Foreign
Ukraine Former Parliament Member Assassinated By Gunman In Lviv
Iryna Farion, a former member of Ukraine’s parliament and prominent advocate for the Ukrainian language, has died after being shot in Lviv.
The incident occurred on a street in the western city, and police have launched an extensive search for the suspected gunman.
Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi announced Farion’s death on Telegram after she was hospitalized, The Guardian reports.
Initially, Interior Minister, Ihor Klymenko, stated that the shooting was being investigated as an attempted assassination.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is receiving updates on the efforts to apprehend the gunman and has emphasized that any act of violence is condemnable.
Farion, a linguist and former member of the nationalist Svoboda party, served in parliament from 2012 to 2014 and later on the Lviv regional council.
She was known for her passionate campaigns to promote the Ukrainian language and criticize public officials who spoke Russian.
In 2018, when Ukraine was fighting Russian-financed separatists who had seized territory in the east, she called for a drive to “punch every Russian-speaking person in the jaw”.
In the early months of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Farion denounced Russian-speaking fighters of the Azov regiment who defended the port city of Mariupol for three months.
Although Ukrainian is the sole state language of Ukraine, many of its people speak Russian as a first language, a legacy of Soviet rule, when Ukrainian was under official pressure.
Promoting the language has long been an important issue, with parliament passing legislation to entrench its use in public life and in the services industry.
Foreign
Fresh Israeli Airstrikes In Gaza Kill 25 Palestinians Including Children
Fresh Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, according to medics.
The casualties on Friday included at least eight people in an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp and 10 others in the town of Jabalia, among them seven children.
Efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have yet to succeed.
Sources involved in the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday that Qatar and Egypt had resolved some points of contention but key issues remain unresolved.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza following Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of 1200 people and the abduction of over 250 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Israel states that approximately 100 hostages are still being held, though it is unclear how many remain alive.
Gaza authorities report that Israel’s ongoing campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and displaced the majority of the 2.3 million residents.
Much of the territory has reportedly been devastated by the conflict.
Foreign
Biden signs bipartisan funding bill to keep government open
President Biden signed the stopgap funding bill that will keep the government open until March, punting the thornier issues surrounding the nation’s finances to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
A bloated 1,500-page funding measure was exploded by Trump and his top ally Elon Musk earlier this week as they demanded a pared-down version.
The parties were able to cobble a stopgap bill together Friday evening, which passed the Senate early Saturday morning.
The package funds the government at current levels until March 14, 2025, and includes $100 billion in hurricane relief funds and $10 billion in aid to farmers.
With the stopgap funding only running until March, an almost certain clash is looming between Trump and GOP spending hardliners when Congress reconvenes in January.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open and delivers the urgently needed disaster relief that I requested for recovering communities as well as the funds needed to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Biden said in a statement after inking the deal.
The post Biden signs bipartisan funding bill to keep government open appeared first on New York Post.
Foreign
Russia jails Ukraine resident 16 years for treason
A military court in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday sentenced an unnamed resident of eastern Ukraine’s Lugansk region to 16 years in prison for “high treason,” according to Russia’s FSB security service.
Moscow regularly imposes heavy sentences on individuals it accuses of spying for Ukraine and has consistently imprisoned Ukrainians both in Russia and in occupied territories.
The sentencing coincided with President Vladimir Putin’s call for security services to adopt “tough” anti-terror measures, with a particular focus on military counter-intelligence, as the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine nears its third year.
Putin urged the special services to “identify spies and traitors” and “disrupt the work of foreign security services.”
Prosecutors claimed the accused had passed information about the Russian armed forces to Kyiv’s security services.
The FSB, as reported by Russian news agencies, stated that the man was found guilty of state treason, aiding terrorist activities, and the illegal handling and transport of explosives.
The court ordered him to serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.
The TASS news agency released a video of the man’s arrest, showing FSB officers stopping a car, dragging a man out, throwing him to the ground, and handcuffing him before taking him to the local FSB headquarters.
The video, filmed by the FSB, featured the man—his face blurred — stating that he had been recruited by Ukraine’s SBU security service in 2016.
Russia frequently publishes confession videos filmed by the FSB after arrests.
Meanwhile, independent Russian media reported that an activist had died by suicide on Thursday in a Rostov detention centre, shortly after being sentenced to 16 years in prison, also in the Rostov region.
The Mediazona website confirmed with prison officials that Roman Shved, a 39-year-old anarchist sentenced for an arson attack on a government building following the Kremlin’s 2022 military mobilisation, had died in the detention centre.
Several social media channels reported that Shved had taken his life just hours after being sentenced.
Russia has prosecuted thousands of its citizens for opposing the Ukraine conflict.
AFP
-
News14 hours ago
Abuja stampede: Wike orders free medical treatment for victims
-
News21 hours ago
FG allocates N960bn for aircrafts, security equipment in 2025
-
Sports12 hours ago
Arsenal’s top coach not happy over Bukayo Saka’s injury
-
Opinion12 hours ago
IBADAN, OKIJA, ABUJA AND THE DEATHLY FATE OF MEKUNUS
-
Metro21 hours ago
‘It’s been hard, even a cup of rice is now a luxury for us’ – Abuja stampede survivors recount ordeal
-
Entertainment22 hours ago
One Billion Users, But Controversies Mount Up For TikTok
-
News21 hours ago
Appeal Court bans Customs from confiscating rice outside land, other borders
-
News22 hours ago
Anambra Govt Mourns Victims Of Tragic Stampede In Okija, Launches Probe