Asia • Channels Television

Iraq Announces Complete Withdrawal Of US-Led Coalition From Federal Territory

Emmanuel Monye — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 15:36:44 +0000

Iraq said on Sunday US-led coalition forces had finished withdrawing from bases within the country’s federal territory, which excludes the autonomous northern Kurdistan region.

“We announce today… the completion of the evacuation of all military bases and leadership headquarters in the official federal areas of Iraq of advisers” of the US-led coalition, the military committee tasked with overseeing the end of the coalition’s mission said.

With the withdrawal, “these sites come under the full control of Iraqi security forces”, it said in the statement, adding that they would transition to “the stage of bilateral security relations with the United States”.

The vast majority of coalition forces had withdrawn from Iraqi bases under a 2024 deal between Baghdad and Washington outlining the end of the mission in Iraq by the end of 2025 and by September 2026 in the Kurdistan region.

US and allied troops had been deployed to Iraq and Syria since 2014 to fight the Islamic State group, which had seized large swathes of both countries to declare their so-called “caliphate”.

The jihadist group was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but continues to operate sleeper cells.

The vast majority of coalition troops withdrew from Iraq over previous stages, with only advisers remaining in the country.

The military committee on Sunday said Iraqi forces were now “fully capable of preventing the reappearance of IS in Iraq and its infiltration across borders”.

“Coordination with the international coalition will continue with regards to completely eliminating IS’s presence in Syria,” it added.

It pointed to “the coalition’s role in Iraq offering cross-border logistical support for operations in Syria, through their presence at an airbase in Erbil”, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

In December, two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria in an attack blamed on IS, sparking fears of a resurgence in the country.

The statement added that anti-IS operations would be coordinated with the coalition through the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province in western Iraq.

IS attacks in Iraq have massively declined in recent years, but the group maintains a presence in the country’s mountainous areas.

A UN Security Council report in August said: “In Iraq, the group has focused on rebuilding networks along the Syrian border and restoring capacity in the Badia region.”

AFP

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China Factory Explosion Kills Two, Injures 66 — Report

Emmanuel Monye — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:51:59 +0000

An explosion at a steel factory in northern China killed two people and injured 66 on Sunday, with five more still missing, state media said.

The blast occurred at around 3 pm (0700 GMT) at a Baogang United Steel plate plant in Baotou city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“As of 5:30 pm on Sunday, local emergency management and fire rescue authorities reported two fatalities and five people missing,” Xinhua said.

“Sixty-six individuals have been sent to hospitals for treatment, three of whom are in severe condition.”

Footage on social media showed collapsed ceilings and rubble at the factory, huge plumes of smoke overhead and fire engines at the scene.

Other videos showed an object being blasted into the sky as smoke billowed from the factory and a large, cylindrical hunk of metal that appeared to have come from the plant lying among the rubble of buildings.

Residents kilometres away reported that the explosion shook their homes and shattered windows.

The cause of the incident is being investigated, Xinhua said, while the rescue operation continues.

Industrial accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards.

An explosion at a fireworks factory in Hunan province in central China in June killed nine people and injured 26 others.

In 2015, blasts at warehouses containing flammable chemicals in the port city of Tianjin killed more than 170 people and injured 700 others.

AFP

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Italian PM Calls US Tariff Threat Over Greenland A ‘Mistake’

Emmanuel Monye — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 11:34:48 +0000

Italy’s prime minister called US President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on opponents of his plan to seize Greenland a “mistake” on Sunday, adding she had told him her views.

“I believe that imposing new sanctions today would be a mistake,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told journalists during a trip to Seoul.

“I spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think, and I spoke to the NATO secretary general, who confirmed that NATO is beginning to work on this issue.”

However, the far-right prime minister — a Trump ally in Europe — sought to downplay the conflict, telling journalists “there has been a problem of understanding and communication” between Europe and the United States related to the Arctic island, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on all goods sent to the United States from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland over their objections to his moves.

Meloni said it was up to NATO to take an active role in the growing crisis.

