SRI LANKA
Prisoners granted amnesty
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has granted amnesty to more than 1,000 convicts and released them from jails across the country to mark Christmas, a prisons official said yesterday. Among the 1,004 freed were those jailed for not being able to pay outstanding fines, Prison Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake said. A similar number of convicts were freed in May to mark Vesak, which celebrates the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. The latest pardon came after police arrested nearly 15,000 people during a week-long military-backed anti-narcotics drive that was halted on Christmas Eve.
CHINA
Beijing coldest in 70 years
Beijing recorded the most hours of subfreezing temperatures this month in more than seven decades as a cold wave has enveloped northern and central swathes of the country, bringing snowstorms and record-breaking temperatures. A weather observatory in the capital as of Sunday had recorded more than 300 hours of subfreezing temperatures since Dec. 11 — the most since records began, in 1951, the official newspaper Beijing Daily reported. The city experienced nine consecutive days with temperatures below minus-10°C, the paper added. Temperatures at 78 weather stations across the country hit record lows for the month of December, the National Meteorological Center said.
UNITED KINGDOM
UK to deploy ship off Guyana
The navy is to deploy a ship off Guyana later this month, the Ministry of Defence said on Sunday, as the South American nation faces a border dispute with neighbor Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region. The deployment follows a visit by a British junior foreign minister to Guyana earlier this month, intended to offer the UK’s support for the country, an ally and former British colony. Guyana and Venezuela agreed earlier this month to avoid any use of force and not to escalate tensions in the long-running dispute.
PHILIPPINES
Troops kill nine rebels
Troops yesterday killed nine communist rebels in a series of firefights, about a month after the two sides agreed to resume peace talks, the armed forces said. The fighting occurred in four remote villages near the southern city of Malaybalay, a military statement said, at the start of a two-day unilateral Christmas truce declared by the Communist Party and its armed wing, the New People’s Army. The military’s Fourth Infantry Division did not immediately release details of the Malaybalay clashes.
UNITED KINGDOM
Secretary sorry for wife joke
Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly on Sunday apologized after he was reported to have joked about spiking his wife’s drink with a sedative known for its use as a date-rape drug. The Sunday Mirror tabloid reported that Cleverly, one of the most senior ministers in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government, had joked to female guests at an event this month that “a little bit” of the drug in his wife’s drink was “not really illegal.” He reportedly joked that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realize there are better men out there.” “In what was always understood as a private conversation James, the Home Secretary tackling spiking, made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke — for which he apologizes,” a spokesperson for Cleverly said in a statement.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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