The deadly July 8 Russian missile attack that damaged Ukraine’s largest children hospital also destroyed its school for seriously ill patients trying to keep up with their studies. The School of Superheroes, launched at Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, is now offered at other children’s hospitals in Ukraine. Anna Kosstutschenko has more from Kyiv. (Camera and Produced by: Pavel Suhodolskiy) …
Budapest, Hungary — Top officials of the European Union will boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, after Hungary’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders about Ukraine that angered his European partners. The highly unusual decision to have the European Commission president and other top officials of the body boycott the meetings in Budapest was made “in light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian [EU] presidency,” commission spokesperson Eric Mamer posted Monday on X. Hungary took over the six-month rotating role July 1, …
YEREVAN — Armenia on Monday launched joint military drills with the United States, a move that reflects its leader’s efforts to forge closer ties with the U.S. and other Western allies as the country’s relations with old ally Russia sour. The “Eagle Partner” war games are aimed at increasing interoperability of units participating in international peacekeeping missions, according to Armenia’s Defense Minister Suren Papikyan. They involve Armenian peacekeeping forces, servicemen of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa, and the Kansas National Guard. It wasn’t immediately clear how many troops were taking part. The exercises were scheduled to last through July 24. …
Geneva — Global childhood vaccination levels have stalled, leaving millions more children un- or under-vaccinated than before the pandemic, the U.N. said Monday, warning of dangerous coverage gaps enabling outbreaks of diseases like measles. In 2023, 84% of children, or 108 million, received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP), with the third dose serving as a key marker for global immunization coverage, according to data published by the U.N. health and children’s agencies. That was the same percentage as a year earlier, meaning that modest progress seen in 2022 after the steep drop during the COVID-19 …
HILVERSUM, Netherlands — Quinn Schansman dreamed of becoming the youngest-ever CEO of an American company. A decade ago, he’d just finished the first year of an international business degree in Amsterdam as a step toward that lofty goal. But the 18-year-old dual Dutch American citizen’s future — whatever it may have held — was cruelly cut short when he was one of the 298 people killed as a Soviet-era Buk surface-to-air rocket, launched from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian rebels, destroyed Malaysia Airlines flight 17. The conflict in Ukraine has since erupted into full-scale war following Russia’s invasion in …
Rima Ziuraitis, an American of Lithuanian descent, has been teaching basic first aid to military personnel and civilians in Ukraine for over a year. Ziuraitis, who first arrived in Ukraine as a volunteer in the fall of 2022, has decided to stay in the country and become a medical instructor. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. …
Berlin — Spain won a record fourth European Championship title on Sunday after Mikel Oyarzabal’s 87th-minute goal clinched a 2-1 victory over England, whose painful decades-long wait for a major trophy goes on. Oyarzabal slid in to poke home Marc Cucurella’s cross, just when the game at Berlin’s Olympiastadion seemed destined for extra time after the latest show of resilience by England at the tournament. Substitute Cole Palmer equalized for England in the 73rd minute to cancel out Nico Williams’ opener in the 47th from 17-year-old prodigy Lamine Yamal’s pass. Spain also won the title in 1964, 2008 and 2012. England …
BEIJING — China and Russia’s naval forces kicked off a joint exercise Sunday at a military port in southern China, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine. The Chinese defense ministry said in a statement that forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party. The exercise, which began in Guangdong province Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the …
London — Carlos Alcaraz defeated Novak Djokovic 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (4) in the Wimbledon men’s final Sunday to collect his fourth Grand Slam title at age 21. It was a rematch of last year’s championship match on the grass of the All England Club, which Alcaraz won in five sets. This one — played in front of a Centre Court crowd that included Kate, the Princess of Wales, in a rare public appearance since announcing she has cancer — was much easier for Alcaraz, at least until he stumbled while holding three match points as he served for the victory at …
Paris — France celebrated military victories of the past at its annual Bastille Day parade Sunday, while its present political future appeared far from clear. President Emmanuel Macron inspected French and allied units which took part in France’s World War II liberation 80 years ago. And Paris welcomed the Olympic flame to the city, less than two weeks before it hosts the Summer Games. But behind the pomp — itself in a reduced format while Olympic preparations blocked the traditional Champs Elysees route — France’s tense search for a government appeared to be at a stalemate. All eyes were on the …
JERUSALEM — Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem on Monday that will preserve, restore and store its more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, serves as both a museum and a research institution. It welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, leads the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day and hosts nearly all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel. “Before we opened this building, it was very difficult to exhibit our treasures that were kept in our vaults. They were …
ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade. Erdogan has said that he hopes to arrange a meeting with Assad soon for the first time since the countries broke off relations in 2011 as mass anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces in Syria spiraled into a still-ongoing civil war. Speaking at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday, Erdogan said he had called on Assad two weeks ago to either come to Turkey for …
irvine, california — NATO and China’s efforts to deepen cooperation with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific and Europe are viewed by some analysts as part of the growing competition between major powers, especially between the United States and China. “[The latest development] is a standard major power competition,” said Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore. These efforts are aimed at “finding out where are their friends and who can support their efforts,” he said. “[But] it’s pretty clear that the competition between major powers is intensifying,” he told VOA by phone. During its …
WARSAW, Poland — A miner who was reported missing after an earthquake shook Poland’s Rydultowy coal mine has been found alive more than two days after the accident that killed one of his colleagues and injured another 17, local officials said Saturday. The miner has been airlifted to a hospital and the rescue operation has been closed, said Witold Gałązka of the coal mining group that operates the mine. Earlier, the office of the provincial governor of the Silesia coal mining region, in southern Poland, said that the miner was conscious and was being transported to the surface. “This is fantastic …
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s newly elected president said his government will create “balance in relations with all countries” in line with national interests and the prerequisites for peace but stressed to the United States that his country “will not respond to pressure.” Masoud Pezeshkian penned “My Message To The New World” in the country’s state-owned Tehran Times late Friday, praising the latest presidential election that “demonstrated remarkable stability” and vowing to uphold “promises I made during my campaign.” Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, bested hard-liner former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to clinch the July 5 runoff election to …
BERLIN — Spain and England will play the European Championship final on Sunday in an imposing stadium with a dark history. Built for the 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin’s Olympic stadium still bears the scars of World War II and contains relics from its Nazi past. But the Olympiastadion, as it’s known in German, is also associated with the rebirth of a democratic Germany after the war. It hosted matches during the 1974 World Cup in what was then West Germany and again at the 2006 World Cup, 16 years after German reunification. Hitler’s involvement Adolf Hitler was personally involved in the …
KYIV, Ukraine — An oil depot caught fire in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region Saturday following a Ukrainian drone attack in the early hours, local officials said, in the latest long-range strike by Kyiv’s forces on a border region. Ukraine has in recent months stepped up aerial assaults on Russian soil, targeting refineries and oil terminals in an effort to slow down the Kremlin’s war machine. Moscow’s army is pressing hard along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where a shortage of troops and ammunition in the third year of war has made defenders vulnerable. Rostov regional Governor Vasily Golubev said a …