For days before the explosions began, the business park had been emptying out. When the bombs went off, they took down empty office blocks and demolished echoing, multi-cuisine food halls. Dynamite toppled a four-storey hospital, silent karaoke complexes, deserted gyms and dorm rooms. So came the end of KK Park, one of south-east Asia's most infamous scam centres, press releases from Myanmar's junta declared. The facility had held tens of thousands of people, forced to relentlessly defraud people around the world.
The UN will make up the shortfall by cutting 2,681 positions across multiple UN agencies, which he said, correspond to functions that, in our opinion, can be done better by others or can be reduced by efficiencies. Some 18 percent of UN posts are already vacant due to its ongoing liquidity crisis from unpaid member dues and other debts, the secretary-general said.
St Lucian prime minister Philip Pierre's Labour party (SLP) has held its legislative majority, putting Pierre on course for reelection after a campaign centered on economic management, violent crime and passport sales. Official election results on Tuesday showed the social democratic SLP winning at least 13 seats in the small Caribbean island's 17-seat House of Assembly, matching its current majority with two seats left to be called.
If you break genocide down to its essence, it's not only mass killing, Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera. It is also destroying the population's ability to exist together as a group, and that is being achieved by the mass destruction [of infrastructure], the killing, ethnic cleansing, and starvation, he said.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla is accused of luring men to Russia in the latest scandal rocking the prominent Zuma family. A daughter of South Africa's former president, Jacob Zuma, on Friday resigned as a lawmaker after explosive allegations that she tricked 17 South African men into joining a Russian mercenary group to fight in Ukraine. Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who joined parliament in 2024 under her father's opposition uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, is officially under a police investigation, but she denies allegations of involvement.
The meeting is expected to address borders, security guarantees, frozen Russian assets, and potential US-Russian investment projects. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin would receive Witkoff, whose role has been under the scanner after reports emerged that he advised a senior Kremlin aide on how to present a Ukraine peace plan to US President Donald Trump. "I think the administration feels very optimistic," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later illegally annexed the area, a move recognised by the United States but rejected by most of the international community. Then, after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, it reneged on a 1974 agreement and expanded further into Syrian territory, seizing areas including the whole of Jabal al-Sheikh, a mountain that commands views over northern Israel and southern Syria.
Israel targeted Al Shifa Hospital the same way as military systems Quotable Dr Ahmed Mokhallalati of Al Shifa Hospital says that despite Israeli attacks on Gaza's health system, Al Shifa Hospital is demonstrating resilience and has managed to reopen. Video Duration 01 minutes 27 seconds 01:27 Video Duration 01 minutes 09 seconds 01:09 Video Duration 01 minutes 04 seconds 01:04 Video Duration 00 minutes 37 seconds 00:37 Video Duration 01 minutes 17 seconds 01:17 Video Duration 01 minutes 20 seconds 01:20
I never thought it would become an object of both desire and hatred for the entire Cuban propaganda apparatus, Nieves told EL PAIS. Nor that they would disrespect the intelligence of the Cuban people so much by suggesting that a website is capable of influencing the entire economy of a country. If that were the case, we would be looking at the weakest government that has ever existed.
Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has opted out of next month's Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions in Abu Dhabi, ending a 13-season stint in the lucrative Twenty20 cricket competition. The explosive hitter was bought by Punjab Kings for 42 million rupees ($467,000) for last season but only returned with 48 runs and four wickets in seven games, and was released by the franchise in November.
Police were called to a central Auckland jewellery store, Partridge Jewellers, on Friday afternoon after staff reported a man had allegedly picked up the pendant and swallowed it, said Grae Anderson, the city's central area commander. The Auckland city beat team responded minutes later, arresting the man inside the store, Anderson said. Charge sheets, seen by the Guardian, confirm a 32-year-old man was charged with theft on 29 November for allegedly stealing the Faberge x 007 Special Edition Octopussy Egg Surprise Locket, valued at $33,585.
In the medium term, the factor that has the greatest influence on gold's trajectory remains the U.S. interest rate cycle. As recent data shows signs of cooling in U.S. growth and consumption, the market increasingly believes that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will have to begin cutting interest rates in the near future. The decline in bond yields at the end of November to around 4.02% before rebounding to the current level near 4.088% created favourable conditions for gold to strengthen, as the opportunity cost of holding gold decreases.
As the Federal Reserve prepares to end Quantitative Tightening (QT), the bitcoin price stands at a critical macroeconomic inflection point. With odds for a December rate cut now pricing it in as almost a certainty, the stage is set for a potential shift in monetary policy that could fundamentally alter the trajectory of Bitcoin and broader risk assets. History suggests that when the Fed's balance sheet stops contracting, Bitcoin typically experiences significant bullish catalysts.
M23 rebels have fought the DRC government in North Kivu province for over a decade, in a conflict with roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The rebels, among more than 100 groups operating in eastern DRC, are made up primarily of ethnic Tutsi, who were targeted by the Hutu in Rwanda. The group resurged in 2021 with the alleged support of Rwanda.
Wednesday's fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex broke out on the netting around the lower levels of one of the buildings before spreading to foam panels that quickly caught fire. Winds then blew the flames onto the other buildings, with seven out of eight buildings affected. It took until Friday for the fire to be fully extinguished.
Veteran opposition figure Anicet Ekane has died in military custody in Cameroon, his family and legal representatives have said. Ekane, 74, passed away on Monday morning in Yaounde, the country's capital, 38 days after security forces detained him in the port city of Douala, France's public radio RFI reported. His death has sparked widespread outrage and threatens to deepen the political turmoil gripping Cameroon following October's disputed presidential election, which saw 92-year-old Paul Biya claim another term after more than four decades in power.
Heavily armed gangs attacked Haiti's central region over the weekend, killing men, women and children as they set fire to homes and forced survivors to flee into the darkness. Police made emergency calls for backup, asserting that 50% of the Artibonite region had fallen under gang control after the large-scale attacks targeting towns including Bercy and Pont-Sondé. "The population cannot live, cannot work, cannot move," one of Haiti's police unions, SPNH-17, said Sunday on X.
