ANGER IN RUSSIA AFTER DOZENS OF TROOPS KILLED IN ONE OF WAR'S DEADLIEST STRIKES

Russia said on Monday that 63 Russian soldiers had been killed in a Ukrainian New Year’s Eve attack on their quarters, triggering furious criticism of the military leadership from lawmakers and pro-war bloggers.

Footage posted online showed a building purported to be a vocational college in Makiivka, a city in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Donetsk province, reduced to rubble.

Daniil Bezsonov, a senior Russian-backed regional official, said the college had been hit by U.S.-made HIMARS rockets around midnight, just as people would have been celebrating the start of the New Year against the backdrop of a televised speech by President Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s Defence Ministry acknowledged the attack only in the final paragraph of a 528-word daily roundup, more than 36 hours later.

Even then, it did not address some of the allegations made by pro-war bloggers, who said casualties were far higher, and that the military had not only failed to hide its soldiers from the enemy but also stored ammunition close by.

Nationalist bloggers and chat-show hosts with hundreds of thousands of followers have had license from the Kremlin to publicize the failings of the army—- a potential criminal act under a law passed shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in February.

But the open fury extended on Monday to lawmakers.

Grigory Karasin, a member of the Russian Senate and former deputy foreign minister, not only demanded vengeance against Ukraine and the Western NATO alliance, whose members have been arming it, but also “an exacting internal analysis.”

Sergei Mironov, a legislator and former chairman of the Senate, Russia’s upper house, demanded criminal liability for the officials who had “allowed the concentration of military personnel in an unprotected building” and “all the higher authorities who did not provide the proper level of security.”

Ukraine had alleged that 400 Russians had been killed, a number dismissed as an exaggeration by Russian bloggers.

A pro-war blogger known as Rybar, with more than a million subscribers on Telegram, said that, besides around 70 confirmed dead, more than 100 had been wounded. He said about 600 people had been in the building.

Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian troops in east Ukraine who has become a high-profile critic of Russia’s military, said on Telegram that there were “many hundreds” of dead and wounded.

Archangel Spetznaz Z, another Russian military blogger with more than 700,000 followers on Telegram, wrote:

“Who came up with the idea to place personnel in large numbers in one building, where even a fool understands that even if they hit with artillery, there will be many wounded or dead?”

RECESSION WILL HIT A THIRD OF THE WORLD IN 2023, WARNS IMF CHIEF

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva, in an interview with CBS on Sunday morning, said that the world would face a challenging year as the three major world economies are experiencing a slowdown, the United States, China and Europe, reported CNN.

“We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession,” she said, adding that even for countries that are not in recession: “It would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.”

Georgieva warned that 2023 is going to be tougher on the global economy than the one left behind. “Why? Because the three big economies, US, EU, China, are all slowing down simultaneously,” she said.

The reasons for a global recession have been enumerated, like the COVID-19 pandemic, the geopolitical contests among great powers, the Ukraine war, and the rise in interest rates in response to higher inflation.

Speaking about US and Europe, she said that Washington may end up avoiding a recession, the situation looks more bleak in Europe, which has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine, she said.

“Half of the European Union will be in recession,” Georgieva added. As per IMF projections, the global growth is at 2.7 per cent this year, slowing from 3.2 per cent in 2022.

The deceleration in China will have a dire impact globally. The world’s second largest economy weakened dramatically in 2022 because of its rigid zero-Covid policy, which left China out of sync with the rest of the world, disrupting supply chains and damaging the flow of trade and investment, reported CNN.

The IMF chief said that China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth.

“For the first time in 40 years China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth. Before Covid, China would deliver 34, 35, 40 per cent of global growth. It is not doing it anymore,” Georgieva said, adding that it is “quite a stressful” period for Asian economies.

RUNWAYS CLOSED FOR HOURS AFTER ISRAEL STRIKES SYRIAN CAPITAL’S AIRPORT; FOUR KILLED

Israeli missile strikes on the Syrian capital’s airport on Monday killed four people including two soldiers and closed the runways for several hours, a rights monitor said.

This is the second time in less than seven months that Damascus International Airport — where Iranian-backed armed groups and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters are present — has been hit by Israel.

The attack around 2:00 a.m. put the airport out of service until 9:00 a.m., Syria’s State news agency SANA reported.

Israel carried out the strike with “barrages of missiles targeting Damascus International Airport and its surroundings”, a military source told SANA, which reported that two Syrian soldiers were killed and two others wounded.

