WASHINGTON — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday held an omnibus press conference at his Florida estate, where he explained his stances on key foreign policy issues as he prepares to take office in two weeks.

He forcefully called for the release of hostages seized in Israel more than a year ago by militant group Hamas, saying, emphatically — six times — that “all hell will break loose” otherwise.

The Palestinian group’s stunning terror attack on civilians in Israel sparked a brutal conflict that has since inflamed the region and killed tens of thousands of civilians.

His Middle East envoy had, moments before, joined Trump at the podium to brief reporters on his recent high-level talks in the region, saying that his team was “on the verge” of a deal and that he would travel back in coming days.

“I don’t want to hurt your negotiation,” Trump said to Steve Witkoff. “But if they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone.”

On Ukraine, he expressed interest in meeting with Russia’s leader and repeated his vow to get the conflict in Ukraine ”straightened out.” Trump has not explained how he would do this.

When asked about a key demand in Ukraine’s peace plan — that it be allowed to join NATO — Trump said, “My view is that it was always understood” that Ukraine would not be admitted to the security alliance.

He repeated his tariff threats against Canada and Mexico and his line that Canada should be a U.S. state, and he floated a name change, saying: “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.”

Thessalia Merivaki, an associate teaching professor at Georgetown University, said Trump often uses bluster as a strategy.

“So, Trump has a record of just floating controversial ideas and positions to attract attention and generate interest and media coverage,” she said.

Foreign policy

Trump has not said how the United States will acquire control of Greenland, the large North American island that is an autonomous territory of Denmark. On Tuesday, he repeated his stance that “we need them for economic security.”

When asked directly if he would commit to not use military or economic coercion to back his increasingly voluble desire for control of Greenland and, also, the Panama Canal, Trump replied: “I can’t assure you on either of those two.”

Trump has accused Panama of violating the treaty under which the U.S. ceded control of the famous canal more than four decades ago, under then-President Jimmy Carter.

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake,” Trump said. “Giving that away was a horrible thing, and I believe that’s why Jimmy Carter lost the election.”

Trump added that he liked Carter “as a man.” He is expected to attend Carter’s national funeral on Thursday in Washington. President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy.

First day and beyond

Trump also said he would be “making major pardons” on his first day in office, when asked about his previous vow to issue clemency to some of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in connection to the riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

He also repeated past commitments to loosen what he called the “quagmire” of U.S. environmental regulations and smooth the path for billionaire investors.

He described his reelection victory as a “landslide” for winning the Electoral College and the popular vote, although official results show he did not win the majority of the ballots, as third-party candidates shaved off votes. He promised to have future election results counted earlier on election night.

He repeated his vow to “drill, baby drill” on his first day in office by reversing Biden’s recent orders seeking to protect against offshore drilling.

He accused Biden of botching foreign policy, saying, “Now I’m going into a world that’s burning.”

Trump will assume office Jan. 20.

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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Paris — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front who was known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, has died. He was 96.

Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally as the party is now known, confirmed Le Pen’s death in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday.

A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen’s controversial statements, including Holocaust denial, led to multiple convictions and strained his political alliances.

Le Pen, who once reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election, was eventually estranged from his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who renamed his National Front party, kicked him out and transformed it into one of France’s most powerful political forces while distancing herself from her father’s extremist image

Despite his exclusion from the party in 2015, Le Pen’s divisive legacy endures, marking decades of French political history and shaping the trajectory of the far right.

His death came at a crucial time for his daughter. She now faces a potential prison term and a ban on running for political office if convicted in the embezzling trial currently underway.

A fixture for decades in French politics, the fiery Jean-Marie Le Pen was a wily political strategist and gifted orator who used his charisma to captivate crowds with his anti-immigration message.

The portly, silver-haired son of a Breton fisherman viewed himself as a man with a mission — to keep France French under the banner of the National Front. Picking Joan of Arc as the party’s patron saint, Le Pen made Islam, and Muslim immigrants, his primary target, blaming them for the economic and social woes of France.

A former paratrooper and Foreign Legionnaire who fought in Indochina and Algeria, he led sympathizers into political and ideological battles with a panache that became a signature of his career.

“If I advance, follow me; if I die, avenge me; if I shirk, kill me,” Le Pen said at a 1990 party congress, reflecting the theatrical style that for decades fed the fervor of followers.

Le Pen had recently been exempted from prosecution on health grounds from a high-profile trial over his party’s suspected embezzlement of European Parliament funds that opened in September. Le Pen had 11 prior convictions, including for violence against a public official and antisemitic hate speech.

French judicial authorities placed Le Pen under legal guardianship in February at the request of his family as his health declined, French media reported. He had been in frail health for some time.
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Paris — France on Tuesday commemorated the victims of the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine 10 years ago that began a spate of Islamist militant attacks on the country and stoked a debate on press freedoms that still rages today.

Two masked al Qaeda-linked gunmen with assault rifles stormed what were then the offices of Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people. The attackers sought to avenge the Prophet Mohammad nearly a decade after the atheist and frequently provocative weekly published cartoons mocking the Prophet.

