KYIV, 03 December 2022, (TON): A senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky has said “as many as 13,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Russia’s invasion in February.”

Mykhailo Podolyak told Ukraine’s Channel 24 “we have official estimates from the General Staff... And they range from 10,000 ... to 13,000 dead.”

He added “Zelensky would make the official data public when the right moment comes.”

In June, as Russian forces battled to take full control of the easternmost Lugansk region, Zelensky said Ukraine was losing “60 to 100 soldiers per day, killed in action, and around 500 people wounded in action.”

WASHINGTON, 03 December 2022, (TON): The United States, Japan and South Korea have imposed fresh sanctions on North Korean individuals and entities in response to Pyongyang’s recent slew of missile tests.

Washington’s action, announced, blocks any assets of three North Korean officials in the United States, a largely symbolic step against an isolated country that has defied international pressure over its weapons programs.

The US Treasury Department also threatened sanctions against anyone who conducts transactions with Jon Il Ho, Yu Jin and Kim Su Gil, who were identified as directly involved in weapons development.

ATHENS, 03 December 2022, (TON): Greek police said “two explosive devices targeted cars belonging to the Italian embassy in Greece, one of which went off causing no injuries.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and officers said they were investigating.

Police said “a homemade bomb exploded at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT), damaging a vehicle parked at the home of an embassy officer in an Athens suburb.”

The other device, placed near a second diplomatic vehicle, did not go off.

LONDON, 03 December 2022, (TON): The mission said “more than 200 Indonesian fruit pickers have since July sought help from their nation’s embassy in London after wracking up huge debts traveling to the UK for work, only to find their jobs being cut short.”

The true number of Indonesians struggling in the industry was likely to be much higher, it added, with more than 1,450 of them sent this year by a company called AG Recruitment to work on six-month seasonal worker visas.

An embassy official told media that initially people “started coming to us with problems about the targets on farms.”

But the official added “currently, most people are contacting us because there’s no more work at the farms. They try to transfer, but AG tells them there’s no other work.”

THE HAGUE, 03 December 2022, (TON): European Union’s drug regulator said “cough medicines containing the chemical pholcodine should be banned due to the risk of potentially deadly allergic reactions in people under general anaesthetic.”

The European Medicines Agency recommended that treatments containing pholcodine, which is used in adults and children to treat dry coughs, should be withdrawn from sale.

To muscle relaxants in the anaesthetic, the Amsterdam-based watchdog said “use of pholcodine in the 12 months before general anaesthesia is a risk factor for developing an anaphylactic reaction.”

PALMDALE, 03 December 2022, (TON): America’s newest nuclear stealth bomber made its debut Friday after years of secret development and as part of the Pentagon’s answer to rising concerns over a future conflict with China.

The B-21 Raider is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. Almost every aspect of the program is classified.

As evening fell over the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, the public got its first glimpse of the Raider in a tightly-controlled ceremony. It started with a flyover of the three bombers still in service: the B-52 Stratofortress, the B-1 Lancer and the B-2 Spirit.

Then the hangar doors slowly opened and the B-21 was towed partially out of the building, its wheels inching close to the outer pavement.

DHAKA, 03 December 2022, (TON): Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen crossed the Shewla Land Port at Sylhet border this morning and reached Silchar of Indian northeastern state Assam to attend the first "Silchar-Sylhet Festival-2022".

A foreign ministry press release said “after reaching at Sutarkandi border in Indian part, the Bangladesh foreign minister expressed his deep satisfaction and thanked Indian authority for giving him and his delegation a warm welcome."

Momen said “after 50 years, I am privileged to cross the Bangladesh-India border through Shewla-Sutarkandi. My delegation and I are pleased with the cordial welcome they extended to us.”

HUWARA, 03 December 2022, (TON): Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, in an incident described by the force as a stabbing and by a Palestinian official as a quarrel.

Israeli police said “its border guards were approached by several suspects in the town of Huwara when one pulled out a knife and stabbed one of them.”

Police said in a statement “the guards responded by shooting one suspect and neutralizing him.”

There are regular patrols by Israeli forces through the town of Huwara, which straddles the main road south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

RIYADH, 03 December 2022, (TON): Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed bin Abdulkarim Al-Khuraiji has met Anne Gueguen, director of the North Africa and Middle East department at France’s Foreign Ministry, in Riyadh.

During the meeting, they discussed issues of common interest and went over the bilateral relations and ways to develop them.

The meeting was held in the presence of the adviser at the Saudi Royal Court Nizar Al-Alula and the French Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ludovic Pouille.

DHAKA, 03 December 2022, (TON): Rohingya cleric Abdur Rashid still believes children are divine gifts, but life in a Bangladeshi refugee camp with six little mouths to feed has left him and his wife unwilling to accept another heavenly blessing.

Earlier this year, his wife Nosmin asked doctors to fit her with a contraceptive implant, a decision that cultural norms among the persecuted and largely Muslim minority would have rendered unthinkable a few years ago.

But since fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar five years ago, life in the overcrowded refugee settlements of their reluctant hosts has prompted the couple and many other families to limit the size of their households.