Category: World

As the world looks ahead to 2025, a group of young Afghan women brave great personal risk to share their hopes and dreams for the new year, one they’d love to live free from Taliban rule.

Afghan women’s wishes for 2025Young women living under oppressive Taliban rule in Afghanistan have dared to share their hopes and fears for 2025, which range from an end to “gender apartheid”, to simply going for a walk in the park.

The five women in their twenties have all had their studies or careers interrupted since the Taliban seized control in 2021 and aggressively cracked down on women’s rights.

“My wish for 2025, is to have a life free from the Taliban flag,” one woman says in a recorded video message, sent covertly to our special correspondent Alex Crawford.

“This is not only my wish, but the wish of all Afghan women.”

A second woman hopes “women in Afghanistan will be recognised as human beings”, and another dreams of being able to go “to the park, to the playground and to the beauty salons”.

The women, who are aspiring journalists, writers, lawyers and teachers, all spoke anonymously over fears they would be punished in a country that violently curbs freedom of expression and recently banned contact with foreigners.

All are now largely confined to their homes.

The Islamic fundamentalist group has already excluded women from higher education and most jobs, and forbidden them from speaking or showing their faces in public.

On Saturday, it banned windows in new buildings that look into places where a woman might be seen.

And on Sunday it said it would close any NGOs still employing women, two years after it told them to stop Afghan females working for them, allegedly because they did not wear the Islamic headscarf correctly.

In the highly personal recordings, the women say they want to “learn again” and “walk on the streets without any fear” – and hope the International Criminal Court will prosecute members of the Taliban.

One says despite their “difficult” circumstances, Afghan women “still have hopes and still have dreams”.

“When I see the birds flying in the air, I stare at them and think so deeply [about] how lucky they are,” she says.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/a-life-free-from-the-taliban-and-gender-apartheid-how-afghan-women-dream-big-for-2025-13282160

Several New Year’s Eve events are cancelled across the UK, with almost every part of the country covered by at least one weather warning over Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday evening the Met Office issued a fresh amber warning for rain in the northwest, where more than 100mm could fall.

The seafront at Scarborough. Pic: PAA new amber warning for heavy rain has been issued for parts of England this evening, as wet and windy weather elsewhere in the country forced the cancellation of New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Outdoor events planned for 31 December as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will not take place, and events on the 30th were also cancelled.

A spokesperson said events in the city centre of the Scottish capital, including fireworks from the castle, are unable to go ahead “on the grounds of public safety” due to “high winds and inclement weather”.

Meanwhile, organisers of a planned fireworks display in Blackpool said it has also been cancelled due to the weather.

Visit Blackpool said only the pyrotechnics have been affected, with the rest of the New Year’s Eve Family Party to continue as planned, including free ice skating and a projection light show.

More bad news came on Tuesday evening when the Met Office issued an amber warning for rain over an area from Preston to Bradford. It is in place as of 8.38pm on Tuesday evening until 9am on Wednesday morning.

“Persistent and, at times heavy, rain will continue overnight before clearing southwards on Wednesday morning,” the forecaster said.

“40-50mm rain is expected fairly widely, with 50-100mm across west-facing hills. There is a chance a few locations could see in excess of 100mm.”

Almost every part of the UK is covered by at least one of multiple Met Office weather warnings over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.

Another fireworks event in Ripon, North Yorkshire, also succumbed to the weather, with the council posting on Facebook that the event planned to take place in the city’s Market Square could not go ahead due to high winds.

While a homemade boat race in Poole in Dorset, a sea dip in Lyme Regis in the same south coast county, as well as fireworks displays on the Isle of Wight and on Newcastle’s Quayside, were all cancelled on Tuesday morning.

Although London’s City Hall had said it was “monitoring the weather”, mayor Sadiq Khan this evening reassured visitors the fireworks would go ahead.

London mayor Sir Sadiq told the PA news agency: “I’m really excited about the London New Year’s Eve fireworks, the biggest fireworks taking place anywhere across Europe.

“Hundreds of thousands of fireworks, great light display but also a great soundtrack tonight as well.”

Rain, wind and snow warnings

Three separate weather warnings currently cover Scotland alone for Tuesday evening, including a yellow warning for “persistent snow” over Shetland and Orkney, a yellow warning for rain and snow in the north, which could bring possible blizzard conditions, especially over high ground in Sutherland and Caithness.

