SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un highlighted on Saturday how his nation and Russia had shared &quot;blood, life and death&quot; in the Ukraine war, as he sent President Vladimir Putin New Year&#39;s greetings. Pyongyang has dispatched thousands of troops to fight for Moscow, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies, as Russia presses ahead with its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine. In the message, published by the state-run KCNA news agency, Kim said 2025 was a &quot;really meaningful year&quot; for the bilateral alliance that was consolidated by &quot;sharing blood, life, and death in the same trench.&quot; North Korea only confirmed in April that it had deployed troops to support Russia&#39;s military campaign against Ukraine and that its soldiers had been killed in combat. Earlier this month, Pyongyang acknowledged that it had sent troops to clear mines in Russia&#39;s Kursk region in August 2025. At least nine troops from an engineering regiment were killed during the 120-day deployment, Kim said in a speech on December 12 marking the unit&#39;s homecoming. Kim sent Putin his New Year&#39;s greetings a day after the North Korean leader ordered officials to step up missile production. Pyongyang has increased missile testing in recent years &mdash; aimed, analysts say, at improving precision strike capabilities, challenging the United States as well as South Korea, and testing weapons before exporting them to Russia. In addition to sending troops to fight for Russia, Pyongyang has sent artillery shells, missiles, and long-range rocket systems. In return, Russia is sending North Korea financial aid, military technology, and food and energy supplies, analysts have said.

Asia

Pyongyang has dispatched thousands of troops to fight for Moscow, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies, as Russia presses ahead with its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.

Korea shared 'blood, life and death' with Russia: Kim's New Year's message to Putin 

PHNOM PENH: Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an &quot;immediate&quot; ceasefire on Saturday, the two countries said in a joint statement issued by the Cambodian side, pledging to end weeks of deadly border clashes.&nbsp;The neighbors&#39; long-standing <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/thailand-to-continue-military-action-on-cambodia-until-no-more-threats-pm" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">border conflict reignited this month</a>, shattering an earlier truce and killing at least 47 people, according to official counts. Around a million people have also been displaced.&nbsp;&quot;Both sides agree to an immediate ceasefire after the time of signature of this Joint Statement with effect from 12:00 hours noon (local time) on 27 December 2025, involving all types of weapons, including attacks on civilians, civilian objects and infrastructures, and military objectives of either side, in all cases and all areas,&quot; said the statement signed by the two countries&#39; defense ministers.&nbsp;Both sides agree to freeze all troop movements and allow civilians living in border areas to return home as soon as possible, the statement said.&nbsp;They also agree to cooperate on demining efforts and combatting cybercrime.&nbsp;The ceasefire will go into effect at 12:00 pm (0500 GMT) to end battling over a smattering of ancient temples in disputed zones along the two countries&#39; shared frontier.&nbsp;It comes after three days of border talks announced following a crisis meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which both Cambodia and Thailand are members.&nbsp;The United States, China and Malaysia also pushed for the warring neighbors to resume their ceasefire.&nbsp;The three countries brokered a truce to end five days of deadly clashes in July, but the ceasefire was short-lived.

The neighbors' long-standing border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce and killing at least 47 people, according to official counts.

