WORLD BRIEFING: December 25, 2023
Israel - Hamas War
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says an Israeli air strike killed at least 70 people in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of the strip. A spokesman said the death toll was likely to rise given the large number of families living in the area. The Israeli military told the BBC it was looking into reports of the strike. It comes as Israeli and Arab media say Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip, has put forward a new proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. - BBC
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days. He told members of his party that he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel's military campaign there was "not close to being over".
Ukraine War
As Ukraine celebrated Christmas on December 25 for the first time, the nation’s military said its forces shot down dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones and claimed to have blasted another two Russian fighter jets from the sky, adding to previous claims of mounting success against enemy air assaults, while Russia claimed success on the ground in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv also announced good news on Christmas on the economic front, saying it had received $1.34 billion in financing, mostly through the World Bank -- funds that will be partially used to compensate social programs for monies lost to security and defense financial needs.
Elsewhere
Turkey has lifted visa requirement for nationals of six countries including the United States, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Tourists from these countries can now spend 90 days in every 180 days in Türkiye without a visa, according to the decree dated Dec. 23, signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - Daily Sabah
The influence of China’s once-powerful central bank - the People’s Bank of China - has diminished as Beijing steps up a drive to centralise Communist party control over financial regulation. Some of the powers formerly held by the People’s Bank of China have been taken over by a party oversight body and a revamped financial regulator as Beijing resets its growth model.” - FT
Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, whose whereabouts had been unknown since early December, has been moved to a penal colony in the Arctic, his spokeswoman said December 25. "We have found Aleksei Navalny. He is now in [penal colony]-3 in the settlement of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. His lawyer visited him today. Aleksei is doing well," Kira Yarmysh announced on social media platform X. It was Navalny’s longest absence since he was taken into captivity in January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he underwent treatment for a near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning that he believes was carried out by Russian security operatives at the behest of authoritarian President Vladimir Putin.
276 Indians stuck in a French airport for days for a human trafficking probe have left for India