Russia and Ukraine attacked each other’s energy infrastructure overnight, just days before U.S. and Ukrainian officials were set to discuss steps toward ending the nearly three-year war sparked by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russian strikes damaged natural gas production facilities in Ukraine’s Poltava region overnight, using a combined attack of 19 cruise, ballistic and guided missiles, the Ukrainian air force said.

As a result of the attack, Ukraine imposed emergency power restrictions on Tuesday, according to Ukraine energy minister German Galushchenko.

“The enemy launched an attack on gas infrastructure overnight,” Galushchenko said in a post on social media. “As of this morning, the energy sector continues to be under attack.”

Russia, which previously focused its missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian electricity sector, recently stepped-up attacks on gas storage and production facilities, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday that it had struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region overnight, causing a fire.

It said the refinery produces more than 20 types of petroleum products and is involved in supplying the Russian forces.

Saratov regional Governor Roman Busargin posted on the Telegram messaging app that a fire at an industrial facility in the region had been extinguished. He did not name the facility.

Russia’s defense ministry said air defense units intercepted and destroyed 40 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.

Eighteen of the drones were destroyed over the Saratov region, the ministry said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. The rest were downed over four other regions in Russia’s south and west, it said.

The Russian military also said its forces had taken control of the settlement of Yasenove in eastern Ukraine.

Talks between US and Ukraine

As U.S. Vice President JD Vance prepares for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later this week, President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.”

Trump talked about the war in a Fox News interview that aired Monday.

“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” he said.

Trump also discussed trading Ukraine’s natural resources, such as rare minerals, in exchange for U.S. military support.

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” Trump said. “And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

Trump’s senior advisers are expected to meet with Zelenskyy this week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg are traveling to Germany for the summit.

“Knowing how the process works, it would probably be better for Zelenskyy if we all met together and talked through it as a group,” Kellogg said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Trump on Monday said he’d “probably” speak with Zelenskyy this week.

Information from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
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French President Emmanuel Macron wants Europe to become a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, he told a global summit of AI and political leaders in Paris Monday where he announced that France’s private sector has invested nearly $113 billion in French AI.

Financial investment is key to achieving the goal of Europe as an AI hub, Macron said in his remarks delivered in English at the Grand Palais.

He said the European bloc would also need to “adopt the Notre Dame strategy,” a reference to the lightning swift rebuilding of France’s famed Notre Dame cathedral in five years after a devastating 2019 fire, the result of simplified regulations and adherence to timelines.

“We showed the rest of the of the world that when we commit to a clear timeline, we can deliver,” the French leader said.

Henna Virkkunen, the European Union’s digital head, indicated that the EU is in agreement with simplifying regulations. The EU approved the AI Act last year, the world’s first extensive set of rules designed to regulate technology.

European countries want to ensure that they have a stake in the tech race against an aggressive U.S. and other emerging challengers. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is scheduled to address the EU’s ability to compete in the tech world Tuesday.

Macron’s announcement that the French private sector will invest heavily in AI “reassured” Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, a U.S. company with French co-founders that is a hub for open-source AI, that there will be “ambitious” projects in France, according to Reuters.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s head, told the gathering that the shift to AI will be “the biggest of our lifetimes.”

However, such a big shift also comes with problems for the AI community. France had wanted the summit to adopt a non-binding text that AI would be inclusive and sustainable.

“We have the chance to democratize access [to a new technology] from the start,” Pichai told the summit.

Whether the U.S. will agree to that initiative is uncertain, considering the U.S. government’s recent moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance is attending the summit and expected to deliver a speech on Tuesday. Other politicians expected Tuesday at the plenary session are Chinese Vice Premier Zhan Guoqing and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. About 100 politicians are expected.

There are also other considerations with a shift to AI. The World Trade Organization says its calculations indicate that a “near universal adoption of AI … could increase trade by up to 14 percentage points” from what it is now but cautions that global “fragmentation” of regulations on AI technology and data flow could bring about the contraction of both trade and output.

A somewhat frightening side effect of AI technology is that it can replace the need for humans in some sectors.

International Labor Organization leader Gilbert Houngbo told the summit Monday that the jobs that AI can do, such as clerical work, are disproportionately held by women. According to current statistics, that development would likely widen the gender pay gap.
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Senior advisers in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump are preparing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, according to an Associated Press interview with retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

Kellogg, a special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, said planning continues for talks with Zelenskyy at the annual conference. 

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kellogg are among those who could participate in the sideline conversations with Ukraine’s president, AP reported. 

Trump has been critical about how much the war is costing the U.S. and has said European countries should repay the U.S. for helping Ukraine. 

During his campaign, Trump said if he were elected president, he would bring a swift end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but he did not specify how he would accomplish that. 

Recently, he has said that he wants to make a deal with Ukraine to continue U.S. support in exchange for access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.  

On Monday, AP reported the president said there are people currently working on a money-for-minerals-deal with Ukraine.  

“We have people over there today who are making a deal that, as we give money, we get minerals and we get oil and we get all sorts of things,” Trump said. 

Kellogg told AP that “the economics of that would allow for further support to the Ukrainians.”

Meanwhile, Russian drone attacks caused a fire in Kyiv, injured a woman in Sumy and damaged several homes, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The Russian military reported downing 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven in the Krasnodar region.

Nobody was hurt as a result of the fire in Kyiv, which was sparked in a non-residential building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Five houses were damaged and a woman was reportedly injured in the northeastern city of Sumy, regional governor Ihor Kalchenko said on Telegram.

 

Material from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
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THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS — Judges at the International Criminal Court have officially asked Italy on Monday to explain why the country released a Libyan man suspected of torture, murder and rape rather than sending him to The Hague.

Italian police arrested Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, last month but rather than extraditing him to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft.

“The matter of state’s non-compliance with a request of cooperation for arrest and surrender by the court is before the competent chamber,” the court’s spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said in a statement.

Addressing parliament last week, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send al-Masri home, claiming the ICC had issued a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. The court, he said, “realized that an immense mess was made,” he told lawmakers.

Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19, the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released on Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.

The ICC said it does not comment on national judicial proceedings.

Al-Masri’s arrest had posed a dilemma for Italy because it has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli as well as energy interests in the country.

According to the arrest warrant, al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force, which acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.

Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Additionally, any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.

In October, the court unsealed arrest warrants for six men allegedly linked to a brutal Libyan militia blamed for multiple killings and other crimes in a strategically important western town where mass graves were discovered in 2020.
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PARIS — In front of political and tech leaders gathered at a summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a strategy on Monday to make up for the delay in France and Europe in investing in artificial intelligence (AI) but was faced with a “counter-summit” that pointed out the risks of the technology. 

The use of chatbots at work and school is destroying jobs, professions and threatening the acquisition of knowledge, said union representatives gathered at the Theatre de la Concorde located in the Champs-Elysees gardens, less than a kilometer from the venue of the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence. 

Habib El Kettani, from Solidaires Informatique, a union representing IT workers, described an “automation already underway for about ten years,” which has been reinforced with the arrival of the flagship tool ChatGPT at the end of 2022. 

“I have been fighting for ten years to ensure that my job does not become an endangered species,” said Sandrine Larizza, from the CGT union at France Travail, a public service dedicated to the unemployed. 

She deplored “a disappearance of social rights that goes hand in hand with the automation of public services,” where the development of AI has served, according to her “to make people work faster to respond less and less to the needs of users, by reducing staff numbers.” 

Loss of meaning 

“With generative AI, it is no longer the agent who responds by email to the unemployed person but the generative AI that gives the answers with a multitude of discounted job offers in subcontracting,” said Larizza. 

This is accompanied by “a destruction of our human capacities to play a social role, a division into micro-tasks on the assembly line and an industrialization of our professions with a loss of meaning,” she said, a few days after the announcement of a partnership between France Travail and the French startup Mistral. 

“Around 40 projects” are also being tested “with postal workers,” said Marie Vairon, general secretary of the Sud PTT union of the La Poste and La Banque Postale group. 

AI is used “to manage schedules and simplify tasks with a tool tested since 2020 and generalized since 2023,” she said, noting that the results are “not conclusive.” 

After the implementation at the postal bank, La Banque Postale, of “Lucy,” a conversational robot handling some “300,000 calls every month,” Vairon is concerned about a “generative AI serving as a coach for bank advisers.” 

‘Students are using it’ 

On the education side, “whether we like it or not, students are using it,” said Stephanie de Vanssay, national educational and digital adviser of the National Union of Autonomous Unions (UNSA) for primary and secondary school. 

