Notices by International Monitor (intmonitor@mastodon.social)

Chinese officials are reportedly holding preliminary discussions about the possibility of selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to billionaire Elon Musk if the platform cannot avert an imminent ban, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

The report indicates that TikTok’s U.S. assets might be sold either through a competitive bidding process or via a government-mandated arrangement, signaling that ByteDance’s control over the app’s future could be diminishing.

At least 100 men who were illegally mining at an abandoned gold mine in South Africa have died after being trapped underground for months.

According to Sabelo Mnguni, spokesman for Communities Affected by Mining United in Action, they are suspected to have died of starvation or dehydration.

India set for Maha Kumbh Mela, the world's largest gathering of humanity.

More than 400 million people are expected in the northern city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state over the course of six weeks to take a holy dip at the confluence of three sacred rivers - the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical, invisible Saraswati.

Tens of thousands of Romanians angered by the cancellation of a presidential election marched through Bucharest on Sunday to demand that the ballot should go ahead and that outgoing centrist President Klaus Iohannis should resign.

The cancellation came after state documents showed frontrunner Calin Georgescu, a critic of NATO, had benefited from an unfair social media campaign likely to have been orchestrated by Russia, accusations Moscow has denied.

Thousands protested in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, accusing PM Robert Fico of aligning Slovakia with Russia after his declarations and meeting with Putin during a Ukraine gas dispute.

"Slovakia is Europe, we are not Russia," one of the organisers told the crowd waving Slovak and EU flags.

US aviation giant Boeing has told BBC News it is donating $1m to an inauguration fund for Donald Trump.

Google has also confirmed that it has made a similar donation as the two firms join a growing list, that includes oil producer Chevron and technology giants Meta, Amazon and Uber.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 243-140 to sanction the ICC after it issued warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu and his ex- defense minister over Gaza.

The "Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act" targets foreigners pursuing cases against U.S. citizens or allies who are not members of the court.

#news #politics #Israel #usa

Poland is ready to supply electricity to Ukraine, Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska said, referring to threats that Slovakia could cut off power supplies.

“It is only a matter of Ukraine wanting or having to use it. Fico’s behaviour goes against Europe,” she added.

The U.N. World Food Programme said Israeli forces fired at its convoy in Gaza on Jan. 5, striking it with 16 bullets near Wadi Gaza, causing no injuries.

According to the official statement, the convoy was clearly marked and had prior security clearance from Israeli authorities.

Finland’s power grid operator has asked a Helsinki court to seize the Eagle S oil tanker over damages from the Dec. 25 breakdown of the Estlink 2 electricity cable.

Finnish authorities suspect the tanker, carrying Russian oil, caused the damage by dragging its anchor along the seabed.

Italy's foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to demand the release of reporter Cecilia Sala after her Dec. 19 detention in Tehran.

Sala’s detention followed the arrest of an Iranian businessman in Milan for allegedly supplying drone parts used in a 2023 attack on a US base in Jordan.

At least 28 people were dead after an airliner went off the runway and crashed at South Korea's Muan International Airport, Yonhap news agency reported.

The accident occurred as the Jeju Air plane, carrying 175 passengers and six crew on a flight from Thailand, was landing at the airport.

Ukraine confirmed on Saturday that it had received its first shipment of US liquefied natural gas (LNG), in an attempt to further strengthen its energy capabilities and reduce its dependence on Russia, after announcing the cessation of Russian gas transit through its territory.

Elon Musk backed Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a guest opinion piece for Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper published online on Saturday that prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.

Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin asked for a meeting with him as soon as possible.

The US president-elect did not confirm whether the meeting would take place, but reiterated that ending the war in Ukraine is one of the things he wants to do “quickly.”

Russian forces executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to Ukraine's Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets.

Lubinets said on Telegram that Russian troops shot the five unarmed soldiers after capturing them. He announced that will report this fact to the UN.

The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could decide to build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing incoming President-elect Donald Trump's team on the risk.

At least 30 children have died due to medicine shortages in part of north-west Pakistan, after the regional government closed key roads in and out of the district in an attempt to quell an outbreak of deadly sectarian violence between sunni and shia muslims.

A Republican spending bill backed by President-elect Donald Trump failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, leaving Congress with no clear plan to avert government shutdown.

Government funding is due to expire at midnight on Friday. If lawmakers fail to extend that deadline, the U.S. government will begin a partial shutdown that would interrupt funding for everything from border enforcement to national parks and cut off paychecks for more than 2 million federal workers.

The new commander of Ukraine's ground forces plans a "massive transformation" of his branch to improve troop training, management and recruitment, Kyiv said on Friday, as it grapples with manpower problems at the front.