📈 Billionaires’ net worth hits $10 trillion in 2024, Musk tops the list

The world’s 500 richest people saw their wealth soar in 2024, with tech giants like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang leading the charge, Bloomberg reports. Their combined net worth reached a record $10 trillion, fueled by a surge in US tech stocks.

Musk, benefiting from his close ties with President-elect Donald Trump, saw his fortune rise by $213 billion to an unprecedented $442 billion. Overall, the top billionaires saw a $1.5 trillion increase, with the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks driving much of the market’s gains.

Trump's election also sparked a rally in digital assets, boosting crypto fortunes, including Binance's CZ which saw a 60% wealth increase.

As of January 1, the top 10 richest people were:

1. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI — $432 billion
2. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon — $239 billion
3. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms — $270 billion
4. Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle — $192 billion
5. Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH — $176 billion
6. Larry Page, co-founder of Google — $168 billion
7. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft — $159 billion
8. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google — $158 billion
9. Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft — $147 billion
10. Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway — $142 billion

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🔹 New Orleans attacker identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, FBI confirms

🔹 Fears of a new energy crisis rekindled in Europe as Ukraine halts Russian gas transit

🔹 Waterway war: Never-ending struggle for world’s strategic straits and canals

🔹 Putin and Xi lead 'new international financial architecture' through BRICS

🔹 ‘Multipolarity’ and BRICS ‘trade ethics’ are key to a WTO reboot

🔹 Fatah's journey: One movement’s struggle for the liberation of Palestine through decades

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⚔️ Top 5 locally-made weapons shaping the Middle East conflict

The Hamas-Israel war that began in 2023 has become the deadliest chapter in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and has triggered the most severe security crisis in the Middle East since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. What locally-produced weapons stand out amid the conflict?

🔸 Yasin: This Soviet RPG-2/RPG-7-derived, domestically-made Hamas anti-tank rocket propelled grenade was introduced in 2005, and has an effective range up to 300 meters, proving a potent threat to everything from Israeli ground troops to armor up to 21 cm thick in fighting in the ruins of Gaza.

🔸 Popeye: Designed by Rafael in the mid-1980s, the Popeye is a 3,000-pound missile with a 78 km range and 340 kg blast frag or 360 kg penetration warhead. It features inertial, infrared or TV guidance. Used by Israel during last month’s strikes on Yemen, the Popeye complements the US-made heavy munitions delivered to Israel in vast quantities over the past 15 months for use in Gaza.

🔸 Palestine-2: Without a doubt the most important weapon in the Houthi arsenal for attacks on Israel, the Palestine-2 is a two-stage solid fuel missile with a 2,150 km range, 500 kg warhead, Mach 16 top speed, and reportedly, maneuverability capability. Multiple Palestine-2s have penetrated Israel’s air defenses.

🔸 Kheibar Shekan (lit. ‘Fortress Buster’): A 4.5 ton solid fuel Iranian ballistic missile with a 1,450 km range and 500 kg warhead. Used during Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Israel in April and October 2024, the Kheibar Shekan and other Iranian missiles showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israel’s much touted air defenses are not invincible.

🔸 ‘Hudhud’ (lit. Hoopoe’): This Hezbollah recon drone was deployed regularly over Israel over the past year to collect high-res footage on Israeli military bases for targeting by rocket fire. Information on the characteristics of the airplane-style turboprop-powered drone varies wildly, but its ability to penetrate Israeli defenses is unquestioned.

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❗️ 'We do not believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was solely responsible' – FBI

New Orleans FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan called for public help to pinpoint Jabbar’s possible accomplices in her media address following a terrorist attack on Bourbon Street that left 10 people dead.

💬 "We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates," Duncan said.

Video from social media

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📹 The moment a Cybertruck explodes near Trump Hotel goes viral on social media

New footage captures a Tesla Cybertruck exploding outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on January 1.

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‘The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now’ – Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company’s senior team is investigating the Tesla Cybertruck explosion that occurred outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on January 1.

💬 "Will post more information as soon as we learn anything. We’ve never seen anything like this," Musk wrote on X.

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📊 Only 16% of Germans believe Scholz to win elections – poll

🔸 Some 16% of Germans believe that incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be re-elected in the country's snap elections, while 7% believe his Social Democratic Party (SPD) will win, according to a poll conducted by INSA for the Bild newspaper.

🔸 Nearly half of respondents (49%) said they believe the opposition bloc of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) will take the lead in the election, with 53% believing the bloc's leader, Friedrich Merz, will become Germany's new chancellor, according to Wednesday's poll.

🔸 Some 15% of Germans believe the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) will win.

🔸 About a third (32%) of respondents refused to predict who will become the country's new chancellor, and 21% decided not to guess the winning party.

The survey was conducted from December 27 to 30 among 1,002 German citizens.

On December 27, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier formally dissolved the federal parliament less than two weeks after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence in his left-green coalition government. New elections are scheduled for February 23.

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🥴 New Orleans Police failed to prevent the attack because… the terrorist just drove AROUND the barriers – statement

💬 "This particular terrorist drove onto the sidewalk and got around the hard target. We did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around," New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick excused at a briefing on Wednesday.

The bollards, installed on Bourbon Street 10 years ago, were malfunctioning and were being replaced at the time of the attack to avoid the risk of blocking passage during emergencies, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.

💬 "We knew these were malfunctioning. So we did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it," Kirkpatrick lamented.

The replacement work was due to be completed in February, just in time for the Super Bowl, Cantrell claimed.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the terrorist attack has risen to 15, the FBI told Sputnik. Earlier, authorities reported that 10 people had been killed and 35 others injured in the attack.

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US Intelligence investigates links between New Orleans attack, Las Vegas explosion – Biden

US intelligence agencies are investigating a possible connection between the terrorist attack in New Orleans and the explosion of a Cybertruck near the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

💬 "We are tracking the explosion of a Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. Law enforcement and the intelligence community are investigating this as well, including whether there are any possible connections with the attack in New Orleans," Biden said in an address to the nation, adding that there is nothing to share on the matter so far.

Earlier on Wednesday, the FBI identified the suspect in the New Orleans attack as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas. The agency added that symbols linked to the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS, banned in Russia) were found in his car.

💬 "The FBI also reported to me that mere hours before the attack, he posted videos on social media indicating that he is inspired by ISIS, especially [by their] desire to kill," the president said.

On Wednesday, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded near the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. One person died, and seven others were injured in the explosion, according to the Las Vegas Police Department, which confirmed that an investigation is underway.

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❌ Palestinian authorities suspend broadcasting of Al Jazeera – reports

Palestinian authorities have suspended the broadcasting of the Qatari network Al Jazeera, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Thursday.

The decision was reportedly made by a ministerial committee comprising the ministers of interior, communication, and culture, who ruled to halt the channel's broadcast in the country as well as the operation of its Palestinian office.

Al Jazeera has been accused of violating Palestinian laws, interfering in the country's internal affairs, and distributing misleading information.

The broadcaster condemned the decision, stating that it views the move as an attempt to conceal the truth about events in the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, where clashes have reportedly taken place between Palestinian security forces and armed groups.

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🔥WATCH: Russian drone units eliminate three Ukrainian tanks in the border area of the Kursk region.

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