TAIPEI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Taiwan's sovereignty and independence belong to its people, the frontrunner to be its next president said on Saturday in an often testy debate with the other two candidates dominated by arguments over China and tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan's Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are happening as China has stepped up military and political pressure to assert its claims of sovereignty over the island, including regularly sending warplanes into the strait.

BELGRADE, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Thousands gathered in a square in in central Belgrade on Saturday in the biggest protest yet over parliamentary and municipal elections on Dec. 17, results of which the demonstrators want anulled.

Protesters waving Serbian flags and holding a banner reading "We do not accept" cheered Marinika Tepic, a leader of the opposition Serbia Against Violence alliance, who has been on hunger strike since Dec. 18.

BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) - A sweeping purge of Chinese generals has weakened the People's Liberation Army, exposing deep-rooted corruption that could take more time to fix and slow Chinese leader Xi Jinping's military modernization drive amid geopolitical tensions, analysts say.

China's top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment for wayward cadres. Many of these were from the Rocket Force - a key arm of the PLA overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles.

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/: Ukraine’s armed forces have lost up to 350 personnel in the Donetsk area over 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to its statement, the Ukrainian losses amounted to 350 troops killed and wounded, two armored vehicles and six pick-up trucks. Counterbattery work has wiped out a M777 artillery system and a US-made Paladin self-propelled howitzer.

YANGON, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar will participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tourism Forum 2024 in Laos next year, the Myanmar Tourism Entrepreneurs Association said on Saturday.

"Until now, four travel companies registered to represent Myanmar in the forum," U Naung Naung Han, president of the Myanmar Tourism Entrepreneurs Association, told Xinhua.

HAVANA, Dec 30 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Cuba’s Science, Technology and Environment Ministry (CITMA) announced that Cuba and Chinese scientific institutions will be conducting 10 new joint projects.

The entities will be focusing on a great number of fields, including those related to food, nanotechnology and nanosciences, automation, health and climate variability, among others.

COLOMBO, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan police have arrested 217 suspects with narcotics within 500 meters of selected schools in a special operation, police said in a press release on Saturday.

Police said that between Dec. 18 and Dec. 25, they educated workers and owners of business establishments where students congregate about the importance of creating a drug-free environment for children.

The establishments were located in 45 police divisions where drug use is prevalent, with 30,000 workers and owners having been educated, police said.

OUAGADOUGOU, Dec 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia has reopened its embassy in Burkina Faso after it was shut more than 30 years ago, officials have said.

Burkina Faso was a close ally of former colonial power France, but has pivoted towards Russia since the military seized power in a coup in 2022.

The junta has expelled French diplomats and has shut France’s military base in the country.

At the same time, it has been strengthening military and diplomatic ties with Russia.

France had condemned the coup in Burkina Faso, as well as in neighbouring Mali and Niger.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck two urban refugee camps in central Gaza on Saturday, as the Biden administration approved a new emergency weapons sale to Israel despite persistent international cease-fire calls over mounting civilian deaths, hunger and mass displacement in the enclave.

BEIJING, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- The foreign policy of the United States is not concerned with the well-being of its citizens and is an immense waste of wealth, an article of the Pearls and Irritations, a journal platform in Australia, has argued.

Noting that U.S. foreign policy has been "hacked by big money," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in the United States, wrote in the article titled "U.S. foreign policy is a scam built on corruption" that "the American people are losing big."

TOKYO, Dec 30 (NNN-NHK) – The Japanese government carried out no executions in 2023, for the first time in three years, local media reported.

Currently, there are 106 inmates on death row in Japan, after three died from illness and other causes, and three others had their death sentences finalised this year, Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, said, citing the Justice Ministry.

The law on inmate treatment, stipulates that, no executions will take place from Dec 29 to Jan 3, making any such act within the year impossible.

Dec 30 (Reuters) - Over 1,000 Burundian troops have been covertly deployed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since October, wearing the uniform of Congolese troops and working alongside them in the fight against M23 rebels, an unpublished U.N. report seen by Reuters showed.

Citing security and intelligence sources and sources close to Congolese army command, the report by the U.N. Group of Experts in Congo said the troops were airlifted from Burundi to eastern Congo by Congolese army planes starting from Sept. 21.