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Headwater Exploration Inc. ( OTCMKTS:CDDRF – Get Free Report ) announced a dividend on Tuesday, December 24th, investing.com reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, January 1st will be given a dividend of 0.0721 per share on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a dividend yield of 6.54%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. Headwater Exploration Stock Down 0.3 % Headwater Exploration stock opened at $4.52 on Friday. Headwater Exploration has a 52 week low of $4.06 and a 52 week high of $6.26. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $4.80 and a 200 day moving average price of $4.96. Analysts Set New Price Targets Separately, Raymond James initiated coverage on Headwater Exploration in a report on Friday, October 18th. They set a “market perform” rating and a $8.50 price objective for the company. About Headwater Exploration ( Get Free Report ) Headwater Exploration Inc engages in the exploration, development, and production of petroleum and natural gas in Canada. It holds interest in the Marten Hills area located in Alberta, and McCully Field area located in New Brunswick. The company was formerly known as Corridor Resources Inc and changed its name to Headwater Exploration Inc in March 2020. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Headwater Exploration Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Headwater Exploration and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. died on Sunday, December 29, 2024 at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. Carter will be remembered as a consummate humanitarian and Nobel Prize winning statesman who spent his retirement years building houses with Habitat for Humanity and all but eradicating a truly terrible parasite, the guinea worm, from the planet. He will also be rather unfairly remembered as a weak, ineffectual leader, relegated to a single four-year stint in the White House; a rarity among modern presidents. It’s a reputation pushed by the Greed-is-Good Reaganites who immediately followed Carter’s single-term presidency. But looking back, it’s clear that Carter’s presidency included plenty of far-reaching changes that could have drastically altered the course of America — specifically, our dependency on cars and foreign oil, and our rate of toxic pollution output — if only we had stuck with his plans. It is far beyond anyone’s ability to sum up such a man, even with a few thousand words to work with, but here’s how Carter biographer Jonathan Alter describes his subject : With skills ranging from agronomist, land-use planner, nuclear engineer and sonar technologist to poet, painter, Sunday School teacher and master woodworker, Carter was the first president since Thomas Jefferson who could rightly be considered a Renaissance Man. He was also the first since Jefferson under whom no blood was shed in war. And his record of honesty and decency — once seen as minimum qualifications — have loomed larger with time. At a farewell dinner just before leaving office, his vice-president, Walter F. Mondale, whose job Carter turned from punchline into a position of real responsibility, toasted the Carter Administration: “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace.” Carter later added a fourth major accomplishment: “And we championed human rights.” Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981, during a time when the U.S. alone consumed one-third of the entire planet’s energy production — much of that going towards fueling the large, criminally inefficient cars of the era. Carter created ground-breaking policies that attempted to reverse this trend, many of which Regan dismantled quicker than a solar panel on the White House roof. Even so, there were some deeply-felt lasting effects of his administration. Carter wrote in his autobiography: The Congressional Quarterly reported that since 1953 Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy and I ranked in that order in obtaining approval of legislation proposed to Congress. The Miller Center reported that my record exceeded Kennedy’s. Indeed, he got his legislative way in Congress 76.6 percent of the time, according to Politifact . He left a deep mark on this country, especially when it comes to the environment and the automotive industry. Carter was the first president to bail out an American automaker, Chrysler, with a $1.5-billion Treasury loan. He was the first to attempt to get oil companies to pay their fair share of taxes during times of record profits (and record gas-pump prices) and the first leader in the world to address global warming, and humanity’s role in it, as a reality. Carter looked at our wasteful, energy-hungry American culture and struck a solemn — occasionally scolding — chord, imploring us to build toward a brighter future. But such a vision is not sexy, and it’s not fun. It’s certainly not part of what we think of as the go-go 1980s culture. Instead of seriously investing in innovations that would reduce our dependence on carbon-emitting oil from hostile countries, America chose to proceed in an entirely different direction, made clear when the electorate chose Ronald Regan by a landslide in the 1980 presidential election. “Carter also envisioned electric cars by the mid-1980s, and would have used his power to push automakers in that direction, as he did on CAFE standards,” Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told Jalopnik. Alter believes that a second Carter term would have been much better in a lot of ways. “Starting with more compassion domestically and less saber-rattling abroad, where he would have likely completed the unfinished business of Camp David, namely some comprehensive Mideast peace deal that included an eventual Palestinian state. Carter told me this was his biggest regret about losing.” Carter won the Nobel Peace Price in 2002, the committee citing his groundbreaking work towards peace throughout his career, both as president and as a private civilian. The Camp David Accords ended 30 years of hostility between Egypt and Israel and remain the longest-lasting peace agreement since World War II. That’s not to say Carter was without fault. As president, Carter saved Chrysler (and the automaker paid off its debt to the American people seven years early), but the Carter administration also helped establish an emboldened corporate America where workers still regularly bear the burden of highly-paid CEOs’ mistakes. He created a new tax that would directly result in the rise of the SUV, inspiring automakers to revamp their ’70s gas-guzzler shortsightedness for the 21st century. And he led a White House that seemed chaotic and directionless when America yearned for strong leadership. Let’s take a look at where this influential president went right — and where he went wrong — in his dealings with the American automotive industry. Taking on Fuel Economy and Big Oil By 1977, the concept of the modern suburb was only about 25 years old, but had overtaken the American way of life. By the 1970s, the number of cars on American roads had quadrupled in two decades, to 118 million vehicles, and the number of miles traveled by car had doubled. This was the Malaise Era of cars — a time of inefficient, poorly built, uninspired land yachts. The rise of in-car air conditioning shaved even more miles off the U.S. economy average, costing new car owners about two and a half miles per gallon. Carter addressed this waste in his first address as president: We have learned that “more” is not necessarily “better,” that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best. The country was still reeling from the 1973 Gas Crisis, caused after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an embargo on U.S. oil sales in response to the U.S. re-supplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This caused a spike in gas prices and shortages in fuel across the country. OPEC ended its embargo in May of 1974, but fuel prices remained high while oil companies profited immensely. To prevent another painful energy crisis, Carter’s predecessor, Gerald Ford, had signed into law the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard. This policy would eventually be expanded by the energy bill Carter promised in his inaugural address. Passed in 1978 as the National Energy Act, the collection of eight bills created the Department of Energy, pushed renewable energy goals, raised fleet average MPG requirements, reduced oil imports by supporting the U.S. oil industry, and imposed a gas guzzler tax which would increase as CAFE standards tightened. Carter called the previous administration’s energy crisis the “...moral equivalent of war,” and he planned to come out with both guns blazing. His new Department of Energy would be put to the test just a year after its creation when, in 1979, Carter faced the moral war of his own energy crisis. The Iranian Revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis sent oil prices soaring from $13 per barrel in mid-1979 to $34 per barrel by mid-1980 — despite the loss in oil supply being estimated at only four to five percent. Long lines at fuel pumps were once again angering Americans. But folksy Carter was famous for facing moral struggles. The president sequestered himself at Camp David for 10 days to consider the energy problems facing America. He met with leaders in business, science and faith, and spent hours alone studying and writing. After this period of reflection, Carter believed he had identified the problem. In what would later become known as Carter’s Malaise Speech , he cut to the heart of U.S. consumerist culture: The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. . . . In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world. While certainly not wrong, saying as much is kind of a bummer. Amazingly, Carter’s incredibly low approval numbers received an 11-point bump after the speech, which was squandered a few days later when Carter fired five cabinet members. His presidency seemed scattered and chaotic heading into the 1980 presidential election. In order to bring down gas prices, Carter would begin to deregulate domestic fuel markets even as he imposed a large tax on oil company windfalls during the nationwide gas shortages and price hikes. His policies would initially lead to an increase in domestic oil production of nearly 1 million barrels a day between 1980 and 1985, according to the Miller Center. However, the price of oil plummeted in the mid ’80s, and the tax became a significant hindrance to domestic oil production, while not raking in all that much dough for the federal government. It was repealed in 1988; politicians have been twitchy over the idea of taxing massive oil company profits ever since. President Joe Biden recently floated the same idea, which was almost universally panned as being doomed to repeat Carter’s failure. Carter’s regulation of the auto industry wasn’t perfect, either. During his time in office, Carter expanded a tax on Japanese light-trucks in order to prop up domestic sales. Reagan would build on this policy in 1981, pressing Japanese automakers into “voluntary” export restrictions. Further, light trucks were exempt from Carter’s strict new MPG standards, and continue to be exempt to this day. These little favors for the automakers would lead directly to the rise of deadly, dangerous and wasteful SUVs and trucks on America’s roads, setting us up for yet another energy crisis in 2022, when gas prices and inflation once again reared their ugly heads. Carter told the Harvard Business Review he was proactive with automakers about building more fuel-efficient cars even before his own oil crisis. The heads of the Big Three were hesitant to get on board, however: [...] I called in to my cabinet room the chief executive officers—the chairmen of the board and the presidents of every automobile manufacturer in the nation—along with the autoworkers’ union representatives. I told them we were going to pass some very strict air pollution and energy conservation laws. My hope was that they would take the initiative right then and commit themselves to producing energy-efficient automobiles that would comply with these strict standards. Their unanimous response was that it simply was not possible. I told them that automakers in Sweden and in Japan were doing it, so it was possible. But they insisted that they just couldn’t make a profit on it because their profit came from the larger automobiles. So they refused to modify their designs. Eventually we passed a law that required them, incrementally and annually, to improve their automobiles’ efficiency and to comply with environmental standards. In the meantime, American manufacturers lost a lot of the domestic market. That was a case of the automobile industry being unwilling to look to the future. They could not see the long-run advantage, even though it might prove to be costly in the close-in years. That delay would cost Chrysler dearly. The 1979 Chrysler Bailout That lack of long-term foresight Carter spoke of in his Malaise speech would send Chrysler spiraling towards something unimaginable in the post-war United States: The bankruptcy of a major American automobile manufacturer. And yet, in 1979 Chrysler faced half a billion dollars in losses. At a time of rising gas prices and the emergence of stringent federal fuel economy standards, the American automaker was still churning out those poorly-built road yachts. No automaker built them quite as big (or as wasteful) as the Chrysler corporation. At the time, Chrysler was the third-largest automaker in the country, and the 10th-largest industrial manufacturer. By the time Carter took office, America had waded through five years of energy ups and downs, but Chrysler hadn’t changed its vehicles all that much. When the second gas crisis hit, along with the new regulations put in place by Carter’s energy policy, Chrysler fumbled. The company had recently scooped up celebrity CEO Lee Iaoccoa , fresh off eight years of making money hand over fist for Henry Ford II. Iacoccoa was the fall guy for the Ford Pinto disaster, but had made few friends with his desire to push the company towards more fuel-efficient vehicles. As a sign of the serious situation Chrysler was in, Iacoccoa took a salary of only $1 in his first year as CEO. Iacocca then tried to move Chrysler towards smaller vehicles, but quickly realized his new employer would not be able to weather this financial storm alone. Iacocca reached out to the feds for help. He persuaded lawmakers that Chrysler was too big to fail. Carter’s Treasury Department was on board, but in order to get enough support in Congress for a loan, the Carter administration would ask the company, and the UAW, to make deep concessions. Treasury Secretary G. William Miller proposed a $1.5 billion loan, then the Carter Administration’s Council on Wage and Price Stability testified before the Senate Banking Committee that such a loan would be consumed in three years flat, thanks to the automaker’s obligations to the UAW. After a summer of bad press and congressional cajoling, the UAW eventually agreed to $525 million in concessions in late October 1979, along with a three-year wage freeze. Just before Christmas, Chrysler got its $1.5 billion loan in the form of the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act. The act did more than just bail out Chrysler. While Chrysler would be subject to more government oversight while paying off the debt — including $2 billion in cost-cutting measures and a three-year plan approved by Congress to get the company back on track — the special act also relaxed the brand-new gas mileage requirements updated by the 1978 National Energy Act. That alone gave Chrysler a much-needed boost, which Iacocca used to springboard the company-saving K-cars and, eventually, the minivan, which came to define the brand in the 1980s and 1990s. This bailout would be used as a blueprint by the Obama administration in 2008 when General Motors and Chrysler found themselves in the same situation Chrysler had faced in 1979. While Chrysler employees weren’t the ones who made the bad business decisions in the ’70s, they would bear a great burden in the plan to right the company’s course. As they accepted major concessions, union members were painted by the media as selfish and lazy, willing to kill Chrysler to get their golden retirement funds. Even with steep concessions and wage freezes in the middle of historic inflation, Chrysler laid off 57,000 of its 134,000-strong production workforce, the Washington Post reported in