Thailand and Cambodia agree to 'immediate' ceasefire: joint statement

BEIRUT: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said an Israeli attack near their position in the country&#39;s south wounded a peacekeeper on Friday, reiterating a call for Israel to &quot;cease aggressive behavior.&quot; It is the latest incident reported by the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon and has been working with Lebanon&#39;s army to support a year-old truce between Israel and militant group Hezbollah. &quot;This morning, heavy machine gunfire from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions south of the Blue Line impacted close to a UNIFIL patrol inspecting a roadblock in the village of Bastarra. The gunfire followed a grenade explosion nearby,&quot; UNIFIL said in a statement. The force added that &quot;the sound of the gunfire and the explosion left one peacekeeper slightly injured with ear concussion.&quot; Also, on Friday, UNIFIL said &quot;another patrol carrying out a routine operational task also reported machine gunfire from the Israeli side in immediate proximity to their position&quot; in Kfarshuba, south Lebanon. The peacekeeping force said it had informed the Israeli army of its activities in these areas. Earlier this month, UNIFIL said Israeli forces fired on its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Last month it said Israeli soldiers shot at its troops in the south, while Israel&#39;s military said it mistook blue helmets for &quot;suspects&quot; and fired warning shots. In October, UNIFIL said one of its members was wounded by an Israeli grenade dropped near a UN position in the country&#39;s south, the third incident of its kind in just over a month. &quot;Attacks on or near peacekeepers are serious violations of Security Council resolution 1701,&quot; the peacekeeping force added, referring to the 2006 resolution that formed the basis of the November 2024 truce. UNIFIL reiterated its call to the Israeli army to &quot;cease aggressive behavior and attacks on or near peacekeepers working for peace and stability along the Blue Line.&quot; Israel carries out regular attacks on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting sites and operatives belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of rearming. It has also kept troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic.

Middle East

UNIFIL reiterates call to 	Israeli army to "cease aggressive behavior and attacks on or near peacekeepers working for peace and stability along the Blue Line."

 UN force in Lebanon says peacekeeper wounded by Israeli fire

KYIV: Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia accused the Ukrainian president and his EU backers Friday of seeking to &quot;torpedo&quot; a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Sunday&#39;s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes as Trump intensifies efforts to end Europe&#39;s worst conflict since World War II, one that has killed tens of thousands since February 2022. The 20-point plan would freeze the war on its current front line but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by Zelensky this week. Ahead of the talks, AFP journalists reported several powerful explosions in Kyiv on Saturday, and authorities warned of a possible missile attack. &quot;Explosions in the capital. Air defense forces are operating. Stay in shelters!&quot; Kyiv&#39;s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Telegram. Ukraine&#39;s air force announced a countrywide air alert and said drones and missiles were moving over several regions, including Kyiv. Zelensky&#39;s office said earlier that a meeting with Trump is planned for Sunday in Florida, where the US leader has a home. Trump, speaking to news outlet Politico, said about Zelensky&#39;s plan that &quot;he doesn&#39;t have anything until I approve it&quot;, adding: &quot;So we&#39;ll see what he&#39;s got.&quot; Zelensky, meanwhile, said he held telephone talks on Friday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and a host of other European leaders. A spokesperson for Britain&#39;s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the leaders &quot;reiterated their unshakeable commitment to a just and lasting peace for Ukraine and the importance that talks continue to progress towards this in the coming days.&quot; Security guarantees&nbsp;The new plan formulated with Ukraine&#39;s input is Kyiv&#39;s most explicit acknowledgement yet of possible territorial concessions and is very different from an initial 28-point proposal tabled by Washington last month that adhered to many of Russia&#39;s core demands. Part of the plan includes separate US-Ukraine bilateral agreements on security guarantees, reconstruction, and the economy. Zelensky said those were changing daily. &quot;We will discuss these documents, security guarantees,&quot; he said of Sunday&#39;s meeting. &quot;As for sensitive issues, we will discuss (the eastern region of) Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and we will certainly discuss other issues,&quot; he added. Russia signaled its opposition to the plan ahead of the Florida talks. The Kremlin said Friday that foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov had held telephone talks with US officials, and deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov criticised Zelensky&#39;s stance. Russia accuses the EU&nbsp;&quot;Our ability to make the final push and reach an agreement will depend on our own work and the political will of the other party,&quot; Ryabkov said on Russian television. &quot;Especially in a context where Kyiv and its sponsors &mdash; notably within the European Union, who are not in favor of an agreement &mdash; have stepped up efforts to torpedo it.&quot; He said the proposal drawn up with Zelensky&#39;s input &quot;differs radically&quot; from points initially drawn up by US and Russian officials in contacts this month. He said any deal had to &quot;remain within the limits&quot; fixed by Trump and Russia&#39;s President Vladimir Putin when they met in Alaska in August, or else &quot;no accord can be reached.&quot; Zelensky said this week there were still disagreements between Kyiv and Washington over the two core issues of territory and the status of the Zaporizhzhia plant. Washington has pushed Ukraine to withdraw from 20% of the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls &mdash; Russia&#39;s main territorial demand. It has also proposed joint US-Ukrainian-Russian control of Zaporizhzhia, Europe&#39;s largest nuclear plant, which Russia seized during the invasion. Zelensky said he could only give up more land if the Ukrainian people agree to it in a referendum, and he does not want Russian participation in the nuclear plant. Ukraine appears to have won some concessions in the new plan, which, according to Zelensky, removed a requirement for Kyiv to legally renounce its bid to join NATO as well as previous clauses on territory seized by Russia since 2014 being recognized as belonging to Moscow. But Moscow has shown little inclination to abandon its hardline territorial demands that Ukraine fully withdraw from Donbas and end efforts to join NATO. Zelensky said Ukrainian negotiators were not directly in touch with Moscow, but that the United States acted as intermediary and was awaiting Russia&#39;s response to the latest proposal. &quot;I think we will know their official response in the coming days,&quot; Zelensky said. &quot;Russia is always looking for reasons not to agree,&quot; he added.

