Briefly

INDONESIA

Fire in Jakarta office building kills 22

A fire ripped through an office building in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, on Tuesday, killing at least 22 people, including a pregnant woman, police said. Flames engulfed the seven-story building, sending thick black smoke billowing into the sky and causing panic among nearby residents and workers in a neighborhood in Central Jakarta. The fire, which broke out around midday, is believed to have started on the first floor of the building in the Kemayoran neighborhood before spreading to other floors, Central Jakarta police chief Susatyo Purnomo Condro said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

MIDDLE EAST

Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon

Israel launched a series of strikes on southern Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanese state media reported, with the Israeli army saying it hit a Hezbollah training center and other targets. Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and maintains troops in five areas of the country's south.

EUROPEAN UNION

Antitrust probe against Google launched

The European Union announced on Tuesday that it had opened a probe to assess whether Google breached antitrust rules by using content put online by media and other publishers to train and provide AI services without appropriate compensation. The European Commission said the investigation would look into concerns that the tech giant might be distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to their output. The commission said it would look into whether Google used YouTube videos to train its AI models without adequately paying the creators, and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use.

Agencies Via Xinhua