a retrospective on the bailout published in 1984. All told, the auto industry as a whole would lay off 239,000 workers in one month in 1980 . Still, Carter biographer Jonathan Alter says saving Chrysler was worth it. “It was a binary decision: Save Chrysler and thousands of jobs or not, and he clearly made the right call for workers, for whom he had much more respect than did Reagan,” Alter told Jalopnik The damage to unions would last much longer than Chrysler’s debt. The automaker managed to pay off its loan seven years early — mostly to get out from under federal oversight. The U.S. made $300 million on its investment in the company. While Chrysler would thrive in the ’80s and ’90s thanks to Iacocca’s simple, fuel-efficient K-cars and the popular minivan, union membership in America dropped precipitously as Right-to-Work laws swept the nation. And as union memberships stagnate, so do wages . Carter Was Right The energy crisis was a key issue to voters who tossed Carter out in favor of Ronald Reagan in a legendary landslide. Having fellow democrat Ted Kennedy challenge the sitting president for his party’s nomination was just one more nail in the coffin of Carter’s re-election campaign. His shaky administration didn’t look any more solid when the president lost consciousness during a 10K run. Reagan didn’t chide the American public for their gas-guzzling cars. He didn’t ask Americans to spend less, or look deep within themselves and question consumerist culture — Reagan promised wealth, abundance and a revitalization of the American dream (for some, anyway). Once he took office, Reagan stripped the Carter-installed solar panels off the roof of the White House and tossed them in a basement. The dismantling served as a symbol of America rejecting Carter’s old energy policies wholesale. When the solar panels were found in 2010, they still worked . Carter’s concerns about the U.S. didn’t disappear — we just put them on the back burner for a few decades. Now we’re facing challenges similar to what Carter attempted to address with his time in office: climate change; oil companies profiteering on the back of sky-high fuel prices; the runaway popularity of giant, inefficient vehicles; and detrimental consumerism on a scale familiar to anyone who lived through the 1970s. So what if Reagan had lost the 1980 election? According to a New York Times op-ed, we might be living in a very different world: According to a recent report by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, if the United States had continued to conserve oil at the rate it did in the period from 1976 to 1985, it would no longer have needed Persian Gulf oil after 1985. Had we continued this wise course, we might not have had to fight the Persian Gulf war, and we would have insulated ourselves from price shocks in the international oil market. Just before Carter left office in 1981, a member of his White House Council on Environmental Quality, Gus Speth, authored a presidential report as part of Global 2000, a process recommending action on global warming. It was the first such policy pronouncement anywhere in the world. “Speth’s recommendations for tackling climate change in 1981 would be almost identical to the Paris Climate Accords some 34 years later. Such a report would have become part of Carter’s legislative agenda in 1980,” Alter told Jalopnik. With Jimmy Carter’s death, America didn’t just lose an exemplary humanitarian who doubled the size of the National Parks system and signed 15 major pieces of environmental legislation, including the first toxic waste cleanup. We lost a reminder that our nation once had a head-start on solving some of the greatest problems we face today: environmental pollution, runaway oil consumption, rampant consumerism, a mental health crisis, climate change and Middle East violence. Carter envisioned a different, more responsible America, and he was rejected for it. Carter’s most enduring legacy will be this: He tried to leave America a little better than he found it. He attempted to warn Americans about the challenges we’d face over the next five decades. Our own legacy shows we were completely unwilling to heed those warnings.AP Trending SummaryBrief at 6:30 p.m. EST

MUMBAI: A towering cinema with a roofline like an ocean liner stands out in India’s financial capital Mumbai, part of a remarkable Art Deco architectural heritage that campaigners say needs protection. A short walk away is a state-run insurance office with giant Egyptian-style carvings, and a palm-lined seafront promenade with pastel-coloured apartments with porthole windows, curved balconies and exotic motifs. Get exclusive content with Gulf News WhatsApp channel Architecture aficionados may go crazy over Miami’s South Beach, but the coastal Indian megacity is home to what experts believe is one of the world’s largest collections of Art Deco buildings. Decades of neglect, however, have led to buildings being demolished or compromised through slapdash modern renovation. Lovers of the dramatic architecture fear that will only increase as Mumbai undergoes a rapid $30 billion infrastructure makeover including major road, rail and bridge projects. A sweep of some Art Deco buildings - including offices, colleges and residential complexes - was listed on Unesco’s World Heritage list in 2018, alongside the city’s Victorian Gothic architecture for its “unique style” described as “Indo-Deco”. Today, the city’s breakneck pace of development has left a small but dedicated group of building owners, architects and heritage lovers trying to conserve the city’s Art Deco character. The job requires “constant vigilance”, said Nayana Kathpalia, who lives in an Art Deco building that was recently restored - but crucially in a manner that maintained its original character. Many apartment building owners are eager to cash in and redevelop their old dwellings, making them part of a cookie-cutter modern skyline. “If too many buildings get done in a totally different style, the World Heritage Site committee will say ‘what the hell is happening?’,” Kathpalia said. “We are very, very clear that we have to protect that.” Losing it could strip the city of its history and character, campaigners say. Art Deco took the West by storm after emerging as a new wave of design in France before the First World War. Architects used geometric patterns and streamlined structures to evoke the popular technologies of the time, including airplanes and ocean liners. As a style, Art Deco can appear as an odd hodgepodge, borrowing everything from ancient Mayan to Japanese culture. But the first generation of homegrown Indian architects who visited Europe in the 1920s and 1930s were inspired. After returning home, they started designing Art Deco style buildings for rich Indian business families that had profited off the economic boom in the port city, said Atul Kumar, founder of a non-profit that seeks to conserve the heritage. Art Deco “enabled a certain cosmopolitanism” and contributed to making Mumbai a “modern, open, friendly” city, Kumar added. While Kumar’s Art Deco Mumbai organisation has spent years painstakingly documenting buildings, it has also more recently started offering “repair and restoration” help. “We go out, pro bono, and reach out to people,” he said, having supported the sensitive restoration of around nine buildings, including a couple in the core World Heritage area. However, there are challenges, including stringent rent control laws which impose financial constraints on landlords. Kumar also admits that residents in newer and northern parts of the city have less of a “desire” to conserve their buildings in their original Art Deco style. A large part of this is due to a lack of awareness. Many of the city’s inhabitants walk past the vivid tropical imagery, elongated turrets and jazzy typography without giving them a second glance. Pranati Mehta, a 46-year-old school teacher, says most Indians only look at “temples as architecture”, as they “feel that is special”. Some Mumbai residents don’t realise they “live amongst art”, she said. But Mehta, who was on a weekend walking tour to learn more about the architectural style, quickly adds that Art Deco isn’t foreign to Indian sensibilities. “We recognise it as a Bombay style,” she said. “We think Art Deco is also an Indian brand”.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Cam Skattebo and Arizona State are on quite a run in their Big 12 debut after being the preseason pick to finish at the bottom of the conference. Now the Sun Devils will represent their new 16-team league in the 12-team College Football Playoff after a 45-19 win over Iowa State in the Big 12 championship game Saturday.S&P/TSX composite index slightly up Wednesday, U.S. stock markets also riseNone

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Published 4:48 pm Saturday, December 7, 2024 By Data Skrive Sunday’s contest between the No. 6 Iowa State Cyclones (6-1) and the Jackson State Tigers (0-9) at James H. Hilton Coliseum should be a lopsided matchup, as our computer prediction projects a final score of 89-60 and heavily favors Iowa State to come out on top. Game time is at 6:00 PM ET on December 8. According to our computer prediction, Jackson State should cover the point spread, which is listed at 36.5. The two teams are projected to go over the 144.5 over/under. Catch tons of live college basketball , plus original programming, with ESPN+ or the Disney Bundle. Place your bets on any men’s college basketball matchup at BetMGM. Sign up today using our link. Iowa State has put together a 4-3-0 record against the spread this season, while Jackson State is 4-5-0. A total of three out of the Cyclones’ games this season have hit the over, and two of the Tigers’ games have gone over. The two teams combine to score 147.4 points per game, 2.9 more points than this matchup’s total. Bet on this or any men’s college basketball matchup at BetMGM. Rep your favorite players with officially licensed gear. Head to Fanatics to find jerseys, shirts, hats, and much more. Not all offers available in all states, please visit BetMGM for the latest promotions for your area. Must be 21+ to gamble, please wager responsibly. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, contact 1-800-GAMBLER .US ski star Mikaela Shiffrin said Wednesday that she's "starting to feel a little bit more human" after suffering a puncture wound in a giant slalom crash but confirmed she won't race at Beaver Creek, Colorado, this month. "This is another fairly ambiguous injury and really hard to put a timeline of when I'll be either back on snow or back to racing," Shiffrin said in a video posted on social media. "But I do know that I will not be starting in Beaver Creek." Shiffrin had already said after Saturday's crash she didn't expect to be ready for the Colorado races, a downhill on December 14 and a super-G on December 15. On Wednesday, she said that whatever object caused the puncture in her abdomen also left "tore a cavern" in her oblique muscles. She said she had also undergone further testing to check for possible damage to her colon. "There were some air bubbles where the puncture came pretty close to the colon," she said. "Last night's check confirmed that my colon is, indeed, intact." Shiffrin was closing in on a once unimaginable 100th World Cup victory when she crashed in the second leg of the giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, on Saturday. She hit one gate and tumbled through another before sliding into the catch fencing and was taken from the hill on a sled. She won't miss any races this weekend because the two women's giant slaloms scheduled for Tremblant, Canada, were cancelled because of lack of snow. However, Shiffrin said she would be sorry not to resume her bid for a 100th World Cup win on the circuit's next US stop. "This is a really big bummer, not to be able to race Birds of Prey," Shiffrin said. "But on the other hand I was really lucky and I'm really looking forward to cheering my teammates on racing Beaver Creek." In 2023, Shiffrin broke Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup wins, a mark once considered unassailable. Compatriot Lindsey Vonn has the second-most alpine World Cup wins by a woman with 82. bb/jsRussia launched more than 100 drones at Ukraine on December 22, half of which were shot down, according to Ukraine's military, with no casualties reported. The regions of Kherson, Mykolayiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Zhytomyr, and Kyiv all saw drones fired in their direction, with 52 of the total 103 shot down, the Ukrainian Air Force reported . Businesses and apartment buildings were damaged in the Russian attacks, though at this point, the military said, "without casualties." Russia has stepped up its air attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying on December 21 that Moscow has launched more than 550 guided bombs, almost 550 drones, and 20 missiles over the past week. Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine's civilian and energy infrastructure since the start of the war, stepping up attacks especially at the onset of the cold season, causing maximum difficulties and lengthy power cuts for Ukrainians for the third winter in a row. It has also been accused by Kyiv of targeting residential buildings, which Moscow denies. Russia's massive attack comes a day after Ukraine struck high-rise buildings in Kazan , the capital of Russia's oil-rich republic of Tatarstan. Ukraine has been investing heavily in drone production in part to compensate for its shortage in manpower on the battlefield. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said earlier this month that it had transferred 1.2 million drones to the armed forces through the first 11 months of 2024, including more than 6,000 deep strike drones. Ukraine's drone production is now close to parity with Russia, experts have said. Kyiv has used its long-range drone capacity to hit objects crucial to Russia's war effort, such as weapons and energy facilities. It has tried to avoid civilian targets in part amid concern about backlash from its Western backers. Kazan, one of the wealthiest cities in Russia, is approximately 800 kilometers east of Moscow. Several Russian pensioners were allegedly tricked by scammers into carrying out risky stunts in crowded places in Moscow and St. Petersburg on December 21, police said. A number of the pensioners have been detained, the police said. Law enforcement is still searching for at least one of the suspects. It is unclear who is behind the scam. One incident took place at the Fort shopping center in northeastern Moscow. The building was evacuated following a small explosion in the public services center located there. One woman was treated for injuries after she fell amid the rush for the doors. Meanwhile, a shopping center and a post office in the suburban Moscow towns of Korolev and Khimki, respectively, were evacuated the same day on similar grounds. In Korolev, the explosion blew out several windows and triggered a fire that damaged the shopping center’s ceiling. In the Fort incident, police detained a pensioner who allegedly detonated a firecracker on the instructions of unknown individuals who had extorted 120,000 rubles ($1,200) from her. The 64-year-old suspect in the Korolev incident allegedly tried to detonate pyrotechnics at the police station as well. A 70-year-old woman was detained in connection with the explosion at the post office in Khimki. The same day, two retired women in St. Petersburg allegedly tried to set fire to a police car at the direction of telephone scammers. They have been detained and a case has been opened against them on terrorist charges. Also in St. Petersburg, an explosion occurred at an ATM location belonging to Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender. No injuries were reported. Local media reported that an elderly woman poured a flammable liquid inside the ATM before the explosion. A similar incident at an ATM occurred the night before in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities reported. This time the suspect was a teenager. Police said the 19-year old girl was duped into carrying out the attack by scammers. She received second-degree burns and is being treated at a hospital. Pakistani militants carried out a daring early-morning raid near the northwestern border with Afghanistan, killing over a dozen officers in the latest attack of 2024 -- a year already marked as one of the deadliest in the region. Laddha Police Deputy Superintendent Hidayat Ullah told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that 16 security officers were killed when militants opened fire at a security checkpoint in South Waziristan at 2 am on December 21. He said eight more officers were wounded. Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which claimed responsibility for the attack, said it killed 35 Pakistani security officers. Radio Mashaal could not independently confirm the number of officers killed. Neither side said how many militants were killed during the attack. There has been a steady increase in TTP attacks in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province since the Taliban regained control of Kabul in August 2021. The TTP seeks to impose Shari'a law in Pakistan. The latest attack came as the elders of Dre Maseed in the Sur Rogha area of South Waziristan held a meeting on December 20 to demand that the security forces change tactics. Sherpao Maseed, a leader of the assembly, told Radio Mashaal that Pakistani defense forces are targeting militants with artillery and mortar shells , putting civilians in danger. The Pakistan Center for Conflict and Security Studies said in its most recent report that more than 240 people were killed in "terrorist incidents" in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in November The death toll included 68 security officers, the highest in a single month this year. Meanwhile, the Army Public Relations Directorate (ISPR) claims to have killed dozens of suspected militants in operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this month. The governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan say they are committed to wiping out the TTP. BUDAPEST -- Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's recent reported proposal for NATO members states to increase their defense spending would cripple the Hungarian economy. According to recent reports in Britain's Financial Times and The Telegraph, Trump's team informed European officials that the president-elect was expecting the United States' NATO allies to raise their defense expenditure to 5 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP). Speaking at his year-end press briefing on December 21, Orban said that Hungary has already sweated blood to reach the current 2 percent target, and "if the 2 percent has to be increased, that would shoot the Hungarian economy in the lungs." "We would prefer to not spend even 2 percent of GDP on weaponry...but the world is going in the opposite direction," he said. Orban, who has been accused at home and abroad of democratic backsliding, also said he had not discussed this with Trump, adding that, if the increase is inevitable, then he believes it should be gradual. Hungary budgeted to spend 2.1 percent of GDP in 2024 on defense. Orban is one of Trump's main allies in Europe and, on December 9, he met with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Throughout the Ukraine war, Orban has maintained friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been critical of EU aid for Ukraine, and has obstructed the bloc's sanctions regime against Moscow. NATO Spending Targets During his time as president between 2016 and 2020, Trump regularly called for NATO members to meet the required 2 percent level of defense spending, goals that most have since met. NATO leadership has also called for member nations to boost spending following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has triggered the largest war in Europe since World War II. Before leaving office, former Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance's members would "have to be willing to pay the price for peace" and said that the current 2 percent target was "no longer enough to keep us safe." And in Budapest in November, the current NATO secretary-general, Mark Rutte, said at the European Political Community summit that member states would have to pay more. "It will surpass the 2 percent greatly more. I am quite clear about that," Rutte said. The United States contributes around 16 percent to NATO's common-funded budget, which is the joint largest share alongside Germany. The United States will also spend roughly $967 billion on defense in 2024. While that accounts for around two-thirds of what all NATO members will spend on defense combined this year, it represents about 3 percent of GDP. The United States last spent 5 percent of GDP on defense in the late 2000s and early 2010s amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Cold War, the United States spent between 5 and 11 percent of GDP on defense . Experts said that Trump's proposal is likely a starting point for negotiations with NATO members. Spat With Poland The Hungarian prime minister also defended Budapest's decision to grant political asylum to Marcin Romanowski, a Polish lawmaker from the right-wing Law and Justice party, who is wanted for alleged corruption during his tenure in Poland's previous government. Orban said he didn't think the case involving a Polish politician would be the last. He added, however, that he wanted to keep "conflicts with Poland at a manageable level," and would refrain from commenting on the country's rule-of-law situation. The Hungarian prime minister's office made the announcement on December 19, arguing that the Polish government was persecuting its political rivals. Warsaw has called the move a "hostile act" and has summoned Hungary's ambassador to Poland. KARACHI, Pakistan -- Pakistani military courts have sentenced 25 people for their part in attacks on military facilities in May 2023. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of Pakistan's armed forces, said in a statement on December 21 that 25 defendants were given sentences ranging from two to 10 years. On May 9, 2023, following the arrest of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in a fraud case, supporters of Khan's party, Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI), attacked and damaged military installations, mosques, and government buildings in cities across Pakistan. Several people were killed and dozens injured in the unrest. In its statement, the military's media wing described the sentences as an "important milestone in dispensation of justice to the nation." It added that May 9, 2023 was a sad day for the country, and it would be officially commemorated every year. In response to the verdicts, PTI wrote on the X social network that the military courts have violated the defendants' constitutional and human rights. Khan's party has said the judicial process is not transparent and about 80 people have been in military custody since the unrest, their fundamental rights violated. Supporters of the imprisoned former prime minister, who is accused of inciting attacks against the armed forces, have expressed concerns that military rather than civilian courts are trying some of the cases. They have staged months of protests to demand Khan's release. PTI says its members and supporters did not attack military or government buildings on May 9, 2023. Last year, Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled that civilians should be tried in civilian courts, not military courts. However, on December 13, the Supreme Court suspended the decision and allowed military courts to hear civilian cases. Others charged over the violence are being tried in anti-terrorism courts. PTI regularly campaigns against corruption and nepotism in Pakistan but has been accused of populism and authoritarian tendencies centered around its charismatic leader Khan. KVIV -- An air-raid warning has been declared in all regions of Ukraine due to possible ballistic missile strikes, Ukrainian military authorities said. Russia continued its regular attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure overnight, launching 113 drone attacks, according to the Ukrainian Air Force on December 21. Of those drones, 57 were shot down, and 56 others were unable to reach their targets, the air force said. The Ukrainian Air Force also said Russia had fired one surface-to-air S-400 missile at central Ukraine, but it did not cause any damage or casualties. RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported that in the eastern Ukrainian Zaporizhzhya and Kharkiv regions downed drones damaged apartment buildings, causing casualties. Ukraine was under a general air-raid alert for several hours on December 20 as Russia launched missile and drone attacks against the capital, Kyiv, and several other regions around the country. Russian Advance The latest attacks come as Ukrainian forces are struggling to stop Russia's rapid advance in the east of the country. The Russian Defense Ministry announced on December 21 that Russian forces had taken control of the village of Kostyantynopolske in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region. The claim about the village, called Ostrovsky by Russia, could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. Meanwhile, Reuters quoted Aleksandr Khinshtein, the acting governor of Russia's Kursk region, as saying that six people, including one child, were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on December 20 on the town of Rylsk. Ukraine seized territory in the Kursk region in an incursion in August but has since given up about half its territorial gains. Drones, thought to be from Ukraine, hit high-rise buildings in Kazan , the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan, with the attacks causing the city's airport to temporarily suspend flights. No casualties were reported. KAZAN, Russia -- Ukraine struck high-rise buildings in Kazan, the capital of Russia's oil-rich republic of Tatarstan, in the latest display of its growing drone capabilities. The December 21 attacks came in three waves between 7:40 a.m. and 9:20 a.m., the Russian Defense Ministry said. The ministry said the drones were of Ukrainian origin. Western experts said they appeared to be Ukraine's Lyitiy model , a light, aircraft-like drone. Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the strike. The press service of Rustam Minnikhanov, the leader of Tatarstan, said in a statement that eight drones attacked the city. According to the statement, six struck luxury residential buildings, one struck an industrial facility, and one was shot down over a river. In a post on its Telegram channel, Kazan mayor’s office said the drones struck targets in three districts of the city. Two drones slammed into the upper floors of a 37-story luxury skyscraper, according to videos posted on social media. The strikes, which were about 30 minutes apart, hit the glass-and-metal building in roughly the same spot. Schools Evacuated RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reported that pupils were evacuated from schools in the Soviet district of Kazan and that sirens could be heard in the city. There were no casualties, local authorities said. According to Interfax reports, Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin said that people had been evacuated from the affected buildings and were being provided with accommodation and food. The mayor said that all large events in the city would be canceled over the weekend. Kazan, one of the wealthiest cities in Russia, is approximately 800 kilometers east of Moscow. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said that a "Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle was destroyed over the territory of the Republic of Tatarstan by the air defense forces on duty." Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency said in a statement that "temporary restrictions were imposed at Kazan Airport on the morning of December 21 in order to ensure the safety of civilian flights. Both arrivals and departures are suspended." The ban has since been lifted. Ukrainian drone attacks have previously targeted Russian military and industrial locations in Tatarstan. Local authorities on May 15 shut down two major airports -- one in Kazan and another in the city of Nizhnekamsk -- for several hours "for security reasons" following a drone attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said that "a Ukrainian drone" was shot down over Tatarstan. In April, Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery in Tatarstan and a dormitory in the Alabuga special economic zone in Yelabuga, which hosts more than 20 industrial enterprises, including chemical, mechanical engineering, and metal treatment factories. It also reportedly houses a facility producing drones. Drone Surge Ukraine has been investing heavily in drone production in part to compensate for its shortage in manpower on the battlefield. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said earlier this month that it had transferred 1.2 million drones to the armed forces through the first 11 months of 2024, including more than 6,000 deep strike drones . Ukraine's drone production is now close to parity with Russia, experts have said. Kyiv has used its long-range drone capacity to hit objects crucial to Russia's war effort, such as weapons and energy facilities. It has tried to avoid civilian targets in part amid concern about backlash from its Western backers. In the summer of 2023, Ukrainian drones twice struck the floors of a high-rise building in Moscow's business district housing Russian government ministries. Experts speculated whether the skyscraper in Kazan that was struck twice was home to someone connected with Russia's war effort. Zelenskiy said that Ukraine will continue to target military objects in Russia with drones and missiles. "We will definitely continue to strike Russian military facilities - with drones and missiles, and increasingly Ukrainian ones, at precisely those military bases, at precisely that Russian military infrastructure that is used in such terror against our people," he said in his regular nightly video address to the nation. In the meantime, Russia has continued its regular attacks against Ukraine, including civilian targets. Russia's armed forces launched 113 drone attacks against Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian Air Force on December 21. Of those drones, 57 were shot down, and 56 others were unable to reach their targets, the air force said. At least two people were killed and more than 60 injured after a car drove at high speed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, German officials said on December 20. The car plowed into the market in what authorities suspect was an intentional act in the city in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. “This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas," Saxony-Anhalt Governor Reiner Haseloff said. The driver of the car was arrested. Haseloff told reporters that the suspect is a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who first came to Germany in 2006. He had not been on law enforcement's radar as a known Islamist, security sources told the dpa news agency. "From what we currently know he was a lone attacker, so we don't think there is any further danger for the city," Haseloff said. Haseloff said the two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, and he couldn’t rule out further deaths. Police evacuated the area as they suspected there could be a bomb still in the car that was driven into the market. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he plans to visit the city on December 21. “The reports from Magdeburg suggest something terrible is to come. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. We stand by their side and by the side of the people of Magdeburg. My thanks go to the dedicated rescue workers in these anxious hours,” Scholz said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron also reacted on X. “Deeply shocked by the horror that struck the Magdeburg Christmas market in Germany this evening. My thoughts are with the victims, the injured, and their loved ones and families. France shares the pain of the German people and expresses its full solidarity,” he said . Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 residents west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt. The suspected attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin. killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in its final report on the October 26 parliamentary elections in Georgia that numerous issues “negatively impacted" the elections and eroded public trust. The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) issued the final report on December 20. The OSCE said shortly after the October 26 elections that it had recorded instances of vote-buying, double-voting, physical violence, and intimidation. The final report reiterates the organization's concerns and offers recommendations to improve elections in Georgia. “Numerous issues noted in our final report negatively impacted the integrity of these elections and eroded public trust in the process,” said Eoghan Murphy, who headed the ODIHR’s 2024 election observation mission to Georgia. Murphy urged authorities in Georgia to urgently address all concerns about the elections, which gave the ruling Georgian Dream party more than 54 percent of the vote, enough to maintain control of the government. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze acknowledged that the final report contains "critical remarks," including on the suppression of votes. "In 76 percent of the polling stations where it observed, OSCE/ODIHR did not identify any irregularities at all," he said at a briefing, adding that in other cases there were "isolated irregularities" that were identified. "These were related to incorrect ballot entry, improper arrangement of the polling station, so-called leaks, video recording, etc." According to Kobakhidze, the Georgian Dream government is ready to cooperate with the OSCE to implement its recommendations. The report refers to the passage of a "foreign agents" law modeled on a similar Russian law, earlier in the year, saying the election took place amid “serious concerns about the impact of recently adopted legislation on fundamental freedoms and civil society.” The law, which mandates that organizations receiving significant foreign funding register as “foreign agents,” took effect on August 1, sparking significant backlash from international and domestic actors. The final report also cites pressure on voters and election day practices that “compromised the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution.” In addition, there was an overall lack of response to complaints in the post-election period, the report said, saying the ODIHR “found that cases were not considered sufficiently, limiting legal remedies.” The report reiterates the negative impact of the “polarized and instrumentalized media” and limited campaign finance oversight. It notes that candidates were generally able to campaign freely, and candidates across 18 party lists competed, but a "significant imbalance in financial resources contributed to the uneven playing field.” Demonstrators began gathering in central Tbilisi soon after the elections as criticism mounted over voting irregularities. The protests intensified after Kobakhidze announced that Tbilisi was suspending until 2028 talks with Brussels on Georgia's bid to join the European Union. The ODIHR notes that some protests were violently dispersed, resulting in numerous arrests and allegations of brutality toward protesters and journalists. The ODIHR said that the suppression of protests by force and numerous arrests “caused grave concerns about compliance with international commitments to freedom of peaceful assembly.” Poland has summoned Hungary's ambassador over Budapest's decision to grant political asylum to a Polish opposition politician who is wanted for alleged corruption during his tenure in Poland's previous government. Warsaw was outraged by Hungary's decision to grant political asylum to Marcin Romanowski. The decision, announced the Hungarian prime minister's office on December 19, accused the Polish government of persecuting its political opponents. Poland called the move a "hostile act" that runs counter to the principle of loyal cooperation among members of the European Union. "In response to this action, the Hungarian ambassador to Poland will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, where he will receive an official protest note," the ministry said on December 20. The ministry also said that if Hungary fails to comply with its EU obligations, Poland will ask the European Commission to respond. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government says it has opened the door for prosecutors to investigate suspected wrongdoings committed during the tenure of the nationalist Law and Justice party, which ruled the country for eight years until 2023 and which have been covered up. Tusk said he was dismayed by Hungary's decision to shelter a man being sought on suspicions of defrauding the state of millions of zlotys. “I did not expect corrupt politicians escaping justice would be able to choose between [Belarusian authoritarian leader Alyaksandr] Lukashenka and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban,” Tusk said on December 20. His reference to Lukashenka was apparently linked to the case of a Polish judge who fled to Belarus. Romanowski was detained during the investigation but released in July. He denies the charges against him. Through his lawyer he has argued that he is the victim of political retribution by Tusk's government. Gergely Gulyas, head of Orban's office, said the decision of the Hungarian authorities was in line with both domestic and European Union legislation. He said Romanowski's arrest raised serious concerns about fair treatment and political bias in Polish judicial proceedings. Polish opposition lawmakers, including Romanowski, accused Tusk's government of conducting a politically motivated witch-hunt against them. Romanowski told Polish broadcaster TV Republika that he thinks the fact that Hungary has granted him asylum confirms that "we are dealing with political persecution in Poland." Prosecutors and judges in Poland are politically controlled, he said. A spokesman for the European Commission declined to comment on the specific case but emphasized that EU member states are obligated to enforce European arrest warrants. Stefan de Keersmaecker said at a briefing in Brussels on December 20 that the obligation means that Hungary should send Romanowski back to Poland to face justice. The spokesman added that all EU member states maintain a high level of protection for fundamental rights and freedoms, making them all safe countries for asylum seekers. But an asylum application from a national of another EU member state can only be accepted under exceptional circumstances. The Georgian government has pledged to amend its controversial "foreign agents" law following discussions with the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset. Berset announced at a press briefing in Tbilisi on December 20, wrapping up a three-day visit, that a working group including Georgian representatives, the Council of Europe, and the Venice Commission will be formed to draft necessary changes to the legislation. "The government of Georgia promised to modify the content of the 'Foreign Influence Transparency' law. This working group will determine the specific changes required. I hope similar collaborative processes can extend to other areas, such as equality, anti-discrimination, electoral reform, and reforms in penitentiary and probation systems," Berset said. The law, modeled on a similar Russian law, mandates that organizations receiving significant foreign funding register as "foreign agents." Passed by the Georgian parliament in May despite a presidential veto, it came into force on August 1, sparking significant backlash from international and domestic actors. Georgian NGOs began appearing on the "foreign agent" registry in October, raising concerns about their ability to operate freely. Critics, including the European Union, have warned that the law could derail Georgia's aspirations for EU membership. While Moscow praised the Georgian government for adopting the law, Western countries, including the United States and Britain, condemned it as a tool for undermining democracy. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, however, reiterated Georgia's openness to discussions about the law. "If anyone proves there's something harmful in this legislation, we're ready to address it and work with relevant structures of the Council of Europe," Kobakhidze said. Berset's visit comes amid heightened political tensions in Georgia, marked by public polarization, high-level violence, and allegations of electoral misconduct. Addressing the situation, Berset emphasized: "Georgia is at a critical juncture. The country is filled with political tension, polarized public debate, and high levels of violence," adding that the country "deserves stability and democracy." "I am not here to legitimize elections; that is the responsibility of other competent institutions," Berset said, stressing that his primary goal was "to support Georgia and its people." He also said that resolving the political crisis depends on "upholding democracy, human rights, and the rule of law." During his visit, Berset held multiple meetings with government officials, including Kobakhidze, Georgian Dream party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, and opposition representatives. His visit is seen as an effort to mediate amid deep divisions within Georgian society. On December 19, the United States imposed sanctions on Georgia's Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri and Special Tasks Department Deputy Director Mirza Kezevadze under the Global Magnitsky Act. Hours earlier, Britain had sanctioned Gomelauri and four other senior officials. These sanctions reflect growing Western dissatisfaction with Georgia's political trajectory. Despite this, Kobakhidze assured that the government would "compensate any losses" incurred by sanctioned individuals and announced plans to award honors to the Interior Ministry's leadership following the presidential poll in February 2025 and inauguration of Georgia's next president, whose legitimacy is contested by the opposition and the current President Salome Zurabishvili. Georgia's "foreign agents" law has become a focal point in the country's strained relations with the West. The government's decision last month to delay European Union accession talks until 2028 also sparked protests in the country and criticism in the West. Moreover, economic hardship and the threat of backsliding from the Euro-Atlantic course have created a sense of urgency and fertile ground for unrest. International partners are apprehensive that Georgia's adoption of tactics similar to those used by Moscow could undermine its democratic progress and EU aspirations. Russia's top Islamic body has approved a religious edict that allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, which contradicts Russian law that prohibits individuals from entering multiple registered marriages simultaneously. The Council of Islamic Clerics of Russia's Spiritual Administration of Muslims (DUM), issued a fatwa on December 18 that allows a Muslim male to enter up to four marriages at the same time as long as certain conditions are met. Russia's Family Code explicitly prohibits a person from entering a registered marriage with someone who is already married. But it comes as the Russian authorities are grappling with a dire demographic situation amid a population decline exacerbated by emigration, low birthrates, and high mortality. While the full text of the fatwa has yet to be published, reports from Russian news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti revealed key provisions in it that allow Muslim men to enter into multiple religious marriages. The fatwa stipulates that a man can engage in polygamy only if he ensures equitable treatment for all wives. This includes equal material provision, separate housing for each wife, and spending equal time with them according to an agreed schedule. If a man cannot meet these requirements, he is prohibited from entering multiple religious marriages unless a bride "voluntarily waives" her rights to them. Other circumstances under which polygamy is permitted by the DUM include cases where the first wife cannot conceive due to health issues, lack of desire, or age; in situations of "sexual incompatibility" between spouses; or when a man wishes to provide social and financial support to a single woman and her children. The DUM has acknowledged that women in purely religious marriages lack legal protections, which critics argue may leave women in polygamous religious marriages vulnerable. The conditions for such a marriage, they say, place a significant burden of proof on religious institutions or individuals to ensure compliance. How these provisions align with Russia's secular legal framework and broader societal norms is yet to be determined. Russian officials have yet to comment on the fatwah. The government, however, has been looking for ways to spur Russians to have more children as the declining population ages, a problem worsened by the Kremlin's war in Ukraine, which experts say has seen hundreds of thousands of Russian men die. The Russian government has actively promoted policies to encourage women to have more children, with financial incentives for larger families and efforts to discourage abortions. The Russian Orthodox Church has been assisting the government to promote such policies. Ukraine launched a deadly missile attack on the Russian region of Kursk on December 20, just hours after Russia carried out a massive air assault on Kyiv during rush hour that killed one person and damaged a historic cathedral and other buildings in the capital, including six embassies. Russia's Investigative Committee said an unspecified number of people were killed in the attack on Kursk involving U.S.-supplied HIMARS rockets on the town of Rylsk. According to Mash Telegram channel , at least five people have been killed, and 26 others injured. The attack has destroyed several critical pieces of social infrastructure, including a pedagogical college, a cultural center, and a school. The attack came shortly after Russian launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Kyiv and several other regions around Ukraine. The whole of Ukraine was under a general air-raid alert for several hours as Russia launched eight missiles -- including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles and Iskander/KN-23 ballistic missiles -- on Kyiv alone, Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, reported . Ukrainian cities and infrastructure continue to sustain regular Russian drone and missile strikes while outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces are facing difficulties in staving off Russia's increasingly rapid advance in the east. One person was killed by a strike in Kyiv's Holosiyiv district, while eyewitnesses reported several blasts in the city. The U.S. State Department condemned the missile attack, which damaged a building hosting several diplomatic missions. "Any attack against diplomats or diplomatic facilities anywhere is unacceptable," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on X. