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North Korea Plans To Launch 3 More Spy Satellites In 2024: Report

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North Korea Plans To Launch 3 More Spy Satellites In 2024: Report

Pyongyang has yet to release any imagery from the new satellite.

Seoul:

North Korea says policy goals for next year includes launching three additional military reconnaissance satellites and building unmanned aerial vehicles to advance North Korea’s military, state media KCNA reported on Sunday.

“Based on the experience of successfully launching and operating the first reconnaissance satellite in 2023, the task of launching three additional reconnaissance satellites in 2024 was declared to vigorously promote the development of space science and technology,” the report said at a major policy-setting year-end meeting presided by leader Kim Jong Un.

The plan was laid out as part of Kim’s address to the meeting, in which he said the country has no choice but to press forward with his nuclear ambitions and forge deeper ties with anti-U.S. countries as Pyongyang is facing unprecedented confrontational moves by the U.S., a reference that likely includes Russia.

Kim also said Pyongyang has now ruled out the possibility of unifying with South Korea, adding the country must fundamentally change its principle and direction towards South Korea.

North Korea says it successfully launched its first military spy satellite on Nov. 21, transmitting photos of the White House, the Pentagon, U.S. military bases and “target regions” in South Korea.

That successful launch was preceded by two failed attempts last year when its new Chollima-1 rocket crashed into the sea.

The move raised regional tensions and sparked fresh sanctions from the U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang has yet to release any imagery from the new satellite, leaving analysts and foreign governments to debate its capabilities.

The apparent success also came after Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to help North Korea build satellites. South Korean officials said Russian aid likely made a difference in the success of the mission, though experts said it was unclear how much help Moscow could have provided.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Hyderabad: Actor Balakrishna and PV Sindhu meet T’gana CM Revanth Reddy

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Roads, Buildings, and Cinematography Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy was also present during the meeting.

Updated On – 06:31 PM, Sat – 30 December 23


Hyderabad: Actor Balakrishna and PV Sindhu meet T’gana CM Revanth Reddy


Hyderabad: Tollywood actor Nandamuri Balakrishna paid a courtesy call  to Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy at secretariat on Saturday.

During the meeting, the actor presented a flower bouquet. Accompanying Balakrishna was his son-in-law Sri Bharath.

Roads, Buildings, and Cinematography Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy was also present during the meeting.

Hyderabad-based badminton player and Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, accompanied by her parents, also met with Revanth Reddy. During their interaction, she presented a racket to the CM.

 

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UAE vs AFG 2nd T20I: Preview, Fantasy Picks, Pitch And Weather Reports

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The United Arab Emirates will be up against Afghanistan in the second T20I of Afghanistan’s tour of the UAE, 3 T20I Series 2023/24 on Sunday, December 31, at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The match is scheduled to begin at 7:30 PM IST. The UAE and Afghanistan have played one match in the series, with Afghanistan winning the game by 72 runs. In the first game of this series, Rahmanullah Gurbaz was the Man of the Match and Vriitya Aravind scored the highest fantasy points for the United Arab Emirates with 99 match fantasy points while Rahmanullah Gurbaz topped the fantasy points leaderboard for Afghanistan with 147 match fantasy points.

UAE vs AFG, Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah Pitch Report

The pitch at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah is a balanced track. The average 1st innings score at this venue in the last 20 matches is 133 runs. The team batting first at this venue has won 65 per cent of the matches. The team winning the toss will look to bat first here.

Pace or Spin?

The venue is suited for both Pacers and Spinners alike.

Weather Report for Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah

The temperature will hover around 24 degrees Celsius with 60 per cent humidity. 1.32 m/s winds are expected.

UAE vs AFG Fantasy 11 Prediction: Top Captain and Vice-Captain Picks

Vriitya Aravind

The United Arab Emirates batter Vriitya Aravind has amassed 70 runs in one match of the series at an average of and a strike rate of 109.38. He has scored one half-century and achieved the highest score of 70 not out.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz

Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz has hit 100 runs in one match and is the team’s leading run-scorer this season. He has a strike rate of 192.31 and averages 100. He also has one century to his name in this campaign.

Aayan Khan: The United Arab Emirates bowler has picked up one wicket in one match. Aayan Khan’s best figures for this season is 1/26 and his average is 26.00.

Fazalhaq Farooqi: The bowler from Afghanistan has taken 2 wickets in one match so far at an average of 9.50. Fazalhaq Farooqi’s figures of 2/19 are his best bowling performance in the series.

