fire.

The Star English newspaper said that fire and rescue teams had rescued seven victims, including two elderly individuals. No casualties have been reported so far.

Dozens of Selangor firefighters have been dispatched to the scene. Selangor Chief Minister Amirudin Shari said the fire department has quickly evacuated residents from nearby homes as a safety measure. He said they will be temporarily placed in a mosque nearby until the situation is under control.

Pictures and videos of the fireball went viral on social media, with some residents saying they felt the doors and windows of their homes shaking believed to be due to the fire explosion earlier.

Embattled South Korean superstar Kim Soo Hyun has personally addressed a growing scandal about the nature of his relationship with late actress Kim Sae-ron for the first time, in a closely watched saga that has roiled the country’s entertainment industry.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, a tearful Kim Soo Hyun, 37, said accusations made by a YouTube channel in March that he had entered into a relationship with his fellow performer when she was still a minor were untrue. He has repeatedly denied the allegations.

“I did not date her when she was a minor,” Kim said at the emotional news conference, where he declined to take questions. “Apart from the fact that we were both actors, we were just an ordinary couple like anyone else. We had feelings for each other, and as time passed, we eventually parted ways. After that, we rarely kept in touch.”

Kim Sae-ron was found dead at home in February at 24 years old, nearly two years after she retreated from public view following a drunk-driving conviction that prompted heavy public backlash and reputational damage.

The allegations made by the YouTube channel, known for covering political news, started an online firestorm against Kim Soo Hyun despite his denials. His talent agency previously said that while the two actors had been in a relationship, it took place when both were adults, according to the Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea’s newspapers of record.

The fallout for the actor has been swift, with luxury fashion house Prada and popular Korean cosmetics brand Dinto both ending their collaborations with Kim Soo Hyun in the weeks after the scandal broke. A star at home and across Asia, Kim Soo Hyun is best known for the award-winning series “It’s Okay to Not be Okay” and “My Love from the Star.”

On Monday, he also apologized for staying quiet for the first few days after the allegations emerged last month, saying he was worried about the consequences for his recently aired Netflix series “Queen of Tears.”

“If you want to criticize me for being cowardly or selfish, I will accept that,” he said.

Kim Sae-ron was a prolific actor who shot to stardom as a child, but her career stalled after she crashed her car in the South Korean capital in 2022. In April 2023, a Seoul court found her guilty of driving under the influence. She avoided jail but was fined about $14,000.

Kim Soo Hyun also claimed that many text messages that had been distributed online, purportedly between him and Kim Sae-ron, were false.