Europe

Sunday's meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes as Trump intensifies efforts to end Europe's worst conflict since World War II, one that has killed tens of thousands since February 2022.

Russia lashes out at Zelensky ahead of new Trump talks on Ukraine plan

LAGOS:&nbsp;Nigeria on Friday signalled that more strikes against fighter groups were expected after a Christmas Day attack by US forces that President Donald Trump said &quot;decimated&quot; Islamic State-linked camps they targeted in the northwest of the country. Nigeria insisted it was a joint operation, saying that it provided intelligence for Thursday&#39;s attack. The US military said the strikes killed multiple IS fighters. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the strikes &quot;were approved by the government of Nigeria,&quot; without saying whether Nigeria&#39;s military had been involved. Trump said in an interview published Friday that the strikes had been scheduled earlier than Thursday, &quot;And I said, &#39;nope, let&#39;s give a Christmas present.&#39; &quot;They didn&#39;t think that was coming, but we hit them hard. Every camp got decimated,&quot; he told Politico. Nigeria, located in West Africa, faces interlinked security crises, with fighter groups waging an insurgency in the northeast since 2009 and armed gangs raiding villages and staging kidnappings in the northwest. The strikes came after Abuja and Washington had been locked in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump has characterised as the mass killing of Christians amid Nigeria&#39;s myriad armed conflicts. Questions remain over which armed group was targeted, and details over the strikes have varied between Nigerian and US accounts. Washington&#39;s framing of the violence as amounting to Christian &quot;persecution&quot; is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nonetheless resulted in increased security coordination. US defense officials posted a video of what appeared to be a nighttime missile launch from the deck of a battleship flying the US flag. &quot;It&#39;s Nigeria that provided the intelligence,&quot; the country&#39;s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, told broadcaster Channels TV, saying he had been on the phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ahead of the strikes. Asked if there would be more strikes, Tuggar said: &quot;It is an ongoing thing,&quot; adding, &quot;it must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion.&quot; Targets unclear&nbsp;Nigerian information minister Mohammed Idris said in a statement that the US strikes used 16 guided munitions launched from medium-altitude MQ-9 Reaper drones &quot;successfully neutralising&quot; IS elements attempting to penetrate Nigeria through the Sahel. Both countries said the strikes targeted militants linked to the Islamic State group, without providing details. The Department of Defense&#39;s US Africa Command said &quot;multiple ISIS terrorists&quot; were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto. Residents in Sokoto told AFP they were shocked by the blasts, saying some strikes hit a town that was not a militant stronghold. Nigeria&#39;s armed groups are mostly concentrated in the northeast, but have made inroads into the northwest. Researchers have recently linked some members of an armed group known as Lakurawa &mdash; the main group located in Sokoto State &mdash; to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighbouring Niger and Mali. Other analysts have disputed those links. &quot;We initially thought it was (an) attack by Lakurawa,&quot; said Haruna Kallah, a resident of Jabo town. That the explosions were in fact the result of a US strike &quot;surprised us because this area has never been a Lakurawa enclave.&quot; Tukur Shehu, a resident of Tangaza, a neighboring district, said two strikes targeted villages known to house Lakurawa camps from where they launch attacks and keep hostages. Public opinion divided While public opinion on the strikes appeared split, the Nigerian government publicly welcomed them. &quot;I think Trump would not have accepted a &#39;No,&#39;&quot; said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based researcher for Good Governance Africa, an NGO. Nigerian authorities are keen to be seen as cooperating with the US, Samuel told AFP, even though &quot;both the perpetrators and the victims in the northwest are overwhelmingly Muslim.&quot; Security analyst Brant Philip said the results of the strikes were &quot;not significant, but much is expected soon.&quot;