The killings spurred an outpouring of national sympathy expressed in the slogan “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) and prompted an impassioned debate about freedom of expression and religion in secular France.

“There were scenes I will never forget,” former French President Francois Hollande told Reuters. “We had to act and we did so responsibly, aware that we weren’t finished and that there would be other tragedies. And there were.”

President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo will lead the commemorations, which include a wreath-laying ceremony and a minute’s silence at three locations in the capital.

Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch had placed Charlie Hebdo’s then editor, Stephane Charbonnier, on its “wanted list” after the magazine first ran the images of the Prophet Mohammad in 2006.

Two attackers born and raised in France stormed Charlie Hebdo’s offices on Jan. 7, 2015, spraying gunfire. They killed eight members of the editorial team, including Charbonnier, and four other people before being shot dead by police.

Over the next two days, another French-born man killed a policewoman and four Jewish hostages in a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb. He was also shot dead by police.

More than 250 people have been killed in France in Islamist violence since then, laying bare the struggle the country has faced to counter the threat posed by militants.

Freedom of speech

The anniversary has prompted renewed reflection in France about press freedoms. Hollande expressed concern that there was growing self-censorship stemming from fear.

“Should we publish drawings, project certain images, or compile reports when we know they may hurt personalities or communities? There is a form of self-censorship that has taken root,” he said.

Charlie Hebdo published a special edition to mark the anniversary, depicting a man sitting on the butt of gun in front of the word “Indestructible!” on its cover.

“Today the values of Charlie Hebdo — such as humor, satire, freedom of expression, ecology, secularism, feminism, to name a few – have never been so under threat,” it said in an editorial.

Charlie Hebdo’s no-taboo journalism divides France. For Muslims any depiction of the Prophet Mohammad is blasphemous.

Critics of Charlie Hebdo accuse it of crossing the line and straying into Islamophobia by repeatedly publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. The magazine denies this and says it lampoons all religions, including Christianity.
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Russia’s military said Monday its forces captured an important town in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian officials cited tens of thousands of Russian casualties in the fighting in Russia’s Kursk region.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its control of the town of Kurakhove after several months of fighting for the logistics hub will allow the Russian military to more quickly advance elsewhere in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian officials did not confirm the loss of Kurakhove on Monday, with the military’s General Staff saying in a late Monday report that Russian forces had launched attacks on Ukrainian positions in the town.

Russian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Monday that the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk, which began five months ago, had caused 38,000 Russian military casualties.

“The Russians have deployed their strongest units to Kursk, including soldiers from North Korea. Importantly, all this manpower cannot now be redirected to other fronts – neither to the Donetsk region, nor against Sumy, the Kharkiv region or Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier Monday that North Korea and China are the “biggest ongoing drivers” allowing Russia to carry out its war in Ukraine, and that security assurances will need to be a part of potential future negotiations ending the conflict.

Speaking during a visit to South Korea, Blinken said North Korean supplies of artillery, ammunition and troops, along with Chinese support for Russia’s military industrial base are giving the Russian military the backing it needs to continue carrying out the fight it started in February 2022.

He said North Korea is already seeing a return on its involvement in the conflict in the form of Russian military equipment and training for North Korea troops.

“We believe it has the intent to share space and satellite technology with the DPRK,” Blinken said.

With only two weeks left in the Biden administration, the United States has been rushing to send remaining authorized aid to Ukraine amid uncertainty about how President-elect Donald Trump may approach the war.

Blinken said Monday the U.S. has been trying to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself, and to have the “strongest possible hand” at a future negotiating table with Russia.

“If there is going to be, at some point, a ceasefire, it’s not going to be, in Putin’s mind, ‘game over’,” Blinken said. “His imperial ambitions remain, and what he will seek to do is to rest, to refit, and eventually to re-attack.”

Blinken said it is necessary to have an “adequate deterrent in place so that he doesn’t do that, so that he thinks twice – three times – before engaging in any re-aggression.”

Ukraine’s military said Monday it shot down 79 of the 128 drones that Russian forces deployed overnight in attack targeting multiple Ukrainian regions. 

 

The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the Ukrainian air force said.

Officials in Cherkasy reported damage to residential buildings and a grain warehouse from falling drone debris.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 12 Ukrainian aerial drones, all in areas along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said the attacks injured three people and damaged several residential buildings.

Some information for this report was provided by from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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UNITED NATIONS — The United States accused Russia at the United Nations on Monday of funding the two warring parties in Sudan, an apparent step up from Washington’s previous assertion that Moscow was playing both sides of the conflict to advance its political objectives.

The war erupted in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, triggering the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

In November Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution that called on the warring parties to immediately cease hostilities and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid. The remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the text.

“Russia chose obstruction: standing alone as it voted to imperil civilians, while funding both sides of the conflict – yes, that’s what I said: both sides,” the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the council on Monday, without giving further details.

