Alexander Lukashenko threatened to “disable Internet access altogether” in the country if people protest during the presidential elections in Belarus, which are scheduled for January 26, 2025. Lukashenko stated this during a meeting with students of humanitarian universities. One of the first-year students at the Belarusian State University, Anna Burdo, asked Lukashenko why in 2020 the authorities cut off Internet access in the country for several days.

The Velvet, or Tender, Revolution in Czechoslovakia is considered one of the main examples of the peaceful transit of power in the countries of the former socialist camp. Public dissatisfaction with the Soviet order and the policies pursued by the pro-Kremlin government accumulated for decades and by the end of the 20th century burst out with such force that they could no longer stop it: millions of protesters filled the streets throughout the country.

Spanish scientists have found a collection of objects in the Neanderthal home that ancient people did not use as tools. Researchers consider such activity to be a manifestation of abstract thinking. The scientific work was published in the journal Quaternary.

In the Norwegian capital Oslo, local police arrested a man who worked as a security guard at the US Embassy located there. The man, whose name has not been released, was suspected of spying for the authorities of Iran and Russia, Reuters reports . According to him, the arrested person is a Norwegian citizen about 20 years old.

Almost half (45%) of Russians surveyed consider the 11-day holidays announced by the Russian authorities for the coming New Year to be too long. These, as RBC writes , are the results of a survey conducted by the job search service SuperJob. The study showed that among Russian youth there are more of those who would like longer holidays for the New Year, and among older people, those who would prefer not so many New Year's weekends predominate. I knocked down an annoying guy on the street.

St. Peter's Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, conducted a Deus in Machina experiment, during which parishioners were asked to enter a confessional booth with artificial intelligence speaking in the name of Jesus Christ. The Guardian newspaper writes about this. The church, together with the Immersive Reality Lab, set up an installation in the confessional on site for the priest. The neural network was trained on religious texts; it was possible to communicate with “Jesus” in 100 languages.

US President-elect Donald Trump has named a new candidate for the post of attorney general after Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was invited to this post, recused himself due to allegations of sex with a minor. Trump's new choice is former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Pam was a prosecutor for almost 20 years where she was tough on violent criminals and made the streets safe for Florida families,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social.

American investor Stephen Lynch asked the American authorities to issue him a license to purchase the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if it is put up for sale. The American edition of The Wall Street Journal writes about this. The investor himself believes that, having taken possession of the pipeline, it can be used as leverage on Russia in the matter of peace negotiations and put it in the service of long-term US interests.

Bank cards of the UnionPay payment system issued by the Russian Gazprombank may stop working abroad. The credit institution itself warned about this shortly after reports appeared about Gazprombank being included in the sanctions lists of the US Treasury. “Starting November 21, there may be difficulties in the operation of Union Pay payment system cards abroad. If you are abroad, we recommend using cash,” says an SMS message sent by Gazprombank to its clients.

A court in central China's Henan province has annulled a marriage after a man found that his wife had hidden from him her mental health condition and the hysterectomy she had before the wedding. This was reported by the South China Morning Post. According to the publication, a man surnamed Zhou met his future wife through a matchmaker in September last year. The woman was seven years older than him.

The performance of stand-up comedian Guram Demidov, which was planned at the Samara bar “Forever Young,” was canceled after activists of the “Forty Sorokov” movement wrote a denunciation about him. This was reported by the telegram channel “Caution, News”. According to the telegram channel, Roman Golovanov, a pro-government journalist and host of the Spas TV channel, drew attention to the joke of a participant in the “Stand Up” show on TNT.

President of the Rosneft state corporation Igor Sechin proposed limiting access to information about Russian oil exports. The proposal was formalized in the form of a draft presidential decree, The Bell reported . The text of the draft decree was first published by the Baza telegram channel. The head of the largest state-owned oil company proposed limiting access to data on prices, terms of contracts, volumes and routes of supplies, and participants in transactions.

Vladimir Putin regularly authorized killings outside Russia's borders during his first 16 years in power. This is stated in a report that US intelligence published a report entitled “Kremlin-ordered killings abroad are likely to continue.” Bloomberg journalist Jason Leopold spoke about the document. The report was prepared by the US National Intelligence Council for Congress eight years ago and covers events from 2000 to 2016.

The State Assembly of the Republic of Mari El began to consider a bill banning “inducement to artificial termination of pregnancy.” The law is needed to combat the “spread of destructive ideologies” and the “cultivation of selfishness,” the explanatory note says. The draft was published on the website of the State Assembly. The initiative was noticed by the publication “7x7 - Horizontal Russia”.

Blogger Arina Afonina from Nizhny Novgorod published a photo shoot of her nine-year-old son with Down syndrome and wrote that with his attractive appearance, he could well become the face of a fashion brand. In response, hundreds of people left offensive comments: that her son's face should be printed on cigarette packs and that he should appear in condom commercials. People were outraged that she was showing off a “failed” and “sick” child.