World

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire businessman who created Italy’s largest media company before transforming the political landscape, has died on Monday, according to sources.

Berlusconi, who was 86, had been suffering from leukaemia “for some time” and had recently developed a lung infection.

Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition, and although he himself did not have a role in government, his death is likely to destabilise Italian politics in the coming months.

Source – Reuters

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, 42, announces she will step down next month after 6 years. Ardern said she doesn't have the energy to continue and will step down before February 7. Elections are not due until October of this year.

"The decision was my own. Leading a country is the most priviledged job anyone could have, but also the most challenging. You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank, plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges. I no longer have enough in the tank," she said.

Ardern became one of the youngest world leaders when she was elected in 2017 at 37 years, New Zealand's third woman PM. Within a year she had given birth, only the second world leader to ever do so. She won re-election in 2020.

Elections are scheduled for October 14, 2023. But Ardern said she would step down before February 7 and a new PM would be sworn in from her Labour Party. This would allow her party to prepare for the polls with a new leader in place well in advance.

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned from Parliament late Friday after an investigation found that he had lied to a parliamentary committee inquiring into 'Partygate' - parties that he had hosted during the COVID lockdown period in contravention of public health requirements.

Johnson was given an advance copy of the report by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee that is to be released publicly next week. The committee found that he lied to them during the inquiry, and 'impugned the integrity' of the House of Commons.

Johnson admitted misleading parliament but said he did not do it on purpose. He accused the committee of a witchhunt against him.

Following media revelations, he was accused of hosting several parties at 10, Downing Street, the PM's official residence, in contravention of COVID lockdown rules. He was then fined by public health authorities for these transgressions. He admitted to hosting the parties but claimed that social distancing rules were followed.

Johnson has been an MP from the Tory Party and was Prime Minister from 2019-2022. He was an MP for Henley from 2001-08, and again from 2015-222 for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

An explosion on one of Istanbul’s most popular pedestrian thoroughfares killed four people and injured 38 on Sunday, authorities said.

The cause of the blast on Istiklal Avenue was not immediately clear. Five prosecutors were assigned to investigate the explosion, state-run Anadolu news agency said.

A video posted online showed flames erupting and a loud bang, as pedestrians turned and ran away. Other footage showed ambulances, fire trucks and police at the scene. Social media users said shops were shuttered and the avenue closed down.

Turkey’s media watchdog imposed a temporary ban on reporting on the explosion — a move that prevents broadcasters from showing videos of the moment of the blast or its aftermath. The Supreme Council of Radio and Television has imposed similar bans in the past, following attacks and accidents.

Istanbul Gov. Ali Yerlikaya tweeted the death toll and said those hurt were being treated.

Turkey was hit by a string of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017 by the Islamic State group and outlawed Kurdish groups.

Source: AP

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been arrested during a court appearance in the capital Islamabad.

Fawad Chaudhry of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party confirmed the arrest in a tweet on Tuesday.

Chaudhry tweeted that the Islamabad High Court complex has been “occupied” by the Pakistani Rangers paramilitary and that lawyers were “being subjected to torture”.

Video footage on local media showed Khan being escorted to a Rangers vehicle.

In a tweet, PTI said the Rangers have “abducted” Khan.

“Pakistan’s brave people must come out and defend their country,” the party posted. (AL Jazeera)

A magnitude-5.4 earthquake occurred in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan, at around 07:55 on Monday.

The epicenter was about 32 km (20 miles) east-northeast of Jurm. The tremor occurred at a depth of about 103 km (64 miles), and light shaking was probably felt throughout parts of northeastern Afghanistan, southern and central Tajikistan, and far northern Pakistan.

There have been no initial reports of damage or casualties as a result of the earthquake. Minor damage to unstable structures is possible near the epicenter, including in Jurm. It could take several hours until authorities can conduct comprehensive damage assessments, especially in remote areas.

Light aftershocks are likely over the coming days.

Source – MEHR News Agency

Following a gas leak in northern India, at least 11 people have died.

Among those killed in the port city of Ludhiana in the Punjab province were women and children. Numerous people were discovered unconscious in their homes.

After numerous people reported breathing problems, the area was shut off and the residents were evacuated. Four people are receiving treatment.`

So far, it is unclear where the leak is coming from. According an official, manholes may have been the source of the gas leak.

Surabhi Malik, the deputy commissioner of Ludhiana, is quoted by foreign media, "We are going to collect samples from manholes. Methane and some chemical presumably reacted with one another in manholes.

