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Eskom with a Powerplant Control Room simulator to train locals in Eskom's plans to renew and repurpose its power stations across the country, an official has said. The announcement was made on Friday after representatives of a dozen Indian energy companies met Eskom executives on the sidelines of the Urja Matla Energy Conference. The conference was hosted by the Indian Consulate General and the Wits Business School. Harish Kumar, Commercial Representative and Head of Chancery at the Indian Consulate in Johannesburg, said at the meeting that India was ready to help Eskom in renovation and modernisation, equipping them with efficient systems through supercritical and ultra supercritical sets, emission control, and latest technologies in transmission and distribution.

Kim Jong Un vowed his country will «invariably support» Russia's war in Ukraine as he met Russia's defense chief, the North's state media reported Saturday. A Russia military delegation led by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov arrived in North Korea on Friday, amid growing international concern about the two countries' expanding cooperation after North Korea sent thousands of troops to Russia last month. The official Korean Central News Agency said that Kim and Belousov reached «a satisfactory consensus» on boosting strategic partnership and defending each country's sovereignty, security interests and international justice in the face of the rapidly-changing international security environments in a Friday meeting.

It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70% of Syria under his control. The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when U.S.-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.

Italy's data protection watchdog has warned Italian publisher GEDI not to share its personal data archives with ChatGPT owner OpenAI, it said on Friday, citing concern over potential breaches of EU rules. GEDI, owned by the Agnelli family's holding company Exor, announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI in September to bring Italian-language content from the publisher's portfolio of news outlets to users of the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence startup. In Italy, GEDI publishes daily newspapers la Repubblica and La Stampa.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday expressed concern over the Rajasthan court’s notice on a suit on the famous Sufi shrine of saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer terming it as “disturbing” and a “serious” issue for Muslims across the subcontinent. He was referring to a plea filed in September at the local court in Ajmer, seeking directions to start worship at the Ajmer Shrine, which the plea claimed was a Shiva temple. On November 27, the court issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Archaeological Survey of India concerning the shrine, which is visited by devotees across the religious and political spectrum. Mirwaiz, while addressing the Friday congregation at the historic Jama Masjid in downtown Srinagar, said the Rajasthan court order right after the killing of five Muslim youth in Sambhal of Uttar Pradesh in discriminatory police action.

fraud through widely prevalent "mule accounts", a top executive said. The Reserve Bank Innovation Hub's (RBIH's) platform, termed Mulehunter.Ai, has already been deployed by two large public sector banks, according to RBIH chief executive Rajesh Bansal. The trademarked platform was developed after identifying a total of nineteen patterns based on insights from multiple banks, he said. A mule account refers to a bank account that is used to receive and transfer funds acquired by illegal means.

The sharply lower print will dent the full-year growth number while intensifying pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to advance interest rate cuts. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 6.7% in the April-June period and 8.1% in the second quarter of FY24. Chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said the unexpected deceleration was an isolated development.

George Sr., the late patriarch of the Cooper family, could make a posthumous appearance in the series. While George Sr.'s death was a pivotal moment in Young Sheldon that shaped the trajectory of the Cooper family, the possibility of his return has been left intriguingly open-ended by the show's creators, as mentioned in a report by Cinemablend.

₹1 crore. The elderly victim, a stock market trader, was duped by fraudsters posing as officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who alleged his involvement in a drug trafficking and money laundering racket, reported NDTV.According to the publication, the conmen, part of a gang operating in collaboration with associates in China, initiated the scam through a WhatsApp call.

Realty developer Lodha, listed as Macrotech Developers has made strategic acquisition of a 100% equity stake in Janus Logistics and Industrial Parks Pvt Ltd (JLIPPL) from Phoenix Logistics and Industrial Parks for nearly Rs 48 crore. This strategic move aligns with the company’s vision for growth in digital infrastructure through its Lodha Industrial and Logistics Park (LILP) initiative. No regulatory approvals are required for the acquisition that was conducted on Friday, Macrotech said in a regulatory filing.

Gross domestic product grew 5.4% in the three months to September from a year earlier, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement on Friday. That’s the worst reading since the fourth quarter of 2022 and much lower than the central bank’s projection of 7% for the period. None of the 44 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted such a slow pace of expansion. Bonds rallied as traders now expect the central bank to start loosening monetary policy. The yield on the 10-year benchmark bond fell 6 basis points to 6.74%.