When asked to elaborate, a spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the U.N. said Washington was aware of Russia’s “ongoing interest in Sudan’s gold trade” and condemns any material support for the warring parties – “whether it be through illicit gold trading or the provision of military equipment.”

“We believe Sudanese authorities’ gold mining cooperation with sanctioned Russian entities and individuals could prove inimical to Sudan’s long-term interests and the aspirations of the Sudanese people for an end to the war,” the U.S. mission to the U.N. spokesperson said.

In response, Russia’s deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said: “We regret that the U.S. tries to judge other world powers by its own yardstick.”

“It’s obvious that in the Pax Americana which our American colleagues try to preserve at any price, relations with other countries are built only on their exploitation and criminal schemes aimed at U.S. enrichment,” he said.

Reuters was unable to immediately contact Sudan’s warring parties for comment.

In December, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia rejected what he called “fabrications spread by Western countries and their media” that Moscow was trying to play both sides to gain an advantage from the war.

At what she said would likely be her last council meeting, Thomas-Greenfield became visibly emotional while addressing her counterparts on Sudan, a crisis that has been a focus for her during her four years at the world body.

“For all the disappointment that I couldn’t do more, that we – all of us – didn’t do more – I still remain hopeful,” she said. “Hopeful that the representatives sitting around this table – the colleagues who have become friends – will continue this sacred mission, this ultimate responsibility.”

Thomas-Greenfield was appointed by President Joe Biden. Donald Trump will succeed Biden on Jan. 20.
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A major natural gas pipeline supplying Russian energy to Europe ran dry Wednesday after Ukraine stopped Moscow’s six-decade supply in the hopes of hurting Russia financially. The planned move marks the end of an era in which many European countries kept warm using gas pumped by Russia. Ukraine is losing up to $1 billion a year in transit fees it charged Russia to use its pipeline. That’s less than the $5 billion Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, is set to lose annually in gas sales. VOA correspondent Victor Vasilyev talked to regional experts about these topics. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 

 
…

Repression against the LGBTQ+ community in 2024 intensified after the Russian Supreme Court’s decision in January to recognize the “International LGBT Movement” as an extremist organization came into force. Last year was marked by the first criminal cases under articles on extremism, the first arrests for “extremist symbols” in the form of rainbow paraphernalia, and heavy fines for “LGBT propaganda.” VOA Russian spoke to human rights activists about these repressions and what will happen to LGBTQ+ people in Russia next. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that North Korea and China are the “biggest ongoing drivers” allowing Russia to carry out its war in Ukraine, and that security assurances will need to be a part of potential future negotiations ending the conflict.

Speaking during a visit to South Korea, Blinken said North Korean supplies of artillery, ammunition and troops, along with Chinese support for Russia’s military industrial base are giving the Russian military the backing it needs to continue carrying out the fight it started in February 2022.

He said North Korea is already seeing a return on its involvement in the conflict in the form of Russian military equipment and training for North Korea troops.

“We believe it has the intent to share space and satellite technology with the DPRK,” Blinken said.

With only two weeks left in the Biden administration, the United States has been rushing to send remaining authorized aid to Ukraine amid uncertainty about how President-elect Donald Trump may approach the war.

Blinken said Monday the U.S. has been trying to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself, and to have the “strongest possible hand” at a future negotiating table with Russia.

“If there is going to be, at some point, a ceasefire, it’s not going to be, in Putin’s mind, ‘game over’,” Blinken said. “His imperial ambitions remain, and what he will seek to do is to rest, to refit, and eventually to re-attack.”

Blinken said it is necessary to have an “adequate deterrent in place so that he doesn’t do that, so that he thinks twice – three times – before engaging in any re-aggression.”

Ukraine’s military said Monday it shot down 79 of the 128 drones that Russian forces deployed overnight in attack targeting multiple Ukrainian regions.

The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the Ukrainian air force said.

Officials in Cherkasy reported damage to residential buildings and a grain warehouse from falling drone debris.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 12 Ukrainian aerial drones, all in areas along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said the attacks injured three people and damaged several residential buildings.

Some information for this report was provided by from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
…

Paris — A trial of France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy and 11 co-defendants started Monday over alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by the government of then-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Sarkozy, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, did not speak to the press at arrival. He has denied any wrongdoing.

He faces charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and criminal association, punished by up to 10 years in prison. The trial is scheduled to run until April 10.

The Libyan case, the biggest and possibly most shocking of several scandals involving Sarkozy, is scheduled to run until April 10, with a verdict expected at a later date.

The trial involves 11 other defendants, including three former ministers. Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, accused of having played the role of intermediary, has fled in Lebanon and is not expected to appear at the Paris court.

Sarkozy is looking forward to the hearings “with determination,” his lawyer Christophe Ingrain said in a statement.

“There is no Libyan financing of the campaign,” the statement said. “We want to believe the court will have the courage to examine the facts objectively, without being guided by the nebulous theory that poisoned the investigation.”

