Tennis star Novak Djokovic returned to his native Serbia on Monday after losing an appeal to stay in Australia, which deported him for being unvaccinated for COVID-19. The world’s No. 1-ranked male tennis player arrived at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport where sources told the media he was escorted through a “technical exit.” A small group …
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Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday returned to Ukraine to face court on treason charges he believes are politically motivated. At the Kyiv airport, where he arrived on a flight from Warsaw on Monday morning, Poroshenko was greeted by several thousand cheering supporters. Some carried banners reading “We need democracy,” and “Stop repressions.” From …
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The North Macedonia’s parliament late Sunday elected Social Democrat technocrat Dimitar Kovacevski as prime minister after more than two months of political turmoil in the country. Kovacevski, a former deputy finance minister, succeeds Zoran Zaev, who stepped down last month following his party’s heavy defeat in municipal elections. The new coalition Cabinet, led by Kovacevski’s …
Greek artist Alekos Fassianos, whose work drew on his country’s mythology and folklore, died Sunday at the age of 86, his daughter Viktoria told AFP. Described by some admirers as a modern-day Matisse and by others as the Greek Picasso, his works, which included paintings, lithographs, ceramics and tapestries, have been shown around the world. …
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Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he is returning to Ukraine to fight treason charges — even though he views them as politically motivated — because he believes that fighting them is part of his defense of national unity. Poroshenko spoke Sunday at a news conference in Warsaw hours before he is to fly Monday …
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France’s parliament gave final approval on Sunday to the government’s latest measures to tackle COVID-19, including a vaccine pass contested by anti-vaccine protesters. Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted 215-58, paving the way for the measure to enter force in the coming days. The new law, which had a rough ride through parliament …
Ukraine Sunday blamed Russia for the defacement of government websites, contending it was part of Moscow’s “hybrid war” against the former Soviet republic. With Russia already massing 100,000 military troops along Ukraine’s eastern flank, Ukrainian officials said, “All evidence indicates that Russia is behind the cyberattack.” “Moscow continues to wage a hybrid war and is …
Iranian authorities confirmed that they have re-incarcerated French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah for breaking house arrest restrictions. The judiciary news website Mizan.news on January 16 quoted the deputy head of the judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi, as saying Adelkhah, who had been furloughed with an electronic-monitoring bracelet, violated judicial restrictions “dozens of times.” The official claimed that Adelkhah, …
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Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. The attack comes as the threat of …
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A Roman villa housing the only mural by Caravaggio and at the center of a legal battle between a former Playboy model and the sons of her late husband, an Italian prince, will go up for auction Tuesday. The sprawling property, valued at 471 million euros (almost $540 million), is a Baroque jewel with gorgeous …
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Kyiv believes a hacker group linked to Belarusian intelligence carried out a cyberattack that hit Ukrainian government websites this week and used malware similar to that used by a group tied to Russian intelligence, a senior Ukrainian security official said. Serhiy Demedyuk, deputy secretary of the national security and defense council, told Reuters that Ukraine …
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Kosovo’s parliament on Saturday passed a resolution banning ethnic Serbs from voting on Kosovan soil in Serbia’s national referendum on constitutional amendments. Serbia will hold a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the constitution that would change how judges and prosecutors are elected, a move the government says is aimed at securing an independent judiciary, …
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Only three times before has Buckingham Palace pressed what for the British monarchy is the “nuclear button” and transformed a royal into a mere private citizen. After a 90-minute meeting with his mother, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, followed by a terse public communique, Prince Andrew—who is battling a civil sex case trial in the U.S. over …
A Moscow court on Saturday remanded in custody three more suspected members of the ransomware crime group REvil for illegal trafficking of funds, a day after Russia claimed it had dismantled the group at the request of the United States. The court identified the three men as Mikhail Golovachuk, Ruslan Khansvyarov and Dmitry Korotayev. …
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The U.N. human rights office condemns the rise of hate speech in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, warning it could incite violence between Serbian and Muslim ethnic groups that fought a devastating war following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Religious holiday celebrations in the autonomous Serb Republic of Srpska last weekend unleashed a torrent of nationalistic …
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The government of Ethiopia has sent a letter to the World Health Organization, accusing its Ethiopian director-general of “misconduct” after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country. Ethiopia nominated Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to be the head of the U.N. health agency four years ago, but says he has “not lived …
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Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly will visit Kyiv next week to reaffirm support for Ukrainian sovereignty and reinforce efforts to deter “aggressive actions” by Russia, Ottawa said Saturday. Moscow has stationed more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and the United States said on Friday it feared Russia was preparing a pretext to …
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With Russian troops massing and the specter of war looming over the trenches of eastern Ukraine, soldiers in the dugouts have found solace in the unlikely companionship of stray cats and dogs. In a muddy and freezing trench near the town of Avdiivka, 21-year-old Ukrainian soldier Mykyta was petting a dog adopted by the troops …
Read more “In Ukraine’s Trenches, Strays Bring Respite to Russia-Wary Troops”
The mayor’s office in Lisbon has been fined $1.4 million for sharing the personal data of protest organizers with embassies of countries targeted by the protests, Portugal’s data protection commission said on Friday. The mayor’s office came under fire in June 2021 when Ksenia Ashrafullina, a Russian-Portuguese organizer of a protest rally in Lisbon, said …
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Denmark’s former defense minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said on Friday he has been charged with violating a section of the penal code which includes treason for leaking state secrets. Frederiksen, who served as defense minister from 2016-19, was charged with the rarely used section 109 of the code, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 …
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A key European diplomat believes there is still a chance to defuse the growing political crisis in Mali that has seen the country’s interim military government clash repeatedly in recent days with both its neighbors and members of the international community. Emanuela Del Re, the European Union’s special representative for the Sahel, criticized Mali’s current …
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office apologized to Queen Elizabeth on Friday after it emerged that staff members partied late into the night in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, when indoor gatherings were banned. Johnson is facing the gravest crisis of his premiership after almost daily revelations of social gatherings during …
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A flurry of security talks in Europe this week aimed at defusing the crisis over Russian troops massed at the border with Ukraine have ended with no breakthrough. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says Washington and its allies are now “ready for any contingency” to deal with Moscow’s actions, as Ukraine suffered a massive …
Read more “US Says Russia Preparing ‘False Flag’ Operation to Justify Invading Ukraine”