Month: December 2023

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KHERSON, UKRAINE — Their first battle plan was outdated the moment the dam crumbled. So the Ukrainian special forces officers spent six months adapting their fight to secure a crossing to the other side of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. But it wasn’t enough just to cross the river. They needed backup to hold it. …

Ankara, Turkey — The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission approved Sweden’s NATO membership bid on Tuesday, in a key step toward enlarging the Western bloc after 19 months of delays in which Ankara demanded security-related concessions from Stockholm.   The commission, controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, voted to back the bid – …

A year of bitter battles in Ukraine has left neither the Russian nor Ukrainian side victorious and the front lines virtually at a stalemate. As war fatigue plagues Ukrainian forces and their Western supporters, observers say they foresee a drawn-out war of attrition. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Ukraine’s southern front lines and the capital, …

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VATRY, FRANCE — A charter plane that was grounded in France for a human trafficking investigation arrived in India with 276 Indians aboard early Tuesday, authorities said. The passengers had been heading to Nicaragua but were instead blocked inside the Vatry Airport for four days in an exceptional holiday ordeal. The regional administration said that 276 …

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MOSCOW — Members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) have signed a fully-fledged free trade agreement with Iran, Russia’s economy ministry and the EEU said Monday. The agreement will become permanent and replace a similar temporary pact in force since 2019. The previous deal facilitated mutual trade with Iran and increased it to $6.2 billion …

TALLINN, Estonia — The president of Belarus said Monday that Russia has completed its shipments of tactical nuclear weapons to his country, an initiative that raised strong concerns in neighboring Poland and elsewhere in the region. President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting of a Moscow-led economic bloc in St. Petersburg that the shipments were completed …

FRANKFURT, Germany — Shipping firm Maersk says that it’s preparing to allow vessels to resume sailing through the Red Sea, thanks to the start of a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to protect shipping from attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Houthi attacks have led to a major disruption of shipping through the Suez Canal and the …

VATRY, France — A charter plane grounded in France for a human trafficking investigation departed Monday for India with 276 Indians aboard, authorities said. The passengers had been heading to Nicaragua but were instead blocked inside a rural French airport for four days in an exceptional holiday ordeal.  Associated Press reporters outside the Vatry Airport in …

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