“NATO is the place where we must try to organise together deterrents against interference that may be hostile in a territory that is clearly strategic, and I believe that the fact that NATO has begun to work on this is a good initiative,” she told reporters.

Meloni said that “from the American point of view, the message that had come from this side of the Atlantic was not clear”.

“It seems to me that the risk is that the initiatives of some European countries were interpreted as anti-American, which was clearly not the intention.”

Meloni did not specify to what exactly she was referring.

Trump claims the United States needs Greenland for its national security.

AFP

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Search Underway For Missing Indonesian Plane Carrying 11

Channels Television — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 11:26:19 +0000

Indonesian authorities are searching for a small passenger plane after contact with the aircraft was lost on Saturday, rescue officials told AFP.

The Indonesia Air Transport turboprop plane left from Yogyakarta and was headed for the city of Makassar on Sulawesi island, carrying three passengers and eight crew members, according to the Makassar search and rescue agency.

Contact was lost shortly after 1:00 pm (0600 GMT).

Muhammad Arif Anwar, the head of the local search and rescue agency, said teams were deployed to a mountainous area of Maros Regency, which borders Makassar, near the last known location of the plane.

The search on land and by air involved the air force, police and volunteers, he added.

Andi Sultan, operations chief at the Makassar search and rescue agency, said a helicopter and drones were being used to find the plane.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands.

The country has a poor aviation safety record, with several fatal crashes in recent years.

In September last year, a helicopter carrying six passengers and two crew members crashed shortly after taking off from South Kalimantan province, killing everybody on board.

Less than two weeks later, four people were killed when another helicopter crashed in the remote Papua district of Ilaga.

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Saudi King Leaves Hospital After ‘Reassuring’ Medical Tests — Royal Court

Emmanuel Egobiambu — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:33:38 +0000

Saudi Arabia’s 90-year-old King Salman was discharged from hospital after undergoing medical tests in the capital Riyadh, the kingdom’s Royal Court said on Friday, adding that the results were “reassuring”.

The monarch “left the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh today (Friday) after undergoing medical tests that proved reassuring”, the royal court said in a statement shared on state media, having announced his admission earlier in the day.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude oil exporter, has for years sought to quell speculation over King Salman’s health.

He has been on the throne since 2015, though his son Mohammed bin Salman was named crown prince in 2017 and acts as de facto ruler.

The monarch’s well-being is rarely discussed, but he has been admitted for surgery and tests on multiple occasions in recent years.

In 2024, the Royal Court said he suffered from lung infections, which he recovered from.

He was hospitalised in May 2022, when he went in for a colonoscopy and stayed for just over a week for other tests and “some time to rest”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported at the time.

He was also admitted to hospital in March 2022 to undergo what state media described as “successful medical tests” and to change the battery of his pacemaker.

In 2020, he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder.

AFP

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South Korean Ex-Leader Yeol Jailed For Five Years In First Martial Law Verdict

Emmanuel Monye — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 06:26:40 +0000

A South Korean judge sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday to five years in prison for obstructing justice and other crimes linked to his disastrous martial law declaration and in its chaotic aftermath.

It is the first in a series of verdicts for the disgraced ex-leader, whose brief suspension of civilian rule in South Korea on December 3, 2024 prompted massive protests and a showdown in parliament.

Now ousted from power, he faces multiple trials for actions taken during that debacle and in the turmoil that followed.

On Friday Judge Baek Dae-hyun at Seoul’s Central District Court said he found Yoon guilty of obstruction of justice by blocking investigators from detaining him.

Yoon was also found guilty of excluding cabinet members from a martial law planning meeting.

“Despite having a duty, above all others, to uphold the Constitution and observe the rule of law as president, the defendant instead displayed an attitude that disregarded the… Constitution,” Baek said.

“The defendant’s culpability is extremely grave,” he said.

But Yoon was not guilty of forging official documents due to lack of evidence, the judge said.

Yoon has seven days to appeal, he added.

Prosecutors had called for a 10-year prison term, while Yoon had insisted no law was broken.

