Month: November 2021

All options are on the table in how to respond to Russia’s ‘large and unusual’ troop build-up near Ukraine’s border, and the NATO alliance will decide what the next move will be following consultations next week, the top U.S. diplomat for European affairs said Friday.   “As you can appreciate, all options are on the …

Rescuers have found a survivor in a Siberian coal mine where dozens of miners are presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion, a top local official announced Friday. Sergei Tsivilyov, governor of the Kemerovo region where the mine is located, said on the messaging app Telegram that the survivor was found in the Listvyazhnaya mine …

France on Friday scrapped planned talks with the UK about migrant crossings in anger at a letter by Britain’s prime minister over the crisis, pushing relations to new lows following the deaths of 27 people in the Channel this week. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told UK counterpart Priti Patel she was no longer invited to …

Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed this week to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats, the party of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders. Members of …

Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government under Olaf Scholz faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders. Henry Ridgwell considers …

Defenders of Memorial, Russia’s most prominent rights group, urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to dismiss a case to shut it down, saying the move would mark a dark day for the country. In court for alleged violations of its designation as a “foreign agent,” Memorial is facing its biggest threat since being founded by Soviet …

Czech President Milos Zeman was readmitted to a hospital late Thursday after he tested positive for COVID-19. He’d left the Prague military hospital only hours before, following more than a month’s treatment for an unspecified illness. The presidential office said Zeman was tested after he arrived at his official residence in Lany, west of Prague, …

Pope Francis, meeting the prime minister of Lebanon Thursday, compared the country to a dying person and promised to do everything in his power to help it “rise again.”    Francis and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who took office in September after a year-long government vacuum, met privately for about 20 minutes and discussed the …

Italy has given safe haven to Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s office said Thursday. The government intervened after Gula asked for help to leave Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country in August, a statement said, …

At least 11 miners died in an accident Thursday at a coal mine in Russia’s Siberia, and an operation to rescue dozens more people underground was suspended due to the risk of an explosion, local authorities and emergency services said.  Coal dust caught fire in a ventilation shaft in the Listvyazhnaya mine in the snowbound Kemerovo region early Thursday, filling the mine with smoke, the …

The holiday tree is towering over the main square in this central German city, the chestnuts and sugared almonds are roasted, and kids are clambering aboard the merry-go-round just like they did before the pandemic. But a surge in coronavirus infections has left an uneasy feeling hanging over Frankfurt’s Christmas market. To savor a mug …