Africa

Details in official communications between Nigeria and the United States have at times differed, possibly due to Washington apparently backing out of issuing a joint statement with Abuja, according to Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar.



Nigeria signals more strikes likely in 'joint' US operations

AGADIR, Morocco: Mohamed Salah scored as 10-man Egypt beat South Africa 1-0 in Agadir on Friday to become the first qualifiers for the knockout stage of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.&nbsp;The Liverpool star converted a penalty on 45 minutes, and South Africa were denied a spot-kick late in the second half when Yasser Ibrahim appeared to handle the ball inside the box.&nbsp;Salah came to Morocco after not starting in five Liverpool matches -- his omission leading to an outburst against manager Arne Slot.&nbsp;Egypt were reduced to 10 men in first-half added time when right-back Mohamed Hany was shown a second yellow card for a stamp, followed by a red.&nbsp;After two rounds in Group B, record seven-time champions Egypt have six points and are guaranteed a top-two finish and a place in the round of 16.&nbsp;South Africa have three points, and Angola and Zimbabwe one each after they drew 1-1 in Marrakesh earlier.&nbsp;&quot;I&#39;m very happy for the result, for sure. It was a tough game, they dominated most of the time. It&#39;s a team that can keep the ball for a long time so I think we had a good gameplan, it worked,&quot; said Salah.&nbsp;&quot;We walked away with the three points, it&#39;s the most important thing. The atmosphere is incredible. Hopefully we can carry on like this.&quot;&nbsp;The first chance fell to Salah after 11 minutes, but he could not move forward quickly enough to connect with a low cross from Hany.&nbsp;That the majority of the crowd were supporting the Pharaohs became obvious soon after when the Burundi referee ignored Zizo appeals for a free-kick, and loud whistling enveloped the stadium.&nbsp;When Salah delivered a free-kick into the heart of the South African area, three Egyptians darted forward, but none could connect with the ball.&nbsp;Salah closely policed&nbsp;Midway through the opening half a pattern had developed -- Egypt were pushing forward regularly while South Africa defended with calmness and solid tackling.&nbsp;When Teboho Mokoena fouled Omar Marmoush just outside the D, he was yellow carded. However, the Manchester City striker fired the resultant free-kick wide.&nbsp;As the first half progressed the sun broke out in the southern coastal city -- a welcome sight for players and spectators with many earlier group matches staged in torrential rain.&nbsp;A rare South Africa attack ended disappointingly as Lyle Foster struck a weak shot that was comfortably saved by 37-year-old Mohamed El Shenawy.&nbsp;Awarded a free-kick close to the touchline, South Africa performed an intricate, multi-pass move that ended tamely as El Shenawy clutched a cross.&nbsp;Salah was being closely policed by Aubrey Modiba and as half-time drew near the Liverpool star retreated into the Egyptian half in order to retain possession.&nbsp;Then, as the Egypt captain chased a loose ball with Khuliso Mudau, the South African right-back raised his left arm, striking an eye of Salah.&nbsp;Amid Egyptian protests, the Burundian referee viewed the incident on a VAR monitor and pointed to the penalty spot.&nbsp;A lengthy delay before the kick was taken could not have eased the nerves of Salah, but he comfortably converted the penalty as Ronwen Williams dived in the wrong direction.&nbsp;More drama erupted in added time when Hany stamped on Mokoena, leading to a second yellow card for the defender.&nbsp;South Africa, with a numerical advantage, attacked more as the second half progressed, but Egypt came close to a second goal with Williams foiling substitute Emam Ashour after a quick free-kick.&nbsp;El Shenawy displayed his agility with 15 minutes remaining, using his right hand to tip to safety a low shot from Foster. It was one of several saves that kept Egypt ahead.