Yoon Defiant

It comes days after prosecutors in a separate case demanded Yoon be sentenced to death for his role as the “ringleader of an insurrection” in orchestrating the imposition of martial law.

They argued Yoon deserved the severest possible punishment as he had shown “no remorse” for actions that threatened “constitutional order and democracy”.

If he is found guilty it is highly unlikely the sentence will actually be carried out, as South Korea has had an unofficial moratorium on executions since 1997.

Yoon was seen smiling in court as the prosecutors demanded the punishment.

And the former leader and top prosecutor has remained defiant, saying his martial law declaration was a lawful exercise of his presidential authority.

In closing remarks on Tuesday, he insisted the “exercise of a president’s constitutional emergency powers to protect the nation and uphold the constitutional order cannot be deemed an act of insurrection”.

He accused the then-opposition party of having imposed an “unconstitutional dictatorship” through their control of the legislature.

“There was no other option but to awaken the people, who are the sovereign.”

The court is scheduled to rule on the insurrection charges on February 19.

Yoon also faces a separate trial on charges of aiding the enemy, over allegations he ordered drone flights over North Korea to bolster his case for declaring martial law.

AFP

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Final Death Toll From Hong Kong Fire Put At 168

Channels Television — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 14:53:43 +0000

The final death toll from a devastating fire at a Hong Kong housing complex in November is 168, the city’s security chief said on Thursday, seven more than previously announced.

The blaze that tore through the high-rise estate in Tai Po District was the world’s deadliest residential building blaze since 1980.

Authorities previously said in the aftermath of the disaster that they had identified 161 victims.

People pray at the aftermath of a major fire that swept through several apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential estate in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on November 28, 2025. Photo by PHILIP FONG / AFP

Announcing the completion of identification work on Thursday, security secretary Chris Tang said the number had risen to 168, a final toll.

“All remains, and bodies from the incident have been identified” with nobody unaccounted for, he said.

The names of the deceased will not be released at this stage to respect their grieving families’ wishes, Tang said.

All the families of the deceased have been notified, police said in a statement.

The deceased comprise 110 women and 58 men, aged between 6 months and 98 years.

They include a firefighter, two interior decorators, five construction workers, and 10 migrant domestic workers.

People lay flowers outside the Wang Fuk Court apartment blocks in the aftermath of the deadly November 26 fire in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on December 2, 2025. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

The fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex engulfed seven out of eight residential towers, which were undergoing renovations and wrapped in substandard netting that may have contributed to its spread.

Authorities have formed a judge-led “independent committee” to investigate the blaze.

Police have said they will continue to probe the cause of the fire and submit a death investigation report to the coroner.

City leader John Lee said on Wednesday that police have arrested 16 on suspicion of manslaughter in connection with the investigation, and a further six on suspicion of fraud.

Hong Kong’s anti-graft watchdog has also arrested 14 on suspicion of corrupt practices, Lee said.

AFP

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Fatal Back-To-Back Thailand Crane Failures Tied To Same Firm

Channels Television — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:12:04 +0000

The collapse of a highway construction crane killed two people near Bangkok on Thursday, with Thailand’s leader vowing to blacklist the building firm which was also involved in a crane failure the day before that left 32 dead.

Car dashcam footage verified by AFP showed the moment the massive crane fell on Thursday, unleashing clouds of dust as well as rubble across the area, as several vehicles pulled over or reversed to avoid falling debris.

Motorcycle-taxi driver Booncherd La-orium said he no longer felt safe driving in the area.

Recovery workers gather around the wreckage of a train that crashed when a construction crane collapsed in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province on January 14, 2026. Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

“I had goosebumps just thinking about how risky it is to be here. It could have happened to me,” the 69-year-old told AFP.

Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn linked firm Italian-Thai Development to the country’s second deadly crane collapse in two days, according to local media.

“We have to find out the facts,” Phiphat told a local outlet.