Gadhafi’s alleged agreement

The case emerged in March 2011, when a Libyan news agency reported that the Gadhafi government had financed Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign. In an interview, Gadhafi himself said “it’s thanks to us that he reached the presidency. We provided him with the funds that allowed him to win,” without providing any amount or other details.

Sarkozy, who had welcomed Gadhafi to Paris with great honors in 2007, became one of the first Western leaders to push for a military intervention in Libya in March 2011, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world. Gadhafi was killed by opposition fighters in October that same year, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.

The next year, French online news site Mediapart published a document said to be a note from the Libyan secret services, mentioning Gadhafi’s agreement to provide Sarkozy’s campaign 50 million euros in financing.

Sarkozy strongly rejected the accusations, calling the document a “blatant fake” and filing complaints for forgery, concealment and spreading false news.

However, French investigative magistrates eventually said in 2016 the document has all the characteristics of an authentic one, although there is no definitive evidence that such a transaction took place.

The official cost for Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign was 20 million euros.

Accusations of witness tampering

French investigators scrutinized numerous trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy, then the interior minister, between 2005 and 2007, including his chief of staff Claude Guéant. They also noted dozens of meetings between Guéant and Takieddine, a key player in major French military contracts abroad.

The investigation gained traction when Takieddine told news site Mediapart in 2016 that he had delivered three suitcases from Libya containing millions in cash to the French Interior Ministry.

However, Takieddinne reversed his statement four years later.

Since then, a separate investigation has been launched into alleged witness tampering as magistrates suspect an attempt to pressure Takieddine in order to clear Sarkozy. Sarkozy and his wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were given preliminary charges as financial prosecutors said the former president is suspected of “benefitting from corruptly influencing” Takieddine.

11 other defendants

The other accused are three former French ministers, including Guéant, and a former adviser close to Sarkozy.

Like Takieddine, Franco-Algerian businessman Alexandre Djouhri is accused of having been an intermediary.

The case also involves Gadhafi’s former chief of staff and treasurer Bashir Saleh, who sought refuge in France during the Libyan civil war then moved to South Africa, where he survived a shooting in 2018, before settling in the United Arab Emirates.

Other defendants include two Saudi billionaires, a former Airbus executive and a former banker accused of having played a role in the alleged money transfers.

Shukri Ghanem, Gadhafi’s former oil minister who was also suspected, was found dead in the Danube River in Vienna in 2012 in unclear circumstances. French investigators were able to find Ghanem’s notebook, which is believed to document payments made by Libya.

Gadhafi’s spy chief and brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senoussi told investigative judges millions have indeed been provided to support Sarkozy’s campaign. Accused of war crimes, he is now imprisoned in Libya.

Sarkozy convicted in 2 other cases

Sarkozy has been convicted in two other scandals.

France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, last month upheld a conviction against Sarkozy of corruption and influence peddling while he was the head of state. He was sentenced to one year in house arrest with an electronic bracelet. The case was revealed as investigative judges were listening to wiretapped phone conversations during the Libya inquiry.

In February last year, an appeals court in Paris found Sarkozy guilty of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 reelection bid.
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London — Heavy snow and freezing rain brought widespread disruptions across Europe on Sunday, particularly in the U.K. and Germany, with several major airports forced to suspend flights.

With the weather set to stay inclement on Sunday in the U.K., there are concerns that many rural communities, particularly in the north of England, could be cut off, with up to 40 centimeters (15 inches) of snow on the ground above 300 meters (985 feet).

The National Grid, which oversees the country’s electricity network, said it had been working to restore power after outages across the country. Power cuts were reported in the English cities of Birmingham and Bristol, and Cardiff, Wales.

Many sporting events have already been postponed, though the heavyweight Premier League fixture between rivals Liverpool and Manchester United is on, following an inspection at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium and of local conditions.

Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport and Manchester Airport had to close runways overnight, but operations were returning back to normal Sunday. Leeds Bradford Airport took longer to get flights back in the air.

The road network was heavily impacted too on what would have been a very busy day with many families returning home from the Christmas and New Year’s break, and students heading back to universities.

Many roads had been preemptively closed by local authorities, but stranded vehicles and collisions have caused disruption elsewhere.

Several U.K. train services were canceled, with National Rail warning of disruptions continuing into the workweek.

Britain’s main weather forecaster, the Met Office, says sleet and snow will continue to push north Sunday and will be heaviest in northern England and into southern Scotland. After experiencing freezing rain, which occurs when super-cold rain freezes on impact, the south will turn milder. The Environment Agency has also issued eight flood warnings across southern England on the Taw and Avon rivers.

Snow and ice were also causing havoc in Germany, where a bout of wintry weather is spreading from the southwest. Authorities have issued black ice warnings for drivers and pedestrians, advising people to stay home where possible.

Frankfurt airport canceled 120 of its 1,090 planned takeoffs and landings Sunday, according to the Fraport press office. At Munich airport, only one runway was open while the other one was being cleared.