Football

Mohamed Salah’s first-half penalty earned 10-man Egypt a 1-0 win over South Africa in Agadir, sending the seven-time champions into the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations knockout stage after a hard-fought Group B encounter match.

Salah helps 10-man Egypt beat South Africa and book last-16 place

KYIV:&nbsp;Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that he would meet US President Donald Trump this weekend to discuss efforts to end Russia&#39;s invasion. &quot;Over the weekend, I think on Sunday, in Florida, we will have a meeting with President Trump,&quot; Zelensky said in a message to journalists. The latest round of US-Ukraine negotiations produced a 20-point plan to end the war, which has been sent to Moscow. &quot;We will discuss these documents, security guarantees,&quot; Zelensky said. &quot;As for sensitive issues, we will discuss Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and we will certainly discuss other issues,&quot; he added. Zelensky said this week there was still disagreements between Kyiv and Washington over the two issues. Despite that, Ukraine won some concessions in the latest plan, which would freeze the frontline and remove a requirement for Kyiv to legally renounce its bid to join NATO, Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader also indicated the plan opened the way to eventually pulling his troops back in the eastern Donetsk region and establishing a demilitarised zone -- positions Kyiv has previously been reluctant to accept. The Kremlin said Friday that foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov had held a telephone call with US officials to discuss the negotiations. It did not elaborate and has not indicated its position on the latest plan. Moscow has up to now shown little inclination to abandon its hardline territorial demands that Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern region of Donbas and end efforts to join NATO. It also wants a ban on Western countries deploying peacekeeping troops in Ukraine and sweeping political and military restrictions that Kyiv says are tantamount to capitulation. Zelensky said Ukrainian negotiators were not directly in touch with Moscow, but that the United States acted as intermediary and was awaiting Moscow&#39;s response to the latest proposal.&quot;I think we will know their official response in the coming days,&quot; Zelensky said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would meet US President Donald Trump this weekend to discuss efforts to end Russia's invasion

