Author: Disha Mishra
BEIRUT/DAMASCUS, Jan 10 (Reuters) – U.S., French and German envoys have warned Syria’s new Islamist rulers that their appointment of foreign jihadists to senior military posts is a security concern and bad for their image as they try to forge ties with foreign states, two sources familiar with the matter said. The warning from the U.S., part of Western efforts to get Syria’s new leaders to reconsider the move, was delivered in a meeting between U.S. envoy Daniel Rubinstein and Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday at the presidential palace overlooking Damascus, a U.S. official said. “These appointments…
BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) – British finance minister Rachel Reeves, facing criticism for travelling to China during financial market turmoil at home, said on Saturday that “pragmatic and predictable” relations with Beijing would help boost economic growth and trade. Under pressure from a sharp rise in British interest rates, Reeves defended her budget at the start of the two-day visit to China, where she is seeking to revive high-level economic and financial talks that have been frozen for nearly six years. “The fiscal rules that I set out in my budget in October are non-negotiable, and growth is the number…
SEOUL, Jan 11 (Reuters) – The flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air jet that crashed on Dec. 29 stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at South Korea’s Muan airport, the transport ministry said on Saturday. Authorities investigating the disaster that killed 179 people, the worst on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the “black boxes” to stop recording, the ministry said in a statement. The voice recorder was initially analysed in South Korea, and, when data was found to be missing, sent to a U.S. National Transportation Safety…
(Forelines) – Ukraine carried out drone attacks in multiples regions of Russia, targeting two residential houses in the Tambov region and injuring at least three people, Russia stated on Saturday, quoted by Reuters. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, stated via Telegram messaging app several people were treated for injures causing from shattered windows after drones struck two homes in Kotovsk, a town located about 480 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of Moscow, as per Reuters report. Pervyshov further stated that the buildings sustained only minor damage and that residents were offered temporary accommodation. Separately, Russia’s defence ministry reported that it intercepted…
(Reuters) – Business was brisk at Teddy’s Cocina in Pasadena as wildfire evacuees ate lunch and passersby ducked indoors to escape from the brown, smoky air blanketing the city. “It’s not breathable,” said Dulce Perez, a cook at the restaurant, as an eye-watering haze hung overhead on Thursday about two miles (3.2 km) away from one of the multiple fires burning around Los Angeles. “We just try to stay indoors.” This week, as the wildfires raged and smoke billowed across Los Angeles, officials issued air quality alerts, schools canceled classes and scientists warned about the dangerous – even fatal -…
NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will not go to jail or face any other punishment for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, a judge ruled on Friday but said Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration would not erase the jury verdict. Justice Juan Merchan’s sentencing of Trump, 78, to unconditional discharge places a judgment of guilt on his record and closes a case that had loomed over Trump’s bid to retake the White House. Trump will be the first president to take office with a felony criminal conviction. Merchan said he…
ISTANBUL/ANKARA, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Talks aimed at ending a 40-year-old militant conflict have fostered peace hopes in Turkey but the precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria and uncertainty about Ankara’s intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the path ahead. Abdullah Ocalan, jailed head of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, has been cited as indicating a willingness to call on the PKK to lay down arms in a peace process to end the insurgency he launched against NATO-member Turkey in 1984. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, stunted development in the mainly Kurdish southeast…
JERUSALEM, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Israel confirmed on Friday that a hostage found killed in Gaza was Hamza Ziyadne, the son of deceased hostage Youssef Ziyadne, whose body was found alongside him in an underground tunnel near the southern city of Rafah. On the ground in Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to pound the tiny coastal enclave. Palestinian medics said seven people were killed outside a mosque in an airstrike on the Bureij camp in central Gaza, while three others were killed in two separate incidents in the north of the territory. There was no immediate comment on the latest…
At least three women were killed and five children injured in a stampede in the landmark Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Friday, the Syrian civil defence said. The children suffered fractures, severe bruises and fainting, said the civil defence in a statement. Authorities were investigating to determine the causes of the incident and will hold those responsible accountable, Damascus Governor Maher Marwan told the Syrian state news agency (SANA). “We are working to take urgent measures to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in public places in the future,” SANA quoted him as saying. Syria’s new rulers seized control…
WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Friday imposed its broadest package of sanctions yet targeting Russia’s oil and gas revenues in an attempt to give Kyiv and the incoming administration of Donald Trump leverage to reach a deal for peace in Ukraine. The move is meant to cut Russia’s oil revenues for the war that started in February, 2022, and has killed or wounded tens of thousands and reduced cities to rubble. The measures are “the most significant sanctions yet against the Russian energy sector, the largest source of revenue for the Kremlin’s war machine,” a senior…