Author: Disha Mishra

BEIRUT, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will meet Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday, two Lebanese sources said, becoming the first head of government to visit Syria’s capital since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. The visit will also be the first by a Lebanese premier to neighbouring Syria in 15 years. Lebanon’s new president, Joseph Aoun, said on Thursday there was a historic opportunity for “a serious and equal dialogue” with Syria, which had big sway over its neighbour during much of the Assad family’s five decades in power, maintaining troops…

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Emergency workers toiling to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea have detected seven new slicks, a Russian official told the TASS state news agency on Friday, as authorities struggle to mitigate the effects of the nearly month-old disaster. Approximately 2,400 metric tons of oil products have spilled into the sea since Dec. 15, when two ageing tankers were hit by a storm in the Kerch Strait. President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the clean-up efforts so far have been insufficient to deal with the scale of the situation, which he called…

(Reuters) – An official Palestinian tally of direct deaths in the Israel-Hamas war likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40% in the first nine months of the war as the Gaza Strip’s healthcare infrastructure unravelled, according to a study published on Thursday. The peer-reviewed statistical analysis published in The Lancet journal was conducted by academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions. Using a statistical method called capture-recapture analysis, the researchers sought to assess the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end…

Jan 10 (Reuters) – Moldova’s Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniestria extended its state of emergency on Friday for another month as it grapples with an energy crisis after losing access to Russian gas supplies that had propped up its economy for decades. Russia’s Gazprom suspended gas exports to Transdniestria on Jan. 1, citing unpaid Moldovan debts of $709 million. Moldova disputes that debt and says Moscow is engineering a crisis to undermine its pro-Western government. Russia used to supply gas to Transdniestria via Ukraine and Moscow blames the crisis on Kyiv, which refused to roll over a gas transit deal…

Los Angeles, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Firefighters reported some progress fighting the wildfires that have charred hillsides, homes and streets in Los Angeles County, but the strong winds that fanned the flames were expected to pick up again on Friday, worsening conditions. The fires, engulfing iconic Los Angeles neighbourhoods and tearing through the Hollywood Hills, have so far killed 10 people and destroyed nearly 10,000 structures. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said late on Thursday he expected the death toll to grow. “It looks like an atomic bomb dropped in these areas. I don’t expect good news, and we’re…

(Reuters) – Lebanon’s parliament elected army chief Joseph Aoun head of state on Thursday, filling the vacant presidency with a general who has U.S. support and showing the weakened sway of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after its devastating war with Israel. In a speech to the chamber, Aoun, 60, vowed to work to ensure the state has the exclusive right to carry arms, drawing loud applause as lawmakers from Hezbollah — which runs its own military forces — sat still. He promised to rebuild south Lebanon and other parts of the country he said had been destroyed by Israel, and…

(Reuters) – Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party said late on Thursday it will choose a new leader on March 9 ahead of the 2025 elections for which polls show the party in a very weak position. The prime minister announced on Monday that he will step down in the coming months after nine years in power, bowing to pressure from lawmakers alarmed by the party’s miserable showing in pre-election polls. Trudeau said that he would stay on both as prime minister and Liberal leader until the party chooses a new chief. “After a robust and secure nation-wide…

Jan 10 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s sentencing in his New York criminal case on Friday closes out a series of prosecutions that he largely beat by retaking the U.S. presidency, though he is still fighting to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars for losses in civil lawsuits. Here is a look at the cases against the president-elect and where they stand ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. NEW YORK HUSH MONEY CASE Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump in March 2023 with illegally falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair with a porn star. A jury…

(ANI) – The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Thursday that space crafts in the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDex) mission have been put in a slow drift course to move closer to each other. In a post on X, ISRO said that they are expecting to reach initialisation conditions by January 10. “The drift has been arrested and spacecrafts put in a slow drift course to move closer to each other. By tomorrow, it is expected to reach initialisation conditions,” the ISRO said on X. https://twitter.com/isro/status/1877359114117885953 On Wednesday, ISRO postponed the SpaDex mission which was scheduled for Thursday, after…

(Forelines) – Pakistani passport has been ranked as one of the weakest globally, placing 103rd in the 2025 Henley Passport Index, marking a notable decline from its position last year, according to The News International. Pakistan shared its rank with Yemen this year, granting visa-free access to only 33 countries, a sharp contrast to the world’s most powerful passports. The Henley passport Index, which ranks the passports of 199 nations based on visa-free travel access, is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), as per The News International report. The passport ranking highlights a troubling reality…