World

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Ju Ae have opened what state media calls an "attractive mountainous tourist resort and leisure ground for the people." According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), five luxury hotels have opened their doors in Samjiyon, a remote northern city near China. Pyongyang promoted its latest luxury hotels, featuring amenities such as barbecue restaurants, hot tubs and leisure spaces, despite widespread economic hardship across the country. Kim toured bedrooms and other facilities at new hotels Kim, who attended the ceremonies on Saturday, declared the resort "clear proof of the rising status of our people," despite the hardships most North Koreans endure. He personally inspected the facilities, even testing the firmness of the ...

The United States on Wednesday announced an arms sales package worth $11.1 billion (€9.45 billion) for Taiwan, making it the largest ever US weapons package for the island. The State Department announced the arms sales package as US President Donald Trump made a televised address. The move is likely to irk China which claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The arms deal comes after Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung made a low-profile trip to the Washington-area last week, which was reported by Taiwanese and Asian media.  The US State Department said the sales serve "US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability." What does the arms sales package include? The a...

Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vucic, has long been accused of exercising total control over the Western Balkan country. Now, he has declared that he will personally file criminal charges against everyone he accuses of the "economic sabotage of Serbia." This was prompted by news from the United States that Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and close confidant of US President Donald Trump, has canceled a huge, much-vaunted planned investment in Belgrade. Kushner proposed redeveloping the site of the Yugoslav army's former General Staff building and replacing it with luxury apartments, a hotel and a casino. Serbia's government had backed the project and offered him a 99-year lease. The building, which was the military and defense headquarters of Yugoslavia, was badly damaged by NATO airstrikes...

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday promised to introduce measures aimed at banishing what he called "the evil scourge" of antisemitism from his country. The pledge comes after Sunday's deadly shooting at a Jewish festival at Sydney's iconic Bondi Beach. The attack on the celebration for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah killed 15 people, with one of the father-son gunmen also shot dead.Hundreds of mourners gathered at a funeral in Sydney for a 10-year-old girl who was gunned down in the Bondi Beach attackImage: Saeed Khan/AFP Albanese's remarks come as his government faces renewed allegations of having done too little to combat antisemitism in the past years. Australia has seen a marked rise in antisemitic incidents since the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israe...

Argentina soccer superstar Lionel Messi arrived Saturday in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, as large crowds of jubilant fans gathered at the airport and lined the streets in the city to welcome him. Indian news agency ANI said the soccer player, considered the greatest of his generation, was escorted out of the airport via an alternative route because an overwhelming number of people turned out at the airport to catch a glimpse of him. Messi is visiting India as part of what's billed as his "GOAT (greatest of all time) Tour" and is set to tour four cities in total: Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi. Messi visited Kolkata, the former capital of British-ruled India, for the first time in 2011.  This time, the soccer-mad city built a 70-foot-tall statue to mark his visit. The...

Argentina football star Lionel Messi's much-anticipated visit to India, as part of what's billed as his "GOAT (greatest of all time) Tour," has generated great excitement. Messi, who just won Major League Soccer's Most Valuable Player award for the second season in a row, last visited India in 2011, when Argentina faced Venezuela in an international friendly in Kolkata, India's footballing heartland. After kicking off his four-city visit in Kolkata on Saturday, Messi is scheduled to visit the southern city of Hyderabad and Mumbai before concluding the tour in New Delhi on Monday, where the 2022 World Cup winner is to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Among the highlights of his stop in Kolkata, Messi is to inaugurate the world's largest statue of himself, a towering 70-foot (21.3 meter...

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Saturday that his country would keep up military strikes on Cambodia until it no longer felt under threat from its neighbor, telling local media there was no ceasefire in place. Anutin wrote on Facebook that Thailand would "continue to perform military actions until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people," after telling reporters it was Cambodia that should first stop its attacks. "I want to make it clear. Our actions this morning already spoke," he said. The recent cross-border clashes, which come after a long-running territorial dispute reignited this year, have displaced more than 500,000 people and killed more than 20 people, including several civilians, with hundreds more wounded, officials say. Anutin's statements c...

Presidential elections in Ukraine have once again become a much discussed topic since US President Donald Trump reproached his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not holding the vote. "They're using war not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people... should have that choice. And maybe Zelenskyy would win,” Trump said in a recent interview with the media outlet Politico, adding it was time for Ukraine to hold a vote since "they haven't had an election in a long time." He said it was even getting to a "point where it's not a democracy anymore." Russia's missile and drone strikes on Ukraine have not let up despite peace talksImage: Valentyn Ogirenko/REUTERS Zelenskyy: Ukraine will hold elections if conditions are safe Zelenskyy responded to Trump's remarks by...

Russia's war against Ukraine is increasingly affecting the countries of central and southeast Europe. Russian drones and missiles violating the continent's airspace have become commonplace, especially in Poland, the Republic of Moldova and Romania. Drones have exploded several times in southeastern Romania, forcing some villagers to be evacuated. It appears Russia is deliberately directing drones at Ukraine's neighbors, as recent incidents in Moldova and Romania have shown. Now, for the first time, Moldova's energy grid has been impacted by a massive Russian attack on energy facilities in Ukraine. In the early hours of last Saturday (December 6), Russia struck Ukraine with more than 700 drones and missiles, damaging and destroying power plants throughout the country, among other things, a...