A woman who died after being set on fire on the New York City subway earlier this month was identified as Debrina Kawam, 57, of Toms River, New Jersey, the New York medical examiner’s office said on Tuesday.
Kawam was identified through fingerprint analysis and her death from thermal and inhalation injuries was ruled a homicide, said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Kawam “had a brief stint in our homeless shelter system,” without giving further details.
Sebastian Zapeta, a 33-year-old Guatemalan citizen, was charged with murder and arson after allegedly lighting Kawam on fire and watching her burn to death at a subway station.
Zapeta was arrested about six hours after police say he used a lighter to ignite the clothes of Kawam who appeared to be dozing on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue stop in Brooklyn.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/woman-burned-death-new-york-subway-identified-2024-12-31/

Princess Kate Middleton admits that learning she had cancer in early 2024 was “scary.” When doctors delivered the shocking diagnosis, which she publicly announced in March, the Princess of Wales suddenly found herself “face to face” with her own mortality, she further confessed in September after completing chemotherapy, which led her to form “a new perspective on everything.”

That includes a new outlook on the deep rift that’s divided Britain’s royal family for years. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as senior working royals and moved to California in early 2020 amid increasing tensions with his relatives — whom he’s accused of leaking negative stories about him and his wife to the U.K. press in exchange for favorable media coverage for themselves — it set in motion a series of heartbreaking decisions that pushed the Duke of Sussex, 40, even further from his father, King Charles III, and brother, Prince William. But with the 76-year-old monarch still undergoing treatment nearly a year after he, too, was diagnosed with cancer, “Kate wants the family to reconcile,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style. “With the king’s health continuing to decline, there’s only so much time for that to happen. Kate is on a mission to bring Harry home.”

RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK

A lot has changed in recent months. “Kate doesn’t like waiting around for things to happen anymore. She’s learned life is too precious. She fears time is running out,” explains the source. “She’s already reached out to Harry, who was receptive. The main objective of her plan is for Harry to return to Britain and make amends with Charles.”

Interestingly, the 42-year-old chose love and empathy as the themes of her annual Christmas carol concert, which took place in London on December 6. In a letter she sent to attendees, Kate, 42, urged her guests to live “with an open heart, with love, kindness and forgiveness.” The holiday season, she explained, is about “the importance of giving and receiving empathy” and showing “how much we need each other in spite of our differences.”

The ‘city’ is made up of eccentric artists who try to live separately from the rest of the US and exist on a makeshift economy consisting of cash, water and weed

Slab City is nestled in the southeastern pocket of California’s Sonoran Desert, just 45 miles of the Mexican border.

Referred to by its residents as “the last free place in America”, the bizarre lawless stretch of land is densely populated by drug addicts, eccentrics, army veterans and hippies. Or as ‘Wizard’, the man who greets all who enter Slab City, puts it: “Everyone is 100% certifiably insane. And I mean that from a clinical perspective.”

Speaking to SPIN, Wizard added: “This is what happens when you let mentally ill people build their own playground in the desert.”

Slab City is defined as an anarcho-republic, a community of free-thinkers who seemingly operate under their own rules.

The buildings, for the most part, resemble discarded junk sculptures made of old tires, post-apocalyptic vehicles with mannequin legs and doll houses promoting conspiracy theories about Stalin’s relationship to dolphins.

Alongside these eccentric structures, people exist with no concept of private land ownership and generally tend to employ an “informal economy” based on cash, water and weed.

SPIN’s reporter notably encountered a roving group of actor/musicians called Jester Jizz, one of whose songs revolves around the catchy refrain: “Semen quality has declined by 60% since 1980 [repeat x4].”

Describing Jester Jizz’s onstage get-up, SPIN’s Jonah Gercke said: “Everyone in Jester Jizz wears clown paint and flowing robes. They play ethereal music from a boombox and perform free verse that ruminates on our cosmic origins, the chicken-or-egg question, and the decline of semen quality since 1980.”

Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/town-governed-wizard-everyone-100-34399799

In his New Year letter to the Russian leader, Kim Jong Un praised their close bilateral ties. Relations between Pyongyang and Moscow have deepened since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened their political, military, and cultural ties since Russia’s invasion of UkraineImage: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP/picture alliance

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday called Vladimir Putin his “dearest friend and comrade” in his letter to the Russian president praising the close ties between the two countries.