UAE vs AFG Fantasy 11 Team

Wicket-Keeper: Rahmanullah Gurbaz

Batter: Ibrahim Zadran, Vriitya Aravind

All-Rounders: Sharafuddin Ashraf, Gulbadin Naib and Mohammad Nabi

Bowlers: Qais Ahmad, Rashid Khan, Aayan Khan, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-ul-Haq

Captain: Rahmanullah Gurbaz

Vice-Captain: Mohammad Nabi

United Arab Emirates vs Afghanistan head-to-head record in T20

The United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan have competed against each other on 10 occasions in T20s. While the United Arab Emirates have won 2 matches, Afghanistan have emerged victorious in 8 instances.

The last 5 T20 matches have seen the United Arab Emirates win on 1 occasion and Afghanistan 4 times. The highest score in these 5 games is 203 by Afghanistan while the lowest has been 131 by the United Arab Emirates.

United Arab Emirates vs Afghanistan, 2nd T20I prediction

Afghanistan are predicted to win the upcoming fixture as they have won four of the last 5 matches against the United Arab Emirates.

Topics mentioned in this article

India

2 Children Among 20 Killed In Ukraine Strikes On Belgorod, Says Russia

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2 Children Among 20 Killed In Ukraine Strikes On Belgorod, Says Russia

.Images posted by the Emergencies Ministry showed at least three burned out cars,

Russia said 20 people including two children had been killed and 111 injured in “indiscriminate” Ukrainian strikes allegedly including cluster bombs on the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod on Saturday, and vowed to retaliate.

The Belgorod region, which adjoins northern Ukraine, has like other Russian border zones suffered shelling and drone attacks all year that authorities have blamed on Ukraine, although none have previously been on such a scale.

Newspaper Kommersant cited a source close to the Russian Investigative Committee as saying missiles fired from a multiple rocket launcher in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region had hit a skating rink on the central Cathedral Square, a shopping centre and residential buildings.

No official comment was immediately available from Kyiv, but the Ukrainian news outlet RBC-Ukraine quoted unnamed sources as saying Ukrainian forces had directed fire at military targets in Belgorod in response to the massive Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities the previous day.

News website Ukrainska Pravda quoted an unnamed security service source as blaming the destruction of civilian infrastructure on “unprofessional actions by Russian air defence, as well as deliberate and planned provocations”.

Russia’s mission to the United Nations in New York said it had requested a meeting of the Security Council, which began at 4 p.m. ET (2100 GMT).

Within hours of the attack on Belgorod, Ukrainian authorities said two Russian S-300 missiles hit the centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, injuring 21 people including two boys aged 16 and 14.

One missile hit the Kharkiv Palace Hotel and another an apartment building. Officials said a medical institution and other civilian infrastructure were also damaged.

Air raid sirens had earlier sounded all over Belgorod as regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov urged all residents to move to shelters.

“Today, the Kyiv regime attempted an indiscriminate combined strike on the city of Belgorod with two ‘Olkha’ missiles in a banned cluster configuration, as well as Czech-made Vampire rockets,” the Defence Ministry said in a Telegram posting. “This crime will not go unpunished.”

‘APARTMENTS AND SHOPS HIT’

It said most of the rockets, including both the “Olkha” missiles, had been shot down, averting far greater casualties, although fragments had fallen on the city.

Governor Gladkov said 22 apartment buildings had been damaged along with a large number of commercial properties, shopping centres and shops, and that more than 100 cars had been damaged, most of them burned out.

Images posted by the Emergencies Ministry showed at least three burned out cars, and a commercial building with some broken windows. Other images posted online showed black smoke rising from the city.

Two residents told Reuters they had seen air defence missiles rising into the sky followed by explosions in the air and then louder blasts.

Russian state-run news agency RIA quoted the Kremlin as saying President Vladimir Putin had sent a team of health and emergency workers to Belgorod.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what it calls a “special military operation”, unleashed its biggest air attack of the war on Friday.

Ukrainian officials said 39 civilians had been killed and 159 wounded as Russia launched 158 missiles and drones at more than 120 cities and towns across Ukraine. On Saturday, the toll climbed to 41, after one person found dead in Kyiv and another succumbed to injuries in Odesa.

