Ukraine says energy sector 'under massive enemy attack'

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  • China's Xi is likely to decline Trump's inauguration invitation, seeing it as too risky to attend

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping would likely see President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to attend his inauguration as too risky to accept, and the gesture from Trump may have little bearing on the increasingly competitive ties between the two nations as the White House changes hands, experts say. Trump’s incoming press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed on Thursday that Trump extended an invitation to the Jan. 20 ceremony.

  • Gingrich: Xi attending Trump inauguration would be ‘signal to the planet’

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) responded to President-elect Trump’s invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend Inauguration Day in January, saying his acceptance would send a global “signal.” “Look, I think Trump believes in constant offense, constant momentum, keeping things going forward,” Gingrich told Fox New’s Jesse Watters in an interview Wednesday. “I…

  • Trump Has Invited China’s Xi Jinping to Inauguration: Report

    President-elect Donald Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration in January, multiple sources told CBS News on Wednesday. The president-elect reportedly sent the invite to the leader of China, a nation he has threatened with tariffs for months, shortly after his electoral victory in November, the sources told the network. It is unclear if the Chinese government has accepted the invite, and the Chinese Embassy has not commented on the invitation. A Chinese head of stat

  • Bill Clinton says he’s open to talking to Biden about preemptive pardon for Hillary Clinton

    Former President Clinton said he is open to having a conversation with President Biden about a potential preemptive pardon for his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton joined “The View” on Wednesday, where he was discussing President-elect Trump taking office early next year and the threat of him going after political enemies…

  • Russia threatens to retaliate after Ukrainian ATACMS strike in Rostov

    Moscow on Wednesday accused Kyiv of firing US-supplied ATACAMS missiles on a military airfield in its southern Rostov region and threatened to retaliate. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's "destructive" approach made peace impossible. Russia on Wednesday vowed retribution against Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of firing Western-supplied missiles on a military airfield in its southern Rostov region.President Vladimir Putin has previously threatened to launch a hypersonic ballistic missi

  • Biden commutes 1,500 sentences and issues 39 pardons in biggest single-day act of clemency in history

    ‘America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,’ Biden said in a statement

  • Russian missile scientist ‘assassinated by Ukrainian special forces’

    A Russian scientist known for developing cruise missiles has been found shot dead in a snowy wooded area near Moscow.

  • Ford threatens to cut off Ontario's energy supply to U.S. if Trump follows through on tariffs

    Premier Doug Ford says Ontario could cut off energy to the U.S. if president-elect Donald Trump makes good on a threat to impose steep tariffs on Canadian goods.Ford told reporters at Queen's Park that federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will put together a list of items upon which Canada could impose retaliatory tariffs and so will the Ontario government."We will go to the full extent depending how far this goes. We will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michiga

  • Syria rebels burn tomb of Bashar al-Assad's father

    Armed men are seen celebrating in Hafez al-Assad's burning mausoleum in the family's hometown.

  • Video points to Assad regime’s involvement in large-scale trafficking of illicit drugs

    Social media video surfaced Wednesday allegedly showing a warehouse in Syria stacked with captagon, an illicit drug that had transformed the country into a narco-state under former President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

  • Syrian rebel leader says he will dissolve toppled regime forces, close prisons

    Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani - told Reuters in a written statement on Wednesday that he would dissolve the security forces of the toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad. His forces swept across Syria in a lightning offensive that overthrew 50 years of Assad family rule, replacing it with a three-month transitional government of ministers that had been ruling a rebel enclave in Syria's northwest. The military command affiliated with his group, which is known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, already said they would grant an amnesty to military conscripts.

  • Net closing in on South Korea's president as MPs get death threats over impeachment vote

    Yoon Suk Yeol - whose attempt to impose martial law backfired - faces another vote in parliament this weekend.

