WORLD

A US official revealed that the Chinese spy balloon, which traversed the United States in early 2023, used an American internet service provider to transmit periodic data related to navigation and location back to China, CNN reported. This connection emerged as one of the means by which the US intelligence agencies were able to track the balloon’s location and gather...

The “reunification” of Taiwan with China is “inevitable,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping claimed in a speech Tuesday, reiterating Beijing’s long-held stance on the self-ruled island democracy ahead of a crucial election there next month. “The realization of the complete reunification with the motherland is an inevitable course of development, is righteous and what the people want. The motherland must and...

Israel on Tuesday kept up its strikes against Gaza targets despite grave concern expressed by the United Nations, and international calls for a halt to the Israel-Hamas war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed there would be no peace until the destruction of Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, and the military said the war would last months. Israel’s...

Ukraine’s air force said Tuesday it had destroyed a Russian fleet ship off the Crimean peninsula suspected of carrying drones for use in Moscow’s war against Kyiv. “Around 2:30 am (0030 GMT) on December 26, tactical aviation of the Air Force attacked with cruise missiles the Novocherkassk large landing ship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in...

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message on December 25 that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today” and that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians. In his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, Pope Francis also called the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants “abominable” and again...

Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas on Thursday night as soldiers uncovered anddestroyed rocket launchers and other weapons, the Israel Defence Forces said on Fridaymorning. In the central Gaza village of Jahar al-Dikh, troops located a Hamas weapons warehouse.Soldiers also spotted rocket launchers that had been used to fire rockets at Israel inprevious days. The launchers were destroyed in an...

On China’s snowy border with Russia, a dealership that sells trucks has seen its sales double in the past year thanks to Russian customers. China’s exports to its neighbour are so strong that Chinese construction workers built warehouses and 20-storey office towers at the border this summer.The border town Heihe is a microcosm of China’s ever closer economic relationship with Russia....

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Pyongyang will not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if “provoked with nukes”, state media said Thursday, while Seoul and its allies called for “dialogue without preconditions”. Kim’s comments follow a meeting between South Korea and the United States last week in Washington, where they discussed nuclear deterrence in the event of conflict...

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has once again lauded India and said that the countries around have reached the moon but Pakistan has still ‘not risen’ from the earth. The former Pakistan PM was addressing PML-N cadre in Islamabad on Wednesday. Pointing out the dire economic situation of the country, the Pakistan Muslim League_ Nawaz (PML-N) supremo asserted that...

The US has deepened its partnership with India in 2023 and elevated cooperation with it through the Quad along with Japan and Australia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said. Blinken’s remarks came at his end-of-year press availability at the State Department in Washington on Wednesday. “We’ve deepened our partnership with India. We’ve elevated cooperation through the Quad with...