“We have indifferent teachers, worried teachers who are afraid of losing control and quality of learning, skeptics, and those who are angry about all the other priorities,” she said. 

Developing the critical thinking of some 12 million students is becoming, in any case, “an even more serious concern and it is urgent to explain how to use these tools and why,” de Vanssay said. 

The Minister of National Education Elisabeth Borne announced on Thursday the launch of a call for tenders for an AI for teachers, as well as a charter of use and training for teachers. 

“No critical thinking without interactions and without helping each other to think and progress in one’s thinking, which requires intermediation,” said Beatrice Laurent, national secretary of UNSA education. “A baby with a tablet and nursery rhymes will not learn to speak.”
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Bucharest, Romania — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced his resignation on Monday following mounting pressure from populist opposition groups, two months after a top court annulled a presidential election in the European Union country.

“To spare Romania from this crisis, I am resigning as president of Romania,” he said in an emotional address, adding that he will leave office on Feb. 12.

Iohannis, 65, held the presidential role since 2014 and served the maximum of two five-year terms. But his presidency was extended in December after the Constitutional Court canceled the presidential race two days before a Dec. 8 runoff.

That came after the far-right populist Calin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round, after which allegations emerged of Russian interference and electoral violations.

Several opposition parties, including the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), the nationalist SOS party and the Party of Young People — but also some members of the reformist Save Romania Union party — sought Iohannis’ ouster through a motion filed to Parliament. Some lawmakers from the governing coalition were also expected to vote in favor.

“This is a useless endeavor because, in any case, I will leave office in a few months after the election of the new president,” Iohannis said. “It is an unfounded move because I have never — I repeat, never — violated the constitution. And it is a harmful endeavor because … everyone loses, and no one gains.”

He added that the consequences of his ouster would be “long-lasting and highly negative” for Romania, an EU member since 2007, and a NATO member since 2004. “None of our partners will understand why Romania is dismissing its president when the process for electing a new president has already begun,” he said.

New dates have been set to rerun the presidential vote with the first round scheduled for May 4. If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the ballot, a runoff would be held two weeks later, on May 18. It is not yet clear whether Georgescu will be able to participate in the new election.

After his resignation announcement, clashes broke out between Georgescu supporters and police in front of the government building in the capital, Bucharest.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards.  

A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Astronomers have known about this galaxy for more than a century and so were surprised when Euclid revealed the bright glowing ring, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.  

An Einstein ring is light from a much more distant galaxy that bends in such a way as to perfectly encircle a closer object, in this case a well-known galaxy in the constellation Draco.  

The faraway galaxy creating the ring is more than 4 billion light-years away. Gravity distorted the light from this more distant galaxy, thus the name honoring Albert Einstein. The process is known as gravitational lensing.

“All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful,” lead author Conor O’Riordan of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics said in a statement.

Euclid rocketed from Florida in 2023. NASA is taking part in its mission to detect dark energy and dark matter in the universe.
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PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s leftwing party won most seats in the weekend parliamentary election but was left without a majority in the house, forcing it to look for an ally to form the next government, according to preliminary results released Monday.

The vote on Sunday was key in determining who will lead Kosovo as talks on normalizing ties with rival Serbia remain stalled and foreign funding for one of Europe’s poorest countries is in question.

The election marked the first time since independence in 2008 that Kosovo’s parliament completed a full four-year mandate. It was the ninth parliamentary vote in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-1999 war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists that pushed Serbian forces out following a 78-day NATO air campaign.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

With 88% of the votes counted, Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement Party, or Vetevendosje!, had won 41.3%, according to the Central Election Commission, the election governing body.

The Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, whose main leaders are detained at a Netherlands-based international criminal tribunal in The Hague and accused of war crimes, won 21.8% of the vote.

Next, with 17.8% support is the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, the oldest party in the country. The LDK lost much of its support after the death in 2006 of its leader, Ibrahim Rugova. The Alliance for Kosovo’s Future of former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj garnered 7.7% of the votes.

Still, Kurti was upbeat, though his remarks gave nothing away about who he plans to ask to join his coalition government.

“The people won. Vetevendosje! won. We are the winners who will form the next Cabinet,” Kurti told journalists as his supporters took to the streets to celebrate.

