KYIV: Ukraine said Friday it had identified two suspects in the attempted murder of a Kazakh opposition figure in Kyiv and that the perpetrators had escaped to neighboring Moldova.
Police in Ukraine’s capital said this week that a prominent Kazakh anti-government activist, Aydos Sadykov, had been shot and seriously wounded outside his home.
The outspoken critic of Kazakhstan’s leadership has a large following on social media and was granted asylum in Ukraine in 2014.
“Two men carefully planned the murder of a journalist,” the office of the prosecutor general in Ukraine said in a statement, adding the suspects were both Kazakh citizens.
It said they had entered the country on June 2 from Poland and carried out surveillance on Sadykov before attempting to assassinate him on Tuesday.
“The suspects left the territory of Ukraine on the day of the attempted murder, crossing the border of Ukraine and Moldova,” the statement said, adding that both suspects are on an international wanted list.
The activist’s wife Natalia Sadykova said Friday that Sadykov remained in serious condition in hospital, and blamed Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for orchestrating the attack.
“I was not mistaken, neither when I accused Tokayev of the assassination attempt or when I said that the shooter was a professional,” Sadykova said.
Tokayev has instructed Kazakh law enforcement agencies to cooperate with Ukraine to locate the suspects, his spokesperson said, according to Russian news agencies.
“Astana is ready to cooperate with Ukraine, including through Interpol,” the spokesperson was cited as saying.
Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into the shooting.
“The news of the attack on Sadykov during broad daylight in the Kyiv city center is deeply disturbing,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Kyiv says suspects of Kazakh activist shooting fled Ukraine
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Kyiv says suspects of Kazakh activist shooting fled Ukraine
- Police said this week that a prominent Kazakh anti-government activist, Aydos Sadykov, had been shot and seriously wounded outside his home
- “The suspects left the territory of Ukraine on the day of the attempted murder, crossing the border of Ukraine and Moldova,” the statement said
Thousands march in Bangladesh calling for Sheikh Hasina’s prosecution
- Last week, Bangladesh sent a formal request to India to extradite Hasina
- She faces many court cases over the deaths of protesters, including some on charges of crimes against humanity
DHAKA: Thousands of people led by students rallied in Bangladesh’s capital on Tuesday, calling for the prosecution of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and those responsible for hundreds of deaths in a mass uprising against her government in July.
The Anti-Discrimination Student Movement organized the “March for Unity” at the Central Shaheed Minar, a national monument in Dhaka. Protesters chanted slogans calling for Hasina’s trial and the banning of her Awami League party.
Hasina fled to India on Aug. 5 after weeks of violence in which authorities say hundreds of people were killed and thousands more injured on orders of her government. The uprising ended the 15-year-rule of the country’s longest-serving prime minister, who began a fourth consecutive term in January following an election boycotted by the major opposition parties.
Last week, Bangladesh sent a formal request to India to extradite Hasina. She faces many court cases over the deaths of protesters, including some on charges of crimes against humanity.
“Since August 5, we have no more enemies in Bangladesh. Our only enemy is the Awami League,” Hasnat Abdullah, convener of the student movement, said while addressing the crowd.
Protesters also urged the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to issue a formal proclamation by Jan. 15 detailing the events of the uprising.
The student leaders want the proclamation to include two key demands: a new constitution after the 1972 charter, which was enacted under Hasina’s father, has been abolished, and a ban on the Awami League party.
Hasina’s Awami League had ruled Bangladesh for 15 years, since 2009.
The Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal has already issued arrest warrants for Hasina and her close aides, and the government has sought help from the international police organization Interpol in seeking her arrest.
Speaking from the US, Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed, has questioned credibility of the tribunal and called charges against her a “political witch hunt.”
Meanwhile, the interim government has promised to try Hasina and others in her administration for alleged crimes involving the deaths of protesters and has invited the United Nations to help investigate the killings.
Hasina also has called for an investigation, saying many deaths may have involved others beyond security agencies.
Tokyo, Sydney, Manila welcome New Year with fireworks and celebrations
- More than a million people gathered at the Sydney Harbor for the celebration
- Much of Japan has shut down ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday
WELLINGTON, New Zealand: Auckland has become the first major city to welcome 2025, with thousands of revelers counting down to the new year and cheering at colorful fireworks launched from New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower, and a spectacular downtown light show.
Thousands also thronged to downtown or climbed the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point, and a light display recognizing Auckland’s Indigenous tribes. It follows a year marked by protests over Māori rights in the nation of 5 million.
