Category: World

Japan’s Fukuoka prefecture has confirmed its first infection with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, its governor Seitaro Hattori said Saturday. The case was a result of possible community transmission as the infection route was unclear, Hattori told a news conference. France recorded a record high of 104,611 COVID-19 infections Saturday, breaking the 100,000 threshold …

Read more “Omicron Reported in Japan’s Fukuoka; France’s COVID-19 Infections Top 100,000”

On Christmas Day, in his message to the city and the world, Pope Francis stressed the importance of being open to dialogue to resolve the large number of conflicts, crises and disagreements that exist in today’s world. He mentioned Syria, Iraq and Yemen as examples of countries where longstanding conflicts have caused endless suffering. As …

Read more “Pope: World Must Be Open to Dialogue to Resolve Conflicts”

Worshippers in face masks filed into Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois Church across from the Louvre Museum on Friday for Christmas Eve Mass and were greeted by the rector of the closed Notre-Dame Cathedral.  It was the second year that holiday services were held under the shadow of the coronavirus.  Everyone was masked, and members of the congregation sprayed …

Read more “Paris’ Notre-Dame Rector Offers Hope to Virus-Weary Worshippers”

At least three people died when a migrant boat sank in the Aegean Sea on Friday, just hours after similar sinking claimed 11 lives, Greece’s coast guard said. The latest tragedy, the third since Wednesday, came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months. The coast guard said it found three bodies …

Read more “More Than a Dozen Dead in Greece Migrant Boat Accidents”

It may be known as midnight Mass, but for the second year running, Pope Francis chose to celebrate the service marking the birth of Jesus Christ in the early evening. Although conditions at the Vatican this year differed from last year, when Italy was in near-total lockdown, authorities did step up restrictions this Christmas season …

Read more “Pope Holds Early Christmas Eve Service to Limit St. Peter’s Crowd”

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office has asked a court to arrest former President Petro Poroshenko on suspicion of high treason and financing pro-Russian separatists, a lawmaker from Poroshenko’s faction in parliament said Friday. “On Christmas Eve, the prosecutor general office confirmed the information … that the prosecutor general had approved a motion to arrest Poroshenko …

Read more “Ukraine Lawmaker Says Prosecutor Seeks Arrest of Former President Poroshenko”

The year 2021 saw a new migrant crisis on Europe’s borders – as thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa travelled to Belarus and tried to cross the border into Poland and the European Union. Henry Ridgwell reports. Camera: Henry Ridgwell …

The Russian foreign ministry said Friday that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at the Russian consulate in Ukraine’s Lviv and that it had formally protested over the attack, which it called “an act of terrorism.” Russia’s foreign ministry summoned a Ukrainian official and demanded apologies from Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian police in Lviv said they …

Read more “Russia Says Molotov Cocktail Thrown at Consulate in Ukraine, Protests to Ukraine Authorities”

New satellite images captured by a private U.S. company show that Russia has continued to build up its forces in annexed Crimea and near Ukraine in recent weeks while pressing the United States for talks over security guarantees it is seeking. Reuters could not independently verify the latest images from U.S.-based Maxar Technologies. The Kremlin …

Read more “Satellite Images Show Russia Still Building Up Forces Near Ukraine”

The White House said Thursday that Washington is keeping a keen eye on Moscow and remains committed to diplomacy during upcoming high-level talks. This comes amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Russia’s leader, who on Thursday accused U.S. and NATO allies of undermining his country as he continues to mass troops near Russia’s border with Ukraine. …

Read more “White House Vows Diplomacy as Russia’s Putin Ratchets Up Rhetoric “

Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found. Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV …

Read more “AP Exclusive: Polish Opposition Senator Hacked With Spyware “

More than a dozen Western powers on Thursday expressed anger that Russian mercenaries working for the controversial Wagner Group have started to deploy in Mali, accusing Moscow of providing material backing for the fighters.  The powers involved in the fight against an insurgency in Mali, including Canada, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, said they …

