Italians are taking to the court with factors including the pandemic and broadcasting also said to be fuelling enthusiasm
At the age of 47, diehard AC Milan fan Ninni Licata has hung up his football boots in exchange for a tennis racket.
Like thousands of Italians in recent years, Licata has been unable to resist the lure of a game that for years had been relegated to the sidelines of the country’s national sports, overshadowed by football and Formula One.
Continue reading...Italians are taking to the court with factors including the pandemic and broadcasting also said to be fuelling enthusiasm
At the age of 47, diehard AC Milan fan Ninni Licata has hung up his football boots in exchange for a tennis racket.
Like thousands of Italians in recent years, Licata has been unable to resist the lure of a game that for years had been relegated to the sidelines of the country’s national sports, overshadowed by football and Formula One.
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Events since Yoon’s martial law declaration on December 3 had ignited South Korea’s worst political crisis since 1987 when nationwide public demonstrations forced the ruling party of former military generals to accept the democratic election of the president.
On Friday, prosecutors indicted former Defence Minister Kim Yong-Hyun in the first move to put an official accused of insurrection on trial, Yonhap News said.
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Events since Yoon’s martial law declaration on December 3 had ignited South Korea’s worst political crisis since 1987 when nationwide public demonstrations forced the ruling party of former military generals to accept the democratic election of the president.
On Friday, prosecutors indicted former Defence Minister Kim Yong-Hyun in the first move to put an official accused of insurrection on trial, Yonhap News said.
Continue reading...Several days of snow brought avalanche risk at Christmas, as wintry weather also caused four deaths in India
A snowstorm developed across the Alps on Saturday 21 December due to a low-pressure system situated over the Adriatic Sea. This depression allowed relatively warm and moist air to push into the Alps, condensing and falling as snow as it met the much colder alpine air mass. Snowfall continued for several days, with well over 1 metre of snow on some peaks and significant snowfall across many ski villages. Consequently, there was a significant avalanche risk over the Christmas period.
Ski resorts in Bulgaria also experienced significant snow starting on Christmas Day, which caused disruption in the mountainous west, where ski resorts had to temporarily shut down due to road closures. Towns such as Troyan, Samokov and Teteven were particularly badly affected with snowdrifts and power failures.
Continue reading...Economists say EU countries hardest hit by 2010s debt crisis now in stronger position than France and Germany
The European Central Bank is facing a tough balancing act in 2025 as it tries to navigate a reversal of fortunes in eurozone economies, as the hardest-hit nations of the 2010s debt crisis outperform the traditional core.
Highlighting a potential shift in power dynamics within the single currency bloc, economists said countries in the EU periphery ravaged by last decade’s sovereign debt crisis were in a stronger position than northern Europe’s most powerful nations, including France and Germany.
Continue reading...Finland investigating tanker that sailed from Russian port over disconnection of Estlink 2 cable on Christmas Day
Estonia has begun naval patrols to protect a cable supplying electricity from Finland after the suspected sabotage of another one on Christmas Day, the Estonian defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said.
“We’ve decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland,” he posted on X.
Continue reading...Assembly approves motion days after parliament stripped President Yoon Suk Yeol of his powers over martial law order
South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach the acting president, Han Duck-soo, plunging the country deeper into a political crisis that has caused policy deadlock and damaged its international reputation.
On Friday, the national assembly approved an impeachment motion introduced on Thursday by the main opposition party by a 192-0 vote. The chamber has 300 MPs, but members of the ruling People Power party (PPP) boycotted Friday’s vote.
Han took over as president after his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, was impeached over his short-lived imposition of martial law on 3 December. The move triggered six hours of chaos that, for many older South Koreans, brought back memories of the country’s bloody transition from military rule to democracy in the 1980s.
Continue reading...Georgian Dream government threatens pro-west president with jail if she refuses to leave office on Sunday
All eyes in Georgia are fixed on the elegant 19th-century Orbeliani Palace in Tbilisi, where a defining moment looms. Who will occupy its halls on 29 December?
On Sunday, Georgia’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, is supposed to hand over the keys to her successor, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former football player turned far-right politician who is backed by the ruling and increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream (GD) party.