The commission’s webpage was down temporarily on Sunday as it was overloaded “due to the citizens’ high interest to learn the results,” election body said. Results were collected manually.

A preliminary turnout after 92% of the votes counted was 40.6% — about 7% lower than four years ago.

The new 120-seat parliament reserves 20 seats for minorities regardless of election results, 10 of them for the Serb minority.

Kurti’s new term will face multiple challenges after Washington recently announced it was freezing foreign aid and the European Union, almost two years ago, suspended funding for some projects and initiatives. He also is under pressure to increase public salaries and pensions, improve education and health services, and fight poverty.

Kosovo, with a population of 1.6 million, is one of the poorest countries in Europe with an annual gross domestic product of less than $6,000 per person.

Kurti also is likely to try and repair ties with Western powers, at odds since his Cabinet took several steps that raised tensions with Serbia and Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs, including the ban on the use of the Serbian currency, the dinar, and dinar transfers to Kosovo’s Serbs.

Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority depends on Belgrade’s social services and payments.

The United States, the European Union and the NATO-led stabilization force in Kosovo, or KFOR, have urged the government in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, to refrain from unilateral actions, fearing the revival of inter-ethnic conflict.

In Sunday’s election, Srpska Lista, the main party of the ethnic Serb minority, won 2.8% of the vote — just over half of its winnings four years ago.

The party’s leader, Zlatan Elek, said it was “the absolute winner of this election,” and thanked Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic for the “strong support for our people.”

KFOR had increased its presence in Kosovo after last year’s tensions with Serbia, as well as ahead of the election.

A team of 104 observers from the EU, 18 from the Council of Europe and about 1,600 others from international or local organizations, monitored the vote.
…

Russian drone attacks caused a fire in Kyiv, injured a woman in Sumy and damaged several homes, according to Ukrainian officials.

Meanwhile, the Russian military reported downing 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven in the Krasnodar region.

Nobody was hurt as a result of the fire in Kyiv, which was sparked in a non-residential building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Five houses were damaged and a woman was reportedly injured in the northeastern city of Sumy, regional governor Ihor Kalchenko said on Telegram.

While fighting continued, a group of U.S. officials from President Donald Trump’s administration were set to travel to Europe this week for discussions that would include the war in Ukraine.

Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to attend an artificial intelligence summit in France before attending the Munich Security Conference with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The Munich event, billed as “the world’s leading forum for debating international security policy,” is expected to focus on prospects for peace in Ukraine as well as discussions of other global conflicts.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will visit the headquarters of two military commands, then meet with NATO defense ministers. He’ll also attend a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, where he “will reiterate President Trump’s commitment for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible,” according to the Pentagon.

Material from Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.

 
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Climate change is rapidly altering the Arctic region, creating environmental danger, economic opportunity and geopolitical tension as the world’s major powers scramble to control newly accessible shipping lanes and resource deposits.
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Berlin — Europe is prepared to respond “within an hour” if the United States levies tariffs against the European Union, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a pre-election debate with his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz.

In the first duel ahead of the Feb. 23 election, Merz portrayed Scholz as a ditherer who had led Germany into economic crisis, while the Social Democrat presented himself as an experienced leader in command of the details.

Asked if the EU was ready with a targeted response if the U.S. imposed tariffs, Scholz, well behind Merz in the polls, said, “Yes … We as the European Union can act within an hour.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to enact tariffs against the United States’ largest trading partners, accusing them of free-riding on American prosperity. Trade policy is an EU competence, run by the European Commission in Brussels.

Trump and the far-right Alternative for Germany, endorsed by his confidante Elon Musk, overshadowed the debate.

Merz, far ahead in the polls and the favorite to become Germany’s next chancellor, expressed reluctance to raise taxes or borrow to reach the NATO alliance’s defense spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, far short of the 5% Trump is demanding.

When Scholz said that would not be enough, Merz signaled his openness to discuss scrapping Germany’s totemic spending cap — despite a manifesto pledge to keep the constitutional debt braked.

The two clashed over the AfD, with Scholz warning that Merz could not be trusted not to govern with the party. Merz ruled that out, blaming what he called Scholz’s “left-wing” policies for fueling the far-right party’s rise to second in the polls.
…

The presidents of Ukraine and the United States are looking to make a deal. This comes as world leaders meet later this week in Munich to discuss, among other issues, the future of Ukraine’s security. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday told soldiers, police and other law enforcement officials from around the world that armed force can only be used for legitimate defense and must always respect international law.