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko separately reported that falling debris from downed Russian drones fell on four of the capital's districts -- Holosiyiv, Solomyansk, Shevchenkivsk, and Dniprovsk -- wounding at least two people. Kyiv restaurateur Nadir Ahundov voiced his outrage at the Russian strike that completely destroyed his restaurant. "These subhuman [Russians], to drop such bombs on residential buildings," Ahundov told RFE/RL. "I put my heart, my soul into [creating] this," he said, pointing to the trees outside the restaurnat. "These trees were small when I planted them. Look at them now -- those monsters knocked them down." In Kherson, a 60-year-old man was killed in a Russian strike and two others, including an 86-year-old man, were wounded, regional Governor Roman Mrochko reported on Telegram. Late on December 19, a Russian missile struck and badly damaged a two-story apartment building in the southeastern city of Kryviy Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown, wounding five people, including two pulled alive from under the rubble, officials said. The attack also crippled the power supply in parts of the city of 600,000 and damaged a hospital, regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said. In a statement on Telegram, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that the strikes on December 20 were "in response" to Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets using Western-supplied weapons. The latest wave of attacks from both sides came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested at his highly choreographed annual press conference a "high-tech duel" over Kyiv to prove that Russia's new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik, cannot be shot down by Western-supplied air defenses. "It would be interesting for us.... Let's conduct this experiment, this technological duel, and see the results. I think it would be useful for both us and the Americans," Putin said. In reaction, Zelenskiy posted a message on X calling Putin a "dumbass." "People are dying, and he thinks it’s 'interesting'... Dumbass," Zelenskiy wrote. The United States and the United Kingdom have announced sanctions on Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri and other senior officials in the ministry in response to their alleged role in a violent crackdown on journalists, opposition figures, and anti-government protesters. The United States also imposed sanctions on Mirza Kezevadze, deputy head of the special forces department in the Georgian Interior Ministry, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement on December 19. The Treasury Department said it was taking the action in coordination with Britain, which on December 19 imposed sanctions on Gomelauri and four other officials of the Interior Ministry for alleged human rights violations. A U.S. Treasury Department official said the reasons cited by the two governments for imposing the sanctions were similar. “In the wake of Georgia’s election, key officials in the Ministry of Internal Affairs engaged in a severe and vicious crackdown against their own people, including the intentional targeting of journalists and use of violence,” Acting Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said in the statement. Any assets owned by Gomelauri and Kezevadze in U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, making their business operations more difficult, the Treasury Department statement said. In addition to Gomelauri, Britain imposed sanctions on deputy Interior Minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, Sulkhan Tamazashvili, Zviad Kharazishvili, and Mileri Lagazauri, according to a U.K. government statement. Thousands demonstrated in Tbilisi again on the night of December 19. It was the 22nd consecutive day of protests against the government's decision to effectively halt the country's EU accession talks. The protesters have questioned the legitimacy of the victory of the Georgian Dream party in the election that took place at the end of October. The demonstrations intensified after Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Tbilisi was suspending until 2028 talks with Brussels on Georgia's bid to join the European Union. “Security forces from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Special Task Department responded to protests with disproportionate violence to suppress dissent and discourage protesters,” the U.S. Treasury Department’s statement said. Georgia's pro-Europe president, Salome Zurabishvili, has said the October 26 election was rigged with the help of Moscow and has vowed not to leave office even when her successor -- selected by what protesters say is an illegitimate parliament -- is scheduled to be sworn in on December 29. Zurabishvili has condemned the "brutal and disproportionate attacks on the Georgian people and media," comparing the crackdown to "Russian-style repression." Demonstrations have repeatedly been violently broken up, activists have been detained, and opposition politicians and media representatives attacked. Georgia received EU candidate status in December 2023, and according to surveys, a majority of Georgians support EU membership. Kobakhidze has refused to back down and threatened to punish political opponents, whom he accuses of being behind violence that has occurred at the protests. Georgia’s relations with Brussels soured with the adoption of a Russian-style "foreign agent" law that critics say threatens media and civil society groups by accusing them of "serving" outside powers. One lawmaker was killed and another injured in a shooting at the de facto parliament in Georgia's Abkhazia, a breakaway region supported by Russia. According to local media reports, Adgur Kharazia and Kan Kvarchia, lawmakers operating under the self-proclaimed government, were meeting on December 19 over a proposal to ban the mining of cryptocurrency when a disagreement boiled over. Kharazia, a former mayor of the region's capital, Sukhumi, has a history of violent incidents and reportedly pulled out a firearm and began shooting. Vakhtang Golandzia, a fellow lawmaker who was trying to intervene, was fatally shot. Kvarchia was shot in the arm and taken to hospital. The Health Ministry confirmed the incident while acting Interior Minister Robert Kiut said in a statement that "Kharazia managed to flee the scene and police are searching for him. A special investigative group has been sent to detain him." The shooting comes weeks after Abkhazia's parliament rejected a controversial investment deal with Russia on December 3. The shooting also underlines the region's instability, with presidential elections scheduled for February 2025. The agreement, signed in Moscow on October 30, was widely criticized as 'exploitative' by opposition figures and civil society groups who felt it would grant undue economic advantages to Russian investors while undermining Abkhazia's sovereignty. The political aftermath of the deal also provoked mass protests, forcing the de facto leader, Aslan Bzhania, to resign on November 19. He was replaced by acting leader Badra Gunba, yet the region remains in a state of political instability. The December 19 shooting further indicated the deep division within Abkhazia's leadership and the uncertainty within its political climate. Kvarchia, the injured legislator, has actively opposed the now-shelved Russian investment agreement. In the parliamentary session on December 3, he said the deal was "enslaving for Abkhazia." He accused the executive branch of trying to push the agreement through despite a public outcry. His opposition to the current administration's move has made him one of the key figures in the opposition movement that successfully rallied public dissent against the current administration's policies. Kharazia has a controversial history. In 2020, he was detained for allegedly causing grievous bodily harm and illegally possessing firearms after reportedly injuring an administrative official. His involvement in the December 19 shooting has once again raised questions about accountability within Abkhazia's separatist leadership and broader security mechanisms. The incident has piled on the pressure on acting leader Badra Gunba, who held an emergency meeting following the shooting. Gunba has already been under pressure from opposition groups demanding accountability for the mishandling of the Russian investment deal. The protests that led to Bzhania's resignation underlined deep-seated discontent with Abkhazia's governance and fragile dependence on Russia. The political crisis in Abkhazia reflects a struggle in the region to balance its reliance on Moscow for economic and military support with growing public unease about over-dependence on Moscow. While Russia recognized Abkhazia's independence after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, most international community still views the region as part of Georgia. A court in Romania has accepted an appeal filed by controversial Internet influencer Andrew Tate and his brother and sent his case on human trafficking and other charges back to prosecutors. The Bucharest Court of Appeals said on on December 19 that it found "irregularities" in the indictment issued by the Prosecutor-General's Office. The prosecutors can now bring forth new evidence to back up their charges or amend the existing ones. The ruling is a blow to Romania's anti-organized crime prosecuting unit DIICOT, which filed charges against Tate, his brother Tristan Tate, and two Romanian women after they were arrested in December 2022 on suspicion of human trafficking. They were formally indicted last year, and the Bucharest Tribunal ruled earlier this year that a trial could start but did not set a date. All four deny the charges. Andrew Tate, 38, and Tristen Tate, 36, are dual British-U.S. citizens and former kickboxers. Andrew Tate has amassed more than 10 million followers on the social media platform X but has been kicked off other platforms, including Facebook and TikTok over accusations of posting hate speech and misogynistic comments. Eugen Vidineac, one of the Tate brothers’ lawyers, said the decision was “a significant legal victory” that “rightly determined that there is insufficient basis to proceed with the case.” Mateea Petrescu, a spokeswoman for Andrew Tate, said the court's review "revealed significant procedural flaws and raised serious concerns about the integrity of the investigative process, further undermining the credibility of the prosecution’s case.” Andrew Tate complained bitterly about the case in a statement issued after the ruling. "They’ve had years to build their case -- years to tear apart my life, target everyone I know, and even subpoena the mother of my child," Tate said. "And yet, they have nothing." DIICOT has not commented on the ruling. The Bucharest Court of Appeal judges said in their decision that they had identified problems in "the manner of presenting the factual situation and describing the constitutive elements in the case" against the two female suspects. The judges also said Andrew Tate's right to a defense was violated in the way he was informed of the accusation of human trafficking regarding one of the alleged victims. Andrew Tate in August was placed under house arrest and Tristan Tate under judicial control for 30 days after they were interrogated by Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors as part of an investigation into new allegations against them. During the criminal investigation, prosecutors said they identified seven women who were sexually exploited "forcibly, in order to obtain significant financial benefits" for the defendants from people who accessed content on social media. Prosecutors accused the Tate brothers of recruiting their victims using the so-called "lover boy" method, seducing them and claiming to want a relationship or marriage. The victims were then taken to properties outside Bucharest, where they were sexually exploited through physical violence and psychological intimidation as they were forced to produce pornographic content, the prosecutors said. Romanian investigators carried out the interrogations and fresh searches at the brothers’ residences as part of the investigation into the new charges. DIICOT said at the time that the new accusations included charges of forming an organized crime group, trafficking of minors, a sexual act with a minor, influencing statements, and money laundering. The brothers said through a spokesperson that the fresh accusations were “not fully clarified." They have been barred from leaving Romania as the proceedings against them continue but are set to be extradited to Britain once their case in Romania concludes. They face further allegations of rape and human trafficking in Britain, where a court ruled on December 18 that police can seize more than 2.6 million pounds ($3.3 million) to cover years of unpaid taxes. Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court said what appeared to be a “complex financial matrix” was actually a “straightforward cheat of the revenue.” Andrew Tate said in a statement that the ruling “is not justice” and claimed it was a “coordinated attack on anyone who dares to challenge the system.” The Tate brothers have stated that they do not want to be extradited from Romania, which they said they consider their home. A court in Moscow charged Uzbek citizen Ahmat Qurbanov on December 19 with terrorism and other charges in the high-profile killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who headed Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces. In addition to terrorism, Qurbanov has been charged with murder and the illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. Qurbanov, born in 1995, has been accused of detonating a self-made explosive device concealed in a scooter parked near a residential building in Moscow on December 17. The blast killed Kirillov and his assistant. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Qurbanov shortly after the attack in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee. Investigators claimed Qurbanov was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services. The Russian authorities released a video in which a man speaking poor Russian introduced himself as Ahmad Qurbanov from Uzbekistan and "confessed" to having committed the attack. The circumstances in which the video was recorded remain unknown. During the court hearing on December 19, Qurbanov requested a translator due to his limited command of the Russian language. The Uzbek Embassy in Moscow has been actively involved in the case. It commented on Qurbanov's arrest on Telegram, saying that it was in contact with Russian law enforcement agencies. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism in a phone call on December 19, the Kremlin said. Mirziyoev expressed his condolences for the death of Kirillov and his assistant, according to the Kremlin. The FSB said in a statement on December 18 that the suspect had been recruited and trained by Ukraine's special services and promised money to carry out the attack. While there has been no formal claim of responsibility for the killing, a source at Ukraine's SBU security service told RFE/RL that the blast was the result of a special operation by the Ukrainian agency. Ukraine had accused Kirillov of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops. Moscow has denied the accusation. Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev has praised the Czech Republic after it adopted a resolution recognizing the deportation of Crimean Tatars by Soviet authorities in 1944 as genocide. In a December 18 vote, 70 of 74 senators supported the resolution, making the Czech Republic the seventh country to recognize the genocide, joining Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. "This decision morally supports Crimean Tatars and Ukraine and encourages other countries to follow suit," Mustafa Dzhemilev, the national leader of the Crimean Tatar people and a member of Ukraine's parliament, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service in an interview after the vote. Eighty years ago, over three days from May 18 to May 20, 1944, Soviet security forces rounded up at least 200,000 Tatars on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and brutally sent them into exile in Central Asia. Tens of thousands died during the deportation and under the harsh conditions of their first years in exile. Soviet demographers in 1949 estimated there had been nearly 45,000 “excess deaths” among Crimean Tatars in the previous five years, while Crimean Tatar sources put the losses far higher. Dzhemilev said the recognition means even more than usual for Crimean Tatars since it comes while Russia occupies Crimea -- it illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014 -- and continues its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched almost three years ago. "This is a really important event, especially for the Crimean Tatars, who are currently under occupation. This is moral support for them. And at the same time, this is moral support for Ukraine, which is currently in a state of war with our not very good neighbor," Dzhemilev said. Dzhemilev noted the Czech government's readiness to use its influence to urge other countries to pass similar resolutions, especially those in Russia's traditional sphere of influence. The deportation of the Crimean Tatars -- like those of several other Soviet ethnic populations around the same time -- was ordered by dictator Josef Stalin and overseen by notorious secret police head Lavrenty Beria. It was followed by a campaign of de-Tatarization in Crimea, during which the culture of the Turkic, Muslim people was virtually wiped out on the peninsula. Although most of the persecuted ethnic groups were allowed to return to their homelands after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev condemned the population transfers in 1956, Crimean Tatars were not. Only in the late 1980s, after more than four decades of exile, did the Soviet government condemn the deportation as a crime and lift the ban on their return. With Crimea occupied again, Dzhemilev said he understands Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's recent statement that Kyiv currently lacks the military strength to retake Crimea by force. Still, he hopes European countries such as Germany and France will convince the United States, which will see an administration change in January when President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House, to continue its support for Ukraine in repelling Russian forces, including from Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is nearing its primary goal in the war against Ukraine and challenged the United States to a missile "duel" involving Russia's new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile. Speaking at an annual news conference used in large part to show his control over almost every aspect of Russia's political and economic spheres, Putin boasted about the country's economy, glossing over the impact of severe sanctions imposed by the West for the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine . The tightly controlled question-and-answer session on December 19, a live broadcast on state TV that lasted almost 4 1/2 hours, focused on domestic issues at the start before turning to foreign policy, namely the war in Ukraine. Putin, in power for almost a quarter of a century, said Russian forces were advancing along the front line of Ukraine and were moving toward achieving their primary goals . He didn't specify what he meant, but previously he has said peace will be possible after the "denazification, demilitarization, and a neutral status" of Ukraine. Russia has falsely claimed Ukraine is run by "radical nationalist" and neo-Nazi groups. Later in the broadcast, Putin said he was ready for "negotiations and compromises" in possible peace talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and that he had no conditions for starting such talks. Putin has previously ruled out making any major territorial concessions to end the war, while it has also insisted Kyiv abandon its ambitions to join the NATO military alliance. "Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion. Soon there will be no one left who wants to fight," he said. "We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises." However, Putin also admitted he could not say when Russia would regain full control of the western region of Kursk, where Ukraine launched a shock offensive in August and still occupies territory. "We will absolutely kick them out. Absolutely. It can't be any other way. But the question of a specific date, I'm sorry, I cannot say right now," Putin said. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on December 19 that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had spoken by phone the day before with his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis, about the conflict in Ukraine. The ministry said Lavrov "explained in detail the Russian position on the settlement of the situation" and outlined Putin's conditions. Well-known military analyst Michael Kofman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said on a podcast earlier this month that he was skeptical that Russia would agree to an early cease-fire and suspected that Moscow could try to tie up the United States in "envoy diplomacy" for months. "I'm sure they'll be happy to schedule a summit in Geneva or perhaps some other place in Europe, all the while intending to make gains on the battlefield. And they've done this before," said Kofman. Kofman added that if Ukraine can maintain its front lines and prevent a breakthrough over the next several months, Russia's negotiating hand will weaken as military resources and economic problems become more acute. Russia has been trending toward authoritarianism since the beginning of Putin's tenure. But since an election in 2018, that trend has been more firmly entrenched than ever. The already marginalized opposition has been crushed. Earlier this year, Aleksei Navalny, Putin's most prominent critic, died while in a Siberian prison. A raft of constitutional amendments imposed in 2020 enabled Putin to seek two additional six-year terms, the first of which he secured with a landslide victory in March in balloting the international community called a "sham" and not "free and fair." The 72-year-old Putin, who is set to surpass Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s nearly 30-year reign by the end of his new term to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries, could conceivably hold power until 2036. Putin struck a defiant tone when the subject of weaponry came up during the broadcast. In an apparent trolling of Washington, he suggested a "21th-century high-tech duel." "Let them determine some target for destruction, say in Kyiv: Concentrate all their air defense and missile defense forces there, and we will strike there with Oreshniks and see what happens," he said. "We are ready for such an experiment, but is the other side ready?" Russia launched the so-called Oreshnik ballistic missile against Ukraine on November 21 in a strike targeting the city of Dnipro. Putin said at the time it was part of Moscow's response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil with U.S.-supplied ATACMS and British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Analysts have voiced skepticism about the Oreshnik, saying the launching of the new intermediate-range missile was as much about political messaging as it was about military might. Putin has been raising the specter of a nuclear strike since long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and analysts said the Russian leader chose the Oreshnik to send a different signal to Washington. "It's the kind of signaling you engage in when you can't, in fact, escalate in the way you've been threatening," Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, wrote on X of the November 21 missile strike. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that only transatlantic unity could eventually stop the war in Ukraine and lead to peace amid a change of administrations in the United States. Zelenskiy met on December 19 with EU leaders in Brussels to seek fresh support amid concerns that President-elect Donald Trump could pull U.S. support for Kyiv after he returns to the White House next month. Addressing the EU leaders, Zelenskiy welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal to deploy troops to Ukraine following an eventual cease-fire. "We support France’s initiative for a military contingent in Ukraine as part of these guarantees and call on other partners to join this effort, it will help bring the war to an end," he told the closed-door meeting, according to a text posted on his website. It is "crucial for Europe to make a significant contribution to security guarantees," he said. "We all understand that in January, President Trump will intensify efforts to end the war. It’s up to us whether Europe supports him with a strong, united voice," he told the EU leaders, according to the text. Zelenskiy said Ukraine would ultimately need more protection through membership in the NATO military alliance. NATO has said Ukraine will join its ranks one day but it has not set a date or formally invited Ukraine to join. "It is impossible to discuss this only with European leaders, because for us, the real guarantees in any case - today or in the future - are NATO," he told reporters. "On the way to NATO, we want security guarantees while we are not in NATO. And we can discuss such guarantees separately with both the U.S. and Europe," he said. The meeting came as Ukrainian cities and infrastructure continue to sustain regular Russian drone and missile strikes while outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces are facing increasing difficulties in staving off Russia's increasingly rapid advance in the east. The EU leaders and Zelenskiy are to reaffirm their "unwavering commitment" to supporting Ukraine "for as long as it takes," according to draft conclusions seen by Reuters. "Russia must not prevail," the EU draft conclusions say. The bloc's leaders also stress that no decision must be made on Ukraine's fate without Kyiv's involvement. Zelenskiy on December 18 met in Brussels with NATO chief Mark Rutte and a group of European leaders who seek to develop their own plans if Trump, who has pledged to bring a swift end to the conflict, pulls support or forces Kyiv to make concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a cease-fire. Organized by Rutte, the meeting involves officials from Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the European Union's main institutions. The key topic of Zelenskiy's meeting with Rutte was security guarantees, Zelenskiy's office said. "It is very important to use these two days in Brussels to meet with all our partners and have the same, and very importantly, not divided -- the same -- common European position on how to secure Ukraine, how to strengthen our people and, of course, make our army stronger," Zelenskiy said, according to a statement released by his office. Strengthening Ukrainian air defense especially ahead of the winter was a key topic during Zelenskiy's meeting with Rutte, according to the statement from Zelenskiy's office. Rutte said Kyiv's allies should focus on ramping up arms supplies to ensure that Ukraine is in a position of strength. Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukrainian regions with 85 drones early on December 19, the Ukrainian Air Force said, adding that 45 drones were shot down while the other 40 were derailed by Ukrainian electronic warfare systems that jammed their navigation systems. The air force said the attack targeted 10 Ukrainian regions -- Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Khmelnytskiy, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolayiv. Russia also launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and an Kh-59/69 guided missile during the attack, the air force said. The missile strikes damaged private homes and apartment buildings in the Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions, with no casualties or injuries reported. In the Kharkiv region, three people were killed in the village of Shevchenkove, said Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov. Two women, aged 67 and 65, and a 33-year-old man, were killed, Synyehubov said. One woman was injured and hospitalized as a result of the Russian shelling of Dvorichnaya, he added. The Ukrainian General Staff separately said that it struck an oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region. "Damage was inflicted to the infrastructure and production facilities of Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant located in the Rostov Region of the Russian Federation," the General Staff said in a statement, adding that the refinery supplied Russia's military. Rostov's acting governor Yury Slyusar said that the region "suffered a massive attack" using 30 drones and three missiles. Russia's Rostov region has repeatedly been targeted by Ukraine. Separately, Russian officials said Ukraine struck Russia with at least 13 missiles and 84 drones. In recent months, Ukraine has increased the number of drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and fuel depots that work for Moscow's military. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met in Brussels on December 18 with NATO chief Mark Rutte and several European leaders to discuss war strategy amid concerns that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could pull U.S. support for Kyiv after he returns to the White House next month. The meeting came as European leaders seek to develop their own plans if Trump, who has pledged to bring a swift end to the conflict, pulls support or forces Kyiv to make concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a cease-fire. The key topic of Zelenskiy's meeting with Rutte was security guarantees, Zelenskiy's office said . "It is very important to use these two days in Brussels to meet with all our partners and have the same, and very importantly, not divided -- the same -- common European position on how to secure Ukraine, how to strengthen our people and, of course, make our army stronger," Zelenskiy said, according to a statement released by his office. Zelenskiy said earlier on X that he and French President Emmanuel Macron had a "detailed one-on-one discussion" that focused on priorities to further strengthen Ukraine’s position. "We continued working on President Macron’s initiative regarding the presence of forces in Ukraine that could contribute to stabilizing the path to peace," Zelenskiy said in an apparent reference to a discussion of boots on the ground raised recently during a meeting between Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters ahead of the meeting that the priority of the meeting was to secure the "sovereignty of Ukraine and that it will not be forced to submit to a dictated peace." He said any discussion of boots on the ground would be premature. Rutte said Kyiv's allies should focus on ramping up arms supplies to ensure that Ukraine is in a position of strength. Strengthening Ukrainian air defense especially ahead of the winter was a key topic during Zelenskiy's meeting with Rutte, according to the statement from Zelenskiy's office. "We have to do everything we can now to make sure that when it comes to air defense, when it comes to other weapons systems, we are doing everything we can to provide everything we can," Rutte said. Zelenskiy was expected to again plead for more air-defense systems to try to help stave off Russian barrages against Ukraine's power grid. Organized by Rutte, the meeting involves officials from Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the European Union's main institutions. Among the potential topics are possible security guarantees offered to Ukraine in the event of a cease-fire and how a cease-fire could be monitored, with one option being an international peacekeeping force. NATO members have rebuffed Kyiv's calls for an invitation to join the alliance right away, sparking speculation that sending peacekeepers could be an alternative. Rutte also said he wants to discuss military aid, especially air defense, with Zelenskiy, saying Ukraine needs 19 extra air-defense systems to protect the country's energy infrastructure from Russian bombardment. Earlier on December 18, Rutte announced that a new NATO command in the German city of Wiesbaden has taken up its work to coordinate Western military aid for Ukraine. "The NATO command in Wiesbaden for security assistance and training for Ukraine is now up and running," Rutte told reporters at NATO's headquarters in Brussels. Dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), the command takes over coordination of the aid from the United States in a move widely seen as aiming to safeguard the support mechanism against Trump. NSATU is set to have around 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO's military headquarters in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania. Russia has condemned increases in Western military aid to Ukraine as risking a wider war. The U.K. and U.S. governments on December 18 said the comments of Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev following the assassination of a high-ranking Russian general by Ukrainian security services were irresponsible and yet another sign of Moscow's desperation. Medvedev, reacting to an editorial in the London-based Times newspaper that called the December 17 killing of a high-ranking Russian officer "a legitimate act of defense by a threatened nation," said Moscow should apply the same logic. Medvedev accused NATO and officials from countries allied with Ukraine in its battle to repel invading Russian troops of being participants in the conflict, making them "legitimate military targets." The U.S. State Department told RFE/RL that Medvedev's comments amounted to more irresponsible rhetoric from the Kremlin and reiterated that the United States and NATO do not seek a military conflict with Russia. "The Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine is the most significant and direct threat to Europe's security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. It is the Kremlin that started this war, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin could end it today," the State Department's press office said in a statement e-mailed to RFE/RL. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told a briefing on December 17 that Washington had no connection to the killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces (RKhBZ), or any prior knowledge of it. The U.K. Foreign Office said the comments were "just another example of Putin’s propaganda machine," while a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was quoted as saying Medvedev's comments were "simply the latest in a stream of desperate rhetoric" to come out of Putin's government. "Unlike in Russia, a free press is a cornerstone of our democracy and we take any threats made by Russia incredibly seriously," the spokesman added, according to The Times. "Our newspapers represent the best of British values: freedom, democracy and independent thinking," he said. "I stand with The Times." In its article, The Times said the assassination was "a discriminate strike against an aggressor" and that it underlines the need for Western governments to give Ukraine "all support it needs to fight a just war of self-defense." "All officials of NATO countries involved in decisions about military assistance to...Ukraine are participating in hybrid or conventional warfare against Russia.... And all these individuals can and should be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian state. And for all Russian patriots." Medvedev wrote in response. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told RFE/RL on December 18 that "Russia is always threatening. And it is meant to scare us, so what we see is the threats we have heard before." Speaking in Brussels before a meeting of EU leaders to discuss the war, she said: "I think the only response we can have is not to be afraid." The man nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia also weighed in on the killing, telling Fox News that it was "not a good idea" in his opinion. "There are rules of warfare and there are certain things you don't do," said Retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg. "When you are killing [officers] in their hometown it's kind of like you kind of extended it and I don't think it's really smart to do." Kirillov and his assistant were killed by a bomb concealed in a scooter outside the entrance of a Moscow building early on December 17. Kirillov is one of a number of Russian officers and pro-war figures to be killed in Russia and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. His death came a week after a senior official from a Russian company that develops cruise missiles used by Moscow in the war was reportedly shot dead just outside the capital. Medvedev's rhetoric draws from the Kremlin's long-term narrative of blaming Western "forces" for anti-Russian actions worldwide and acts of sabotage and "terrorism" on Russian territory. Russian investigators termed the killing a "terrorist" attack and immediately attributed it to Ukrainian intelligence. On December 18, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had detained a suspect -- a 29-year-old unnamed Uzbek national -- in the case. Medvedev also threatened retribution against journalists from The Times, ominously warning that the newspaper could be included in those "legitimate military targets," adding that "in London, many things happen...be careful." That warning appears to be a thinly veiled reference to the radiation poisoning of former FSB officer and Kremlin critic Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006, and the attempted assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury with a deadly nerve agent in 2018. Russia accused Kyiv of "terrorism" after authorities said they had detained an Uzbek citizen who confessed to planting an explosive device that killed a high-ranking Russian officer on the instruction of Ukrainian intelligence. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces (RKhBZ), and his assistant were killed by a bomb concealed in a scooter outside the entrance of a Moscow building early on December 17. The speed of the arrest of the unnamed suspect led some analysts to question whether the 29-year-old Central Asian was a scapegoat, while unconfirmed reports swirled that police were ratcheting up raids on migrants. "The special services have a clear interest in showing their superiors the result of their work, that a successful investigation has taken place, and so on. It's not the first time we've seen this. It's hard to judge right now how accurate this [arrest] is," political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told Current Time. While no individual or group officially claimed responsibility for the killing, a source at Ukraine's SBU security service told RFE/RL that the blast was the result of a special operation by the SBU. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement on December 18 that the unnamed suspect had been recruited and trained by Ukraine's special services and promised money to carry out the attack. The FSB said the suspect, on instructions from Ukraine, "arrived in Moscow, received a high-power homemade explosive device, and placed it on an electric scooter, which he parked near the entrance to the house of Kirillov." The Kremlin has not commented on the FSB statement, which said the suspect activated the bomb when Kirillov and his assistant were coming out of the building. The accused man had been given $100,000 for the murder as well as residency in a European country, the statement said, adding that the suspect faces life in prison for his alleged crime. "The Ukrainian special services officers involved in organizing the terrorist attack will be found and will receive the punishment they deserve," the FSB said. The FSB did not present any evidence along with its statement, and some analysts questioned the speed of the response. One woman from Kyrgyzstan told RFE/RL in Moscow that she expects a backlash for migrants from Central Asia. "The situation is difficult," the woman said. "I think the position of Central Asian migrants will only worsen after this event. Street inspections will likely intensify." The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was afraid to reveal her identity, recalled that events after the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in March there were many raids and deportations of Central Asians from Russia and it's possible this could happen again, she said. Russian investigators said the assault in which 144 people were killed was carried out by four men, all Tajik nationals. The Kyrgyz woman who spoke with RFE/RL said that she believes Uzbeks in Russia will continue to have a difficult time. "Migration laws in Russia are already being tightened. Things will get worse for them regardless," she said, noting that new laws will come into effect on January 1 and "everything will become even harder." Kirillov, 54, is the highest-level Russian military officer to be killed in an apparent assassination since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. His death came a day after the SBU reported that Ukrainian prosecutors had filed a charge against him, accusing him of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops during the war started by Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The SBU has said Russian forces have used chemical weapons almost 5,000 times during the war in Ukraine under Kirillov's leadership. The claim could not be independently verified. The RKhBZ are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical, and biological contamination. Kirillov is one of a number of Russian officers and pro-war figures to be killed in Russia and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. His death came a week after a senior official from a Russian company that develops cruise missiles used by Moscow in the war was reportedly shot dead just outside the capital. Viktor Yahun, the former deputy head of the SBU, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service in an interview that with some 20 million people in Russia having Ukrainian origins, "you can find a percentage who are ready to sincerely work for Ukraine. That's why there are so many agents over there." Kirillov was seen in footage that was central to an RFE/RL Russian Service investigation that revealed details about a restricted facility outside Moscow. The site is linked to a U.S. assertion that Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program in violation of the UN Biological Weapons Convention. Former President Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Russian security official, told a meeting shown on state TV that NATO and Ukraine's Western allies were behind the attack because of their support for Kyiv throughout Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. "These individuals can and should be considered a legitimate military target," he said. NATO officials have not commented publicly on Medvedev's remarks, but Kaja Kallas, the top EU diplomat, told reporters in Brussels that "Russia is always threatening." "And it is meant to scare us, so what we see is the threats we have heard before, so I think the only response we can have is not to be afraid,” she added. Security analyst Yuri Fedorov told Current Time he expects that Russia "will certainly try to retaliate, so it is very possible that there will be attempts by the Russian agents to kill high Ukrainian military and/or security services officers." "The attacks on Russian generals could have a political and psychological effect, but they cannot seriously impede Russia’s military effort: people like General Kirillov are not the irreplaceable figures who cannot be substituted."

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At the Westonaria agricultural park near Bekkersdal, east of Johannesburg , farm workers are busy tilling the soil and planting tomatoes and lettuce. Despite the hive of activity, there is silence around the park. Most people here are deaf and communicate using sign language. They are members of the Voiceout Deaf farming collective, started by entrepreneur Matebogo Victoria, to create a platform where deaf people can develop their skills in agriculture and find sustainable work. Victoria, who has a hearing disability herself, understood perfectly the challenges faced by deaf people when competing for opportunities with their counterparts who do not face the same challenge. While studying at the Tshwane University of Technology in the country's capital, Pretoria, Victoria had to attend classes with a hearing partner, as the university could not make the lectures accessible for her. It is an all-too-common challenge for deaf people, according to Victoria. “The government does not have facilities for communication (for deaf people). A lot of deaf people did not finish school. They cannot afford to travel far to reach schools, so normally they decide to leave school early,” said Victoria. Across South Africa, there are 44 schools for the deaf, offering sign language as a subject and using it as a medium of instruction. Most are based far from where the students live, which sometimes leads to them dropping out of school as families struggle to afford the transportation costs. Victoria, who used to work for Standard Bank, decided to leave her corporate job and start Voiceout as a way of allowing deaf people to gain agricultural skills. “I make things simple for them, it is like a family when they are here. They become very much happy when they are here but when they go outside of this space, it becomes difficult for them,” she said. For Sibongile Maake, the opportunity to learn agriculture in a space where co-workers can easily communicate with her in sign language was transformational. It has also afforded her an opportunity to earn a living and rely less on the welfare disability grants that are paid out by the government. “I’m happy working here, it’s (a) pleasure working here in the farm. I’m working slowly but surely and I am learning while also getting a salary. I can do things for myself, I can afford myself,” said Maake. Another worker, who said in sign language his name was John, said the challenges of communication reduced his chances of getting a job but the Voiceout Deaf project became a lifeline for him. “Communication is always a barrier, so coming here at the farm is very much better because they are able to communicate in my own language so it makes life much easier for me,” said John. He and other workers are responsible for various activities at the farm including cleaning, ploughing, planting and harvesting the produce. The demand for their vegetables was so great that Voiceout Deaf has taken on two other farms, where John and his colleagues also work. The project is breaking even: the farms currently supply some of the local supermarkets and chain stores with fresh produce. In other South African provinces like Limpopo and North West, provincial governments are looking at farming as a source of training and employment for disabled people. The farming sector is emerging as a solace for those with disabilities who also face the dire levels of unemployment in Africa’s most developed economy. As she goes around giving instructions monitoring activities on the farm, which consists of 10 greenhouses, Victoria laments how difficult it often is for people using sign language to understand the jargon of developed industries. The Pan South African Language Board is responsible for setting the country's standards for sign language. A constitutionally mandated body responsible for promoting the development and use of South African languages, it recently scored a victory by having Parliament approve sign language as South Africa’s 12th official language. However, the board sometimes struggles to keep up with fast-evolving business language, Victoria says. “The difficulty is that sign language has not developed to an extent that it covers technical jargon used in various sectors. It is the same in agriculture. There are certain technical words used that are there in spoken language but not in sign language," she explains. But beyond changing official attitudes, Victoria wants to inspire change in the farmers themselves. “We need them (the deaf farmers) to think out of the box about agriculture. They need to be empowered to understand that agriculture is involved in the production of other products like toothpastes, perfumes, medicines. This is where we have to improvise and find ways to communicate with them in the simplest way possible,” said Victoria. ___ For more news on Africa: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse ___ The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .A North Korean voice Kim Jong-un would love to silenceI Used AI to Do All of My Holiday Shopping

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A battle for election transparency is being waged across Pennsylvania’s court system. Against a backdrop of the “stop the steal” movement and persistent accusations of a broken electoral system, an unlikely alliance of GOP lawyers and grassroots democracy advocates is pushing to open elections to greater public scrutiny. Their goal: to allow anyone to review the millions of ballots cast by mail and in person, as long as voters cannot be identified. “It’s transparency. It’s election integrity,” Thomas Breth, a Butler County lawyer who has done extensive work for Republican causes and is involved in several ongoing appellate cases, told TribLive. “It gives the public confidence to know elections are being conducted competently and fairly.” Susannah Goodman, the director of election security with Common Cause, a nonpartisan pro-democracy group, said her organization supports publication of cast-vote records and ballot images “In general, we really support transparency and the ability to observe and follow along with post-election audits,” she said. On Tuesday, the Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of two Allegheny County residents who sought to obtain digital copies of mail-in ballots cast in the 2020 general election. The county elections office had denied the request, finding that the images are considered “contents of ballot boxes” and therefore not viewable under Pennsylvania’s election code. Commonwealth Court, however, took the opposite view, basing its rationale on the same election code. The court cited a section of the code that reads: “All official mail-in ballots, files, applications for ballots, and envelopes on which the executed declarations appear, and all information and lists are designated and declared to be public records and shall be safely kept for a period of two years, except that no proof of identification shall be made public ...” The state objects Fighting against full transparency is Pennsylvania’s top elections official, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt. In a friend-of-the-court brief in the Allegheny County case, the state’s Office of General Counsel argued that completed mail-in and absentee ballots should not be subject to the state’s Right-to-Know law. Commonwealth Court, the state’s lawyers argued, got it wrong in ruling that the ballots are subject to review. “The impact of that decision causes a real threat that mail-in and absentee voters in smaller precincts will need to sacrifice their right to cast a secret ballot in exchange for choosing to vote in a certain manner,” the state wrote. In the 2024 primary, the secretary argued that in smaller precincts, anyone looking to identify a voter could do so in more than 1,400 instances. “Disclosure of this information, then, not only violates these voters’ constitutionally guaranteed right of secrecy, but also could certainly chill citizens from exercising their right to vote in this manner in the future,” they wrote. The secretary further argued that it is “unreasonable” that the Legislature sought to treat mail-in ballots “somehow less deserving of secrecy” than those cast in person. The Pennsylvania Department of State did not make anyone available for an interview . Goodman of Common Cause agrees that ballot secrecy is paramount. “We really need to have the secret ballot so people aren’t bullied, harassed, threatened with job loss or coerced,” she said. “It means people really vote their conscience.” Goodman believes there are ways to ensure anonymity, including redacting identifying information or combining smaller precincts into larger ones. “A remedy has to be engineered so you can publish them and not be able to trace them back to the voter.” As for whether ballots are subject to open-records laws, the American Civil Liberties Union says they are. Marian Schneider, an ACLU attorney who has a case on mail-in ballots pending with Commonwealth Court, said the state election code makes it clear they are public records. Once the ballots are taken out of their outer envelopes, Schneider said, there’s no way to track them back to the voter. “Those secrecy concerns can be addressed,” she said. Schneider believes the reason the Legislature treated mail-in ballots differently in the election code is because there is already public scrutiny of in-person voting, including through the use of judges of elections and poll workers. “There are procedural safeguards there to prevent any shenanigans,” Schneider said. The ACLU believes all ballots should be made public. “There need to be other procedural safeguards to ensure the integrity of the election,” Schneider said. “The answer to people who express skepticism or distrust in elections is not less transparency. It’s more transparency.” Wanting scrutiny, she said, isn’t about believing anything nefarious is happening. “There are valid reasons to check on the work.” Transparency elsewhere According to The Elections Transparency Project, Humboldt County, California, began digitally scanning ballots for public review in June 2008. Following the 2008 presidential election, it found “significant errors” that led to the results — and voting equipment — being decertified. Since then, according to its website, a group of citizen volunteers works with the county elections department to scan the ballots and make them publicly accessible. As they are audited, each ballot is imprinted with a unique number that allows it to be matched with an individual ballot “so that anyone can count the votes cast.” Scanning the ballots, the website says, is more practical than providing public access to thousands or millions of ballots. “We believe it has helped the citizens of Humboldt County maintain high confidence that the elections office results accurately reflect the cast ballots,” the website says. And in Boise, Idaho, the elections office this year for the first time is publishing all 271,186 ballots cast in the general election on an interactive website using the Ballot Verifier program. According to its website, the program “ensures transparency and accountability in the voting process.” Users can view cast ballots, sort them by precinct, contest or candidate. In Pennsylvania, according to Common Cause, there have not yet been efforts like those to scan all ballots and put them online to allow public scrutiny. But the outcome of the current slate of cases at — or being considered by — the state Supreme Court could change that. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has ruled in at least two cases that scanned images of mail-in ballots are public records, and a third case on that same issue is pending. One of those cases, out of Erie County, is pending acceptance by the state Supreme Court. That court also has agreed to hear a case on whether the reports from in-person voting machines are public record. Another case, addressing whether digital images of cast, in-person ballots are public, was accepted by the court but is currently on hold. Jessica Goughnour, the office manager for the Westmoreland County elections department, said taking such a step to scan every ballot and put it online seems unnecessary. “We’re very transparent in our county,” she said. “Our numbers would match without ever seeing a ballot.” Moving forward Breth, the lawyer involved in several of the appellate cases, said a growing number of states are opening their ballots to public scrutiny. “It doesn’t in any way jeopardize the privacy of the ballot,” Breth said. He called that argument “a red herring.” By allowing ballots to be scrutinized, Breth said, it also allows scholars and politicians to see data and trends at a granular level. “It has a wide variety of uses. All of this, with today’s technology, ought to be available to the public.” Breth said he believes there’s bipartisan support for transparency. “It gives the public confidence,” he said. “The public can make their own minds up.” Schmidt, Breth said, is wrong on the issue. “Saying ‘just trust us’ isn’t how we operate as a society or as a country,” Breth said. Goodman, of Common Cause, said she is not at all surprised there is bipartisan support for increased ballot transparency. She said it started in 2004 when Democrat John Kerry lost to Republican George W. Bush and Democrats questioned the election results, pushing for audits and paper ballots. The same thing happened in 2020, she added, only that time it was Republicans with concerns. “There’s always going to be some way to cast doubt on an election outcome. Transparency is a value that takes hold across the board,” Goodman said. “The point of paper ballot audits and transparency is to convince the losers they lost so we can move forward.”Braden Smith set career highs with 34 points and six 3-pointers as No. 21 Purdue pulled away from Toledo 83-64 in a nonconference matchup on Sunday night in West Lafayette, Ind. Smith went 12 of 22 from the floor and added 12 assists and three steals for the Boilermakers (9-4). Trey Kaufman-Renn added 23 points on 11-of-14 shooting, and Fletcher Loyer chipped in 17 points. Sam Lewis collected 13 points and 11 rebounds, and Sonny Wilson also scored 13 points to lead Toledo (6-6). Seth Hubbard supplied 11 points. The Rockets trailed by 11 at halftime and by 13 after two free throws by Smith with 18:24 to go in the game. Four Toledo players then contributed points to an 8-0 run to pull within 43-38 with 16:44 to play. The lead hovered between five and 10 points until Smith's layup began a 17-2 spree that effectively sealed the win. Toledo, which finished at 40.6 percent from the floor, missed nine straight shots as Purdue took off. Smith entered the game averaging 12.9 points per game. The Boilermakers shot 49.2 percent from the floor and 10 of 28 on 3-point attempts. The Rockets made just 2 of 14 from deep. Toledo led 12-10 on Hubbard's jumper with 13:43 left in the first half, but the Rockets went cold. They missed 11 of their next 12 shots, and the Boilermakers heated up. Smith scored nine points in an 18-2 burst, which Loyer capped with a three-point play with 5:39 left in the half. Purdue made 7 of 9 shots from the floor during the run. The Boilermakers led 39-28 at the break after shooting 50 percent from the floor. Smith had 17 points and Loyer had 12, with each player making three 3-pointers. Wilson had seven first-half points for the Rockets, who fell to 36.4 percent shooting for the half after making 5 of 9 to begin the game. --Field Level Media

Justin Thomas with big drives and a few big putts takes 1-shot lead over Scheffler in the Bahamas

The world must respond to Russia’s use of a new ballistic missile, Volodymyr Zelensky said as Vladimir Putin threatened to strike the UK with his hypersonic weapon. The Ukrainian president said the use of a ballistic missile to hit Dnipro was a “clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war” and he warned that Russian president Mr Putin would attack or destabilise other countries unless stopped. Mr Putin said the use of the new weapon was in response to the UK and US allowing missiles they have supplied to Ukraine to be used to strike targets in Russia. “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the Ukrainian defence industry,” Mr Putin said in a televised address. “One of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested in combat conditions, in this case, with a ballistic missile in a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead.” He added: “We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.” But Mr Zelensky urged world leaders – his “dear partners” – not to be cowed by Mr Putin’s actions otherwise there will be “endless Russian strikes” and “not just against Ukraine”. Today, Putin admitted to taking a second step this year toward escalating and expanding this war. A new ballistic missile was used. Putin struck our city of Dnipro, one of Ukraine’s largest cities. This is a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war—a... — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 21, 2024 “A lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behavior is acceptable,” the Ukrainian president said on X, formerly Twitter. “This is what Putin is doing. Putin must feel the cost of his deranged ambitions. “Response is needed. Pressure is needed. Russia must be forced into real peace, which can only be achieved through strength. “Otherwise, there will be endless Russian strikes, threats, and destabilisation-not just against Ukraine.” The UK is believed to have allowed its Storm Shadow missiles to be used by Ukrainian forces within the Kursk region of Russia, while the US has given permission for its ATACMS weapons to be fired at targets in Mr Putin’s country. Mr Putin confirmed Russia has tested the new intermediate-range weapon in an attack on Dnipro in response. The US said the weapon was a new, experimental intermediate-range missile based on Russia’s existing RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. In Westminster, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “My understanding is that it is the first time that Russia has used a ballistic missile in Ukraine with a range of several thousand kilometres.” Defence Secretary John Healey said it was “yet another example of Putin’s recklessness”. He said: “Since the illegal invasion of Ukraine began, Russia has consistently and irresponsibly escalated the conflict while Ukraine continues to fight in self-defence for a democratic future.” The missile’s range far outstrips that of newly authorised US and British-supplied weapons, which can hit targets around 250-300km away. The distance from Moscow to London is around 2,500km, suggesting the range of the new missile could threaten the UK. Mr Healey said the UK knew Russia had been “preparing for months” to fire a new ballistic missile. Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence have repeatedly declined to comment publicly on Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow. “It risks both operational security and in the end the only one that benefits from such a public debate is President Putin,” Mr Healey told MPs. I had a meeting with the UK delegation led by Chief of the Defence Staff @AdmTonyRadakin_ . We discussed defense cooperation between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, focusing on developing and enhancing the technological capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Particular... pic.twitter.com/EcjqfTuR49 — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 21, 2024 The head of the UK’s armed forces, Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, met Mr Zelensky in Kyiv to discuss the war on Thursday. Mr Zelensky said: “We discussed defence co-operation between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, focusing on developing and enhancing the technological capabilities of the armed forces of Ukraine. “Particular attention was given to Ukraine’s current military needs and the continued support from our partners.”Citigroup Inc. increased its holdings in shares of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. ( NYSE:RNR – Free Report ) by 367.4% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 30,476 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after buying an additional 23,956 shares during the quarter. Citigroup Inc. owned 0.06% of RenaissanceRe worth $8,302,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of RNR. Advisors Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in RenaissanceRe during the 3rd quarter valued at about $45,000. Avior Wealth Management LLC grew its position in RenaissanceRe by 13.1% during the third quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 4,317 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $1,176,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC grew its position in RenaissanceRe by 8.3% during the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 15,391 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $4,193,000 after purchasing an additional 1,177 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC acquired a new position in RenaissanceRe in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $243,000. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its position in RenaissanceRe by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 1,530 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $417,000 after buying an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. 99.97% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Insider Transactions at RenaissanceRe In related news, EVP David E. Marra sold 1,000 shares of RenaissanceRe stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $279.00, for a total transaction of $279,000.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 82,044 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,890,276. This trade represents a 1.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink . Insiders own 1.30% of the company’s stock. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on RNR RenaissanceRe Trading Up 0.2 % RenaissanceRe stock opened at $286.15 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $270.45 and its 200-day simple moving average is $246.30. RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. has a 52 week low of $188.24 and a 52 week high of $300.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.86 billion, a PE ratio of 4.12, a PEG ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 0.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 1.43. RenaissanceRe ( NYSE:RNR – Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The insurance provider reported $10.23 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.89 by $2.34. The company had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.35 billion. RenaissanceRe had a return on equity of 26.31% and a net margin of 28.84%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 52.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $8.33 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. will post 41.94 earnings per share for the current year. RenaissanceRe Dividend Announcement The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a $0.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.55%. RenaissanceRe’s dividend payout ratio is 2.25%. RenaissanceRe Company Profile ( Free Report ) RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Property, and Casualty and Specialty segments. The Property segment writes property catastrophe excess of loss reinsurance and excess of loss reinsurance to insure insurance and reinsurance companies against natural and man-made catastrophes, including hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis, as well as winter storms, freezes, floods, fires, windstorms, tornadoes, explosions, and acts of terrorism; and other property class of products, such as proportional reinsurance, property per risk, property reinsurance, binding facilities, and regional U.S. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding RNR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. ( NYSE:RNR – Free Report ). 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