Italian-Thai Development was also contracted to build a section of a China-backed high-speed rail project where a huge crane fell on Wednesday, in Nakhon Ratchasima province, derailing a passenger train below and killing 32 of nearly 200 people on board.

In a note to Thailand’s stock exchange, Italian-Thai expressed condolences to the victims’ of the crane accident on Thursday, saying it would provide compensation.

Recovery workers stands next to the wreckage of a train that crashed when a construction crane collapsed in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province on January 14, 2026. Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

The firm also pledged to “review and improve safety measures to be more thorough and stringent moving forward”, the note said.

Italian-Thai earlier promised compensation to victims of Wednesday’s crane collapse and train derailment.

The company — one of Thailand’s biggest construction firms — has seen several deadly accidents at its sites in recent years.

The crane that fell Thursday at the under-construction Rama II Expressway in Samut Sakhon province, outside Bangkok, left two people dead, a police official told AFP from the scene.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters his government would terminate the contracts with the contractor of the two projects where the accidents occurred, without specifying a firm by name.

Anutin said legal action would be taken and the contractor would be blacklisted.

“It has happened three or four times by one contractor. The government is not comfortable letting this kind of company work for the government,” he said.

‘Death Road’

Recovery workers (L) assess crane equipment above the wreckage of a train that crashed when the crane collapsed in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province on January 14, 2026. Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

In other verified footage from the same vehicle as the dashcam, someone is heard saying: “I almost died… Please pull over first”.

Another person replies: “That’s okay now. It’s not falling further.”

“That was close,” the first person says.

Rescue worker Sutthiwat Thanomsat told AFP he arrived at the scene shortly after the crane crashed down, and witnessed the aftermath of a pickup truck driver killed by the impact.

The Rama II Expressway, a main artery linking the capital to Thailand’s south, hosts several major infrastructure projects, including tollway construction.

Construction work has been underway for years to expand the road’s capacity and reduce congestion but the project has been beset by delays and fatalities, earning it the nickname “Death Road”.

Surachai Wongho, a 61-year-old retiree who drives on Rama II regularly, said he is haunted by the thought that one day he could be hurt in an accident.

“It’s the same incident happening over and over again in Thailand. It’s time for the government to do something,” he told AFP.

In March, a concrete beam forming part of an under-construction elevated roadway collapsed on Rama II, killing several people.

A crane collapse in November 2024 killed at least three workers.

Silent prayers

The incident on Thursday followed the crane collapse in Nakhon Ratchasima a day earlier, one of Thailand’s deadliest rail accidents in years.

A massive launching gantry crane, used by Italian-Thai in the construction of a high-speed rail project, collapsed onto a passenger train below.

At the site of the deadly accident on Thursday, construction workers milled around the scene, snapping photos of the wreckage, as relatives of victims visited to mourn and pray in silence.

The crane was left hanging off giant concrete pillars, built to hold up the future elevated high-speed rail line — a joint Thailand-China endeavour.

The nation’s rail operator said it ordered Italian-Thai to halt construction until an investigation was completed.

The crane operator was Thai and had fallen and died in Wednesday’s accident, an Italian-Thai worker who declined to give her name told AFP.

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UPDATED: 32 Dead As Construction Crane Collapses Onto Moving Train In Thailand

Channels Television — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 10:33:46 +0000

A crane at a China-backed high-speed rail project in Thailand collapsed onto a passenger train on Wednesday and caused it to derail, killing at least 32 people, authorities said.

The massive crane’s broken structure was left resting on giant concrete pillars, while smoke rose from the wreckage of the train below, footage from the scene verified by AFP showed.

Rescuers worked to extract passengers from the tilted carriages in Nakhon Ratchasima province, northeast of the capital Bangkok.

The wreckage of a train that crashed when a construction crane collapsed is pictured in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province on January 14, 2026. Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

Mitr Intrpanya, who was at the scene, said he heard a loud noise “like something sliding down from above, followed by two explosions”.

“When I went to see what had happened, I found the crane sitting on a passenger train with three carriages,” the 54-year-old told AFP. “The metal from the crane appeared to strike the middle of the second carriage, slicing it in half.”