The pontiff reappeared in public for the first time since he was diagnosed with bronchitis Thursday to celebrate an outdoor Jubilee Mass for the armed forces, police and security personnel. However, after a few words, he handed off his homily to an aide to read, saying he was having difficulty with his breath.

“I would like to recall the teaching of the Church in this regard: The Second Vatican Council says that those who exercise their profession in the ranks of the army in the service of their homeland should consider themselves as servants of the security and freedom of their people,” Francis said in his final prayer.

“This armed service must be exercised only for legitimate defense, never to impose dominion over other nations, and always observing international conventions regarding conflicts,” he added.

The pontiff launched a new appeal for peace, citing conflicts around the world, including Ukraine, the Middle East, Myanmar and Sudan.

“Let the weapons be silenced everywhere and let the cry of the people asking for peace be heard,” Francis said.

Since being diagnosed with bronchitis Thursday, the pope had continued his activities and audiences indoors at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where he lives, until Sunday.

Francis has long battled health problems including long bouts of bronchitis. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment and recently fell twice, hurting his arm and chin.

Speculation about the pope’s health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after Pope Benedict XVI broke 600 years of tradition and resigned from the papacy in 2013.

Francis has said that he has no plans to resign anytime soon, even if Benedict “opened the door” to the possibility. In his autobiography “Hope” released this month, Francis said that he hadn’t considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.
…

VILNIUS — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said on Sunday they had successfully synchronized their electricity systems to the European continental power grid, one day after severing decades-old energy ties to Russia and Belarus.

Planned for many years, the complex switch away from the grid of their former Soviet imperial overlord is designed to integrate the three Baltic nations more closely with the European Union and to boost the region’s energy security.

“We did it!,” Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in a post on social media X.

After disconnecting on Saturday from the IPS/UPS network, established by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and now run by Russia, the Baltic nations cut cross-border high-voltage transmission lines in eastern Latvia, some 100 meters from the Russian border, handing out pieces of chopped wire to enthusiastic bystanders as keepsakes.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, herself an Estonian, earlier this week called the switch “a victory for freedom and European unity.”

The Baltic Sea region is on high alert after power cable, telecom links and gas pipeline outages between the Baltics and Sweden or Finland. All were believed to have been caused by ships dragging anchors along the seabed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has denied any involvement.

Poland and the Baltics deployed navy assets, elite police units and helicopters after an undersea power link from Finland to Estonia was damaged in December, while Lithuania’s military began drills to protect the overland connection to Poland.

Analysts say more damage to links could push power prices in the Baltics to levels not seen since the invasion of Ukraine, when energy prices soared.

The IPS/UPS grid was the final remaining link to Russia for the three countries, which re-emerged as independent nations in the early 1990s at the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.

The three staunch supporters of Kyiv stopped purchases of power from Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but have relied on the Russian grid to control frequencies and stabilize networks to avoid outages.
…

PRISTINA, KOSOVO — Kosovars cast their votes Sunday in a parliamentary election considered a key test for Prime Minister Albin Kurti as talks on normalizing ties with rival Serbia remain stalled and foreign funding for one of Europe’s poorest countries in question.

Kurti’s left-wing Vetevendosje, or Self-Determination Movement Party, is seen as the front-runner but is not expected to win the necessary majority to govern alone, leaving open the possibility the other two contenders join ranks if he fails to form a Cabinet.

The other challengers are the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, whose main leaders are detained at an international criminal tribunal at The Hague accused of war crimes, and the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, the oldest party in the country that lost much of its support after the death in 2006 of its leader, Ibrahim Rugova.

The parties made big-ticket pledges to increase public salaries and pensions, improve education and health services, and fight poverty. However, they did not explain where the money would come from, nor how they would attract more foreign investment.

Ties with Serbia remain a concern

Kurti has been at odds with Western powers after his Cabinet took several steps that raised tensions with Serbia and ethnic Serbs, including the ban on the use of the Serbian currency and dinar transfers from Serbia to Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority that depends on Belgrade’s social services and payments. The U.S., the European Union and the NATO-led stabilization force KFOR have urged the government in Pristina to refrain from unilateral actions, fearing the revival of inter-ethnic conflict.