Countries in the South Pacific Ocean are the first to ring in the New Year, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball drop in Times Square in New York. Other cities around the world are readying with celebrations highlighting local cultures and traditions, after a year roiled by ongoing conflict and political instability.
Huge crowds greet 2025 with fireworks in Sydney
Fireworks blasted off the Sydney Harbor Bridge and across the bay as people in Australia rang in the New Year.
More than a million people had gathered at the iconic Sydney Harbor for the celebration, featuring British pop star Robbie Williams, who led a singalong with the crowd.
The celebration also featured Indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land’s first people.
Asia gets ready for the Year of the Snake
Much of Japan has shut down ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday, as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning, including swatting floor mats called “tatami” with big sticks.
The upcoming Year of the Snake in the Asian zodiac is heralded as one of rebirth — alluding to the reptile’s shedding skin. Stores in Japan, which observes the zodiac cycle from Jan. 1, have been selling tiny figures of smiling snakes and other snake-themed products. Other places in Asia will start marking the Year of the Snake later, with the Lunar New Year.
In South Korea, celebrations were cut back or canceled as the country observes a period of national mourning following the Sunday crash of a Jeju Air flight at Muan that killed 179 people.
In Thailand’s Bangkok, two major shopping malls competed for crowds with live musical acts and fireworks shows. While CentralWorld is the older venue, relative newcomer ICONSIAM has the scenic advantage of its Chao Phraya riverside location and a performance by popular rap singer Lisa, the Thai member of the South Korean girl group Blackpink, scheduled just ahead of midnight.
New Year celebrations in Jakarta will feature a dazzling fireworks display, including a drone show featuring 800 drones, followed by countdowns to midnight at the city’s iconic Hotel Indonesia Roundabout.
West’s rivals 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 that their countries will “always move forward hand in hand,” the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
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.
China’s leader in his prerecorded New Year’s Eve address said the country has “deepened solidarity and cooperation with the global South” while praising the “responsible” role it has played with “the world in turmoil.”
Xi also said China’s economy, which has slowed down in recent years, was “improving and recovering.”
He also addressed Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing. “We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same family. No one can ever sever the bond of kinship between us,” Xi said.
In his address to the nation, Putin said that Russia has responded to the most difficult challenges and will be moving forward next year.
“We set big goals for ourselves and achieved them, and we overcame difficulties more than once because we were together. This is how our unity and our faith in ourselves and our strengths and capabilities grew stronger,” he said.
Putin praised troops fighting in Ukraine as “the true heroes who have taken on the great task of defending Russia and providing the solid guarantees of peace and security for our people.”
Conflicts cast a shadow in the Middle East
New Year’s celebrations are likely to be subdued in Israel as its war with Hamas grinds through a 15th month and scores of hostages remain in captivity. Meanwhile, the extent of starvation has been hard to assess in northern Gaza where thousands have fled an intensified Israeli military crackdown that aid groups say has allowed delivery of only a dozen trucks of food and water since roughly October.
Lebanon is in the grip of a severe economic crisis, and many areas were heavily damaged during the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which ended with a shaky ceasefire. Syrians are meanwhile expressing hope and uncertainty for the coming year after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.
In Dubai, thousands are expected to attend an annual fireworks show at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper.
Midnight Mass, with bubbles
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 will celebrate a vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica, followed by Mass on Wednesday, when he is expected to once again appeal for peace amid wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Minnesota will host an 11 p.m. Mass followed by a champagne reception with toasts. Jan. 1 is a day of obligation for Catholics, marking the Solemnity of Mary, and many churches will hold vigil Masses on Tuesday afternoon and evening.
German leader calls for solidarity in a new year
Hours before Germany rings in the new year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on the country’s 84 million residents to stick together despite the many global crises and wars, the country’s ailing economy and a deadly Christmas market attack that shocked the nation.
“We are a country of togetherness. And we can draw strength from this — especially in difficult times like these,” Scholz said in his prerecorded speech.
Paris recaptures the Olympic spirit
Paris will cap a momentous 2024 with its traditional festive countdown and fireworks extravaganza on the famed Champs-Elysées.
The Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games hosted in the French capital from July to September transformed the city into a site of joy, fraternity and astonishing sporting achievements, and marked another major milestone in its recovery from deadly extremist attacks in 2015 by Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group.
Britons will brave wintry weather
London is due to ring in the New Year with a pyrotechnic display along the River Thames and a parade through the city center on Wednesday featuring 10,000 performers. The fireworks will explode against the backdrop of the London Eye, the massive Ferris wheel across the river from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
With a storm bringing bitter weather to other parts of the United Kingdom, however, festivities in Edinburgh, Scotland — including the Hogmanay Street party, garden concert and castle pyrotechnics show — were already canceled.
