BEIJING, 10 January 2023, (TON): The Foreign Ministry announced “China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang is starting his term with a weeklong trip to five African countries.”

Qin, who until recently was ambassador to the United States, will visit Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt from Jan. 9-16, spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily media briefing. In Egypt, Qin will also meet the secretary-general of the Arab League.

The new foreign minister is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, who have for more than three decades started each year with a trip to Africa.

Wang said “it shows that China attaches great importance to the traditional friendship with Africa and the development of China-Africa relations.”

TEHRAN, 10 January 2023, (TON): The judiciary said “Iran has sentenced to death three people accused of killing three members of the security forces during the protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini.”

The Islamic republic has been rocked by civil unrest since the September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian Amini, 22, following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

The latest sentences, which can still be appealed, bring to 17 the total number of people condemned to death in connection with the more than three months of protests.

Four of those convicted have been executed and two others are on death row after their sentences were upheld by the country’s supreme court.

GENEVA, 10 January 2023, (TON): The UK and its international partners will join forces to support Pakistan rebuild and recover from the unprecedented floods last summer that affected tens of thousands of people.

Pakistan and the UN are jointly hosting a conference in Geneva to help raise support for the country’s recovery and reconstruction.

Last year, Pakistan was on the front line of the impact of climate change when catastrophic flooding swept away homes and livelihoods, leaving 20 million in need of humanitarian assistance.

It is estimated the country will need around $16 billion for the next three to five years to rebuild the devastation.

TOKYO, 10 January 2023, (TON): Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday left on a tour of Europe and North America with security-focused talks on the agenda after his nation’s biggest defence policy overhaul in decades.

Japan holds the 2023 presidency of the G7, and Kishida will visit bloc members France, Italy, Britain and Canada starting.

Kishida’s final stop is the United States his first visit to Washington as prime minister where he will meet President Joe Biden on Friday.

Kishida told reporters “the talks with Biden would reaffirm US-Japan cooperation and the realisation of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

GAZA CITY, 10 January 2023, (TON): Gazans drove a convoy of ambulances along the Israeli border to protest import restrictions on medical equipment, which the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave warned puts patients at risk.

Israel bans the transfer of goods to Gaza that it deems could be used for military purposes, as part of a blockade it has imposed on the coastal territory since the armed group Hamas took power in 2007.

“Preventing the entry of medical devices means the slow death of Gaza patients,” read a banner spread across one of around 25 ambulances used in the border rally.

KYIV, 09 January 2023, (TON): Moscow-installed officials said “two thermal power plants were damaged by Ukrainian shelling in Russian-controlled parts of the country’s Donetsk region.”

Early information suggested that the plants in Zuhres and Novyi Svit had been hit and that some people on the spot had sustained injuries, the officials said on their Telegram channels.

Two people might be trapped under debris at the damaged Starobesheve power plant in Novyi Svit, TASS reported. Citing officials, it said the strike was carried out using a multiple rocket launcher system.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine which never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

NEW YORK, 09 January 2023, (TON): Ana Montes – among the best-known Cold War spies caught by the US – has been released from prison after more than 20 years in custody.

The 65-year-old spent almost two decades spying for Cuba while employed as an analyst at the Defence Intelligence Agency.

After her arrest in 2001, officials said she had almost entirely exposed US intelligence operations on the island. One official said she was among “the most damaging spies” caught by the US.

Michelle Van Cleave, who was head of counter-intelligence under President George W Bush, told Congress in 2012 that Montes had “compromised everything virtually everything that we knew about Cuba and how we operated in Cuba”.

SALEN, 09 January 2023, (TON): Sweden’s prime minister said “Turkey, which has for months blocked NATO membership bids by Sweden and Finland, has made some demands that Sweden cannot accept.”

“Turkey has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do, but it also says that it wants things that we can’t, that we don’t want to, give it,” Ulf Kristersson said during a security conference also attended by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

He said “we are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don’t know when.”

He added that it will depend on internal politics inside Turkey as well as “Sweden’s capacity to show its seriousness.

Sweden and Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the US-led defence alliance in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

GUMULCINE, 09 January 2023, (TON): Greece will build a 140-kilometer- (87-mile-) long steel fence along with Meric River, said the country’s citizen protection minister.

Speaking to local Skai TV, Takis Theodorikakos said his ministry has launched a project on building a fence to prevent migrant crossings.

In December, Greece announced that it would deploy 250 border police to tighten patrol and surveillance measures near the Meric (Evros) region on the Turkish border.

Türkiye’s National Defense Ministry revealed that a Turkish naval drone recorded footage of Greek forces illegally pushing back a boat carrying irregular migrants to Turkish territorial waters.

BERLIN, 09 January 2023, (TON): Police and prosecutors said “an Iranian man has been arrested in western Germany suspected of preparing an “Islamist attack” using cyanide and ricin.”

Muenster police and the Duesseldorf prosecutors’ office said in a press release that officers searched a residence in the town of Castrop-Rauxel for “toxic substances” intended to carry out an attack.

The 32-year-old Iranian was “suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence threatening the security of the state by obtaining cyanide and ricin with a view to committing an Islamist attack,” said investigators.

The 32-year-old suspect will be presented in the coming days to an investigating judge ahead of possible pre-trial detention, police said.