Prague/Washington — Portraits of Alsu Kurmasheva are scattered throughout the Prague apartment she shares with her husband and two daughters. But the journalist has not set foot here in more than a year. Perhaps the most striking of the paintings, all of which were done by her husband, Pavel Butorin, is the one that remains unfinished, perched on an easel in the living room. Butorin started it after Kurmasheva, 47, was jailed in Russia in October 2023 on charges that are widely viewed as baseless and politically motivated. Painting, Butorin says, is just one way he has tried to cope with …
Only days into the Paris Olympics, France has already weathered attacks on its rail and internet service. But it’s also mounted a massive security umbrella that includes tens of thousands of police, gendarmes — and soldiers. Many troops now patrolling the streets of the French capital have done duty in foreign countries, as Lisa Bryant reports from Paris. …
An announcement that China’s car giant BYD will build a billion-dollar factory in Turkey marks a big turnaround in relations between the two countries. The move comes after years of tensions over Ankara’s support of Chinese minority Uyghurs. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the two countries are increasingly finding common ground not only economically but diplomatically. …
Paris — A Russian sports event widely regarded as an attempt to rival the Paris Olympics is set to be postponed to next year, organizers said Tuesday. The World Friendship Games had been due to take place in Russia in September but will now move back to unspecified dates in 2025, the International Friendship Association, a body set up to organize the games, said in a statement. It added the decision is subject to approval by the Russian government. “The main reason for reconsidering the Games dates is the insufficient recovery time for top athletes participating in major international tournaments in …
BEIJING — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to China to boost co-operation with the world’s second-largest economy and reset trade ties, she said on Tuesday, during a visit to burnish relations after leaving the Belt and Road scheme. Meloni, making her first visit to China as prime minister, which comes after Italy left Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship initiative last year, said the euro zone’s third-largest economy wanted to rebalance ties with Beijing. “Today, Italian investment in China is about three times as much as Chinese investment in Italy,” Meloni told reporters. “We clearly want to work to remove obstacles …
London police in April said they had charged two British men with aiding Russian intelligence following a suspected arson attack on a business with ties to Ukraine. This and other incidents have shaken Ukrainians who feel targeted in places where they have sought refuge. Henry Wilkins reports. …
To project influence, Moscow habitually goes beyond diplomacy, using malicious hybrid strategies and, in some instances, wars of aggression. …
Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron urged his new Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday to not support Russia’s “war of aggression” against Ukraine, in talks between the two leaders, his office said. Macron also told Pezeshkian that “all must be done to avoid a military escalation” between Israel and Lebanon after a deadly rocket strike in the Golan Heights blamed on Tehran-backed Hezbollah, calling on Iran to “cease its support of destabilizing actors” in the Middle East. The French leader asked Iran to call for restraint, saying that a new war would have “devastating consequences for the region,” which is …
London — British emergency services said a man had been arrested after at least eight people were stabbed in Southport, northwest England, on Monday, with a local children’s hospital declaring a major incident and the prime minister calling it “deeply shocking.” North West Ambulance Service said it had treated eight patients with stab injuries who had been taken to three different hospitals, including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Merseyside Police said armed police had arrested a man and seized a knife after being called to reports of a stabbing at around 11:50 a.m. (1050 GMT). There was no wider threat to the …
Beijing — Chinese President Xi Jinping called for further cooperation with Italy on Monday at a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying the two countries were the ends of the historical Silk Road trade route. Meloni pulled Italy out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative — whose name refers to the ancient overland trade route — in December, but signed an agreement Sunday that provides a new path for the two countries to cooperate on trade and other issues. Meloni is on a five-day state visit, her first trip to China as prime minister. The Belt and Road Initiative, …
Midyat, Turkey — Through a basement door in southeastern Turkey lies a sprawling underground city — perhaps the country’s largest — which one historian believes dates back to the ninth century before Jesus Christ. Archaeologists stumbled upon the city-under-a-city “almost by chance” after an excavation of house cellars in Midyat, near the Syrian border, led to the discovery of a vast labyrinth of caves in 2020. Workers have already cleared more than 50 subterranean rooms, all connected by 120 meters of tunnel carved out of the rock. But that is only a fraction of the site’s estimated 900,000-square-metre area, which would …
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger on Sunday at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50. Several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square Sunday to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia held in the Olenivka prison barracks. Impassioned speakers at the ceremony urged the Ukrainian government to work harder to get the soldiers freed in a prisoner exchange. The Olenivka explosion was one of the most painful …
Ankara — President Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey might enter Israel as it had done in the past in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, though he did not spell out what sort of intervention he was suggesting. Erdogan, who has been a fierce critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, started discussing that war during a speech praising his country’s defense industry. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them,” Erdogan told a meeting of his ruling AK …
Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country may deploy new “strike weapons” in response to a U.S. plan to place missiles in Germany. Both the U.S. and Russia recently signaled a readiness to deploy intermediate-range weapons that were banned for decades under a Cold War-era treaty. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …