24/12/2025

WEDNESDAY | DEC 24, 2025

9 Russian air attack kills three

‘U.S. NEEDS GREENLAND’

COPENHAGEN: US President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated that the United States needed Greenland for “national security” after his appointment of a special envoy to the Danish Arctic island triggered a new spat with Copenhagen. “We need Greenland for national security. Not for minerals,” Trump told a news conference in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday. “If you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need it for national security. We have to have it.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Greenland belongs to Greenlanders. – AFP ITALY ASKED TO SEND TROOPS TO GAZA ROME: Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italian military personnel have been requested to support future reconstruction or transitional efforts in Gaza and Palestine. Tajani made the remarks while visiting Italian forces at a military support base in Djibouti and aboard the frigate Antonio Marceglia , celebrating Christmas with the troops, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. “Our presence has been requested for Gaza and Palestine during any future reconstruction or transitional phase,” Tajani told the soldiers. – Bernama PALESTINIAN WOMEN FACE ABUSE IN JAIL GAZA CITY: Palestinian women detained in Israel’s Damon Prison in Haifa face abuse, including beatings and the forcible removal of their headscarves, the Prisoners’ Media Office said on Monday. Prison guards forced the women into the yard, made them sit on the ground, removed their headscarves and assaulted them. Dogs and stun grenades were also used against the women, it said, calling the abuse a “blatant violation of all humanitarian laws and norms”. – Bernama

Ukrainian and European delegations, alongside separate contacts with Russian representatives, as Washington tested the scope for a settlement. Russia, which is also pressing a battlefield offensive against outnumbered Ukrainian troops, has demanded that Ukraine cede its eastern Donbas region and significantly restrict its military capabilities before it stops fighting. “Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing,” Zelenskiy wrote on X. “And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia. Now is the time to respond.” – Reuters

of the attack. Critical and energy infrastructure was damaged in the northern Chernihiv, western Lviv and southern Odesa regions, local authorities said. Poland, a Nato member bordering western Ukraine, said Polish and allied aircraft were deployed to protect Polish airspace after Russian strikes targeted areas of western Ukraine near the border. Moscow has stepped up strikes on Ukrainian energy and logistics to boost pressure on Kyiv as it seeks to soften the terms of a US-backed deal that could involve painful concessions. Weekend peace talks in Miami brought together US officials with

to end the nearly four-year-old war. Yesterday’s attack killed two people including a four-year-old in the central Zhytomyr region and one person outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where local officials said at least five were also wounded. “This Russian strike sends an extremely clear signal about Russia’s priorities,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X, adding that it involved more than 30 missiles and 650 drones across at least 13 regions. “An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe.” Ukraine’s grid operator said most regions were experiencing emergency power outages as a result

KYIV: Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones in a new air attack yesterday, authorities said, killing at least three people including a child and triggering emergency power cuts across the country as Ukrainians gear up to celebrate Christmas. Moscow’s latest combined strike hit energy facilities in western regions the hardest, said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, and came days after another round of US-led peace talks o Poland scrambles jets to protect air space

BR I E F S

Emergency responders working at the site of a drone strike in Kyiv yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

Smart for Maduro to leave, says Trump PALM BEACH: US President Donald Trump said on Monday it would be smart for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to leave power, and the United States could keep or sell the oil it had seized off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks. “But again, we’re gonna find out.” “If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’s ever able to play tough,” he said. During the press conference, Trump also took aim at Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who he has also feuded with throughout the year. started pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela on Sunday, in what would be the second such operation this weekend and the third in less than two weeks if successful.

“Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it,” Trump said when asked what would happen with the seized oil, adding it might also be used to replenish the United States’ strategic reserves. Without directly referring to Trump’s statements, Maduro said every leader should attend to the internal affairs of their own country. “If I speak to him again, I will tell him: each country should mind its own internal affairs,” Maduro said, referring to an initial phone call between the two leaders last month. – Reuters

Trump’s pressure campaign on Maduro has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels allegedly trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American nation. At least 100 people have been killed in the attacks. Asked if the goal was to force Maduro from power, Trump told reporters: “Well, I think it probably would ... That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it’d be smart for him to do that.

“He’s no friend to the United States. He’s very bad. Very bad guy. He’s gotta watch his ass because he makes cocaine and they send it into the US,” Trump said when asked about Petro’s criticisms towards the Trump administration’s handling of the tensions with Venezuela. In addition to the strikes, Trump has previously announced a “blockade” of all oil tankers under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela. The US Coast Guard

Trump announced on Monday a new class of US warships named after himself. The Trump-class ships ‘will be the largest’ ever built, the president said. – AFPPIC