Announcement comes as Trump has threatened to reassert control over canal, which US handed to Panama in 1999
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated the Miami-Dade county commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera to serve as ambassador to Panama.
Trump described Cabrera as “a fierce fighter for America First principles” who he said has been instrumental in driving economic growth and fostering international partnerships.
Continue reading...Authorities carry out series of operations off northern coast, as 451 people arrive in England on 11 boats
French maritime authorities carried out 12 rescue operations along the coast of northern France on Christmas Day, rescuing 107 people in distress from small boats trying to cross to the UK.
On Christmas morning, 30 passengers were rescued from a boat near Dunkirk, while the others onboard wished to continue their journey and were taken into British custody once they reached UK waters, said the French Channel and North Sea maritime prefect’s office.
Continue reading...If motion is successful, it would be country’s second impeachment of a head of state in less than two weeks
South Korea’s opposition has said it has filed an impeachment motion against the acting president, Han Duck-soo, in an escalating row over the composition of the constitutional court which will decide whether to remove his predecessor from office.
South Korea fell into a political crisis when President Yoon Suk Yeol, currently suspended, declared martial law on 3 December.
Continue reading...Sun Chanthy also barred from running for office, in latest case to target critics of government
The leader of a Cambodian opposition party has been sentenced to two years in jail and banned from running for office after he was found guilty of inciting social disorder, in the latest legal case to target government critics.
Sun Chanthy, the president of the Nation Power party, was found guilty of the charge at a court in Phnom Penh. He also faces a fine of 4m riel (£800) and has been stripped of his right to vote or stand for election.
AFP contributed to this report
Continue reading...Security personnel and three armed men killed in clashes in Tartus province, a former Assad stronghold, say monitors
Fourteen security personnel from Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartus province after forces tried to arrest an officer linked to the notorious Sednaya prison, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The UK-based monitoring group said the clash broke out in Tartus, a stronghold of the ousted president, Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, on Wednesday, and was sparked by the attempted arrest of the former prison official.
Continue reading...Three-week-old Sila is the third baby to die from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, according to doctors
A baby girl froze to death overnight in Gaza, while Israel and Hamas accused each other of complicating ceasefire efforts that could wind down the 14-month war.
The three-week old baby was the third to die from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, doctors said.
The deaths underscore the squalid conditions there, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli offensives.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
The offensive has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Unrest at maximum security prison in the capital, Maputo, reportedly left 33 people dead and 15 injured
Dozens of people were killed in a prison riot in Mozambique on Christmas Day, authorities have said.
The riot, reportedly at the maximum security prison in the capital Maputo, left 33 people dead and 15 injured, according to police general commander Bernardino Rafael.
Continue reading...Aircraft carrying 62 passengers and five crew was en route from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya
Twenty-nine people have survived after a passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines burst into flames as it crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route.
The flight was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members with 38 killed in the crash, according to Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister, Kanat Bozumbayev.
Continue reading...Three explosions caused Ursa Major to sink off Spanish coast, says company linked to Russian defence ministry
A Russian cargo ship that sank on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea was the target of an “act of terrorism”, according to the vessel’s owner.
The Ursa Major sank while it was sailing through international waters between Spain and Algeria, leaving two crew members missing,
Continue reading...The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations says sabotage can’t be ruled out
An undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia broke down on Wednesday, Finland’s prime minister said, the latest in a series of incidents involving cables and energy pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations, Arto Pahkin, told the public broadcaster Yle that sabotage could not be ruled out.
Continue reading...Zelenskyy describes cruise and ballistic missile strikes, which caused blackouts in several regions, as ‘inhuman’
Christmas morning in Ukraine was overshadowed by a massive Russian aerial attack using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “inhuman”.
“Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than a hundred attack drones,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram.
Continue reading...Stephen Cottrell delivers Christmas sermon in place of Justin Welby, who will step down as de facto head of church
The archbishop of York has highlighted the need for actions more than words in his Christmas sermon, as the Church of England faces criticism over failures in its handling of recent abuse scandals.
Stephen Cottrell, who will become the temporary leader of the Church in England in early January in place of the outgoing archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said the church must “kneel in penitence and adoration” this Christmas and “be changed”.
Continue reading...Study warns region’s exponential rise in incarceration is fuelling the disease, with cases increasing by 19% between 2015 and 2022
High incarceration rates in Latin America – the region with the world’s fastest-growing prison population – are exacerbating tuberculosis in a region that is bucking the global trend for falling incidents of the disease, experts have warned.
A study published in The Lancet Public Health journal has estimated that, contrary to previous assumptions, HIV/Aids is not the primary risk factor for tuberculosis in the region – as it remains in Africa, for example – but rather imprisonments.
Continue reading...Gunmen target press conference at Haiti’s largest public hospital after street gangs forced its closure earlier this year
Two reporters and a police officer were killed and others injured on Tuesday when armed men opened fire on a group of journalists who gathered for a government press conference scheduled to announce the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital.
Street gangs forced the closure of the State University of Haiti hospital early this year and authorities had pledged to reopen the facility in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Christmas Eve. But as journalists gathered to cover the event, the gunmen opened fire.
Continue reading...UK government accused of ‘nitpicking about compensation’ after being told to pay more to retain military base
Mauritius is holding out over a deal to gain control of the Chagos Islands from the UK, leaving ministers less than a month to rescue the agreement.
The government in Mauritius, which took office last month, has made clear it is dissatisfied with the terms negotiated by the previous administration. Over the weekend the deputy prime minister accused the British government of “nitpicking about the compensation”.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Middle East here
Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, Reuters reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa said that Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew. We have not yet been able to independently verify any of this information. Meanwhile, medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate Israeli airstrikes across the territory today.
At least 45,338 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,764 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Continue reading...The film-maker challenged mainstream Bollywood and pioneered a new wave cinema movement in the 1970s that tackled social issues
Shyam Benegal, a renowned Indian film-maker known for pioneering a new wave cinema movement that tackled social issues in the 1970s, has died aged 90 after suffering from chronic kidney disease.
Benegal passed away on Monday at Mumbai’s Wockhardt hospital and his cremation took place on Tuesday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting his daughter Piya. “Benegal had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” Piya said.
Many paid tribute to the film-maker on social media platform X. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Shyam Benegal, whose storytelling had a profound impact on Indian cinema. His works will continue to be admired by people from different walks of life,” India’s prime minister Narendra Modi tweeted.
Two crew members from Ursa Major are missing and 14 have been rescued, Russian foreign ministry says
An engine room explosion sank a Russian cargo ship called Ursa Major in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria and two of its crew are missing, the Russian foreign ministry has said.
The vessel, built in 2009, was controlled by Oboronlogistika, a company that is part of the Russian defence ministry’s military construction operations, which had previously said it was en route to the Russian far-eastern port of Vladivostok with two giant port cranes lashed to its deck.
Continue reading...Decisions on fate of 6,500 Syrian asylum seekers suspended amid push to repatriate refugees after fall of regime
A Syrian family say they are “fearing for their future” this Christmas after having an imminent decision on their asylum application stopped by the UK government.
Bilal*, 39, worked as a bank manager in Damascus, and has been living in Sheffield with his wife and four children for the past year. He had his second interview about his asylum application in November and had been told by the Home Office that a decision on his case was “very close”.
Continue reading...HK$1m rewards target people accused of national security crimes who fled after pro-democracy protests
Hong Kong police have announced bounties of HK$1m (about £105,000) for information leading to the arrest of six democracy advocates based overseas and accused of national security crimes.
Authorities also said they would cancel the passports of seven others for whom bounties had already been issued, including the former lawmakers Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, local media said.
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