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On Wednesday a roadside bomb explosion in the Bandiagara area in the Mopti region killed seven United Nations peacekeepers and seriously wounded three others, according to the UN mission’s statement on Twitter.
Source: aljazeera.com
Canada joined Australia and Britain in a United States-led diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on Wednesday, while China hit back saying it had not invited government officials from the United Kingdom to attend.
Source: reuters.com
Sanna Marin went on a night out in Helsinki on Saturday, hours after her foreign minister had tested positive. She was initially told she did not need to isolate because she had been fully vaccinated, but later missed a text that advised her to do so. Critics questioned her judgement for not isolating until testing negative. The Social Democratic prime minister, 36, said the text message that advised her to avoid social contact was sent to her work phone, which she had left at home.
Source: bbc.com
Peru's former first lady Susana Higuchi -- wife-turned-critic of ex-president Alberto Fujimori and mother of opposition leader Keiko Fujimori -- died Wednesday of cancer, her family said on Twitter. Higuchi, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, was 71 years old and had been hospitalized in Lima for a month.
Source: france24.com
India’s defence chief General Bipin Rawat, his wife, and 11 other people have been killed after a military helicopter they were travelling in crashed in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has said. The IAF said in a Twitter post the “tragic accident” took place near the town of Coonoor at noon (06:30 GMT) on Wednesday.
Source: aljazeera.com
The chief executive of a US mortgage company who fired 900 employees on a Zoom call has apologised for failing to show “respect and appreciation” for the staff he sacked. The founder and chief executive of better.com, Vishal Garg, expressed contrition in a message (pdf) posted on his company’s website.
Source: theguardian.com
One of North America's most active fault lines sprung to life on Tuesday after a swarm of more than 40 earthquakes -- ranging from a magnitude 3.5 to 5.8 -- rattled off the coast of Oregon, catching the attention and concern of millions in the region. The series of quakes, which began early Tuesday morning and continued into Wednesday, were all clustered between 200-250 miles west of the coastal town of Newport.
Source: cnn.com
Australia will not send officials to February's Winter Olympics in Beijing, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday, joining a US diplomatic boycott of the Games.
Source: france24.com
Nick Cannon has announced that his five-month-old son Zen has died after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. The America's Got Talent and Masked Singer US host confirmed the news during The Nick Cannon Show on Tuesday. He called the episode a "celebration of life" for his late son, who died last weekend.
Source: bbc.com
A climber who found a trove of precious stones on Mont Blanc has been given half of the 150,000-euro ($168,700) haul to keep after authorities couldn't find the original owner. The climber found the emeralds and sapphires on the mountain in France in 2013, and he has now been allowed to keep half of the stones, according to a Facebook post from Chamonix-Mont-Blanc council on Friday.
Source: cnn.com
Elon Musk has fulfilled his pledge made last year to "own no home." The Tesla boss and billionaire sold his 16,000-square-foot mansion in Hillsborough, California, a wealthy Silicon Valley enclave just south of San Francisco. The property sold for $30 million, after initially listing for $37.5 million, when Mr. Musk announced the sale via Twitter in June, and eventually relisting for $31.99 million in October. The 47-acre property was Musk's "last remaining house" in California after selling off his other properties in the state.
Source: foxbusiness.com
Passengers on the 19-seater jet were filmed guiding the Tara Air plane to safety after it became stranded on the runway at Bajura Airport in Kolti last week. Airport officials also rushed to help the stricken pilot as planes circled overhead waiting for the traffic jam to clear so they could land.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
A helicopter carrying India's defence chief General Bipin Rawat crashed in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, the air force said.
Source: france24.com
The world's largest vaccine maker will halve the production of its Covid-19 vaccine because it has no fresh orders, its top-ranking executive has said. India has fully vaccinated half of its eligible adults since January.
Source: bbc.com
The new Omicron Covid sub-lineage, known as Omicron “like”, was identified in an overseas arrival to Queensland from South Africa.
Source: theguardian.com
A Malaysian court on Wednesday upheld former Prime Minister Najib Razak's guilty verdict on corruption charges over a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), dealing a blow to his hopes of a political comeback. Najib was appealing a 12-year prison sentence and $50 million fine imposed by Kuala Lumpur High Court last year for criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering, one of five trials he is facing over corruption allegations.
Source: cnn.com
Many inmates were still sleeping at the time of the blaze that destroyed several parts of the facility in Burundi’s political capital, Gitega, witnesses said. The vice-president, Prosper Bazombanza, who visited the scene of the fire with several senior ministers, said 38 people were killed and 69 seriously hurt.
Source: theguardian.com
The 3,500-year-old Gilgamesh Dream Tablet has gone on display in Iraq for the first time in three decades. The clay artefact bears part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's oldest surviving works of literature. It was looted from an Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War and smuggled through many countries before ending up at Washington DC's Museum of the Bible. US authorities seized the tablet in 2019 and handed it over to the Iraqi embassy in September.
Source: bbc.com
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