Russia said its anti-aircraft units had destroyed 13 Ukrainian rockets over the Belgorod region on Friday, as well as 32 drones overnight over the nearby Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions and the Moscow region.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA that Britain and the U.S. had incited Ukraine to carry out “terrorist acts”, and said European Union countries must also bear blame for supplying it with weapons.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Actor Tom Wilkinson, Known For 'The Full Monty', Dies "Suddenly". He Was 75

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Actor Tom Wilkinson, Known For 'The Full Monty', Dies 'Suddenly'. He Was 75

The actor also took a home Best Supporting Actor Bafta for the role.

London:

Two-time Oscar-nominated actor Tom Wilkinson, who starred in “The Full Monty” about a group of unemployed steel workers who launched new careers as strippers died “suddenly” on Saturday.

The British actor’s death was confirmed in a statement released by his agent on behalf of his family. He was 75.

“It is with great sadness that the family of Tom Wilkinson announce that he died suddenly at home on December 30. His wife and family were with him.”

Wilkinson was nominated for Academy Awards for actor in a leading role for “In The Bedroom” in 2001, and for a supporting role in “Michael Clayton” in 2007.

He most recently reunited with his Full Monty co-stars, Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy, in a Disney+ series of the same name.

The original 1997 smash hit about an unlikely group of men stripping won an Oscar for best original musical or comedy score and was nominated for three others, including best picture and best director.

Wilkinson’s character played ex-foreman Gerald Cooper who was recruited to help the unemployed men dance.

The actor also took a home Best Supporting Actor Bafta for the role.

Carlyle paid tribute to his co-star calling him a “real titan of an actor, one of the greats of not only his, but of any generation”.

Wilkinson won a 2009 Golden Globe and 2008 Emmy for his role as American political figure Benjamin Franklin in the HBO series John Adams, opposite Paul Giamatti.

He was also known for his roles in a BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens novel “Martin Chuzzlewit”; the 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”; the 2014 Wes Anderson comedy drama “The Grand Budapest Hotel”; and 2011 ensemble comedy “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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5 Workers Trapped After Massive Fire In Maharashtra Glove Factory

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5 Workers Trapped After Massive Fire In Maharashtra Glove Factory

“There are five workers stuck inside the building,” one of the workers at the company told ANI.

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

At least five workers were said to be trapped inside a hand glove manufacturing company in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar where a massive fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday.

“Five workers are trapped inside the building located in Waluj MIDC area,” said locals.

Visuals from the area showed people crying for help to rescue of their relatives trapped inside the building.

“There are five workers stuck inside the building,” one of the workers at the company told ANI.

Locals identified four of the trapped workers as Bhulla Shaikh (65), Kausar Shaikh (26), Iqbal Shaikh (26), and Magroof Shaikh (25).

The workers said that the company was closed at night, and they were sleeping when the fire broke out.

“There were 10-15 people inside the building when the fire broke out. Some managed to escape, but others are still trapped inside,” they said.

According to officials, the fire engine and fire brigade teams have reached the spot and started their efforts to rescue the people trapped inside the building.

“Efforts to bring the fire under control,” they said.

More details are awaited.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Middle East

Israeli forces kill Palestinian youth at entrance to West Bank refugee camp

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This photo shows Palestinian young man, Mohammad Hussein ismail Masalma, who was killed by Israeli forces’ live fire at the entrance to a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, on Saturday, December 30, 2023. (via WAFA news agency)

Israeli forces have fatally shot another Palestinian young man at the entrance to a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 22-year-old Mohammad Hussein Ismail Masalma succumbed to critical injuries he had sustained earlier on Saturday when he was hit by live bullets fired by Israeli forces at the entrance to the Al-Fawwar refugee camp, located south of the city of al-Khalil, also known as Hebron.

Masalma was injured after the regime’s forces stationed at the camp’s entrance opened fire at his vehicle, leaving him severely wounded. The Palestinian youth was then left bleeding.

The Israeli military claimed that the young Palestinian was involved in a car-ramming attack that allegedly targeted the regime’s forces who were manning a checkpoint at the entrance to the camp.

Masalma was rushed to hospital in a critical condition where he was later pronounced dead.

The Israeli regime has exceptionally intensified its attacks against Palestinians throughout the West Bank since it launched a devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The regime started its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7 following an operation by the territory’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm. The historic operation came in response to the regime’s decades-long violence against Palestinians.

Since the start of its military aggression, the Israeli regime has killed at least 21,672 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while injuring over 56,000 others.

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Netanyahu Says War With Gaza Will Continue For "Many More Months"

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Netanyahu Says War With Gaza Will Continue For 'Many More Months'

Israel has said it intends to destroy Hamas in Gaza and demilitarise and deradicalise the territory.