The Thai health ministry said 32 people were killed, three were missing and 64 were hospitalised including seven in serious condition.

The accident happened at a construction site that is part of a more than $5 billion project backed by Beijing to build a high-speed rail network in Thailand.

It aims to connect Bangkok to Kunming in China via Laos by 2028 as part of China’s vast “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.

‘Only company in charge’

Engineering consultant Theerachote Rujiviphat, an adviser on the high-speed project, told AFP the Thai company contracted to build the section of the high-speed rail where the crane fell, Italian-Thai Development, was solely responsible for its collapse.

Theerachote, from the China Railway Design Corporation, said the launching crane that fell onto the existing rail tracks also belonged to Italian-Thai Development.

“It is the only company in charge. A similar accident also happened a few years ago under their responsibility,” Theerachote added.

A representative for Italian-Thai Development, one of Thailand’s biggest construction firms, said the company could not immediately answer questions from AFP.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said authorities must determine the cause of the crane collapse and hold those responsible to account.

“These kind of incidents happen very regularly,” he told reporters in Bangkok.

“I have heard that it is the same company (involved in previous accidents). It is time to change the law to blacklist construction companies that are repeatedly responsible for accidents.”

Italian-Thai Development and its director were among more than 20 people and firms indicted in August in a case linked to the collapse of a Bangkok high-rise in an earthquake. The collapse killed around 90 people, mostly construction workers.

China’s foreign ministry said Beijing was looking into what happened on Wednesday, and “attaches great importance to the safety of this project and its personnel”.

“Currently, it appears that the relevant section is being constructed by a Thai company,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

Mao also extended China’s “condolences for the casualties resulting from the accident”.

Deadly accidents

The Nakhon Ratchasima provincial public relations department said the crane collapsed onto a train travelling from Bangkok to Ubon Ratchathani province, “causing it to derail and catch fire”.

Thatchapon Chinnawong, the Sikhio district police chief, told AFP that authorities had resumed the rescue operations after briefly pausing due to “chemical leakage” at the scene.

Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said 195 people were on board the train, and authorities were rushing to identify the deceased.

Thailand has around 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) of railway but the run-down network has long driven people to favour travel by road.

Upon completion of the 600-kilometre high-speed railway, Chinese-made trains will run from Bangkok to Nong Khai, on the Mekong River border with Laos, at up to 250 kilometres per hour.

In 2020, then Thai prime minister Prayut Chan-o-Cha, who pushed closer ties with Beijing, signed a deal for Thailand to cover all expenditures for the project, while using China-advised technology.

Industrial and construction site accidents are common in Thailand, where lax enforcement of safety regulations has led to deadly incidents.

In 2023, a freight train killed eight people after it struck a pickup truck crossing railway tracks in eastern Thailand.

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US Making Mockery Of UN — North Korea

Emmanuel Monye — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:00:56 +0000

North Korea condemned on Monday what it called “shameless” moves by the United States that it said undermined the United Nations and accused Washington of a “hideous criminal act”.

Pyongyang’s mission to the United Nations in New York blasted reported plans for a briefing on its alleged violations of sanctions, in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.Instead, it said, “what should be questioned and openly discussed in the UN as the most important pending issue is the hideous criminal act of the US”.

“The US despises the existence of the UN itself,” Pyongyang said.

Pyongyang’s envoys did not specify the act in question, but the statement comes just over a week after the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

That operation represents a nightmare scenario for North Korea’s leadership, which has long feared a so-called “decapitation strike” of that kind and accused Washington of seeking to remove it from power.

Washington’s “irrationality and malpractice of abusing the UN arena to satisfy its geopolitical self-interest should never be allowed”, North Korea’s mission said.

It also accused Washington of “shameless illegal and immoral acts” and “trying to make a mockery of the UN arena for unilateral and selfish purposes”.

President Donald Trump last week announced the United States would leave a number of United Nations organisations it identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States”.

North Korea is under a slew of United Nations Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and missile programme.

AFP

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