122 Chinese nationals detained in Nepal for engaging in suspicious activities:
Nepal police detained 122 Chinese nationals for engaging in suspicious activities.
They were held from various parts of Kathmandu.That detained Chinese citizens were illegally staying and engaged in some suspicious activities.Further investigation is underway.
According to media reports detained Chinese nationals were overstaying their tourist visas and suspected to be involved in illegal economic activities.
French army carries out first-ever drone strike during Mali operations:
France`s armed forces said today it had carried out a drone strike for the first time, during operations in Mali at the weekend.40 terrorists were killed in this strike.
The drone strike happened during a follow-up operation Saturday in which another seven terrorists were killed.The strike came just two days after the French army announced it had finished testing the remotely-piloted drones for armed operations.
Burkina Faso mourns as terrorist kill 35 civilians:
The West African country of Burkina Faso was in mourning after terrorists killed 35 civilians.
The two attacks in the north were some of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of violence.
seven soldiers and 80 militants also died in the simultaneous attacks on the town of Arbinda and its military base in Soum province.
The President declared 48 hours of national mourning, amid worldwide condemnation of the attack.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait end dispute over shared oil fields:
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have ended a nearly five-year-long dispute over shared oil fields and have agreed to resume oil production from the divided Neutral Zone, but stressed this would not change their OPEC commitments to crude oil production cuts.
The allied Gulf Arab nations signed the agreement in Kuwait City on 24 December, 2019. About 300,000 barrels per day were being pumped from the area before the dispute halted production in early 2015.
The divided zone, located between the two neighbouring countries` land borders, can produce up to half-a-million barrels per day.
The agreement will not affect Saudi Arabia`s commitments to reduce its crude output to 9.7 million barrels of per day.
Iranian fighter jet crashes:
An Iranian fighter jet went down on 25 December, 2019 in the north of the country, near the border with Azerbaijan.The fate of the pilot was not immediately known.
The fighter jet was a recently overhauled MiG-29. The pilot was test flying the plane and had taken off from the Tabriz air base in northwestern Iran.
China to issue GDP figures under new mechanism from 2020:
China will revise its regional GDP data under a unified accounting mechanism. The Chinese economy grew at an annual pace of 6.0 percent in the July-September quarter, the slowest growth since 1992.
National Bureau of Statistics
The National Bureau of Statistics new mechanism unifies the standards and procedures for calculating national and local GDP numbers calculated under different accounting methods adopted by local and national statistics authorities since 1985. The reform is expected to close the current discrepancy between national and regional figures improving data quality while enhancing the credibility of the government statistics. It is the deputy-cabinet level agency directly under the State Council of the People`s Republic of China.
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