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, eight people were injured when a bus skidded off the road near the town of Hemmingen. Long-distance train connections also experienced irregularities in the Frankfurt area.
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Podgorica, Montenegro — Several thousand people rallied in Montenegro on Sunday demanding the resignations of top security officials over the shooting earlier this week that left 12 people dead, including two children.

Chanting “Resignations” and “Killers,” protesters outside the Interior Ministry building in the capital, Podgorica, demanded that Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic and Deputy Prime Minister for Security and Defense Aleksa Becic step down.

Milo Perovic, from a student-led group that helped organize the rally, told the crowd that innocent people died during their watch.

“You failed to protect us, so resign!” Perovic said.

Hours earlier, hundreds of people held 12 minutes of silence for the 12 victims at a rally in Cetinje, Montenegro’s historic capital where the shooting took place Wednesday. It was the second such massacre in the town in less than three years.

Many residents of Cetinje and other Montenegrins believe that police mishandled the situation and haven’t done enough to boost security since the first massacre, which happened in August 2022.

Wednesday’s shooting resulted from a bar brawl. A 45-year-old local man went home to get his gun before returning to the bar and opening fire. He killed four people there and eight more at various other locations before killing himself.

The massacre fueled concerns about the level of violence in Montenegrin society, which is politically divided. It also raised questions about the readiness of state institutions to tackle the problems, including gun ownership.

Police have said the shooting was impossible to predict and prevent, though the gunman, identified as Aco Martinovic, had been convicted for violent behavior and illegal weapons possession. His victims were mostly friends and family.

Montenegrin authorities swiftly announced a new, strict gun law and other tough measures to curb illegal weapons, which are abundant in the Balkan nation of around 620,000 people.

On Sunday, police said they raided several locations in the country and confiscated about 20 weapons, more than 500 rounds of ammunition and explosives.

Protesters in Cetinje and Podgorica also demanded a “demilitarization” of the population through the destruction of illegal weapons, high taxes on gun ownership and a moratorium on new licenses while existing ones are reconsidered under strict criteria.

The attacker in 2022 in Cetinje gunned down 10 people, including two children, before he was shot and killed by a passerby.

Maja Gardasevic, a protest organizer, said during the rally in Cetinje that “we came here looking for answers” to several questions.

“Why did a massacre happen in Cetinje for the second time?” Gardasevic asked. “Why is no one responsible? Why is it so hard to resign?”
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Athens, Greece — The head of the Albanian Orthodox Church, who was airlifted to a hospital in Athens due to complications from a virus, is in a critical condition, the Evangelismos hospital said Sunday.

Archbishop Anastasios, 95, was taken to the Greek capital Friday evening, four days after being admitted to hospital in Tirana with what Church officials called a “seasonal virus.”

“His Beatitude’s condition is assessed as critical by the attending physicians,” the medical report from the hospital stated.

On Saturday, his condition was assessed as “stable despite his already complicated medical history.”

Anastasios is credited with having revived the Orthodox Church in Muslim-majority Albania. He led the Church there for three decades.

He was airlifted to Athens on a C-27 Greek air force plane following a request from Greek emergency services, the defense ministry said.

Greek public television ERT reported that he was also suffering from gastric bleeding.

In November 2020, he was hospitalized in Athens for 12 days with COVID-19.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Sunday afternoon the hospital where Archbishop Anastasios of Albania is being treated and was informed for the ailing archbishop’s health condition.
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Paris — Convoys of farmers set off Sunday to try to block roads around Paris in protest of what they say is unfair competition from overseas and excessive regulation.

Farmers from France, the European Union’s biggest agricultural producer, led European-wide protests at the start of 2024, but demonstrations fizzled out as the year went on.

However, a move last month by the EU and South American nations in the Mercosur bloc to announce an agreement in principle on a free trade deal has given new impetus to French farmers opposed to the Mercosur deal.

French farmers also remain unhappy about regulation which they say is hitting their profits. Farming trade union officials are due to meet French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Jan. 13 to express their concerns.

“They don’t understand the level of misery and distress that farmers are going through at the moment,” Amelie Rebiere, vice-president of the Coordination Rurale farming trade union, told BFM TV.

Those who back the EU’s Mercosur deal, such as Germany, say it offers a way to reduce reliance on trade with China, and insulates EU nations from the impact of trade tariffs being threatened by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, many European farmers — often led by those from France — have repeatedly protested the EU-Mercosur deal, arguing it would lead to cheap imports of South American commodities, notably beef, that do not meet EU safety standards.
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Vienna — Austrian People’s Party on Sunday nominated its General Secretary Christian Stocker as interim leader after the expected resignation of Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian news agency APA reported. 

Nehammer announced Saturday he would resign in the next few days after coalition talks with the Social Democrats collapsed. 

Stocker, a lawyer and member of the Austrian Parliament, has served as general secretary of the People’s Party since 2022. He is seen as an experienced and calm crisis communicator who has frequently appeared in Austrian media to defend controversial decisions. 

It is not clear yet who will become acting chancellor until a new government is formed. 

