Global news Live updates | Zelensky calls for more speed in helping Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zelensky issued a "call for speed" in giving aid to Ukraine, warning that "tyranny is outpacing democracies".

"The time the Free World uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill," he said, amid rising pressure on Germany to greenlight exports of its heavy Leopard tank to Ukraine.

Twitter Inc said on Wednesday it was offering an annual plan for its subscription service called Twitter Blue, which includes its sought-after "verified" badge, at a discount to its monthly price.
Users can subscribe to the service for an annual price of $84, instead of a monthly subscription price of $8 on the web and $11 on Apple devices.

The discount would be available in countries including United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, Twitter said.

Since billionaire Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter for $44 billion last year, he has brought changes to the company including new subscription plans for Twitter Blue.
 

Gambia’s Vice President Badara Alieu Joof has died of illness in India, President Adama Barrow said on Wednesday.

Joof, 65, was appointed vice president of the West African country in 2022. He previously served as education minister from 2017 to 2022.

Israel's High Court of Justice has struck down th appointment of Shas leader Aryeh Deri as the interior minister and health minister in the new Benjamin Netanyahu government, reports Times of Israel newspaper.

The judges say Deri’s appointment is “unreasonable in the extreme” due to his multiple convictions for corruption charges. They also cite “the position Deri presented to the Magistrate’s Court that convicted him of these charges, in which he said he was quitting politics, and his conduct thereafter.”

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it would cut 10,000 jobs by the end of third quarter of fiscal 2023, the latest sign that layoffs were accelerating in the U.S. technology sector as companies brace for an economic downturn.

The layoffs will result in a charge of $1.2 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2023, representing a negative impact of 12 cents on per share profit, Microsoft said.

The news of layoffs, reported by media publications on Tuesday, follows some reductions last year.

Microsoft said in July last year that a small number of roles had been eliminated, while news site Axios in October reported that the company had laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions.

The Satya Nadella-led firm is also grappling with a slump in the personal computer market after a pandemic boom fizzled out, leaving little demand for its Windows and accompanying software.
 

Ukraine's government appointed national police chief Ihor Klymenko as acting interior minister on Wednesday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
Shmyhal announced the appointment hours after the previous minister, Denys Monastyrskyi, was killed in a helicopter crash near Kyiv. He said Klymenko had officially been appointed to the role of deputy interior minister, but would fulfil the responsibilities of the minister.

Russia is preparing for an extended war so NATO must get ready “for the long haul” and support Ukraine for as long as it takes, the alliance’s deputy secretary general told top military chiefs from across Europe on Wednesday. Speaking at the opening of the military chiefs’ meeting in Brussels, Mircea Geoana said NATO nations must invest more in defense, ramp up military industrial manufacturing and harness new technologies to prepare for future wars.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine nears the one year mark, NATO chiefs are expected to discuss how allies can expand the delivery of weapons, training and support to Ukraine in the coming months and how they can further shore up their own defenses.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he had "no doubt" Moscow would emerge victorious in Ukraine, despite military setbacks in the nearly year-long offensive.

"Victory is "guaranteed, I have no doubt about it," Putin told workers at a factory in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg, saying "the unity and solidarity of the Russian people, the courage and heroism of our fighters and, of course, the work of the military-industrial sector" will secure victory.

The UN deputy secretary-general met Afghanistan's acting foreign minister on Wednesday to discuss women's education and work after Taliban authorities ordered most female NGO workers to stop work and barred women from attending universities.

Amina Mohammed was in Kabul as part of a series of meetings that had included stops in Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with diplomats, Afghan diaspora and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said that the United States had assembled a coalition of European countries to solve "the Russian question" in the same way that Adolf Hitler had sought a "final solution" to eradicate Europe's Jews.  Lavrov, who caused an international furore last year with remarks about Hitler, said Washington was using the same tactic as Napoleon and the Nazis in trying to subjugate Europe in order to destroy Russia.

Using Ukraine as a proxy, he said, "they are waging war against our country with the same task: the 'final solution' of the Russian question." "Just as Hitler wanted a 'final solution' to the Jewish question, now, if you read Western politicians ... they clearly say Russia must suffer a strategic defeat." T

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser offered Kyiv assistance in investigating a helicopter crash near Kyiv on Wednesday that killed her Ukrainian counterpart, along with 15 other people.

Faeser said in a statement that she had sent her condolences to the Ukrainian government "and offered Germany's support in identifying the causes of the helicopter crash".

India is a "great example" of countries who are choosing security assistance from the US, the Pentagon has said, underlining that it was ready for any response to wean them away from Russia.
Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder also said the US understands that some countries that bought Russian or Soviet-era weapons want to maintain some type of relationship with Moscow.
"There are a lot of countries that maintain a security or defence relationship with Russia. Again, that's a sovereign decision for individual countries to make," he said on Tuesday at a media briefing in Washington.

Pope Francis on Wednesday (January 18) condemned the Russian missile strike on Saturday (January 14) on an apartment building that killed at least 44 people in the east Ukrainian city of Dnipro as heartbreaking. As he has in nearly all of his public appearances since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Francis appealed for peace at his weekly general audience in the Vatican.

"Last Saturday another missile attack caused many civilian victims, among them children. I share in the heartbreaking pain of the family members," he said.

"The images and the accounts of this tragic episode are a strong appeal to all people of conscience. One cannot remain indifferent," he said. Dnipro's mayor Borys Filatov said on Tuesday that the death toll head risen to 44. Local officials say about 30 people are still unaccounted for. Ukraine says the apartment building was struck by a Russian Kh-22 missile. The Kremlin said its wave of missile strikes on Saturday did not target any residential buildings.

British inflation eased last month after hitting a 41-year high in October, offering some comfort to the Bank of England, but the pressure on households remained intense as food and drink prices rose at the fastest pace since 1977. Annual consumer price inflation fell to 10.5% in December from November's 10.7%, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday (January 18), a drop in line with economists' forecasts in a Reuters poll.

However, while lower prices for petrol and clothing pushed down the headline rate, the cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages was 16.8% higher than a year earlier, the sharpest increase since September 1977, led by eggs, milk and cheese. Finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Wednesday (18 January) after the figures were released that high inflation was a huge worry for families, in particular when it came to shopping for food. Britain's economy is set to contract this year as inflation squeezes disposable incomes, and the BoE forecasts unemployment will rise, factors which some BoE policymakers have said mean little or no more tightening is likely to be needed.

Ukraine's interior minister was among more than a dozen people killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday near a kindergarten outside Kyiv, spurring condolences from allies.

Officials initially said that 18 people had died but later revised the toll down to 16, including one of the minister's deputies and three children.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the crash of the helicopter, which was en route to the frontline in eastern Ukraine, as a "terrible tragedy."