Kim sent New Year greetings “to the fraternal Russian people and all the service personnel of the brave Russian army on behalf of himself, the Korean people and all the service personnel of the armed forces of the DPRK,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, using an acronym of the North’s formal name.

He also expressed his readiness “to design and push ahead with new projects” after their “meaningful journey in 2024.”

North Korea’s troop deployments to Russia
In a possible reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Kim wished that 2025 would be the year “when the Russian army and people defeat neo-Nazism and achieve a great victory.”

Seoul and Washington have accused Pyongyang of sending tens of thousands of troops to help Russia fight Ukraine.

North Korean troops are experiencing mass casualties on the frontlines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Biden administration said last week.

At least 1,000 North Korean troops have either been killed or wounded last week alone in Russia’s Kursk region — where Ukrainian troops have been holding territory since this summer — White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/north-koreas-kim-calls-putin-his-dearest-friend-and-comrade/a-71188484

The hardening of the regime has been a gradual process in which the Russian leader counted on the passive loyalty of the population in exchange for a stability that his ambition has broken

The Putin era turns a quarter of a century old on Tuesday. Twenty-five years since December 31, 1999, when an exhausted Boris Yeltsin resigned and handed over the interim presidency, all the resources of the state, and the support of his oligarchs to a heavyweight of Russian espionage, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. A regime built with the passive support of a population who only wanted peace after the turbulent 1990s, but in which today the fear of being arrested reigns supreme. A nation to which Putin promised peace, but to which today hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded are returning from his war in Ukraine, the most costly in Europe since the Second World War.

Putin was an unknown figure when Yeltsin appointed him prime minister months earlier, in August 1999. The offensive he launched a month later against Chechnya boosted his popularity. The reason for the war was a series of explosions in residential buildings that ended when the local police in Ryazan discovered another basement full of explosives that, as it turned out, belonged to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB. Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russian intelligence at the time and a close adviser to Putin, said that it was “a training session.” The incident was never investigated by parliament.

“I remember us as free / but someone drank the poison / and the howling of hungry wolves / became the silence of the lambs,” sings the band Nogu Svelo!, now in exile. The hardening of Putinism was a gradual process with a tacit pact between the Kremlin and the Russian people: if you don’t meddle in politics, you will have a more or less peaceful life.

This transformation was supported for many years by the West. The first decree signed by Putin upon coming to power prohibited the prosecution of Boris Yeltsin and his entourage, who were nicknamed “The Family.”

The next step was to censor a joke. The Kremlin put pressure on the opposition channel NTV, owned by Vladimir Gusinsky, to cease the broadcast of the satirical puppet show Kukli. Putin was portrayed as “Little Zaches,” an evil elf who magically appeared to the people as a beautiful young man. Gusinsky ended up in exile and NTV in the hands of Gazprom, the state-run energy giant.

A quarter of a century later, the regime’s internal repression has surpassed the heavy-handedness of any post-Stalin Soviet leader. The independent outlet Proekt has identified at least 11,442 people tried under criminal cases and 116,000 under administrative proceedings for expressing their opinions or participating in demonstrations in Putin’s penultimate term in office (2018-2023). Of these, 5,613 citizens were tried for “extremism” or “discrediting the authorities,” compared to 3,234 similar cases recorded in the USSR from 1962 to 1985 under autocrats such as Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov.

“Our previous generation of politicians destroyed their own country in the hope that Russia would become part of the so-called civilized world,” Putin said a couple of weeks ago. But the elite of Putinism is made up of former members of Yeltsin’s bureau.

Putin headed the FSB in 1998; Sergey Kiriyenko, now in char

Riddle think tank director Anton Barbashin, speaking by phone, emphasizes the date of September 24, 2011 as a very important milestone in the Putin era. It was the day when then-president Dmitry Medvedev announced the re-nomination of Putin after the two had rotated one legislative term to get around the constitutional limit of two terms.

“That determined 2014 — the illegal annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas — and 2022, the final invasion of Ukraine,” says Barbashin. “Putin became convinced that he had to return [to power] and we saw the strengthening of authoritarianism.”

Intigam Mamedov, an Eastern Europe expert and researcher at Northumbria University, points in another telephone conversation to Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, when he said a unipolar world order was unacceptable and accused NATO of reducing mutual trust in its ongoing eastward expansion.