This is the first time since independence in 2008 that Kosovo’s parliament has completed a full four-year mandate. It is the ninth parliamentary vote in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-99 war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists that pushed Serbian forces out following a 78-day NATO air campaign. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

The vote will determine who will lead the Kosovo in negotiations with Serbia, which stalled again last year.

Some aid funds are suspended

The EU has suspended funding for some projects and set conditions for their gradual resumption, linked to Kosovo taking steps to de-escalate tensions in the north, where most of the Serb minority lives.

Kosovo is also suffering after Washington imposed a 90-day freeze on funding for different projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been key in promoting the country’s growth.

Some 2 million eligible voters will elect 120 lawmakers from 1,280 candidates from 27 political groupings. One independent candidate is also running. The Kosovar parliament has 20 seats reserved for minorities regardless of election results, 10 of which are for the Serb minority.

“I encourage all the citizens of Kosovo to use this opportunity to decide on the next four years,” Kurti said after casting his ballot.

There have been sporadic violent incidents. Prosecutors said they detained five people for trying to influence voters.

Kosovars abroad started voting on Saturday at 43 diplomatic missions. There are some 20,000 voters from the diaspora of nearly 100,000 casting ballots at the missions, and the rest by mail.

Although crucial for the region’s stability, negotiations with Serbia have not figured high on any party’s agenda.

“What can we do? We were born here. Our graves are here. It will be better, I hope. We have to come out and vote. That is our duty,” Mileva Kovacevic, a Serb resident in northern Mitrovica, said.

Kosovo, with a population of 1.6 million, is one of the poorest countries in Europe with an annual gross domestic product of less than 6,000 euros per person.

KFOR has increased its presence in Kosovo after last year’s tensions with Serbia as well as for the election.

A team of 100 observers from the EU, 18 from the Council of Europe and about 1,600 others from international or local organizations will monitor the vote. 
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GRANADA, SPAIN — Narco-musical Emilia Perez won best European film at Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars on Saturday, after social media posts by the movie’s star prompted a backlash in the middle of awards season. 

The mostly Spanish-language musical tells the story of a Mexican drug cartel boss who transitions to life as a woman and turns her back on crime.

Before the scandal broke, the film earned 13 Oscar nods, picked up four Golden Globes in January and won multiple prizes at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

But old social media posts by star Karla Sofia Gascon, in which she denigrates Islam, China and African American George Floyd, unleashed a scandal that has harmed her reputation and the film.

Voting for the Goya awards closed on Jan. 24, days before the posts were uncovered.

Spaniard Gascon, the first transgender woman nominated for an Oscar for best actress, has apologized for her posts and distanced herself from publicity for the film.

She lives near Madrid but did not attend the Goya awards ceremony in Granada.

The movie’s French director Jacques Audiard has called the posts “inexcusable” and “absolutely hateful.” 
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Ukrainians Yevhenia and Kostiantyn Mukhin fled Kherson in 2022 with nothing but a backpack. They made their way to Denver, Colorado, determined to rebuild their lives, but also to spread the joy of Ukrainian culture. Svitlana Prystynska reports the story narrated by Anna Rice.
…

Hundreds of demonstrators protested Saturday at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. 

The new embassy, if approved by the U.K. government, would be the “biggest Chinese Embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. 

Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, told AFP said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” 

China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the shadow of the Tower of London. 

The move has sparked fierce opposition from nearby residents, rights groups, critics of China’s ruling Communist Party and others. 

“This is about the future of our freedom, not just the site of a Chinese Embassy in London,” Conservative Party lawmaker Tom Tugendhat told AFP at the protest, adding that people living in the U.K. have been threatened by Chinese state agents. 

“I think it would be a threat to all of us because we would see an increase in economic espionage… and an increase in the silencing of opponents of the Chinese Communist Party (in the U.K.),” the former security minister added. 

Housing the Royal Mint, the official maker of British coins, for nearly two centuries, the site was earlier home to a 1348-built Cistercian abbey but is currently derelict. 

Beijing bought it for a reported $327 million in 2018. 

“It will be like a headquarter (for China) to catch the (Hong Kong) people in the U.K. to (send them) back to China,” said another protester dressed in black and wearing a full face mask, giving his name only as “Zero,” a member of “Hongkongers in Leeds,” the northern English city. 

The protest comes as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, elected last July, wants more engagement with Beijing following years of deteriorating relations over various issues, in particular China’s rights crackdown in Hong Kong.  