Justin Sun created waves on Friday by fulfilling a quirky promise: eating a $6.2 million Rs 52,45,89,440) artwork titled Comedian, featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall. This unusual event took place at the luxurious Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, drawing a crowd of journalists and influencers eager to witness the spectacle. According to Associated Press, the artwork, a conceptual piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was purchased by Sun during a Sotheby’s auction in New York. Reflecting on his acquisition, Sun admitted to a moment of disbelief upon winning the bid. “In the first 10 seconds, I couldn’t believe it,” he shared. “But soon after, I realized this could become something big.”

World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Friday said that in the short to medium term, she would like to work to deliver on the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) and that some of the trust which was built at the 12th ministerial conference (MC12), was lost in MC13. WTO members Friday appointed incumbent Okonjo-Iweala as DG the organization for a second term. Her second four-year term will begin on September 1, 2025. Okonjo-Iweala took office as DG in March 2021 and is the first African and the first woman to serve as the head of the global trade watchdog. On IFD, she said in a statement: “We have to find a way forward to handle the concerns of the few members who continue to voice reservations on this matter.”

Aster DM Healthcare and Blackstone- owned hospital platform Quality Care India Ltd (QCIL) on Friday said they have signed definitive agreements for a merger. The merged listed entity will be named as Aster DM Quality Care Limited. Blackstone will be the largest shareholder in the merged entity with about 30.7% stake, Aster promoters will have around 24% and the rest will be held by public and other shareholders including TPG which will hold 10.22%

Six years after Donald Trump started the first trade war with China, the US president-elect has named a series of China hawks to his administration and threatened 60% tariffs on Chinese goods, a level that would decimate trade between the two countries. The dilemma for China now is that its sizable trade surplus with the US means any direct countermeasures may have limited impact. China has already shown a willingness to use some asymmetrical steps against tariffs and trade restrictions from both the Trump and Biden administrations. Should the new threats become policy, Beijing may have to reach further into its arsenal, risking a conflict that could be even harder to contain.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed chargesheet against accused Ranjit Kakoty before the Special CBI Court, Guwahati in another Dibrugarh Investment Scam case. The case involves fraud amounting to Rs 260 crore and affecting approximately 1.5 lakh investors. The CBI successfully completed its probe against accused Ranjit Kakoty within 90 days of his arrest, culminating in the filing of this chargesheet. During the investigation, CBI employed advanced forensic tools to identify the majority of the investors who were victims of the fraudulent scheme perpetrated by the accused through the online platform www.tradingfx.live. The accused, Ranjit Kakoty, and his co-conspirators deceived investors through misleading plan documents, false promises, and other fraudulent practices, subsequently misappropriating their hard-earned money for personal enrichment.

MI6 chief Richard Moore said his agency and its French counterpart were working together to prevent a dangerous escalation by «calibrating the risk and informing the decisions of our respective governments» in response to President Vladimir Putin's «mix of bluster and aggression.» «We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear saber-rattling, to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,» Moore said during a speech to diplomats and intelligence officials in France.

Justin Sun on Friday fulfilled a promise he made after spending $6.2 million on an artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall — by eating the fruit. At one of Hong Kong's priciest hotels, Sun chomped down on a banana in front of dozens of journalists and influencers after giving a speech hailing the work as «iconic» and drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency. «It's much better than other bananas,» Sun said after getting his first taste.

Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday asserted that «tough decisions» will have to be taken, accountability be fixed and shortcomings removed by learning lessons from the election results. In his address during the Congress Working Committee meeting at the AICC headquarters here, Kharge said he believes that the EVMs have made the electoral process «suspect» and stressed that it is the constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections in the country. Kharge also hit out at internal bickering in the party, and asserting that the lack of unity and statements against own party leaders harms the party a lot. «Unless we fight elections unitedly and stop making statements against each other, how will we be able to defeat our opponents politically?» the Congress president said.

Gujarat police on Friday said it was probing whether standard operating procedures were in place in connection with the November 27 trench cave-in near the Indus Valley Civilisation site of Lothal, which resulted in the death of a PhD student of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Deceased Surbhi Verma (23) and three other researchers were at the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation site, some 80 kilometres from Ahmedabad, for research work and collection of samples when a 10-foot deep trench caved in. «The joint team of IIT Delhi and IIT Gandhinagar had reached the spot to collect soil samples for paleoclimatic study. Surabhi, who was deep inside the pit, died instantly in the cave-in. A woman professor from IIT Delhi was rescued and two researchers from IIT Gandhinagar were unhurt,» said Ahmedabad District Superintendent of Police Om Prakash Jat. Koth police registered an accidental death case and began a probe, he added.

Imran Khan. «It's not easy to be a politician in Pakistan,» says Maryam, the wife of an MP from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, who was briefly detained. After her husband fled into hiding, Maryam was taken at gunpoint into a car by «unknown people» to be questioned, and has lived since in «constant fear».