Briefly

KAZAKHSTAN

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sworn in as president

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was sworn in as the Kazakh leader on Saturday. After taking an oath in an inauguration ceremony held in the capital Astana, Tokayev said the Central Asian country will enter a new era of development. Kazakhstan held a snap presidential election on Nov 20, with six candidates running for the top job. Tokayev garnered 81.31 percent of about 8.3 million ballots, which were cast by more than 11.95 million registered voters.

INDONESIA

West Java earthquake death toll rises to 318

The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Indonesia's province of West Java rose to 318, with 14 others still missing, a senior official of the country's disaster agency said on Saturday. The 5.6-magnitude quake hit West Java last week. Eight more bodies were recovered in the search operation on Saturday. The quake also left 7,729 people injured in Cianjur district, one of the hardest-hit areas, destroying 58,049 houses and displacing as many as 73,693 people.

UNITED STATES

Twitter user sign-ups at all-time high: Musk

Twitter chief executive Elon Musk has said new user sign-ups to the social media platform are at an "all-time high", as he struggles with an exodus of advertisers and users fleeing to other platforms over concerns about verification and hate speech. Sign-ups were averaging over 2 million per day in the seven days to Nov 16, up 66 percent compared to the same week in 2021, Musk said in a tweet late on Saturday. He also said user active minutes were at a record high, averaging nearly 8 billion active minutes a day in the seven days to Nov 15, an increase of 30 percent in comparison to the same week last year.

Agencies - Xinhua