Posts

Dissident says Nobel Prize 'saved' him

Hours after being freed from a Belarusian prison under a US deal, dissident Ales Bialiatski vowed to continue his fight for democracy from exile and told AFP his Nobel Peace Prize saved him from the worst treatment in prison. Imprisoned in 2021 and kept largely in isolation since 2023, Bialiatski also called on the EU to enter talks with the Minsk regime to free hundreds of other political prisoners. Bialiatski -- who spent decades documenting rights abuses in Belarus and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 while in custody — spoke to AFP in an exclusive interview on Sunday in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius following his transfer there after his release. A day earlier, the 63-year-old was woken up in prison at 4:00 am, with security services bandaging his eyes and driving him across the country to the Lithuanian border. He was one of more than 120 political prisoners freed under the deal. The Nobel prize — which he said he shares with the whole of Belarusian civil society —...

Over 10 dead after school bus accident in Colombia

At least 10 people were killed and 20 others injured after a school bus carrying students plunged into an 80-metre-deep ravine in northern Colombia on Sunday. The bus was returning from a school trip on the Caribbean coast to Medellín when it veered off the road in a rural area near Segovia. Read More: 11 killed, dozen injured in shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach The victims were mainly students from Antioqueño High School, aged 16 to 18. Local hospitals were mobilized to treat the injured. The governor of Antioquia, Andrés Julián, described the incident as a tragic day for the region and confirmed that the cause of the accident is under investigation. Reports indicate around 40 passengers were on board. Media sources have cited at least 16 fatalities, though official numbers currently confirm over 10 dead. Authorities are probing what led the bus to leave the road. from Latest World News, International News | Breaking World News https://ift.tt/lSdMEpc via IFTTT

Trump vows to retaliate IS attack

Two American troops and a civilian interpreter were killed in central Syria on Saturday after an alleged member of the Islamic State group opened fire on a joint US-Syrian patrol, officials said. US CENTCOM announced the deaths on X after Syria's state media earlier reported an attack in the city of Palmyra had wounded American and Syrian troops. "An ambush by a lone ISIS gunman" resulted in the three Americans' deaths as well as injuries to three additional troops, said CENTCOM, which oversees the US military in the Middle East. "The gunman was engaged and killed," it said. President Donald Trump said the United States would retaliate. "We will retaliate," Trump told reporters outside the White House, adding just afterwards on his Truth Social platform that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was "extremely angry and disturbed by this attack." Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the attack occurred as the soldiers "were conducting a k...

Two US troops, civilian killed in ISIS ambush in central Syria

Two US Army soldiers and an American civilian interpreter were killed in an ambush by an Islamic State (ISIS) gunman in central Syria on Saturday, the Pentagon said, marking the first deadly attack on US forces since Syria’s political transition late last year. The attack took place in the ancient city of Palmyra, where US troops were supporting counterterrorism operations. Three other people were wounded, according to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the assailant was later killed by partner forces. The savage who perpetrated this attack was killed by partner forces. Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you. https://t.co/P7D9NrWpAL — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) December 13, 2025 US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the casualties resulted from “an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman,” adding that ...

Crypto mogul Do Kwon gets 15 years in jail

A US court sentenced cryptocurrency tycoon Do Kwon to 15 years in prison Thursday over fraud linked to his company's failure, which wiped out $40 billion of investors' money and shook global crypto markets. Kwon, who nurtured two digital currencies central to the bankruptcy, was sentenced at the New York court where he pleaded guilty in August after an international manhunt spanning Asia and Europe. He still faces fraud charges in his native South Korea. The 34-year-old's Terraform Labs created a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD that was marketed as a "stablecoin," a token that is pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations. Kwon successfully marketed them as the next big thing in crypto, attracting billions in investments and global hype. He was flooded with praise in South Korean media, which described him as a "genius" as thousands of private investors lined up to pour cash into his company. And in 2019, Kwon featured i...

Canada introduces 14-day fast-track work permits for foreign doctors

In a major push to tackle nationwide healthcare shortages, Canada has rolled out a fast-track immigration pathway that will grant eligible foreign doctors a work permit in as little as 14 days, according to UAE's Gulf News. The measure, announced by Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab and Parliamentary Secretary to the Health Minister Maggie Chi, aims to draw more international medical professionals into the country’s strained healthcare system. Under the new policy, physicians who secure a provincial or territorial nomination along with a job offer will qualify for the accelerated processing. The streamlined permit will allow them to begin — or continue — working while their permanent residence applications are reviewed. The federal government has also set aside 5,000 additional permanent residency slots for licensed doctors, supplementing existing allocations under the Provincial Nominee Program. Officials say the move is designed to retain “practice-ready” physicians already ...

Time names 'Architects of AI' Person of the Year

Time magazine named the "Architects of AI" as its Person of the Year on Thursday, highlighting the US tech titans whose work on cutting-edge artificial intelligence is transforming humanity. Nvidia's Jensen Huang, OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk are among the innovators who have "grabbed the wheel of history, developing technology and making decisions that are reshaping the information landscape, the climate, and our livelihoods," Time wrote. One of two covers of the magazine is a homage to the famous 1932 photograph of ironworkers casually eating lunch on a steel beam above New York City. In the Time illustration, sitting astride the city are Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, AMD chief Lisa Su, Musk, Huang, Altman as well as Google's AI boss Demis Hassabis, Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li. "Racing both beside and against each other, they placed multibillion-dollar bets on one of the biggest physical infrastructu...