Continue reading...Georgian Dream government threatens pro-west president with jail if she refuses to leave office on Sunday
All eyes in Georgia are fixed on the elegant 19th-century Orbeliani Palace in Tbilisi, where a defining moment looms. Who will occupy its halls on 29 December?
On Sunday, Georgia’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, is supposed to hand over the keys to her successor, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former football player turned far-right politician who is backed by the ruling and increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream (GD) party.
Continue reading...Yoon’s legal team will attend the first hearing in impeachment review on Friday, the same day that the acting president also faces an impeachment vote
South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol’s legal team are set to attend court on Friday as the constitutional court begins hearings into his impeachment by parliament over his short-lived imposition of martial law,
The court has 180 days to decide whether to reinstate Yoon or remove him. In the latter scenario, a new presidential election would be held within 60 days.
Continue reading...Mutations are rare but have been reported in some cases in other countries and most often in extreme infections
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday its analysis of samples from the first severe case of bird flu in the country last week showed mutations not seen in samples from an infected backyard flock on the patient’s property.
The CDC said the patient’s sample showed mutations in the hemagglutinin (HA) gene, the part of the virus that plays a key role in it attaching to host cells.
Continue reading...Men were asleep in marked press vehicle, say witnesses, as renewed hostage negotiations reach impasse
Five Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in central Gaza, their employer has said, while Israel has also struck several areas in Houthi rebel-controlled Yemen in air raids.
Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-Lada’a were sleeping in their broadcasting truck, marked as press, when it was targeted in a direct strike by the Israeli military, witnesses told Palestinian media. Another 32 people were killed in other Israeli pre-dawn strikes across the territory, the local health ministry said.
Continue reading...Police chief says 33 prisoners dead and 15 others injured after confrontation with security forces
At least 6,000 inmates escaped from a high-security prison in Mozambique’s capital Maputo on Christmas Day after a rebellion, the chief of police has said, as widespread post-election riots and violence continue to engulf the country.
The police general commander, Bernardino Rafael, said 33 prisoners had died and 15 others were injured during a confrontation with the security forces.
Continue reading...Researchers say drugs may be able to increase lifespan by extending health and thus shortening the rate of ageing
Not for nothing are dogs called man’s best friend: they are good for their owners’ mental and physical health, and some studies have shown that if you’re looking for a date and want to seem more attractive, it might be time to get a canine companion.
So what would it be like if dogs could live for ever – and what if that secret could help their owners live longer, healthier lives too?
Continue reading...The ex-politician was admitted to hospital on Thursday after his health deteriorated
India’s former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear deal with the US, has died aged 92.
Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to “sudden loss of consciousness at home”, the hospital said in a statement, adding that he was “being treated for age-related medical conditions”.
Continue reading...Cook Islands-registered Eagle S was carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea
Finnish authorities have seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused the outage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia a day earlier, and that it also damaged or broke four internet lines.
A Finnish coastguard crew boarded the Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, on Thursday. The crew took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coastguard official told a press conference.
Continue reading...Delicate 650-year-old pages to be preserved are some of the island’s most important historical texts
Work has begun to conserve and digitise one of the oldest paper documents still in existence on the island of Ireland.
The ecclesiastical register, which dates back to the medieval period, is about 650 years old. It belonged to the former archbishop of Armagh Milo Sweteman.
Continue reading...Airforce hits military industrial facility in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, in Russia’s Rostov region, says Ukrainian military
Russia and Kazakhstan have sought to temper speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, with the Kremlin urging people to wait for the results of the investigation, writes the Guardian’s European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam and Pjotr Sauer, the Russia affairs correspondent.
A Ukrainian national security official has claimed that the crash, which killed 38 people on Christmas Day, was caused by Russian air defence fire.
Continue reading...Waves towering up to 30 metres killed more than 220,000 people in 15 countries in deadliest tsunami in history
Ceremonies have been held in countries across Asia to remember the more than 220,000 people who were killed two decades ago in the Indian Ocean tsunami, the most deadly tsunami in history.
On 26 December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s Sumatra island, triggering huge waves that slammed into coastal communities across the Indian Ocean. The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.
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