But the Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria, said “four fighters including two Syrian soldiers were killed”. The missiles also hit “positions for Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups inside the airport and its surroundings, including a weapons warehouse”, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Observatory.

Flights later resumed after repairs of “the damage caused by Israeli aggression”, Syria’s Transport Ministry said in a statement. “Air traffic has returned after we restored work on one of the runways,” it added. Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbour, targeting government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces.

The Israeli Army has repeatedly said it will not allow its archfoe Iran to gain a foothold in Syria.

CANADA BANS MOST FOREIGNERS FROM BUYING RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY

Ottawa : A ban on foreigners buying residential property in Canada took effect on Sunday, aiming to make more homes available to locals facing a housing crunch. Several exceptions in the act allow individuals such as refugees and permanent residents who are not citizens to buy homes. In late December, Ottawa also clarified that the ban would apply only to city dwellings and not to recreational properties such as summer cottages.

The temporary two-year measure was proposed by PM Justin Trudeau during the 2021 election campaign when soaring prices put home ownership beyond the reach of many Canadians. “The desirability of Canadian homes is attracting profiteers, wealthy corporations, and foreign investors,” his Liberal Party said in its election plank at the time. “This is leading to a real problem of underused and vacant housing, rampant speculation, and skyrocketing prices. Homes are for people, not investors. ” Following their 2021 election victory, the Liberals quietly introduced the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act. Major markets such as Vancouver and Toronto have also introduced taxes on nonresidents and empty homes.

The country’s real estate market has cooled for sellers as mortgage rates followed the Bank of Canada’s aggressive monetary policy in a bid to rein in inflation.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, average home prices have fallen from a peak of over Can$800,000 (US$590,000) at the start of 2022 to just over Can$630,000 (US$465,000) last month. Many experts however said the ban on foreign buyers —who account for less than 5% of home ownership in Canada, according to the national statistical agency — would not make homes affordable.

IS CLAIMS ATTACK NEAR MILITARY AIRPORT IN KABUL, SAYS 20 KILLED

Riyadh/Kabul : Islamic State terror group on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on Taliban forces in Kabul. The militant group said on Telegram that the attack on Sunday had killed 20 people and wounded 30.

A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban-run interior ministry said an explosion outside the military airport in the capital Kabul had caused multiple casualties. The interior ministry denied the casualty figures claimed by Islamic State and said it would release the official death toll.

IS has claimed several highprofile attacks in Kabul, including the storming of a hotel that caters to Chinese businessmen and a shooting at Pakistan’s embassy that Islamabad called an assassination attempt against its ambassador, who escaped unharmed.

‘IRAN ISSUES WARNING ON MANDATORY HIJAB IN CARS’

Tehran : Iranian police have resumed warnings that women must wear mandatory headscarves even in cars, media reported on Monday, as unrest continues following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody after Iran’s morality police accused her of violating the strict dress code.

Fars news agency quoted a senior police officer who said the “new stage” of the Nazer-1programme — “surveillance” in Persian — was being rolled out “across the country by the police”. The Nazer programme, launched in 2020, concerns the “removal of hijab in cars”, Fars added.

When it was launched in 2020, car owners would be sent an SMS text message alerting them of a dress code violation in their vehicle and warning of “legal” action if repeated. But police have seemingly dropped the threat of legal action, according to messages posted on social media platforms. “The removal of hijab has been observed in your vehicle: It is necessary to respect the norms of the society and make sure this action is not repeated,” read a message reportedly sent bypolice and posted on social media.

SCRAMBLED JETS TO MONITOR CHINA AIRCRAFT CARRIER OPS, SAYS JAPAN

Tokyo : Japan said on Monday it scrambled jet fighters and dispatched aircraft and warships over the past two weeks to keep tabs on China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier and five warships that conducted naval manoeuvres and flight operations in thePacific.

Japan monitored the operations after the Chinese naval groupsailed between the main Okinawa island and Miyakojima island into the Western Pacific from the East China Sea on December 16, Japan’s ministry of defence said. Before returning the same way on Sunday, the Chinese carrier conducted more than 300 take-offs and landings of fixed-wing aircraft, added the ministry. Japan reported that it had detected flights by a Chinese WZ-7 drone close to Miyakojima on Sunday and again on Monday, the first time it has spotted the high-altitude drone in the area.