In November, Starmer became the first U.K. prime minister since 2018 to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, when the pair held talks at the G20 summit in Brazil.  

A national planning inspector will now hold a public inquiry into the project, but Communities Secretary Angela Rayner will make the final decision. 

Opponents fear the Labour government’s emphasis on economic growth, and improved China ties, could trump other considerations. 
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PARIS — Thousands of opponents to Iran’s authorities rallied in Paris on Saturday, joined by Ukrainians to call for the fall of the government in Tehran, hopeful that U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign could lead to change in the country.  

The protest, organized by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is banned in Iran, comes as two of the group’s members face imminent execution with a further six sentenced to death in November.  

“We say your demise has arrived. With or without negotiations, with or without nuclear weapons, uprising and overthrow await you,” NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said in a speech.  

People from across Europe, some bussed in for the event, waved Iranian flags and chanted anti-government slogans amid images deriding Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

Hundreds of Ukrainians accusing Iran of backing Russian President Vladimir Putin in the war against Ukraine joined the protest. 

Iryna Serdiuk, 37, a nurse turned interpreter originally from Ukraine’s embattled Donbas region and now exiled in Germany, said she had come to Paris to join forces against a common enemy.  

“I’m happy to see these Iranians because they are opposition. They support Ukraine and not the Iranian government which gives Russia weapons. We are together and one day it will be victory for Ukraine and Iran too,” she said.  

The NCRI, also known by its Persian name Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was once listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union until 2012. 

While its critics question its support inside Iran and how it operates, it remains one of the few opposition groups able to rally supporters. 

Mohammad Sabetraftar, 63, an Iranian in exile for 40 years and who now runs a taxi business in the United Kingdom, dismissed criticism of the NCRI saying that it was the only alternative capable of achieving democracy in Iran.  

“What we expect from Mr. Trump or any Western politician is to not support this government. We don’t need money, we don’t need weapons, we rely on the people. No ties with the regime, no connections and put as much pressure on this government.”  

Tehran has long called for a crackdown on the NCRI in Paris, Riyadh, and Washington. The group is regularly criticized in state media. 

In January, Trump’s Ukraine envoy spoke at a conference organized by the group in Paris. 

At the time, he outlined the president’s plan to return to a policy of maximum pressure on Iran that sought to wreck its economy, forcing the country to negotiate a deal on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and regional activities.  

Homa Sabetraftar, 16, a schoolgirl in Britain, said she felt it was her duty to come to the event to represent the youth of Iran.  

“Some people in Iran don’t have that voice and aren’t able to vocalize as freely as we are able to here,” she said. “We need to push for a better future.” 
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VILNIUS, LITHUANIA — Three Baltic states on Saturday cut ties with Russia’s power grid to join the European Union’s network, the culmination of a years-long process that gained urgency with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — all former Soviet republics now in the European Union and NATO — had wanted to block Russia’s ability to geopolitically blackmail them via the electricity system.

“We have removed any theoretical possibility of Russia using energy (grid) control as a weapon,” Lithuania’s Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas told AFP on Saturday.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas — Estonia’s former prime minister — had on Friday hailed the grid switch as “a victory for freedom and European unity.”

Vaiciunas said the Baltic states had completed the disconnection process at 9:09 local time (0709 GMT) on Saturday.

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” he told reporters, after speaking with his Estonian and Latvian counterparts.

“The energy system of the Baltic states is finally in our own hands. We are in control,” he added of the “historic” moment.

He said the Baltics were now operating in so-called “isolated mode,” before they integrate with the European grid on Sunday.

Official celebrations are planned across the Baltics, and authorities were on guard for any potential cyber-attacks linked to the grid switch.

Latvia will physically cut a power line to Russia later Saturday and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is to attend a ceremony with Baltic leaders in Vilnius on Sunday.

The Baltics have long prepared to integrate with the European grid but faced technological and financial issues.

The switch became more urgent after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, spooking the Baltic states into thinking they could be targeted.

They stopped purchasing Russian gas and electricity after the invasion, but their power grids remained connected to Russia and Belarus, controlled from Moscow.

This left them dependent on Moscow for a stable electricity flow, which is crucial for factories and facilities requiring a reliable power supply.