Protected by special police forces, Nehammer walked across the square from the Chancellery toward the president’s office in Vienna. 

“What is important for me is that the way of stability and the center can be continued,” he said. 

Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen will make a public statement to announce the next steps once the meeting with Nehammer is over. 

The 52-year-old Nehammer became chancellor and conservative party leader in 2021, after his predecessor Sebastian Kurz was forced to stand down following allegations of corruption. 

In April 2022, Nehammer became the first European leader to visit Moscow and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine in February that year. Before going to Moscow, he also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. 

Austria was thrown into political turmoil on Friday after the liberal party NEOS pulled out of coalition talks with the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party. On Saturday the two remaining parties, who have a razor-thin majority in Parliament, made another attempt to negotiate and form a government — but this effort also ended in failure after a few hours, with negotiators saying they were unable to agree on how to repair the budget deficit. 

 
…

ATHENS, GREECE — Costas Simitis, former prime minister of Greece and the architect of the country’s joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at age 88, state TV ERT reported. 

Simitis was taken to a hospital in the city of Corinth early Sunday morning from his holiday home west of Athens, unconscious and without a pulse, the hospital’s director was quoted as saying by Greek media. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. 

The government decreed a four-day period of official mourning. Simitis will receive a state funeral. 

Warm tributes appeared, and not just from political allies. 

“I bid farewell to Costas Simitis with sadness and respect. A worthy and noble political opponent,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a Facebook post, also saluting the “good professor and moderate parliamentarian.” 

Another conservative politician, former European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, recalled how he, as mayor of Athens, had cooperated “seamlessly and warmly” with Simitis in organizing the Olympic Games. 

“He served the country with devotion and a sense of duty. … He was steadfast in facing difficult challenges and promoted policies that changed the lives of [many] citizens,” Avramopoulos added. 

Simitis, a co-founder of the Socialist PASOK party in 1974, eventually became the successor to the party’s founding leader, Andreas Papandreou, with whom he had an often contentious relationship that shaped the party’s nature. Simitis was a low-key pragmatist where Papandreou was a charismatic, fiery populist. He was also a committed pro-European, while Papandreou banked on strong opposition to Greece’s joining what was then the European Economic Community in the 1970s, before changing tack once he became prime minister. 

When the profligate first four years of socialist rule, from 1981 to 1985, resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to be finance minister and oversee a tight austerity program. Finances improved, inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program. 

The socialists returned to power with Papandreou still at the helm in 1993, but he was ailing and finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister, a post he held until 2004. 

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone, in January 2001, as the signature achievement of his premiership. But he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a brand new airport and two subway lines, to help host the games. He also helped Cyprus join the European Union in 2004. 

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides praised Simitis as an “outstanding leader” who has earned a special place in the history of not only Greece, but also of Cyprus. 

“His calm political voice, far from populism, and his political course of action were based on a longstanding philosophy of modernization and reform,” Christodoulides said in a written statement. 

Simitis’ critics on the right and left did their best to denigrate his legacy, highlighting a dubious debt swap concluded after the country had joined the eurozone as an attempt to massage the debt numbers. 

In the end, it was determined opposition from his own party, including trade union leaders, to pension reform in 2001 that fatally weakened Simitis’ administration. He decided to resign his party post and not contest the 2004 election, five months before the Olympics, rather than face certain defeat to the conservatives. 

George Papandreou, son of the socialist party’s founder, succeeded him as party leader, and in 2008 expelled Simitis from the PASOK parliamentary group after the two men clashed over policies, including Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. Simitis left parliament in 2009, but not before issuing a prescient warning that financial mismanagement would bring the country under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, which would impose harsh austerity. In the end, it was the IMF, jointly with the EU, that imposed a harsh regime on a bankrupt country in 2010. 

Costas Simitis was born on June 23, 1936, the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father Georgios was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist. 

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany, specializing in data protection. 

Simitis is survived by his wife of 60 years, Daphne, two daughters and a granddaughter. 

 
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KYIV, UKRAINE — The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighboring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday, local authorities said. 

Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe stopped on New Year’s Day after a transit deal expired between the warring countries and Kyiv refused to extend it. 

Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking enclave which has lived side-by-side with Moldova since breaking away from it in the last days of Soviet rule, received gas from Russian giant Gazprom through the pipeline crossing Ukraine. 

The gas was used to operate a thermal plant that provided electricity locally and for much of Moldova under the control of the pro-European central government. 

The region’s self-styled president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said rolling power cuts in various districts would be extended to four hours Sunday. 

Hour-long cuts were first imposed Friday evening after heating and hot water supplies were curtailed. The cuts were then extended to three hours on Saturday. 

“Yesterday’s introduction of rolling cuts was a test. And it confirmed that an hour-long break to keep the electrical supply system operating was insufficient,” Krasnoselsky wrote. “The power generated is not covering sharply rising demand.” 

All industries except those producing food have been shut down. The official Telegram news channel of the region’s separatist authorities announced the official closure on Saturday of a steel mill and bakery in the town of Rybnitsa. 

Regional officials announced new measures to help residents, especially the elderly, and warned that overnight temperatures would fall to -10 Celsius (+14 Fahrenheit). Residents were told not to put strain on the region’s mobile phone network. 

Using firewood 

The news channel warned against using heaters in disrepair after two residents died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a stove. Online pictures showed servicemen loading up trucks with firewood for distribution. 

“Don’t put off gathering in firewood,” Krasnoselsky told residents. “It is better to ensure your supply in advance, especially since the weather is favorable so far.” 

Moldova’s government blames Russia for the crisis and has called on Gazprom to ship gas through the TurkStream pipeline and then through Bulgaria and Romania. 

Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal.  

The Transdniestria power cuts are a problem for Moldova particularly because the enclave is home to a power plant that provides most of the power for government-controlled areas of Moldova at a fixed and low price. 

Prime Minister Dorin Recean said Friday his country faced a security crisis after Transdniestria imposed the rolling blackouts, but he also said the Chisinau government had prepared alternative arrangements, with a mixture of domestic production and electricity imports from Romania.  

Even before the halt of supplies via Ukraine, Gazprom had said it would suspend exports to Moldova on January 1 because of what Russia says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709 million. Moldova disputes that and put the figure at $8.6 million.  
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida to meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday, as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with Trump before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others.

Her trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12. Trump defeated Biden in the November election and is preparing his return to the White House.

While no details of their meeting have been disclosed, Meloni had planned to talk with Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist detained in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

Meloni’s office declined to comment on the reports.

She is seen as a potentially strong partner for Trump given her conservative credentials and the stability of the right-wing coalition she heads in Italy. She has also forged a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help him win the election.

“This is very exciting. I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report. “She’s really taken Europe by storm.”

Trump and Meloni then sat down for a screening of a documentary questioning the criminal investigations and legal scrutiny faced by John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who was central to Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

One of the biggest challenges facing Meloni is the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Iran on Dec. 19.

Sala was detained three days after Mohammad Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

On Friday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Italy’s ambassador over Abedini’s detention, Iranian state media reported.

Meloni became the latest in the handful of foreign leaders who have visited Trump in Florida since the Nov. 5 election. He has met with Argentinian President Javier Milei, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 
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VIENNA — Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Saturday he will resign in the coming days after talks on forming a new government failed a second time. 

The announcement came after the People’s Party and the Social Democrats on Saturday continued coalition talks a day after the liberal Neos party’s surprise withdrawal from discussions. 

“Unfortunately, I have to tell you today that the negotiations have ended and will not be continued by the People’s Party,” said Nehammer, the conservative party’s leader, in a statement on social media. 

He said that “destructive forces” in the Social Democratic Party have “gained the upper hand” and that the People’s Party will not sign on to a program that it considers to be against economic competitiveness. 

Social democratic leader Andreas Babler said he regretted the People’s Party decision to end the talks. 

“This is not a good decision for our country,” he said. One of the main stumbling blocks had to do with how to repair the “record deficit” left by the previous government, he added. 

“I have offered to Karl Nehammer and the People’s Party to continue negotiating and called on them not to give up,” he told reporters Saturday evening. 

Challenge for next government

The next government in Austria faces the challenge of having to save 18.6 billion euros to 24.8 billion euros, according to the EU Commission. In addition, Austria, which has been in a recession for the past two years, is experiencing rising unemployment, and its budget deficit is currently at 3.7% of Gross Domestic Product — above the EU’s limit of 3%. 

Babler blamed the collapse of the negotiations on “forces within the People’s Party” that were against a coalition with the Social Democrats, while praising Nehammer for his readiness to compromise. 

A coalition between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats was considered shaky from the beginning because the two parties together have a razor-thin one-seat majority in the Austrian parliament. 

It was not immediately clear what would happen next. 

Criticized for creating ‘chaos’

The People’s Party will have to search for a replacement for Nehammer, who has always ruled out the possibility of a coalition with far-right leader Herbert Kickl. But Nehammer’s expected resignation could now prompt the party to rethink its options under new leadership. 

People’s Party officials planned to meet Sunday to discuss choosing a new leader. 

The People’s Party and the far-right Freedom Party are close on economic policies as well as other issues such as migration and are already working together in five coalitions on the local level. 

An early election would be another option. But given Austrian election laws, such an election would unlikely take place before May. 

Party leader Herbert Kickl criticized Nehammer, Babler and Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen in a written statement Saturday evening for having created “chaos instead of stability” and said the ball is now in Van der Bellen’s court. 

Van der Bellen is expected to make a statement tomorrow, Austrian’s public broadcaster ORF reports. 
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Russia-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea announced a regional emergency Saturday, as oil was detected on the shores of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city.

Fuel oil spilled out of two storm-stricken tankers nearly three weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, close to eastern Crimea — about 250 kilometers from Sevastopol, which lies on the southwest of the peninsula.

“Today a regional emergency regime has been declared in Sevastopol,” regional Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram.

