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25-12-2024 VICTORIA: Hong Kong police have offered rewards of HK$1m (£103,000; $129,000) for information leading to the arrests of six pro-democracy activists living in the UK and Canada. Among them is Tony Chung, the former leader of a pro-independence group who fled to the UK last year. The group which …

25-12-2024 COLOMBIA/ BOGOTÁ: SPAIN: One of the founders of the Medellin drug cartel has returned to Colombia after serving more than 20 years in jail in the US for drug trafficking. Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, now 67 years old, was deported by the US government and landed in Bogota on Monday …

25-12-2024 MADRID: 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 …

25-12-2024 PARIS: French Prime Minister François Bayrou believes dozens of people died when Cyclone Chido hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on 14 December, rather than thousands as some have feared. Bayrou told BFMTV he thought the “alarmist and sometimes terrifying numbers put forward won’t be borne out …

25-12-2024 NEW YORK: A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft is attempting to make history with the closest-ever approach to the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe is plunging into our star’s outer atmosphere, enduring brutal temperatures and extreme radiation. It is out of communication for several days during this …

25-12-2024 DAMASCUS: Protests have broken out in Syria over the burning of a Christmas tree, prompting calls for the new Islamist authorities to take steps to protect minorities. A video posted on social media showed the tree on fire in the main square of the Suqaylabiyah, a Christian-majority town in …

24-12-2024 NEW DELHI: On the night of 9 December, a 34-year-old Indian man killed himself. Next to his body was a placard reading “justice is due”. Atul Subhash left a detailed 24-page suicide note and an 81-minute video in which he blamed the trouble in his marriage and divorce proceedings. …

24-12-2024 WELLINGTON: New Zealand has rejected a proposal by the Cook Islands, a self-governing nation in free association with the larger Pacific country, to allow the creation of its own passports and citizenship but said it could discuss independence. A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters …

24-12-2024 PARIS: France is holding a day of national mourning after Cyclone Chido devastated its Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte earlier this month. French President Emmanuel Macron led Monday’s tribute by holding a minute’s silence for the storm’s victims. He called for the nationwide remembrance during his visit to the …

24-12-2024 RIYADH: The Saudi authorities, I am told, are currently working flat out to collate everything they have on the Magdeburg market suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, and to share it with Germany’s ongoing investigation “in every way possible”. Inside the imposing sand colored and fortress-like walls of the Saudi Ministry of …