Month: July 2024

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Paris — French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal was set to resign but stay on as head of a caretaker government Tuesday, officials said, with no replacement in sight as divided parliamentary groups succumb to infighting. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to accept Attal’s resignation after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting — the first since his allies got roundly …

Read more “French PM poised to take caretaker role in deadlocked France       “

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BERLIN — German authorities had fewer security problems and crimes to deal with than they expected at the European Championship, the country’s top security official said Monday. The tournament ended on Sunday with Spain beating England 2-1 in the final in Berlin and no reports of serious disturbances. That capped a month-long event that mostly saw …

Read more “Germany says it saw fewer security problems than expected during Euro 2024”

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Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems to fully defend its airspace and protect the entire country from Russian missile attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, adding that he also wants Western partners to send more F-16 warplanes than those already pledged. In his first news conference since returning from a trip to …

Read more “Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defense systems and more F-16 jets, Zelenskyy says”

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moscow — A court in Moscow ordered house arrest Monday for a general in custody on fraud charges, in a ruling that represents an about-face from just weeks ago, when the same court refused to release the general from jail. Major General Ivan Popov was ordered to be placed under house arrest until at least October …

Read more “Russian court orders general under house arrest on fraud charges “

The deadly July 8 Russian missile attack that damaged Ukraine’s largest children hospital also destroyed its school for seriously ill patients trying to keep up with their studies. The School of Superheroes, launched at Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, is now offered at other children’s hospitals in Ukraine. Anna Kosstutschenko has more from Kyiv. (Camera and Produced …

Read more “Russian missile destroys school in Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital”

Budapest, Hungary — Top officials of the European Union will boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, after Hungary’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders about Ukraine that angered his European partners. The highly unusual decision to have the European Commission …

Read more “Top EU leaders snub Hungary meetings after Orban’s outreach to Russia, China”

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sent a letter to the heads of other European Union countries briefing them on a recent set of foreign visits he made that angered other leaders in the bloc, Orban’s political director said Monday. Orban this month visited Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, China, and the United States on …

Read more “Hungary’s Orban briefed EU leaders on his meetings with Putin and Xi, ally says”

YEREVAN — Armenia on Monday launched joint military drills with the United States, a move that reflects its leader’s efforts to forge closer ties with the U.S. and other Western allies as the country’s relations with old ally Russia sour. The “Eagle Partner” war games are aimed at increasing interoperability of units participating in international peacekeeping …

Read more “Armenia launches military drills with US amid souring ties with old ally Russia “

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Northern Ukraine — Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement. An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save …

Read more “From basement to battlefield: Ukrainian startups create low-cost robots to fight Russia”

Geneva — Global childhood vaccination levels have stalled, leaving millions more children un- or under-vaccinated than before the pandemic, the U.N. said Monday, warning of dangerous coverage gaps enabling outbreaks of diseases like measles. In 2023, 84% of children, or 108 million, received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP), with the …

Read more “UN alarmed as childhood immunization levels stall”

HILVERSUM, Netherlands — Quinn Schansman dreamed of becoming the youngest-ever CEO of an American company. A decade ago, he’d just finished the first year of an international business degree in Amsterdam as a step toward that lofty goal. But the 18-year-old dual Dutch American citizen’s future — whatever it may have held — was cruelly cut …

Read more “A decade afterMH17 crash, victim’s father waits for Russia to say sorry”

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Rima Ziuraitis, an American of Lithuanian descent, has been teaching basic first aid to military personnel and civilians in Ukraine for over a year. Ziuraitis, who first arrived in Ukraine as a volunteer in the fall of 2022, has decided to stay in the country and become a medical instructor. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. …

Read more “American volunteer’s urge to help Ukraine rooted in family’s struggle”

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TALLINN, Estonia — When Maksim Kolker’s phone rang at 6 a.m., and the voice on the other end said his father had been arrested, he thought it was a scam to extort money. A day earlier, he had taken his father, prominent Russian physicist Dmitry Kolker, to the hospital in his native Novosibirsk, when his advanced …

Read more “Treason, espionage cases rise in Russia since start of Ukraine war”