Authorities have arrested dozens of people accused of taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to settle old scores
Fighters affiliated with Syria’s new leaders have carried out 35 summary executions over 72 hours, mostly of Assad-era officers, a war monitor has said.
The authorities, installed by the rebel forces that toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad last month, said they had carried out multiple arrests in the western Homs area over unspecified “violations”.
Continue reading...A vessel has been seized after suspected sabotage of fibre optic line, probably due to external influence, Latvia says
An undersea fibre optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, probably as a result of external influence, Riga has said, prompting Nato to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities.
Sweden’s security service has seized control of a vessel as part of the inquiry, the country’s prosecution authority said.
Continue reading...Chancellor expected to unveil new building projects and revise planning rules to stimulate UK economy
Rachel Reeves has given her strongest hint yet that she will back a third runway at Heathrow airport, arguing that she is willing to make difficult decisions while pursuing economic growth.
The chancellor is poised to make a significant speech this week where she will outline her plans to boost the British economy by radically altering planning rules and accelerating building projects.
Continue reading...Putin ally projected to easily secure seventh term in election that US and EU have said could not be free or fair
Alexander Lukashenko was firmly on track to win a seventh five-year term as Belarusian president in an election western governments have rejected as a sham.
An exit poll broadcast on state television projected that Lukashenko would take 87.6% of the vote. The close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had earlier defended his jailing of dissidents and declared: “I don’t give a damn about the west.”
Continue reading...Autocrat makes comment about support for ‘older brother’ Putin as Belarusians vote in ‘sham’ presidential election
Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko said he had “no regrets” about allowing Russia to use his country to invade Ukraine, amid condemnation of the “sham” presidential vote almost certain to extend his 31 years of authoritarian rule.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said on Sunday that the vote was a “bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy”.
Continue reading...Lack of knowledge about Holocaust identified as well as level of denial and disinformation seen on social media
A third of young adults in the UK are unable to name Auschwitz or any of the other concentration camps and ghettoes where the crimes of the Holocaust were committed, according to a study.
Other growing gaps in knowledge – especially among those aged 18-29 – were also identified, as part of a major international survey in countries including the US and UK.
Continue reading...The ALP could follow the Mexican example where an incumbent won an election in a cost-of-living crisis by combining radical policies with symbolic measures
Last year, as an anti-incumbent wave swept the globe, Mexico’s ruling leftwing Morena party recorded a landslide victory.
Those who study Latin American politics say the result offers lessons for Australia’s Labor government in its quest to buck the global trend and retain power at this year’s general election.
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Continue reading...President tells reporters he believes US will take control of island, after reports of ‘horrendous’ call with Denmark PM
Donald Trump has said he believes the US will take control of Greenland, after details emerged of a “horrendous” call in which he made economic threats to Denmark, which has said the territory is not for sale.
Speaking onboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said: “I think we’re going to have it,” and claimed that the Arctic island’s 57,000 residents “want to be with us”.
Continue reading...Impeached leader Yoon Suk Yeoul could face years in prison after six-hour imposition which set off political upheaval
South Korea’s prosecutors indicted the impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on Sunday on charges of leading an insurrection with his short-lived imposition of martial law on 3 December, the main opposition party said.
The charges are unprecedented for a South Korean president, and if convicted, Yoon could face years in prison for his shock martial law decree, which sought to ban political and parliamentary activity and control the media.
Continue reading...US president has suggested Palestinians should leave Gaza for neighbouring countries to ‘just clean out’ whole strip
Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region and attacked as dangerous, illegal and unworkable by lawyers and activists.
The US president said he would like hundreds of thousands of people to move to neighbouring countries, either “temporarily or could be long-term”. Destinations could include Jordan, which already hosts more than 2.7 million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, he added.
Continue reading...About 70 people, including patients, believed to have been killed in attack blamed on rebel Rapid Support Forces
About 70 people have been killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the head of the World Health Organization has said, the latest in a series of attacks as the African nation’s civil war has escalated in recent days.