Rio expects 2 million revelers
Rio de Janeiro will throw Brazil’s main New Year’s Eve bash on Copacabana Beach, with 10 ferries offshore bearing 12 straight minutes of fireworks. Thousands of tourists in six cruise ships will witness the show up close.
Rio’s City Hall was closely guarding its plans for a display of lights and sounds. More than 2 million people are expected at the Copacabana, hoping to squeeze into concerts by superstar Brazilian artists such as pop singer Anitta and Grammy-award winner Caetano Veloso.
American traditions old and new
In New York City, the organization managing Times Square has tested its famous ball drop, and inspected 2025 numerals, lights and thousands of crystals, as part of a tradition going back to 1907. This year’s celebration will include musical performances by TLC, Jonas Brothers, Rita Ora, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
The party, covering multiple blocks around the city’s main tourism and theater hub, is expected to draw large crowds despite rain and chilly weather.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas will bid farewell to 2024 with old — and some new — traditions. Its annual eight-minute pyrotechnic show will be on in the Las Vegas Strip, with 340,000 people anticipated as fireworks are launched from the rooftops of nine casinos.
Nearby, the massive Sphere venue will display for the first time countdowns to midnight in different time zones.
In Pasadena, enthusiastic Rose Parade spectators were to camp out on the cold streets and ring in the New Year hoping for prime spots for the iconic Southern California tradition. The parade precedes the Rose Bowl football game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Oregon Ducks on Jan. 1.
Thousands are to participate in a midnight 5K race following the parade route.
Some 200,000 people will flock to a party in Nashville, Tennessee, featuring a five-hour show by some of country music’s biggest stars. At midnight — an hour after New York’s — a 16-feet tall music note weighing 400 pounds will drop as fireworks light the sky.
Celebrations will echo around the globe as the New Year arrives in different time zones, with American Samoa among the last to welcome 2025 a full 24 hours after New Zealand.
Papers reveal UK feared US handling of 2004 Fallujah uprising
- Newly released documents say George W. Bush was given ‘difficult messages’ by Tony Blair in 2004
- Operation Vigilant Resolve was launched after the deaths of four US military contractors
LONDON: Newly released government papers in the UK have revealed that US President George W. Bush believed American military operations following the 2003 invasion of Iraq were a “mission from God,” but that British officials feared Washington lacked “political control” of the war.
They reveal that Tony Blair, the UK prime minister at the time, had to deliver “some difficult messages” to Bush after the US launched a military operation in Fallujah in 2004 to suppress an insurgency.
Bush had demanded that US forces “kick ass” after four military contractors were killed by Iraqi fighters, but US Deputy Secretary of State Richard “Rich” Armitage told the then UK ambassador in Washington, Sir David Manning, the president needed a “dose of reality.”
Armitage asked Blair to persuade Bush that the operation in Fallujah needed to be treated “as part of a carefully judged political process.”
Operation Vigilant Resolve was launched after the bodies of four US contractors were found hanging from a bridge in Fallujah in May 2003. The US lost 27 troops, while about 200 insurgents and 600 Iraqi civilians were thought to have been killed in Fallujah at that time. Coalition forces took the city in a second operation in November 2004.
Elements of the US military had pressed the president for a harsh response, with a plan floated for the US Marine Corps to occupy the city.
The papers reveal that Manning told the government: “Rich summed it all up by saying Bush still thought he was on some sort of mission from God. But that recent events had made him ‘rather more sober.’”
Fears abounded at the time over Bush’s view of the war, after reports surfaced suggesting he had told a Palestinian delegation that God had spoken to him about invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, saying” “George, go fight these terrorists in Afghanistan” and “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.” The White House later dismissed the claims as “absurd.”
Gen. John Abizaid, the US commander in Iraq, had claimed he could put down the Fallujah insurgency within days. This was dismissed by Armitage as nonsense and “politically crass.”
The deputy secretary of state believed Washington was “gradually losing on the battlefield” and that it was “inevitable” Bush would need to send US reinforcements to Iraq, Manning said.
A briefing document from No. 10 (Downing Street) issued at the time said: “Publicly we will want to underline our continued commitment to seeing the task (in Fallujah) through, but privately we will need to deliver some difficult messages to Bush about the need for a more measured approach by the US military, under proper political oversight, and the need for a clear end to the occupation on July 1.”