  • A Syrian soldier's story: Why Assad's army didn't fight for him

    STORY: Just weeks ago, Farhan al-Khouli was manning a military outpost in Idlib, northern Syria, for Bashar al-Assad's army.The story of his desertion - one of many - shows how Assad's army crumbled as the rebels advanced.Khouli's commanding officer called to say a rebel convoy was heading their way.They were just three men, badly paid and demoralized, one deemed unfit by his superiors to bear arms.They were meant to be nine but others had bribed their way out.They should stand and fight, the officer said.Instead Khouli put his phone on airplane mode, changed into civilian clothes, dropped his rifle and fled.Ending up in Damascus, now taken by the rebels, where he got this job at a horse stable.On the road he saw other groups of deserting soldiers.“Those who were with me in the room, I no longer know anything about them. Everyone went in a different way, some went this way, others went that way. I wanted to reach the highway, because if I reached the highway, I would no longer worry. I reach Hama, I reach Homs, I have no problem. I saw all the people gathering. It was over, they fled, the whole area was gone. I said praise be to God, I am here, by God Almighty, when they said that the whole area had fallen, I started to cry with joy.":: November 29, 2024Reuters spoke to a dozen sources, including Syrian military and security sources and allied militia commanders. As Aleppo came under attack in late November, army units were not given a clear plan but were told to work it out for themselves, two Syrian security sources said. Within two weeks, the rebels had toppled Assad's brutal regime. His army lacked leadership and a defense strategy, the sources said, and had lost much of its command structure - the Iranian military advisors and militia allies such as Hezbollah - who'd left as war with Israel escalated.The army also lacked loyalty, as Khouli's story describes.Khouli didn't want to sign up but says he was forced to. He ended up at that remote post in Idlib because he'd tried to desert once and been jailed for it.One former major told Reuters the use of forced conscripts was a "fatal mistake." Khouli says he had to do heavy manual labor in extreme heat and cold.Reuters was not able to verify the details of his experiences.He says he was paid $40 a month and went hungry.“We used to get sugar, and we used to get ghee, and we used to get oil, but it all went away, it used to get stolen, and we wouldn't see any of it. What we received was a pot of bulgar wheat, mostly bulgar, I mean, we used to go 4 or 5 days with only bulgar, and each person had a pinch of tomato and potato. Each person received his portion, I mean, it wasn’t enough to fill you up.”:: North Hama, Syria:: Released December 1, 2024In 2020, the army had 130,000 personnel, according to the IISS think tank, depleted by the long civil war and functioning more like a militia.A U.S. official told Reuters Washington was learning of high-level desertions and military forces changing sides in the days before Assad fell.Corruption went up through the ranks.Colonel Makhlouf Makhlouf served in an engineering brigade stationed in Hama but deserted before the city fell on December 5.He said if anyone complained about corruption they were questioned at a military court, which happened to him more than once. A serving senior military intelligence officer told Reuters anger had been building against Assad personally within the military, especially over the past year......including among core high-ranking supporters from his minority Alawite community.Despite his army past, Khouli says he has no fear for the future. "I'm happy and at ease," he says. "I'm not afraid at all."

  • Taliban minister and member of powerful Haqqani family killed in Kabul bombing

    At least three of Haqqani’s bodyguards were also killed and eight others wounded in the suicide bombing claimed by Isis, officials say

  • These Are the 25 Richest Families in the World for 2024

    Leading the pack is the Walton family, who founded Walmart and have a combined net worth of $432.4 billion.

  • Russian Foreign Ministry says Moscow is not willing to make concessions on Ukraine

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Moscow was not ready to make concessions when it came to Ukraine and that President Vladimir Putin's own proposals on how to end the conflict needed to be implemented. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made her comments in the context of a call by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end "the madness." Zakharova said Russia was ready to engage with the new U.S. administration on Ukraine, but had not yet received any serious, workable options to address what she said were Russia's legitimate security concerns and worries about the rights of Ukraine's Russian-speaking population.

  • Trump trade adviser warns against currency manipulation as China mulls weaker yuan

    A top trade adviser to President-elect Donald Trump told Reuters on Thursday that the new administration would not look "fondly" on any attempt by China to manipulate its currency, responding to a Reuters report that authorities there were considering allowing the yuan to weaken next year. Peter Navarro, Trump's incoming senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said the White House would not interfere with the Treasury Department's biannual review looking in to whether foreign trade partners are manipulating their currencies.

  • South Korea's Yoon vows to fight 'until the very last minute'

    South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed on Thursday to fight "until the very last minute" in a defiant address defending his shock decision to declare martial law and deploy troops to the country's parliament last week.Yoon, staring down an impeachment vote in parliament on Saturday, vowed to "fight with the people until the very last minute".

  • Trump’s border czar reveals which city is first for mass deportations

    Tom Homan told Democratic officials to ‘get the hell out of the way’ of his sweeping anti-immigrant agenda

  • South Korea’s ruling party backs impeachment as president refuses to step down over martial law

    South Korea’s ruling party has thrown its support behind attempts to impeach embattled President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated decision to declare martial law that sparked a political crisis and widespread public anger in the country.