Category: Middle East

Sixteen-year-old Arthur Brodard went to the Le Constellation bar with friends to celebrate the New Year. Nearly 48 hours after a devastating fire, his mother still held out hope he might be one of the six injured people who remained unidentified after one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Those half-dozen people gave a glimmer of hope for families whose loved ones were missing in the aftermath of the fire at the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana that killed 40 people and injured 119 others, 113 of whom have been formally identified.
“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” Laetitia Brodard, from Lausanne, Switzerland, told reporters. “I want to know, where is my child, and be by his side. Wherever that may be, be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”
The severity of the burns has made it difficult to identify both the injured and deceased, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside..

President Donald Trump has again appeared to misidentify a bird species in a series of ranting social media posts about wind turbines, claiming, “Eagles going down!”
Trump has continued his smear campaign against wind turbines by claiming millions of birds are being killed by the energy producers and sharing photos that he incorrectly says are dead bald eagles.
In his latest attack against wind turbines, Trump shared a photo to Truth Social Friday of a bird lying limp in front of a wind farm and captioned it, “Eagles going down!” But the raptor in the photo is not America’s favorite bird. It’s a red kite killed in Spain, according to a 2011 article from The Telegraph.
In another post Friday, Trump shared a photo appearing to show a flock of birds flying near a wind turbine and wrote, “Killing birds by the millions!” The picture was shared on the photo site Flickr in 2006 by the Taiwanese environmental group Changhua Coast Conservation Action.
open image in galleryPresident Donald Trump..

CloseRussia releases video of drone it says was used in alleged attack on Putin residenceThe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has told US president Donald Trump that Ukraine did not attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin, contradicting Russian claims that Ukrainian drones targeted one of the Russian president’s residences.
US intelligence assessed the allegation as false, indicating Putin misrepresented the incident.
Earlier, Russia released videos of alleged drone wreckage and claimed it had decoded files proving the attack, but Ukraine called the footage “laughable” and accused Moscow of staging the incident to derail the peace talks.
Meanwhile, the two countries exchanged drone strikes on each other’s energy grids as the New Year began, according to local officials.
On New Year’s Eve, Russia claimed Ukrainian drones struck a cafe and hotel in the occupied village of Khorly, Kherson region, killing 24 and injuring at least 50, with one drone reportedly carrying an incendiary mixture…

The French government has defended its decision to grant citizenship to Hollywood actor George Clooney and his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
Officials said that the couple were naturalised because “they contribute, through their distinguished actions, to France’s international influence and cultural outreach”.
The naturalisations, which also include their twins Ella and Alexander, were announced last weekend in the Journal Officiel, the official gazette for French decrees.
However, Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a junior minister at the Interior Ministry, expressed misgivings on Wednesday. She suggested that some French compatriots might believe the star couple received special treatment, given the actor’s own admission that his French is “horrible, horrible”.
Speaking to France Info, she said: “The message being sent is not good.”
She added: “There is an issue of fairness that, in my eyes, is absolutely essential.”
open image in galleryGeorge and Amal Clooney have been granted F..

CloseRussia-Ukraine War: One Year OnVolodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was “10 per cent” away from a deal to end the war with Russia, but not at “any cost”.
“The peace agreement is 90 per cent ready. Ten per cent remains. And that is far more than just numbers,” Zelensky said in his New Year's Eve address
Kyiv is also discussing the possibility of hosting US troops as part of peace talks with US president Donald Trump.
“This would be a strong position of the security guarantees,” he said in a WhatsApp chat with the media.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones have struck an oil depot that is a key Russian logistics hub for fuel, Kyiv’s domestic security service says.
Officials said the attack in the city of Rybinsk sparked a large fire.
Russian attacks on Ukraine continued, wounding at least six people in air strikes on the Odesa region. Three children and a 42-year-old man were injured. More than 170,000 people have been left without power
RecommendedDid Ukraine launch 91-drone attack on Pu..

Russia’s claim that Ukraine launched a 91-drone strike on Vladimir Putin’s personal residence has threatened to derail months of talks over a peace deal to end Moscow’s invasion.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has called the claims a “complete fabrication” intended to lay the groundwork for future strikes on Kyiv and other areas of Ukraine.
“I am sure they are simply preparing the ground for strikes, probably on the capital, probably on government buildings,” he said.
Donald Trump appeared swayed by Russian claim and said he was “very angry” at the news of the strikes. That reaction is likely one of the aims of Moscow’s accusations – with Trump’s support having wavered between Kyiv and Moscow in recent months.
Europe has sought to back Kyiv with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas calling the claims “unfounded” and a “deliberate distraction” in remarks on Wednesday.
“Moscow aims to derail real progress towards peace by Ukraine and its Western partners,” Ms Kallas wrote on X/Twi..

Russian losses in the war in Ukraine have been growing at a faster rate than at any point so far since the invasion began in February 2022, new analysis suggests.
Analysis by the BBC found that 40 per cent more obituaries of soldiers were published in Russia this year compared with 2024.
The broadcaster, along with independent outlet Mediazona, compiled a list of named individuals using official reports, newspapers and social media, as well as new memorials and graves. In total, they were able to confirm the names of around 160,000 people who have been killed.
Experts told the broadcaster that the figure is likely to be far higher, with the BBC’s toll only likely to represent between 45 and 65 per cent of the overall total. This would mean that Moscow has suffered between 243,000 and 352,000 casualties since the war began.
open image in galleryA Russian soldier fires a Malka self-propelled gun towards Ukrainian positions (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)The BBC’s data shows t..

California Governor Gavin Newsom has trolled Donald Trump once again, questioning the president’s knowledge of America’s national bird after he posted a photo of a dead falcon and claimed windmills are killing “our beautiful Bald Eagles.”
In Trump’s latest attack against windmills, more accurately called wind turbines, he shared a photo to Truth Social on Tuesday of a bird lying on the ground in front of several of the energy producers and wrote, “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!”
But as several outlets have pointed out, the photo is of a falcon, not a bald eagle, and it was taken in Israel in 2017. The photo was shared in Israeli newspapers Haaretz in 2017 and The Times of Israel in 2022.
The Department of Energy even shared Trump’s post on social media. The Independent has reached out to the agency asking if it is aware of the photo’s origins.
Reacting to Trump’s post, Newsom’s press team wrote on X, “Dozy Don doesn’t know what America’s bird looks like???”
op..

More artists have announced they are backing out of upcoming dates at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in protest of President Donald Trump’s takeover, and recent potentially illegal renaming of the institution as the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Jazz supergroup The Cookers announced on its website it will not be performing across a series of two New Year’s Eve concerts.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the group wrote in a statement. “Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us.”
“I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture,” Billy Harper, a saxophonist in the group, reportedly added in a statement to Jazz Stage.
The Doug Varone and Dancers troupe on Monday added that it will n..

CloseTrump warns of 'thorny issues' after crunch peace deal talks with ZelenskyRussia threatened retaliation after accusing Ukraine of attempting to attack president Vladimir Putin’s residence, casting uncertainty over fragile peace efforts.
US president Donald Trump said Putin told him about the alleged attack during a phone call on Monday, leaving him angry, even as he maintained that an agreement to end the war could be close.
Trump had met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Florida on Sunday, saying talks to end the conflict were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close”, despite unresolved territorial disputes.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said 91 long-range drones were intercepted near Putin’s residence in Novgorod on 28-29 December, describing the alleged attack as “state terrorism”.
“Such reckless actions will not go unanswered,” he said.
Zelensky dismissed the Russian claims as “a complete fabrication”, warning that Moscow was laying the groundwork fo..