SWITZERLAND: Investigators said today that they believe sparkling flares atop Champagne bottles ignited the fatal fire at a ski resort when they came too close to a crowded bar’s ceiling.

Forty people were killed and another 119 injured in the blaze as it ripped through the busy Le Constellation bar at the ski resort of Crans-Montana while revellers were celebrating New Year’s Eve, authorities said.

Late on Thursday, mourners left candles and flowers in an impromptu memorial near the bar. Hundreds of others prayed for the victims at the nearby Church of Montana-Station.

GREECE: More than 300,000 inactive university students have been removed from the rolls in Greece, cutting the country’s official student population by nearly half, authorities said today.

The move marks the end of a decades-long practice that allowed extended enrolment to facilitate lifelong learning and lengthy breaks for work.

On Friday, the Education Ministry said that 308,605 students admitted to state-run universities’ four-year degree programmes before 2017 had been removed from the records.

PAKISTAN: A court in the capital sentenced seven people, including three journalists, two YouTubers and two retired army officers, to life imprisonment today, after convicting them of inciting violence during riots in 2023 and spreading hatred against state institutions.

An anti-terrorism court judge, Tahir Abbas Sipra, announced the verdict in Islamabad after completing trials held in absentia.

None of the accused were present in court. They have been living abroad after leaving the country in recent years to avoid arrest.

MEXICO: A strong earthquake rattled southern and central Mexico today, interrupting President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first press briefing of the new year as seismic alarms sounded.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 and its epicentre was near the town of San Marcos in the southern state of Guerrero near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, according to Mexico’s national seismological agency.

Ms Sheinbaum resumed her press briefing a short time later and said that she had spoken with Guerrero’s governor Evelyn Salgado, who told her there was no serious damage reported so far.