“That intervention was very popular in Russia; it was perceived as the return of our sovereign word to the international stage,” Intigam says.

The expert also points to the constitutional reform in 2020 as a key milestone: “The Kremlin’s great self-confidence was evident when the Basic Law was amended and the president’s mandates were restored. It suddenly became clear that in order to carry out such a serious political act, the authorities did not need any sophistication.”

That constitutional reform cleared the way for Putin to remain president until 2036 if he wishes.

Two fronts
“The Putin regime is waging war on two fronts: external and internal. Even if the hot phase of the war ends, the suppression of internal civil society will not. The system will remain the same, or become even harsher,” predicts journalist Andrey Kolesnikov, who has been declared a foreign agent by the Russian authorities.

A survey by the independent Levada polling center showed that in 2023 about a fifth of Russians “aggressively and actively” supported Putin, war, and repression, while about the same proportion opposed it. In the middle ground, a huge mass of people who are carried away by the Kremlin.

“In an attempt to explain the terrible and inexplicable, they have convinced themselves with the arguments of Putin himself and television propaganda,” Kolesnikov said in an email exchange. “They adopt a fetal position: I don’t want to see or hear anything. But this brings with it punishments and moral doubts.”

In fact, Russian opinion is very fickle: another poll from 2021, before the war, showed that 55% of the country considered relations with Ukraine to be good, while only 31% thought they were bad.

The Kremlin is trying to avoid a new forced mobilization at all costs because it would break the current social pact: no one goes to the front unless it is for money or of their own free will, but in return they must show absolute loyalty to the authorities. But the war drags on.

“We have a universal Gleichschaltung — forced or voluntary submission to the formal and informal rules of the regime. Passive conformists, their learned indifference, is the basis of the Putin system. But now they are sometimes required to join the squad of active conformists,” Kolesnikov stresses, calling on the West to be more understanding toward the opposition because it is physically impossible to protest in Russia. “We should not create any further obstacles with measures that would further consolidate the conformist majority around Putin,” Kolesnikov adds.

Mamedov agrees that support for Putin “is broad, but at the same time it can be fragile if it is based on simple conformism and loyalty to whoever is in power.” The expert believes that Putinism has failed to establish itself as an ideology. “It has not managed to create an image of the future. Instead of acting to achieve some goals in the future — as was done with communism, for example — Putinism bases its current policies on the past, nostalgia, and historical traumas.”

The philosopher Zygmunt Bauman wrote about so-called retropia, the dream of an ideal future state with nostalgia for an unreal past. The entire rhetoric of Putinism revolves around past imperial glory and “the defense of traditional values” against the “decadent” liberal West. Putin, who called the demise of the USSR “the greatest tragedy of the 20th century,” characterizes Russia as a “civilizational state.”

Source: https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-31/putin-marks-25-years-in-the-kremlin-with-ukraine-war-and-internal-authoritarianism-at-fever-pitch.html

From Sydney to Mumbai to Nairobi, communities around the world welcomed 2025 with spectacular light shows, embraces and ice plunges.

Auckland became the first major city to celebrate, as thousands thronged downtown or climbed the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point.

Countries in the South Pacific Ocean were the first to ring in the New Year, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball drop in New York’s Times Square, where revelers donning silver top hats emblazoned with “2025” gathered hours early.

Conflict muted acknowledgements of the start of 2025 in places like the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine.

Earliest fireworks
Fireworks blasted off the Sydney Harbor Bridge and across the bay. More than a million Australians and others gathered at iconic Sydney Harbor for the celebration. British pop star Robbie Williams led a singalong with the crowd.

The celebration also featured Indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land’s first people.

Asia prepares for Year of the Snake
Much of Japan shut down ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday, as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning.

The upcoming Year of the Snake in the Asian zodiac is heralded as one of rebirth — alluding to the reptile’s shedding skin. Other places in Asia will mark the Year of the Snake later, with the Lunar New Year.

In South Korea, celebrations were cut back or canceled during a period of national mourning following Sunday’s crash of a Jeju Air flight in Muan that killed 179 people.

In Thailand’s Bangkok, shopping malls competed for crowds with live musical acts and fireworks shows. A fireworks display in Indonesia’s Jakarta featured 800 drones.

