Ukraine war: Putin orders 36-hour ceasefire over Orthodox Christmas
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his defence minister to impose a 36-hour ceasefire on the Ukrainian frontline, beginning on Friday.
The ceasefire, scheduled to start at 12:00 Moscow time (09:00 GMT), will coincide with the Russian Orthodox Christmas.
Putin asked Ukraine to reciprocate, but Kyiv immediately rejected the request.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said: "Keep hypocrisy to yourself."
Mr Putin's order followed an appeal from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, on Thursday morning.
Israeli government plan to limit judicial powers sharply criticised
Grave concerns over Netanyahu coalition’s plan to invalidate supreme court decisions with simple majority
Ben Lynfield in Jerusalem
Civil liberties and human rights advocates have expressed grave concerns about a plan by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Israeli government to limit the power of the judiciary, saying it will encourage authoritarianism and put minority rights in imminent danger.
“If they succeed, it’s a different system, a different Israel,” said Dan Meridor, a former justice minister, stressing that in the absence of a constitution, the country’s courts serve to protect people from “being at the mercy of the governing majority”.
Under the plan, announced late on Wednesday by the current justice minister Yariv Levin, parliament would have the power to invalidate supreme court decisions with a majority vote of its 120 members. In effect this would grant Netanyahu, who commands a 64-seat coalition including ultra-Orthodox and anti-Arab legislators, an easy way of overriding the court and, critics warn, pushing through radical legislation.
Ales Bialiatski: Belarus begins trial of Nobel Prize winner
Bialiatski faces a sentence of up to 12 years on the charges of smuggling money to fund opposition activities. He was arrested in 2021 amid widespread demonstrations against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Imprisoned human rights activist and Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski went on trial in Belarus on Thursday, with allies viewing the proceedings as a government attempt to quell dissent.
Sixty-year-old Bialiatski founded Viasna, the country's most prominent human rights organization. He was given the Nobel Prize in October in absentia for his work, along with Russian human rights organization Memorial and Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.
M23 rebels' vow to retreat at odds with hazy reality in DR Congo
M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo this week promised to retreat from a strategic position even as they conquered territories elsewhere, throwing confusion over the future direction of a year-long conflict.
A Tutsi-led group, the M23 has conquered swaths of territory in North Kivu province in recent months and advanced towards its capital Goma.
It first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it captured Goma, a city of more than one million people, before being driven out and going to ground the following year.
China to open border with Hong Kong after three years of tight control
The Chinese government announced on Thursday that it will reopen its border with Hong Kong on January 8, nearly three years after it was largely shut in an effort to contain the spread of Covid.
Up to 60,000 Hong Kong residents will be able to cross the border into the mainland as a gradual reopening of border control points begins, Hong Kong leader John Lee told media on Thursday following an announcement from Beijing.
The shift would will eliminate what had been a mandatory quarantine for travelers from Hong Kong to the mainland. All travelers will be required to test negative for Covid via a PCR test within 48 hours of crossing, and passenger quotas apply to travel in both directions.
Tuna fetches ¥36.04 mil at New Year auction in Tokyo
A bluefin tuna fetched 36.04 million yen ($273,000) on Thursday at the New Year's auction at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market, more than double the top price last year, as the restaurant and food industries look to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
The price paid for the 212-kilogram fish caught by a vessel operating out of a port in Oma, Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, exceeded last year's top price for a tuna of 16.88 million yen and is the sixth highest since comparable data became available in 1999.
Tokyo-based intermediate wholesaler Yamayuki and the company operating the restaurant Sushi Ginza Onodera jointly won the bid held at one of Tokyo's most popular tourist attractions.
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