Author: admin@primenews

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is alive and being held in a penal colony in Siberia, according to his spokeswoman. “We found Alexei Navalny,” Kira Yarmysh said on 25 December, adding that he was now in northern Russia. His team had had no contact with him since 6 December, after he was moved from a previous prison. Mr Navalny, considered one of Vladimir Putin’s leading opponents, has been imprisoned since 2021. “His lawyer saw him today. Alexei is fine,” Ms Yarmysh wrote on the Telegram messaging app. She said he had been moved to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in…

There is no let-up in Israeli air strikes in Gaza, a UN official has told the BBC, after visiting a hospital struggling to treat the injured. Gemma Connell of the UN humanitarian agency Ocha told the BBC what she had seen at the Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza on Monday was “absolute carnage”. Many severely injured people could not be treated because the hospital was “absolutely overloaded”, she said. Israel’s prime minister earlier vowed to intensify the fight again Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu said he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel’s military campaign there was “not close to being over”.…

Prosecutors in France have launched a homicide investigation after five bodies were found in a town north-east of Paris. According to local media reports, the victims are a woman and her four young children. Their bodies were found in the town of Meaux which is just over 41km (25 miles) from the French capital. They were discovered in an apartment, the local prosecutor told France’s AFP news agency. According to news website Actu17, which first reported the case, police are looking for the 33-year-old father, who is “on the run”. Prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier confirmed to French media the Versailles judicial…

A mass wedding ceremony involving 50 couples has been held in Afghanistan. Such ceremonies have become more common as low-income couples seek to avoid the high costs of a traditional wedding. The brides-to-be were kept out of sight in a separate wing – it was only after lunch they appeared, local media say. The event, in Kabul, was organised by a charity which also provided the newly-weds with items including a carpet and household appliances to start their married life. An official from the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice spoke at the low-key ceremonies. While…

If you’ve heard of Harmanpreet Kaur, it’s likely you’re familiar with her epochal 171 not-out in India’s unlikely win in the 2017 ODI World Cup semi-final against Australia. Or maybe you know that she is the captain of the Indian women’s cricket team, the first and only woman to hit a T20 century for India and the first cricketer from the country to get a contract in an overseas franchise-league. Impressive as the legacy is, Kaur, 34, has added a raft of firsts to her name in 2023 alone – the 15th year of her international career. In February, she…

The clock is winding down on a last-minute, emergency action to keep the latest Apple Watch on store shelves. President Joe Biden has until the end of Christmas day to overturn a US International Trade Commission ruling that will prevent Apple from selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, among other newer models, because they violate patents registered to another company. But it appears unlikely he’ll intervene. Apple has already taken the offending Watch models off its online store, and Apple Store locations are expected to open Tuesday without any of the latest top-of-the-line watches in stock. The cheaper Apple…

Manchester United announced Sunday that British petrochemical billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe purchased a 25% stake in the famed English Premier League soccer club. The sale was confirmed by Manchester United and Ratcliffe-controlled INEOS, a London-based multinational conglomerate. INEOS said in a statement that Ratcliffe will acquire 25% of the club’s Class B shares and up to 25% of its publicly available Class A shares “and provide an additional $300 million intended to enable future investment into Old Trafford,” the club’s historic stadium. The Glazer family, which owns the majority of the club, and Class A shareholders will receive the same price of…

Fund manager Abhay Agarwal was surprised by the number of calls he took this month from international investors showing more than a passing curiosity about India. “These are from family offices in Europe or some large investors in US who have …never bothered about investing in India,” said Agarwal, founder of Mumbai-based Piper Serica Advisors. “For the first time, I find them to be very serious and they’re calling and asking questions such as, ‘Look, will my money be safe? And is there a rule of law here?’” he added The interest comes at a time when the country’s stock market…

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said his troops have seized the key town of Mariinka in eastern Ukraine – a claim immediately denied by Kyiv. Mr Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin assault units had taken the “powerfully fortified” area just outside Donetsk, a Russian-held regional capital. But Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said “fighting for Mariinka” continued. Mariinka – seen as a gateway to Donetsk – has been almost completely destroyed. In a separate development, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014, reported an “enemy attack” and a fire in the port of…

A white Christmas has been officially confirmed by the Met Office following snowfall in the Highlands of Scotland. A mixture of rain and snow was reported in Tulloch Bridge and Aviemore on Monday afternoon despite mild temperatures elsewhere. There was also light snowfall in Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The Met Office also provisionally confirmed the highest daily minimum temperature for Christmas Day on record, at 12.4C. Temperatures at Exeter Airport and East Malling, Kent, did not fall below 12.4C, the Met Office said, beating the previous record of 11.5C measured at Waddon in Croydon in 1983. The highest single temperature was recorded at 13.6C at Exeter…