China and Russia exchange goodwill
Chinese state media covered an exchange of New Year’s greetings between leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a reminder of growing closeness between two leaders who face tensions with the West.

Xi told Putin their countries will “always move forward hand in hand,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.

China has maintained ties and robust trade with Russia since the latter invaded Ukraine in 2022, helping to offset Western sanctions and attempts to isolate Putin.

Seaside celebrations and beyond

In India, thousands of revelers in the financial hub of Mumbai flocked to the city’s bustling promenade facing the Arabian Sea. In Sri Lanka, people gathered at Buddhist temples to light oil lamps and incense sticks and pray.

In Dubai, thousands attended a fireworks show at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. And in Nairobi, Kenya, scattered fireworks were heard.

A Holy Year begins

Rome’s traditional New Year’s Eve festivities have an additional draw: the start of Pope Francis’ Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration projected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to the Eternal City in 2025.

On Tuesday, Francis celebrated a vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica. During Mass on Wednesday he is expected to again appeal for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Jan. 1 is a day of obligation for Catholics, marking the Solemnity of Mary.

Paris recaptures the Olympic spirit
Paris capped a momentous 2024 with its traditional countdown and fireworks extravaganza on the Champs-Elysées. The city’s emblematic Arc de Triomphe monument was turned into a giant tableau for a light show that celebrated the city’s landmarks and the passage of time, with whirring clocks.

“Paris is a party,” proclaimed Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

The Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games hosted in the French capital from July to September had transformed the city into a site of joy, fraternity and astonishing sporting achievements.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/new-years-eve-times-square-midnight-d272e3c02dd0a0c39be1ef06634ff3f3

Alexandr Wang holds the distinction of being the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 25. His US$1 billion net worth is derived mainly from Scale AI, the start-up he co-founded in 2016. The tech platform is currently valued at US$7.3 billion.

But Wang isn’t the only one who’s making waves in the tech scene. His former co-founder, Lucy Guo, is also enjoying much-deserved recognition. Forbes recently named her as one of the richest self-made women under 40, ranking second after Kylie Jenner with an estimated net worth of US$440 million. Other stars on the list include Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Maria Sharapova and Huda Kattan.

Given this impressive feat, how did Guo crack the male-dominated world of tech, and what’s she like outside the workplace?

Her parents did not want her to pursue a tech career
According to a New York Post profile, Guo learned how to code when she was in second grade. While some parents might encourage their children to pursue what they love, this was not the case for Guo, whose parents are both electrical engineers. Her mum in particular dissuaded her from entering tech, since it is difficult for women to be successful in the field.

But this did not stop the 27-year-old tech whizz. Guo eventually studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon but dropped out to pursue a Thiel Fellowship, founded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. As per the fellowship’s website, it “gives US$100,000 to young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom”.

Australia has imposed an immediate ban on exports of alumina and aluminum ores, including bauxite, to Russia, the government said on Sunday as part of its ongoing sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia relies on Australia for nearly 20 percent of its alumina needs,” the Australian government said in a joint statement from several ministries, including the prime minister’s office. It added that the move will limit Russia’s capacity to produce aluminium, which is a critical export for Russia.

“The Government will work closely with exporters and peak bodies that will be affected by the ban to find new and expand existing markets,” the statement said.

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto (RIO.L) owns an 80% stake in Queensland Alumina Ltd (QAL) in a joint venture with Russia’s Rusal International PJSC (RUAL.MM), the world’s second-largest aluminum producer.

Last week, Australia imposed sanctions on two Russian businessmen with links to its mining industry, one of them being billionaire Oleg Deripaska who holds stakes in QAL.

The US House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill banning race-based discrimination on hair, specifically textures or styles associated with a particular race or national origin such as dreadlocks, afros and braids.

The bill is known as the Crown Act, standing for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. It was co-sponsored by the progressive Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, among others, who cited research showing that Black students were significantly more likely to face school detention, often for dress code violations based on their hair.

“I want my two girls to grow up in a world where they know they will not be discriminated against because of their hair or the way they look,” Omar said in a press release on Friday after the vote.

“Natural Black hair is often deemed ‘unprofessional’ simply because it does not conform to white beauty standards,” representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, a co-sponsor, said. “Discrimination against Black hair is discrimination against Black people.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/18/discrimination-black-hairstyles-bill-passes-us-house