The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal hospital was blamed by local officials on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, a group that has recently faced apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan.
Continue reading...Nigerian officials say a Boeing 787-800 belonging to United Airlines was forced to make an emergency return last Friday
Multiple people were injured on a United Airlines flight heading from Lagos, Nigeria, to Washington DC last week.
In a statement released on Friday, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria said that a Boeing 787-800 belonging to United Airlines was forced to make an emergency return last Friday.
Continue reading...Intelligence sources suggest battle for Congolese regional capital Goma is imminent before UN crisis talks on Sunday
Large numbers of troops from Rwanda have been pouring across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to help rebels seize the regional capital of Goma before an emergency UN meeting about the crisis takes place on Sunday, intelligence officials have warned.
Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) soldiers are believed to have secretly crossed into the eastern DRC over the past few days to assist a lightning offensive by the M23 militia.
Continue reading...Source says: ‘The Danes are in crisis mode’ after US president’s call with prime minister Mette Frederiksen
Donald Trump had a fiery phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen over his demands to buy Greenland, according to senior European officials.
Speaking to the Financial Times, officials said that Trump, then still president-elect, spoke with Frederiksen for 45 minutes last week, during which he was described to be aggressive and confrontational about Frederiksen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US.
Continue reading...The latest protests come after private meeting between Robert Fico and Vladimir Putin in December
The Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, has rejected calls for his resignation after tens of thousands demonstrated against his government’s policy shift closer to Russia.
About 60,000 people protested in the capital, Bratislava, on Friday and approximately 100,000 turned out for rallies in cities across the country, the largest demonstrations since Fico returned to power in 2023.
Continue reading...The right is ecstatic about the end of the Biden era – but remains polarized about some of Trump’s decisions
Americans really do inhabit two worlds: some shed tears of sadness at the advent of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Others cried, too – with joy.
Across the conservative, “post-liberal” and alternative media spheres, journalists, pundits and some social media circles celebrated the end of the Biden era with the enthusiasm of rebels toppling the relics of a collapsing dictatorship. As Trump swore his presidential oath, the writer Walter Kirn, a pro-Trump, anti-establishment agitator on X, grandiloquently declared: “This is a revolution against a corrupt ancien regime.”
Continue reading...First full-scale replica of Frank’s attic annexe goes on show next week on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The first-ever full-scale replica of Anne Frank’s attic annex goes on show in New York next week, part of an ongoing effort to maintain awareness of – and combat – antisemitism in the midst of conflict in the Middle East and political tensions in the US.
Eighty years on from Frank’s death, aged 15, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, the exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in downtown Manhattan aims to introduce new audiences to one of the most famous victims of Adolf Hitler’s “final solution”.
Continue reading...Civilians and militants gather amid rubble to watch handover of four women held hostage for 15 months
For the crowds of militants and civilians gathered in a central Gaza square to witness the handover of four Israeli soldiers held hostage for 15 months, the atmosphere was one of triumph and jubilation.
Hundreds of people gathered on the piles of rubble in Palestine Square, Gaza City, among flags of Palestinian militant groups, to watch a painstaking hostage handover, while in Tel Aviv crowds of Israelis gathered in suspense.
Continue reading...Some say recent suspected sabotage of transatlantic cables serving Europe and UK means Ireland must be able to defend itself
They are the bedrock of the internet, keeping everything from TikTok to emergency services, business, banking systems and political and military communications running smoothly.
But deep under the sea, the network of cables around British and Irish shores are being considered as increasingly attractive targets for military, terrorist or criminal actors after several incidents in the Baltics where internet cables were severed and internet communications were disrupted.
Continue reading...Work that made its creator a superstar then mysteriously disappeared is mesmerising art lovers once more
It was commissioned by a Greek king, made its creator a superstar and in his native Denmark attracted crowds like no other painting before. Then it mysteriously disappeared.
Now, nearly nine decades after it was last seen gracing the stairwell of the royal palace that would become the Athens parliament, Carl Bloch’s masterpiece, Prometheus Unbound, has found fame again in Greece.
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