While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Jan 17, 2025
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Smoke rising from North Gaza on Jan 16, ahead of a planned Jan 19 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
PHOTO: REUTERS
US says Gaza ceasefire to start on time despite ‘loose end’
The ceasefire in the Gaza Strip should start on Jan 19 as planned, despite the need for negotiators to tie up a “loose end” at the last minute, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Jan 16.
Israel delayed holding a Cabinet meeting to ratify the ceasefire with Hamas, blaming the militant group for the hold-up, even as Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza with airstrikes which Palestinian authorities said killed 77 people in the day since the truce was unveiled.
Hamas senior official Izzat el-Reshiq said the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal, scheduled to take effect from Jan 19 to halt 15-months of bloodshed.
“It’s not exactly surprising that in a process and negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end,” Mr Blinken told a news conference in Washington. “We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”
Hecklers interrupt Blinken over Gaza at final news briefing
Multiple hecklers interrupted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Jan 16 inside the State Department briefing room during his remarks on the heels of a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.
“Criminal! Why aren’t you in The Hague?” independent journalist Sam Husseini shouted as Mr Blinken delivered opening remarks at his final news conference.
The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.
Mark Carney enters race to replace Canada’s Trudeau
REUTERS
Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney announced on Jan 16 that he was running to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as leader of the ruling Liberal Party, saying he wanted to focus on the struggling economy.
Mr Carney, 59, launched his bid at an event in the western city of Edmonton, casting himself as an outsider who was not part of Mr Trudeau’s unpopular government.
Mr Trudeau announced his resignation earlier in January, amid unhappiness among legislators alarmed by the party’s poor polling numbers ahead of an election this year.
Brazilian woman, 119, stakes claim as world’s oldest person
REUTERS
Two months away from what she says is her 120th birthday, Mrs Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, a great-grandmother from the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is rushing to be recognised as the world’s oldest living person by the Guinness World Records.
The institution currently features another Brazilian, Ms Inah Canabarro Lucas, a nun from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul as the oldest living person at 116 years, but Mrs Pedro da Silva’s family and doctors are confident that she will soon take the religious woman’s title.
“She is still not in the book, but she is the oldest in the world according to the documents we have on her, as I recently discovered,” said Mrs Pedro da Silva’s granddaughter, Ms Doroteia Ferreira da Silva, who is half her age.
LeBron James not involved in ‘F1 for basketball’ startup
USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
Though his childhood friend and business partner Maverick Carter is reportedly behind an effort to launch an international basketball league, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is not involved, Front Office Sports reported.
According to a Jan 15 report, the league is looking to be “an F1 for basketball,” not a competition for the NBA, which has not faced a domestic rival since the ABA merger in 1976.
A target date has yet to be set for the league, which reportedly plans to have six men’s and eight women’s teams playing in eight cities - for two weeks at a time - outside the US. Singapore is among the cities on the list, according to Front Office Sports.