Zelensky to meet Trump this weekend in Florida

Web Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan marks a significant literary milestone on Friday with the 19th death anniversary of Munir Niazi and the 31st of Parveen Shakir. Though separated by generation and gender, these two poets fundamentally reshaped Pakistani literature, each giving voice to experiences that defined the nation&#39;s soul. Munir Niazi: Poetry of displacement and longing Born in Hoshiarpur, Eastern Punjab, in 1923, Munir Niazi&#39;s journey reflected that of millions who crossed borders during partition. This upheaval became the invisible thread running through his entire body of work, creating a sense of being perpetually late, perpetually elsewhere, perpetually longing for what was lost. What set Niazi apart was his rare mastery of both Urdu and Punjabi poetry, bringing philosophical depth to both traditions. While many poets specialized in one language, Niazi moved fluidly between them, proving that profound existential questions transcended linguistic boundaries. His collections &quot;Taiz Hawa Aur Tanha Phool&quot; and &quot;Jungle Mein Dhanak&quot; in Urdu, and &quot;Safar Di Raat&quot; in Punjabi, established a new aesthetic where ordinary moments concealed deeper metaphysical truths. Consider his most celebrated couplet: &quot;Duniya jise kehte hain jaadu kaa khilona hai Mil jaaye to mitti hai, kho jaaye to sona hai&quot; (What we call the world is a magic toy If you get it, it&#39;s just dirt; if you lose it, it&#39;s gold) This verse captures the cruel irony at the heart of human desire: that we only truly value what we&#39;ve lost. For a nation built on partition&#39;s losses, this resonated deeply. Niazi articulated what an entire generation felt but couldn&#39;t express, that displacement had taught them the difference between possession and longing. His autobiographical masterpiece &quot;Hamesha Der Kar Deta Hoon Main&quot; (I Am Always Too Late) became even more culturally significant: &quot;Hamesha der kar deta hun main Zaroori baat kehni ho, koi vaada nibhaana ho&quot; (I am always too late When I have to say something important, or keep a promise) This poem articulated a distinctly Pakistani middle-class experience: the paralysis between intention and action, the weight of words left unspoken in a culture governed by honor and restraint. Niazi transformed personal regret into collective confession, giving millions permission to acknowledge their own procrastination, their own failures to speak when it mattered most. Beyond pure literature, Niazi composed memorable film songs for Radio Pakistan, bringing his existential sensibility to mass audiences. The government honored him with the Pride of Performance in 1992 and Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1998. He passed away on December 26, 2006, in Lahore. Parveen Shakir: The female voice If Niazi gave Pakistan the poetry of displacement, Parveen Shakir, born in Karachi in 1952, gave it the poetry of female assertion. Her revolutionary act was deceptively simple: she consistently used the female first-person pronoun in romantic poetry. In the male-dominated tradition of Urdu ghazal, this grammatical shift represented a seismic cultural change. Her debut collection &quot;Khushbu&quot; (1976) brought immediate recognition, but it was the depth of her social critique that secured her lasting legacy. Shakir embedded feminist consciousness within traditional forms, making her work both accessible and subversive. Her most famous couplet demonstrates this perfectly: &quot;Woh tou khushbu hai, hawaon main bikhar jaye ga Masla phool ka hai, phool kidhar jaye ga?&quot; (He is just a fragrance, he will scatter in the winds The problem lies with the flower; where will the flower go?) On the surface, this addresses male infidelity: the man as fleeting fragrance, free to dissipate, while the woman bears the social consequences. But the metaphor cuts deeper, interrogating why reputation is gendered, why the visible must answer for what the invisible escapes. This is social commentary disguised as romantic lament. Shakir constantly challenged prescribed roles. In her poem &quot;Obstinate,&quot; she wrote: &quot;Main kyun usko phone karun! Us ke bhi to ilm mein hoga Kal shab mausam ki pehli baarish thi!&quot; (Why should I be the first to phone him! He also knows, surely, that last night came the first rain of the monsoon!) The first rain is traditionally a romantic, sensual moment in South Asian poetry. By refusing to wait passively, Shakir claimed equal agency in desire, a radical act in society. Her later collections &quot;Sad-barg,&quot; &quot;Khud-Kalami,&quot; and &quot;Inkaar&quot; grew even bolder. She maintained this literary output while serving in the Pakistan Administrative Service from 1982, embodying the professional woman her poetry championed. She received the Pride of Performance before her death in a traffic accident on December 26, 1994, aged just 42. The Islamabad road where she died now bears her name. A shared legacy That both poets share a death anniversary seems fitting. Together, they represent complementary dimensions of Pakistani identity: Niazi articulating the trauma of displacement and the philosophy of loss, Shakir asserting women&#39;s right to speak, desire and occupy public space. They proved that Pakistani poetry could honor classical forms while making them speak contemporary truths. Their verses continue to define what it means to write honestly in Pakistan, to carry history&#39;s weight while insisting on personal voice, to use inherited traditions while bending them toward new realities. In their different ways, both gave Pakistan permission to feel what it had been feeling all along.

Entertainment

Though separated by generation and gender, these two poets fundamentally reshaped Pakistani literature, each giving voice to experiences that defined the nation's soul.