Oil was found on four beaches in the region and was “promptly eliminated” by local authorities working together with volunteers, Razvozhaev said.

“Let me emphasize: there is no mass pollution of the coastline in Sevastopol,” he wrote.

Razvozhaev’s announcement came after authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region announced a region-wide emergency last week, as the fuel oil continued washing up on the coastline 10 days after one tanker ran aground and the other was left damaged and adrift on December 15.

Krasnodar regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said that almost 7,000 people were still working Saturday to clean up the spill.

More than 96,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been removed along the region’s shoreline since the original spill, he wrote on Telegram.

On December 23, the ministry estimated that up to 200,000 tons in total may have been contaminated with mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the oil spill an “ecological disaster.”

The Kerch Strait, which separates the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula from the Krasnodar region, is an important global shipping route, providing passage from the inland Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.

It has also been a key point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014. In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of trying to seize control of the area illegally. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, described the oil spill last month as a “large-scale environmental disaster” and called for additional sanctions on Russian tankers.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis warned that bullying in schools prepares students for war rather than peace, in a speech to Catholic educators gathered at the Vatican on Saturday. 

Speaking to about 2,000 Italian educators and parents, Francis stressed his message against bullying, asking the audience to pledge to fight against it both at school and at home. 

The pontiff praised educational efforts at schools to promote peace, noting that “imagining peace” lays the foundations for “a more just and fraternal world” through “every subject taught and through the creativity of children and young people.” 

“But if, at school, you wage war among yourselves or engage in bullying, you are preparing for war, not for peace,” he said 

The pope also called for more dialogue within families, emphasizing that “it is dialogue that makes us grow.”
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NEW YORK — Say hello to the latest dog in the American Kennel Club’s lineup of recognized breeds. Or you might say “hej.”

The Danish-Swedish farmdog — yep, that’s the official name — joined the pack Thursday. The designation makes the breed eligible to compete for many best in show trophies, and it likely augurs more widespread interest in the small, sprightly dogs. The prospect both gladdens and concerns their biggest fans.

“We’re excited about it. We’re looking forward to it,” said Carey Segebart, one of the people who worked to get Danish-Swedish farmdogs recognized by the AKC. She proudly plans to debut one of her own at a dog show this month near her Iowa home.

Still, she thinks increased exposure is “a double-edged sword” for the fleet, versatile pups.

“We don’t want the breed to just explode too quickly,” she said.

Called the farmdog or DSF for short, the breed goes back centuries in parts of what are now Denmark, southern Sweden and some other European countries, according to the Danish-Swedish Farmdog Club of America.

“They’re interesting, fun little dogs,” said Segebart, who has owned them since 2011 and is the club’s incoming president. “They’re essentially up for anything. They succeed at most everything.”

In their original homelands, the dogs’ main job was rodent patrol, but they also would herd a bit, act as watchdogs and play with farmers’ children. Some even performed in circuses, according to the club.

After Denmark and Sweden became more urban and suburban in the 20th century, farmdog fanciers set out to secure the breed’s place in both nations (where “hej” translates to the English “hello”). Kennel clubs there began registering farmdogs in 1987.

In the U.S., many of the just about 350 farmdogs nationwide compete in agility, obedience or other canine sports that are open to all dogs, including mixed breeds.

But until now, farmdogs couldn’t enter the traditional breed-by-breed judging that leads to best in show prizes at events including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York. The entry deadline has passed for February’s Westminster show, so farmdogs will have to wait for 2026 there, but they may well appear later this year at two other major, televised shows, the National Dog Show and AKC National Championship.

The Danish-Swedish farmdog is the AKC’s 202nd breed and “a wonderful addition to a family that is able to provide it with the exercise and mental stimulation that it needs,” said the club’s Gina DiNardo.

Too popular for its own good?

The AKC is the United States’ oldest purebred dog registry and essentially a league for many dog competitions. Registration is voluntary, and requirements for breed recognition include at least 300 pedigreed dogs spread through at least 20 states. Some breeds are in other kennel clubs or none at all.

Danish-Swedish farmdog fanciers deliberated for several years before pursuing AKC recognition and the attention that’s likely to come with it, Segebart said. The number of farmdog puppy-seekers has grown substantially over the last decade; each of the few breeders receives multiple inquiries a week, and the typical wait for a puppy is a year or more, she said.

Farmdog folk fear that their appealing, relatively easy-care breed could quickly become too popular for its own good. They’re not the first to worry: Much fur has flown in dogdom over the rise of the French bulldog, which the AKC now ranks as the most popular breed in the country.

Some animal rights activists echo those concerns to argue against dog breeding in general. They say purebred popularity trends divert people from adopting shelter animals, fuel puppy mills and prize dogs’ appearance over their health.

The AKC says it promotes responsibly “breeding for type and function” to produce dogs with at least somewhat predictable traits, whether as basic as size or as specialized as bomb-sniffing skills. The club says it has given over $35 million since 1995 to its canine health research charity.
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