It added: “The prime minister might question Bush on whether there is proper political control of military operations.”
The brief concluded: “In short, too many military officers talking tough to a US audience, with little attention to the effect on an Iraqi or regional audience.”
India caps 2024 with first space docking mission, eyes launching orbital station
- SpaDeX mission marks ‘first step’ in establishing India’s space station
- Earlier this year, India announced $116 million fund for space startups
NEW DELHI: India has launched its first space docking mission on a home-made rocket, capping 2024 with a major technological feat in efforts to establish its position in the global space industry after last year’s successful moon landing and a solar observation project.
The Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, mission launched on Monday evening from the Indian Space Research Organization’s Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota island off the Bay of Bengal.
About 15 minutes after liftoff aboard the ISRO’s PSLV rocket, the mission director confirmed the launch as a success and reaching “another milestone in India’s space journey” when the spacecraft reached an altitude of 470 km.
The SpaDeX mission involves launching two small spacecraft, each weighing about 220 kg, into a 470 km circular orbit.
“SpaDeX (Space Docking Experiment) is a pioneering mission to establish India’s capability in orbital docking, a key technology for future human spaceflight and satellite servicing missions,” the ISRO said in a statement.
“In-space docking technology is essential when multiple rocket launches are required to achieve common mission objectives. Through this mission, India is marching toward becoming the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology ... This technology is essential for India’s space ambitions such as Indian on Moon, sample return from the Moon, the building and operation of Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), etc.”
India is planning to build its modular space station, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, by 2035. The docking mission is the “first step” toward that endeavor, said Syed Maqbool Ahmed, a former ISRO scientist who was part of the Chandrayaan program — the Indian Lunar Exploration Program.
“When we want to build a space station, the very first thing we have to do is continuously coming and going back to the station, and that is where the docking is needed,” Ahmed told Arab News.
“That is amazing. Only three countries have done so till now: America, USSR and China. And we will be the fourth country.”
In the past few years, India has been establishing its position in the global space industry.
In August last year, it became the fourth nation to ever soft-land a spacecraft on the moon. A month later, it launched its solar mission, becoming the second country, after the US, to have explored the sun.
But what counts is not only the recent achievements but creating the environment and long-term investment for the space industry to flourish and involve the private sector as well.
“India has approved a space policy just a few months ago. They have also taken almost 1,000 crores ($116 million) separately to help the aerospace industry,” Ahmed said.
“India is encouraging each and every person ... lots of startups to come into the aerospace field.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan named in Britain’s New Year honors
- Khan said he was “truly humbled to have received a knighthood”
- He was elected mayor of the capital for the third time this year
LONDON: London Mayor Sadiq Khan is among the hundreds named in King Charles’s New Year honors list published on Monday.
Khan, a member of Britain’s governing Labour Party, will receive a knighthood. He was elected mayor of the capital for the third time this year but has faced criticism for crime levels and a housing crisis in the city.
Khan said he was “truly humbled to have received a knighthood.”
“I couldn’t have dreamed when growing up on a council estate in south London that I’d one day be Mayor of London.
“It’s the honor of my life to serve the city I love,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The full list includes more than 1,200 people in politics, sport, the arts or community service to be awarded honors ranging from Member, Commander or Officer of the Order of the British Empire (MBE, CBE or OBE) up to knighthoods and damehoods.
Former England soccer boss Gareth Southgate and Paris Olympics gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson also featured on the list.
Southgate, who led England to two straight European Championship finals before stepping down as the national side’s manager in July, receives a knighthood.
MI5’s Ken McCallum, who has served as the domestic intelligence service’s director general since 2020, was also set to receive a knighthood.
Among business executives, ex-Rolls-Royce boss Warren East and former HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn will be knighted, while Ruth Cairnie, chair of defense group Babcock , receives a damehood.
Andy Street, a former boss of retailer John Lewis who failed to win re-election as a regional mayor this year, will also receive a knighthood.
Among those receiving a CBE are actors Sarah Lancashire and Carey Mulligan and TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh.
The New Year honors, which have been awarded since at least 1890, aim to recognize not just well-known figures but people who have contributed to national life through often unsung work over many years.
Children’s author Jacqueline Wilson was awarded a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, while Nobel laureate novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was given a Companion of Honour, of which there are only 65 recipients at any time.
In sport, Paris 800 meters gold medallist Hodgkinson receives an MBE while Olympic champion rower Helen Glover is recognized with an OBE.
For his work on mental health awareness, actor Stephen Fry will receive a knighthood.