Munir Niazi and Parveen Shakir: The poets who transformed Pakistan’s poetry

DAMASCUS: A deadly explosion hit a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of Syria&#39;s Homs on Friday, said authorities who reported at least six people killed. &quot;A terrorist explosion targeted the Ali Bin Abi Talib Mosque during Friday prayers in Al-Khadri Street in the Wadi al-Dahab neighbourhood of Homs,&quot; the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that six people were killed and 21 others wounded. Homs was the scene of heavy sectarian violence during Syria&#39;s civil war. Syria&#39;s state news agency SANA, which also reported the blast, said its cause and nature were being investigated. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, it was not immediately clear whether the blast &quot;was caused by a suicide attack or an explosive device. A local security source in Homs told AFP on condition of anonymity that the explosion may have been caused by &quot;an explosive device placed inside the mosque. A resident of the area, requesting anonymity out of fear for his safety, told AFP people &quot;heard a loud explosion, followed by chaos and panic in the neighbourhood&quot;. &quot;No one dares to leave their house, and we are hearing ambulance sirens,&quot; he added. SANA published photos from inside the mosque, one of which showed a hole in a wall. Black smoke covered part of the mosque, with carpets and books scattered nearby. Homs city is home to a Sunni Muslim majority but also has several predominantly Alawite areas. While most Syrians are Sunni, the ousted ruler, Bashar al-Assad, belongs to the Alawite community, whose faith stems from Shiite Islam. Since Assad&#39;s ouster in 2024, the Observatory and ordinary Syrians in Homs have reported kidnappings and killings targeting members of the minority community. Syria&#39;s coastal areas saw the massacre of Alawite civilians in March, with authorities accusing armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking security forces. A national commission of inquiry said at least 1,426 members of the minority community were killed at the time, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor put the toll at more than 1,700.

FILE: Pro-Turkish Syrian fighters carry away the victim of a car-bomb explosion last November in Tal Abyad (AFP)

Australasia

A deadly explosion hit a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of Syria's Homs on Friday, said authorities who reported at least six people killed.

Deadly blast hits mosque in Alawite area of Syria's Homs

ISLAMABAD: 14&nbsp;people were injured in a stabbing attack in a factory in central Japan during which an unspecified liquid was also sprayed, an emergency services official said on Friday. &quot;14&nbsp;people are subject to transportation by emergency services,&quot; Tomoharu Sugiyama, a firefighting department official in the city of Mishima, in Shizuoka region, told AFP. He said a call was received at about 4.30 pm local time from a nearby rubber factory saying &quot;five or six people were stabbed by someone&quot; and that a &quot;spray-like liquid&quot; had also been used. Japanese media, including public broadcaster NHK, reported that police had arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder. The Asahi Shimbun daily quoted investigative sources as saying that the man in his 30s was someone connected to the factory.&nbsp;He was wearing what appeared to be a gas mask, the newspaper and other media said.&nbsp;Asahi also said that he was apparently armed with what it described as a survival knife. NHK said the man told police that he was 38 years old. The seriousness of the injuries was unknown, although NHK said all victims remained conscious. Sugiyama said at least six of the 14 victims had been sent to hospital in a fleet of ambulances. The exact nature of the injuries was also unclear. The factory in Mishima is run by Yokohama Rubber Co, whose business includes manufacturing tyres for trucks and buses, according to its corporate website. Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world&#39;s toughest gun laws. However, there are occasional stabbing attacks and even shootings, including the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. A Japanese man was sentenced to death in October for a shooting and stabbing rampage that killed four people, including two police officers, in 2023. A 43-year-old man was also charged with attempted murder in May over a knife attack at Tokyo&#39;s Toda-mae metro station. Japan remains shaken by the memory of a major subway attack in 1995 when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas on trains, killing 14 people and making more than 5,800 ill. On March 20, 1995, five members of the Aum cult dropped bags of Nazi-developed sarin nerve agent inside morning commuter trains on March 20, 1995, piercing the pouches with sharpened umbrella tips before fleeing.

Japanese media reported that police had arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder.

Korea shared 'blood, life and death' with Russia: Kim's New Year's message to Putin

Latest News

Thailand and Cambodia agree to 'immediate' ceasefire: joint statement

Korea shared 'blood, life and death' with Russia: Kim's New Year's message to Putin

UN force in Lebanon says peacekeeper wounded by Israeli fire

Russia lashes out at Zelensky ahead of new Trump talks on Ukraine plan

Nigeria signals more strikes likely in 'joint' US operations