Jerusalem:

The border zone between the Gaza Strip and Egypt should be under Israel’s control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday as he predicted the war in the Palestinian enclave and on other regional fronts would last many more months.

Netanyahu held a news conference as Israel entered the 13th week of its war against Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamists, which has stoked violence in the occupied West Bank and touched off attacks by Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

“The Philadelphi Corridor – or to put it more correctly, the southern stoppage point (of Gaza) – must be in our hands. It must be shut. It is clear that any other arrangement would not ensure the demilitarisation that we seek,” he said.

Israel has said it intends to destroy Hamas in Gaza and demilitarise and deradicalise the territory in order to prevent any repeat of the Oct. 7 cross-border killing and kidnapping spree by the Palestinians militant group that sparked the war.

“The war is at its height. We are fighting on all of the fronts. Achieving victory will require time. As the (IDF) chief of staff has said, the war will continue for many more months,” Netanyahu said.

He added a rare threat to attack Iran directly over the near-daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border. “If Hezbollah expands the warfare, it will suffer blows that it has not dreamed of – and so too Iran,” Netanyahu said without elaborating.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Indian-Origin Couple, Found Dead, Sold $4 Million Home Amid Funds Crunch

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Indian-Origin Couple, Found Dead, Sold $4 Million Home Amid Funds Crunch

Rakesh Kamal, his daughter and wife were found dead in their mansion.

New Delhi:

A wealthy Indian-origin couple and their teen daughter were found dead in their mansion at one of the poshest enclaves in US’ Massachusetts. Rakesh Kamal, 57, his wife Teena, 54, and their 18-year-old daughter Ariana were found dead on Thursday evening, Norfolk District Attorney (DA) Michael Morrissey said. Authorities say that a preliminary investigation points to a “deadly incident of domestic violence” with no outside involvement.

The Kamal family, originally from India, had established themselves within the tech industry in the United States, and used to run an education systems company called EduNova. The company is now defunct.

From Becoming Millionaires To Bankruptcy

Rakesh Kamal, an alumnus of Boston University, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Stanford University, had an extensive career in education consulting and launched an Ed-tech company with his wife in 2016.

EduNova marketed a ‘student success system’ designed to improve the grades of students in middle school, high school, and college,” The Boston Globe newspaper reported.

The company initially performed well resulting in the Kamals purchasing the 19,000-square-foot estate – which boasts 11 bedrooms – for $4 million in 2019, according to state records.

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But the company was dissolved in December 2021, the records show. This was the start of a financial crisis for the couple, who used to go around as Rick and Teena.

Their sprawling mansion went into foreclosure a year ago and was sold to the Massachusetts-based Wilsondale Associates LLC for $3 million. The estate was estimated to be worth $5.45 million when it was sold.

Teena Kamal, an alumna of Harvard University and Delhi University in India, also filed for bankruptcy in September 2022, further highlighting the financial distress that the couple was under.

What Happened On Thursday

Cops received a call at 7.24 pm on Thursday evening from a relative of the Kamal family who had come to check on them after not hearing from them for days.

The three members of the Kamal family were the only ones living in the mansion at the time, officials said, adding that the area, one of the richest in the state, was “a nice neighbourhood, a safe community.”

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The bodies of Rakesh, Teena, and Ariana were found inside the house when police arrived at the spot.

The Norfolk District Attorney said that they will be able to give a definitive motive into the “terrible tragedy” and a probe is still on to figure out what happened. He said that only after the medical examiner’s ruling will they be able to decide whether to refer to the incident as a suicide or a murder.

But he said that a gun was found near Rakesh Kamal’s body.

“All I can tell you is there was a gun on the premises, and it was apparent to all those that went in that all three members of the family were dead,” Mr Morrissey said.

Ariana’s Aspirations: A Life Cut Short

The 18-year-old Ariana was a student at Middlebury College, a $64,800-a-year private liberal arts school in Vermont, where she was studying neuroscience, according to her LinkedIn.

Her school, Milton Academy, in a statement, said that Ariana was a sweet, smart, and kind young woman who was “just beginning to realise her full potential”.

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Officials said a homicide has not been reported in Dover since 2020 and this was a very shocking incident.

“It’s very rare to have this kind of a violence situation almost in any community in Norfolk County, but particularly Dover,” Mr Morrissey said.

“It’s a small, well-run community, but like everybody else, there are problems out there that can affect no matter where you live.”