AFP/RSS

Villagers in northern Hebei are struggling to afford heating nearly a decade after China phased out coal, with rising gas costs forcing many to layer up under quilts despite cleaner winter air.

The two weeks of protests have posed one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic authorities who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed defiance and blamed the United States.

"The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians," Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk said in a letter to the Security Council seen by AFP on Friday.

About 50 sanitation workers were buried when refuse toppled onto them Thursday from what a city councillor estimated was a height of 20 storeys at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City.

The statement late Friday came after Trump repeated that Washington was "going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not".

It was the latest sign of cooperation following the leftist leader's capture and US President Donald Trump's claim to be "in charge" of the South American country.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo are staunch allies of Maduro, who was captured by US military personnel in Caracas last Saturday and taken to New York to face trial on drug and weapons charges.

Takaichi was appointed Japan's first woman prime minister in October and her cabinet is enjoying an approval rating of around 70 percent.

Bangladesh and Pakistan are to resume direct flights after more than a decade, Dhaka's national airline said on Thursday, as ties warm and regional power balances shift.

Venezuela has started freeing political prisoners, a move welcomed by US President Donald Trump as a positive step toward cooperation between Washington and Caracas.