Author: Daily Sabah With DPA

Tesla last year suffered the first decline in deliveries of its electric cars in more than a decade, according to the company’s figures released on Thursday. The US manufacturer led by tech billionaire Elon Musk delivered just under 1.79 million vehicles to customers. This was 19,355 fewer than in 2023, although Musk had forecast a slight increase. Tesla would have had to deliver 515,000 cars to customers in the final quarter of 2024 to achieve this. Despite a sales offensive, only 495,570 vehicles were ultimately sold in Q4 – still a record figure. The figure also fell short of analysts’…

World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been suffering from tinnitus since he and his team were caught up in an Israeli air strike in Yemen, the top global health official said on Wednesday. “I am okay, but I have developed tinnitus (ringing in my ears) from the loud explosion. I hope it will be temporary,” 59-year-old Tedros wrote on X after his return to Geneva. Israel’s air force bombed the airport in the Yemeni capital Sana’a last Thursday as the WHO director-general’s team was about to board their flight after talks in the city. According to Tedros,…

A South Korean court on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol, the Yonhap news agency reported. The Corruption Investigation Office is investigating Yoon for unexpectedly imposing martial law on December 3. The office applied for an arrest warrant on Monday after Yoon ignored three summonses to appear for questioning. Yoon is the first sitting South Korean president to face an arrest, according to Yonhap. Once Yoon has been taken into custody, the office has 48 hours to decide whether to apply for an additional warrant to detain him for longer or release him, Yonhap reported.…

The Russian government distanced itself from ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad on Monday. Al-Assad, who ruled Syria for more than two decades, fled to Russia as rebels advanced on the capital Damascus earlier in December. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state news agency TASS that the swift overthrow was due in part to al-Assad’s inability to address the country’s social problems. “We can already say that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the situation was the inability of the former government to meet the basic needs of the population amid the protracted civil conflict,” Lavrov told TASS.…

Jewellery worth more than £10 million ($12.5 million) as well as designer handbags worth £150,000 have been stolen from a house in Primrose Hill in London. A white man aged in his late 20s to 30s broke into a house in Avenue Road between 5 pm and 5:30 pm (1700-1730 GMT) on December 7 by climbing in through a second-floor window, the Metropolitan Police said. He took the Hermes Crocodile Kelly handbags, £15,000 in cash as well as items of jewellery worth £10.4 million that included unique pieces. The suspect was wearing a dark hoodie, cargo pants and a grey…

Pro-Western demonstrators have continued their anti-government protests in Georgia into Sunday evening. Hours after the controversial swearing-in of former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as Georgia’s new president, large crowds gathered in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, to protest against the government’s anti-European course. There were no initial reports of clashes with police. For weeks, thousands of people have been demonstrating daily for a return to the country’s pro-EU course and for a repeat of the parliamentary elections in October, in which the national-conservative ruling party Georgian Dream was declared the winner. The party, founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, had put…

The Israeli military killed seven people in a missile attack on a hospital in the eastern part of Gaza City, Palestinian civil defence officials said on Sunday. The Israeli missile was reported to have hit the fifth floor of the Al-Wafa Hospital, injuring others and prompting an evacuation of the building in panic. Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, Israel has repeatedly hit Gaza’s hospitals, school buildings and refugee camps with missiles. On Saturday the Israeli military ended a three-day operation at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahia. The patients were…

Pope Francis has spoken of creating “a world full of hope and kindness” in a recorded message broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The head of the Catholic Church wished listeners “peace, fellowship and gratitude” in the new year as he gave the Thought for the Day on Saturday. It comes after Francis began celebrations for the Church’s Holy Year jubilee, a centuries-old tradition that now occurs every 25 years and involves the faithful heading to Rome on pilgrimages. Thought for the Day is a regular segment on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme which welcomes people from all the major faiths…

The Azerbaijani government has publicly made reference to a weapon used against the passenger plane that crashed earlier this week near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. “The investigation will clarify what kind of weapon was used to cause the external impact,” Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev said on Friday, according to the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertag. Nabiyev said that the wreckage and witness statements suggested that the aircraft had been damaged from the outside above the original destination airport in Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya. “According to these [statements], there was an…

The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech announced on Friday that it has reached settlements in the US to resolve a royalties dispute with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Pennsylvania. BioNTech said it will pay a total of a €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) to the US health agency and the University of Pennsylvania. The university and the NIH are cooperation partners. Approximately €759 million will go to the agency, while the university will receive up to about €448 million, it said. BioNTech had partnered with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to launch a coronavirus vaccine. According to…