Read more “West Condemns ‘Deployment’ of Russian Mercenaries in Mali “

A freelance journalist, who has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, remains in jail on unspecified charges, despite serving two 10-day sentences on controversial hooliganism charges, his relatives said Thursday. Andrey Kuznechyk’s family told RFE/RL that they were officially informed that the journalist was being transferred from the notorious Akrestsina detention center, where …

Read more “Jailed Belarusian Journalist Kuznechyk Faces Criminal Charges”

Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged. According …

Read more “Minsk Labels RFE/RL’s Belarus Service as ‘Extremist’”

President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the West provide Russia with security guarantees “immediately” amid spiraling tensions involving a massive deployment of Russian troops toward Ukraine.  Speaking at his annual news conference on December 23, Putin responded testily to a reporter’s question about Russia’s intentions, listing off a litany of grievances about Ukraine and about …

Read more “Putin Repeats Demands That West Provide Security Guarantees “

Pope Francis urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats Thursday to embrace humility this Christmas season, saying their pride, self-interest and the “glitter of our armor” was perverting their spiritual lives and corrupting the church’s mission. As he has in the past, Francis used his annual Christmas address to take Vatican administrators to task for their …

Read more “Pope Demands Humility in New Zinger-filled Christmas Speech”

French schoolchildren clung nervously to their parents as they entered a vast vaccine center west of Paris on Wednesday — then walked excitedly away with a decorated “vaccination diploma,” as France kicked off mass COVID-19 inoculations for children age 5 to 11. It’s not a moment too soon for the French government, which is facing the highest …

Read more “French Kids Line up to Get Vaccine Shots as Omicron Spreads”

Russian and U.S. negotiators will hold talks in January to discuss Moscow’s demand that NATO halt its eastward expansion into the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said Wednesday. “We don’t want a war,” Lavrov said. “We don’t want to take the path of confrontation. But …

Read more “US and Russia to Hold Talks on Ukraine”

Turkish authorities arrested a U.S. diplomat in Turkey last month for allegedly selling a bogus passport to a Syrian national, according to Istanbul police. Authorities identified the diplomat Wednesday by his initials, D.J.K. Officials also said they had video of the envoy handing the passport to a person they described as suspicious at Istanbul airport …

Read more “Turkey Arrests US Diplomat for Allegedly Selling a Fake Passport to a Syrian National”

A media bill presented to Azerbaijan’s parliament has been criticized by some journalists who warn that it could restrict their ability to work independently. The About the Media bill was introduced in parliament on December 10. It is scheduled for a third and final hearing in the coming weeks, after which President Ilham Aliyev is likely to sign it …

Read more “Azerbaijani Journalists React to Draft Media Bill”

Dutch prosecutors have demanded life sentences for four suspects on trial for the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people.  The prosecution closed three days of final arguments Wednesday by saying Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Pulatov, along with Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, collaborated to get a …

Read more “Prosecutors Push for Life Sentences in Downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 “

Greece’s coast guard says one migrant has died and dozens are feared missing after a boat sank off the coast of the island of Folegandros.  The body of the unidentified man was recovered during an ongoing search and rescue operation launched early Wednesday after the boat sank some 180 kilometers (112 miles) southeast of Athens. The …

Read more “Greece: Migrant Boat Sinks, 1 Dead, Dozens Feared Missing”

Germany’s justice minister says he will present legislation next month to remove from the country’s criminal code a ban on doctors “advertising” abortions, one of several more liberal social policies that the new government plans.  The three parties that form Chancellor Olaf Scholz ’s government have long opposed the current rules, but they were defended by the …

Read more “Germany Moves to Scrap Ban on ‘Advertising’ Abortions”

Poland and Lithuania have backed Ukraine in urging Western powers to immediately impose sanctions on Russia over its military buildup along the Ukrainian border. As fears mount of a Russian invasion, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday “called upon the international community to step up sanctions …

Read more “Sanctions on Russia Still Being Debated as Europeans Fear Costs”