BARBADOS: Prime Minister Mia Mottley has blasted an “asinine” comment by Reform UK’s Suella Braverman that Britain’s former colonies repay “historic investment.”

“I cannot believe we are being asked to respond to the suggestion that the descendants of the enslaved should pay for the machinery that oppressed them,” Ms Mottley wrote on X on Thursday.

“The Caribbean does not owe Britain for slavery, for colonial extraction, or for laws that treated African people as chattel. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice, and history itself has already told the truth.”

CHINA: Authorities are investigating a blaze at a shoe factory in Jinjiang, south-eastern Fujian province, that killed 28 people on Thursday.

Local media footage showed people trapped on the roof of a five-floor building, enveloped in thick black smoke, while the spray from fire truck hoses fell short of flames showing through windows on its upper floors.

The Xinhua News Agency said the factory’s owner and managers were arrested and the company’s accounts were frozen.

HUNGARY: Supporters of far-right President Tamas Sulyok gathered for a protest in Budapest on Thursday after being called to action by the country’s former autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban.

Several thousand people rallied in support of Mr Sulyok, who the new conservative government has vowed to remove from office with a constitutional amendment.

The move, set to go to a vote next week, would end Mr Sulyok’s term, set term limits for MPs, reform the judiciary and probe financial abuses by Mr Orban’s government.

SYRIA: France has finally returned 23 Syrian archaeological treasures that remained in the country for about 15 years after being loaned for an exhibition.

Their return coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark visit to Damascus — the first by a Western leader since the ouster of Bashar Assad in 2024.

The artifacts, flown aboard Mr Macron’s presidential plane on Tuesday and returned to Syria’s National Museum, include Roman bronze objects, Byzantine and Islamic-era pieces and a richly coloured mosaic panel that once adorned the Umayyad Mosque.