Locallegislator, Rajinder Pal Kaur Chhina told foreign media that the event took place close to a milk store. People who came in the morning to buy milk collapsed outside, she claimed.

Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken notice of and “severely condemned” the firing incident at Imran Khan’s long march container in Wazirabad.

He has instructed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to seek an immediate report on the incident from the IGP and chief secretary Punjab, according to a tweet from the Government of Pakistan’s official Twitter account.

After a man opened fire at PTI chairman Imran Khan to injure him in Gujranwala, party leader Shahbaz Gill said that "Imran Khan is our red line and an attempt has been made to cross that red line."

He also said that Khan will fight till his last breath.

Following the incident, the PTI chairman has been shifted to a hospital. Meanwhile, rescue sources told Geo News that four to five PTI leaders have sustained injuries.

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo surrendered to authorities in the United States on Friday and will be extradited back to Peru to face corruption charges, U.S. media reported.

Toledo, 77, is charged with accepting bribes of $20 million from a Brazilian construction company during his tenure from 2001-06. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

He fled to the U.S. several years ago. But in 2018 Peru formally requested his extradition and a U.S. court placed him under house arrest.

Since then he has had to wear an ankle monitor and lived in a house in California.

His lawyers argued that his life would be at risk if he were sent back to Peru. But a judge in Northern California deemed otherwise and ordered his extradition.

Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister after just 45 days in office.

The announcement, made by Truss outside Downing Street, follows the near-complete evaporation of her political authority which has seen her crash the markets, lose two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs.

Truss will be the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history.

China has reacted angrily after U.S. Air Force jets shot down a Chinese balloon on Saturday that the U.S. believes was on a mission to spy on U.S. military sites in the continental United States.

Three F22 jets from the air force base in Langley, Virginia chased down the balloon and shot it down with a single Sidewinder missile strike after it had crossed the coast of the state of South Carolina and was over the Atlantic Ocean over U.S. territorial waters. Three airports in South Carolina were closed down prior to the interception, in order to ensure that civilian aircraft were not endangered.

U.S. TV networks showed the downing live at 2:40 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time.

The balloon, which China says was a privately owned research project, but which the U.S. government believes was on a spying mission, was first spotted over the state of Montana last Wednesday, having drifted in from over Canada. President Joe Biden wanted it shot down immediately but Pentagon military commanders were cautious that debris from the balloon, which was as large as three school busses, would endanger people on the ground.

The debris landed off the resort town of Myrtle Beach in about 14m of water and defense officials are attempting to recover it.

The balloon caused a diplomatic incident with Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceling a long-awaited visit to China scheduled for Feb. 5-6. It had entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28 and flew over Alaska and Canada before reaching Montana and drifting across several states of the U.S.

China’s Foreign Ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction and protest against the use of force to attack a civilian unmanned aircraft”.

Meanwhile, a second suspected Chinese balloon is being tracked over South America after it entered the airspace of Costa Rica, Venezuela and Colombia, the Colombian Air Force said.

A court in military-run Myanmar has sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s deposed former leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to three additional years in jail for corruption, a source familiar with the case told CNN, extending her total prison term to 26 years.

Wednesday’s verdict is the latest in a string of punishments meted out against the 77-year-old, a figurehead of opposition to decades of military rule who led Myanmar for five years before being forced from power in a coup in early 2021.

Suu Kyi was found guilty of receiving $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon, a charge she denied, according to the source. Her lawyers have said the series of crimes levelled against her are politically motivated.

Suu Kyi is currently being held in solitary confinement at a prison in the capital Naypyidaw.

Last month, Suu Kyi was found guilty of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, in a trial related to the November 2020 general election that her National League for Democracy won in a landslide, defeating a party created by the military.

It was the first time Suu Kyi had been sentenced to hard labor since the 2021 military coup. She was given the same punishment in a separate trial under a previous administration in 2009 but that sentence was commuted.

Suu Kyi has also previously been found guilty of offenses ranging from graft to election violations.

Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concerns about the punishment of pro-democracy activists in the country since the military seized power.

Last week, a military court in Myanmar sentenced a Japanese journalist to 10 years in prison for sedition and violating a law on electronic communications after he filmed an anti-government protest in July, a Japanese diplomat said.

Toru Kubota, 26, was arrested by plainclothes police in Yangon, where he was filming a documentary that he had been working on for several years, according to a Change.org petition calling for his release.

In July, the military junta executed two prominent pro-democracy activists and two other men accused of terrorism, following a trial condemned by the UN and rights groups.

Source - CNN