‘Possible provocations’

The Baltic states will operate in “isolated mode” for about 24 hours to test their frequency, or power levels, according to Lithuania’s state-run grid operator Litgrid.

“We need to carry out some tests to assure Europe that we are a stable energy system,” Litgrid head Rokas Masiulis had said last month.

“We’ll switch power stations on and off, observe how the frequency fluctuates and assess our ability to control it.”

The states will then integrate into the European power grid via Poland.

Authorities have warned of potential risks linked to the change.

“Various short-term risks are possible, such as kinetic operations against critical infrastructure, cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns,” Lithuania’s state security department told AFP.

Poland’s power grid operator PSE had said it would use helicopters and drones to patrol the connection with Lithuania.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics told LTV1 the countries could not “rule out possible provocations.”

In Estonia, police and volunteer defense corps will man critical electrical infrastructure until next weekend because of the risk of sabotage.

Several undersea telecom and power cables have been severed in the Baltic Sea in recent months. Some experts and politicians have accused Russia of waging a hybrid war, an allegation Moscow denies.

‘People won’t feel it’

A total of $1.7 billion — mostly EU funds — has been invested in the synchronization project across the Baltic states and Poland.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda was sure the switch would go smoothly, telling reporters: “People won’t feel it, either in terms of their bills or any inconvenience.”

Estonia’s climate ministry urged everyone to carry on as usual as “the more regular and predictable the behavior … the easier it is to manage the power grid.”

But some consumers worried about power cuts and home improvement stores in Estonia had noted a sharp increase in sales of generators.

After the Baltic decoupling, the energy system in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad will lose its grid connection to mainland Russia.

Kaliningrad has been building up power generation capacity for years and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed all concerns.

Asked about the cut-off last week, he said: “We have taken all measures to ensure the uninterrupted reliable operation of our unified energy system.”
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not confirmed that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump next week but said the coming weeks may be “very intensive in diplomacy.”

Trump said on Feb. 7 that he is likely to meet with Zelenskyy next week. The site of the meeting “could be Washington,” he said, adding that he would not be going to Kyiv.

He also said he would “probably” be speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon but did not give a time frame. Zelenskyy said it is important that he and Trump meet in person before the U.S. president meets with Putin.

Zelenskyy did not confirm a meeting with Trump but said diplomacy would be ramping up.

“The coming weeks may be very intensive in diplomacy, and we will do what’s needed to make this time effective and productive. We always appreciate working with President Trump,” he said shortly after Trump spoke.

“Weʼre also planning meetings and talks at the teams level. Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details. A solid, lasting peace shall become closer.”

In his comments earlier at the White House, the U.S. president reiterated that he is interested in tying continued military aid to access to Ukraine’s raw materials.

“One of the things we’re looking at with President Zelenskyy is having the security of their assets. They have assets underground, rare earth and other things, but primarily rare earth,” he said.

“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things,” Trump said on Feb. 3.

He said on Feb. 7 that the United States wants “an equal amount of something” in exchange for U.S. support. “We would like them to equalize,” Trump said.

More than four dozen minerals, including several types of rare earths, nickel and lithium, are considered critical to the U.S. economy and national defense. Ukraine has large deposits of uranium, lithium and titanium.

Ukraine floated the idea of opening its critical minerals to investment by allies last year when it presented its plan to end the war and now suggests it could be open to a deal.

“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal. We are only for it,” Zelenskyy said on Feb. 7, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement of the war.

“Strong security always has many elements, and each one matters,” he said on X. “Ukraine possesses some of the largest strategic resource reserves in Europe, and protecting Ukraine also means protecting these resources.”

Less than 20% of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including about half its rare earth deposits, are under Russian occupation, Zelenskyy said in an interview with Reuters published on Feb. 7. Moscow could open those resources to North Korea and Iran if it maintains its hold on the territories.

“We need to stop Putin and protect what we have — a very rich Dnipro region, central Ukraine,” he told Reuters.

Zelenskyy is likely to further discuss the idea with allies next week at the Munich Security Conference.

Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said this week he plans to attend the conference but denied a report that he will present Trump’s plan for ending the war in Ukraine at the gathering, which starts Feb. 14.

Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said he had spoken to Kellogg about the battlefield situation, the safety of Ukrainian civilians and meetings at the annual security conference. He also said Ukraine is looking forward to Kellogg’s visit later this month.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and dpa.
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