Month: January 2023

Police in Armenia Sunday detained 65 protesters near a Russian military base demanding Moscow intervene to dismantle what they say is a crippling blockade by Azerbaijan of an ethnic Armenian enclave, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported. It said around 200 protesters, gathered outside the base in the northern town of Gyumri, were demanding that Russian peacekeepers unblock the sole road – the Lachin Corridor — which links Armenia and the predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Since Dec. 12, people identifying themselves as environmental activists from Azerbaijan have partially blocked the road, letting only limited traffic through. Azerbaijan says their action …

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Briain’s defense ministry said Sunday in an intelligence update about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Russia seems undecided about where the greatest threat from Ukraine lies. In the update, posted on Twitter, the ministry said, “The way Russia has worked on improving defenses suggests commanders are highly likely pre-occupied with the potential for major Ukrainian offensive action in two sectors: either in northern Luhansk Oblast, or in Zaporizhzhia. A major Ukrainian breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia would seriously challenge the viability of Russia’s ‘land bridge’ linking Russia’s Rostov region and Crimea; Ukrainian success in Luhansk would further undermine Russia’s professed war aim …

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The public can now visit the tomb of Pope Benedict XVI in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica. The pontiff was buried Jan. 5 immediately following a funeral in St. Peter’s Square. Benedict’s tomb lies in the grottoes under the basilica’s main floor. The Vatican announced Saturday that the public could visit the tomb starting Sunday morning. Benedict had lived since 2013 as pope emeritus, following his retirement from the papacy, the first pontiff to do so in 600 years. He died Dec. 31 at the age of 95, in the Vatican monastery where he spent his last years. On …

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Mild weather has left many regions of Europe that would normally be blanketed in snow at this time of year bare, and winter sports resorts are fearing for the future. Many are using snow machines to make artificial pistes or ‘snow runs’ leaving thin white lines snaking through otherwise green and brown landscapes. In the Swiss village of Adelboden, organizers of Saturday’s ski World Cup race grappled with above-freezing temperatures to ensure athletes could compete in the popular event while spectators basked in the blazing sunshine. Experts say this season’s lack of snow offers a glimpse of winters to come, …

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As artillery boomed outside and fighter jets flew overhead, Orthodox Christians in a battered eastern Ukrainian town held a Christmas service in a basement shelter Saturday, vowing not to let war ruin the holiday. Nearly all the congregants and all but one choir singer had already fled Chasiv Yar for safer territory, leaving just nine people to attend the service in a residential building that partially collapsed from shelling in November. “Christ was born in a cave. You and I are also in a cave,” priest Oleg Kruchinin told the group, gesturing to the basement lined with exposed wires and …

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Shelling rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Saturday, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a 36-hour cease-fire from midday Friday to midnight Saturday to observe eastern Orthodox Christmas. Artillery fire could be heard on both sides of the front line Bakhmut, where Russian forces have concentrated much of their firepower trying to push west toward Kramatorsk. What was once a city of 70,000 people is now a city mostly abandoned, its reduced population kept alive by volunteers. “When we visited another invincibility point yesterday for 15-20 minutes, a rocket hit us. It damaged a volunteer vehicle, killed …

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The U.N. human rights office has called on the government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to drop criminal charges against Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ales Bialiatski and to immediately free him from detention.  Belarusian Laureate Ales Bialiatski went on trial Thursday in the capital, Minsk, on charges that human rights activists widely view as bogus.  If found guilty, he faces up to 12 years in jail. Two other representatives of his organization, the Viasna Human Rights Center, also are on trial and could face lengthy prison sentences.  U.N. human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence says his office has serious concerns about …

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