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 A top White House aide sidestepped repeated chances Sunday to publicly defend embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn following reports that he engaged in conversations with a Russian diplomat about U.S. sanctions before Trump’s inauguration. The uncertainty comes as Trump is dealing with North Korea’s apparent first missile launch of the year and his presidency, along with visits this week from the leaders of Israel and Canada. Trump has yet to comment on the allegations against Flynn, and a top aide dispatched to represent the administration on the Sunday news shows skirted questions on the topic, saying it was not …

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Glamour was shot through with grit at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday. Frothy musical “La La Land” took five prizes including best picture, but major awards also went to tough welfare-state drama “I, Daniel Blake” and fractured-family stories “Lion” and “Manchester by the Sea.” In keeping with an awards season that has coincided with a wrenching change of government in the United States, even “La La Land’s” prizes came with a political tinge. Accepting the best-actress trophy for playing a barista who dreams of Hollywood stardom, Emma Stone said that “this country and the US, and the world …

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Former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected Germany’s president on Sunday, the 12th person to hold the largely ceremonial post in the post-war era. Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who had served as foreign minister until last month, won 931 of the 1,260 votes by lawmakers and representatives of Germany’s 16 federal states. His predecessor, Joachim Gauck, steps down on March 18. The German constitution mandates that a special assembly is convened to elect presidents. It includes 630 lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house and an equal number of representatives from the federal states.     …

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A majority of voters have approved a referendum supported by the Swiss government and most major parties to make it easier for the grandchildren of third generation immigrants to acquire citizenship.  A Swiss television presenter gets set to announce the results of the day’s voting at the start of a two-hour special debate and analysis of the outcome. Of the three referendum on the ballot, the issue of easing citizenship rules for young immigrants was clearly the most contentious.    It was vigorously opposed by the right wing Swiss Peoples’ Party, which waged a campaign warning that any relaxation of …

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German firefighters on Sunday evacuated hundreds of passengers at Hamburg Airport after about 50 people were injured by an unknown hazardous material that likely spread through the airport’s air conditioning system.   All flights were halted for several hours due to the evacuation, but air traffic started running again around 2 p.m., airport spokeswoman Karen Stein said.   More than 50 people — both passengers and staff — had complained about breathing problems, burning eyes and nausea. Firefighters were examining them to find out whether they had to be taken to the hospital, the German news agency dpa reported.   Those who …

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Swiss voters are considering two issues that will affect immigrants and foreign companies, deciding whether to make it easier for “third-generation foreigners’’ to get Swiss citizenship and whether to lock in competitive, low tax rates for businesses.   The “simplified naturalization of third-generation immigrants” measure is expected to pass in Sunday’s referendum. It would simplify applications for anyone under 25 whose parents and grandparents have lived in Switzerland for years.   Polls have suggested a tight race over the complex tax reform initiative, which aims to get Switzerland in line with international standards by scrapping a two-track tax system that …

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A Turkish court has formally charged an Uzbek man with murdering 39 people and wounding scores of others in a New Year’s Day shooting rampage at an Istanbul nightclub. A court in Istanbul on Saturday charged Abdulgadir Masharipov with belonging to an armed terrorist group — Islamic State — possession of heavy weapons, attempting to destroy constitutional order and murder. Masharipov fled from the scene of the shootings but was arrested 17 days later in Istanbul, after a nationwide manhunt. Authorities said he received terrorist training in Afghanistan and that he had confessed to the attack on the Reina nightclub …

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Thousands of Romanians took to the streets of Bucharest in freezing temperatures on Saturday as anti-government protests continued for an 11th consecutive day. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, holding the illuminated screens of their mobile phones into the air each night at 9 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) to remind the government of their presence. Romania has seen massive protests in the past two weeks against a government decree that would have diluted the anti-corruption fight that has targeted top officials. The Social Democrat-led government has withdrawn the emergency decree easing penalties for corrupt …

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The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says Russia, Pakistan and Iran are pursuing their own agendas with regard to the fragile country, complicating the fight against terrorism and extremism. “We’re concerned about outside actors,” General John Nicholson told VOA’s Afghan service in an interview. Russia, which had an ill-fated intervention into Afghanistan that started in 1979 and ended nearly a decade later, has been trying to exert influence in the region again and has set up six-country peace talks next week that are excluding the United States. Nicholson worries about Russia’s links with the Taliban. “Russia has been legitimizing the …

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The forested landscape of Russia’s Karelia is dotted with a necklace of decaying concrete bunkers stretching from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of Lake Ladoga. During World War II, the defensive line held back the Finnish Army, which participated with the Germans in the 900-day siege of Leningrad. But now, environmentalists say, it presents a serious danger: radioactivity. The St. Petersburg branch of the Bellona environmental NGO has measured radiation in some of the bunkers at more than 1,000 times background levels. The levels of radiation from alpha particles exceeded the limits of their detection equipment — 30,000 particles …

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