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.  
…

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. 
…

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. 
…

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.
…

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.”
…

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.
…

Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had taken control of the village of Nadiya in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region and had shot down eight U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

The ministry said its air defense systems had shot down 10 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory on Saturday morning, including three over the northern Leningrad region.

St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport temporarily halted flight arrivals and departures on Saturday morning.
…

Kyiv, ukraine — Moldova faces a security crisis, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said Friday, after its separatist pro-Moscow Transdniestria region, cut off from supplies of Russian gas, closed factories, restricted central heating and imposed rolling power blackouts. 

Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe were halted on New Year’s Day after a transit agreement between the warring countries expired and Kyiv rejected doing further business with Moscow. 

Recean said government-controlled Moldova would cover its own energy needs with domestic production and imports but noted the separatist Transdniestria region had suffered a painful hit despite its ties with Moscow. 

“By jeopardizing the future of the protectorate it has backed for three decades in an effort to destabilize Moldova, Russia is revealing the inevitable outcome for all its allies – betrayal and isolation,” Recean said in a statement. 

“We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponizing our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200 km border.” 

The official Telegram news channel of separatist Transdniestria said rolling power cuts had gone into effect on Friday evening. It listed districts where power would be cut for an hour or more between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

“As the Ministry of Economic Development notes, this is in connection with the fact that residents at this time are consuming more power than the system can generate,” the channel said. 

The news channel said a sanatorium, fully heated and with hot water, was sheltering orphans and residents of nursing homes. It accused Moldova’s central government of failing to understand or tackle the difficulties facing the region. 

“Moldovan authorities are completely out of touch with reality and continue to talk about ‘the price of freedom from Russian gas,’ ” the channel said. 

Transdniestria’s residents had already lost hot water and central heating, and all factories except food producers have been forced to stop production. 

The enclave’s self-styled president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, had earlier said power cuts were inevitable. He said the region had gas reserves to cover 10 days of limited usage in the north and twice as long in the south. 

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

Dispute over arrears 

Russian gas giant Gazprom had separately said on December 28 that 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 has put the figure at $8.6 million. 

The southeast European nation of about 2.5 million people has been in the spotlight since Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine at a time of mounting tensions between Moscow and the West. 

Its pro-European president, Maia Sandu, won a second term in an election last year and has pledged to accelerate reform and consolidate democratization.  

Moldova plans to hold a parliamentary election this summer. 

Mainly Russian-speaking Transdniestria, which split from Moldova in the 1990s, received Russian gas via Ukraine. 

In turn, Moldova used to receive the bulk of its electricity from Transdniestria. But, with Kyiv making clear it would stop gas transit from Russia, the Chisinau government prepared alternative arrangements, with a mixture of domestic production and electricity imports from Romania, Recean said. 

He said the Moldovan government remained committed to helping the enclave. 

“Alternative energy solutions, such as biomass systems, generators, humanitarian aid and essential medical supplies, are ready for delivery should the breakaway leadership accept the support,” the government said in a statement. 

The head of Moldova’s national gas company Moldovagaz, Vadim Ceban, said Transdniestrian authorities had turned down an offer to help purchase gas from European countries because the enclave believes Russian gas supplies could still be resumed. 

Such purchases would be more costly. Gazprom has long supplied gas to the region without demanding payment.
…

VIENNA — Talks on forming a new three-party government in Austria collapsed Friday as the smallest of the prospective coalition partners pulled the plug on the negotiations.

The talks had dragged on since Austria’s president tasked conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer in October with putting together a new government. That decision came after all other parties refused to work with the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which in September won a national election for the first time.

Nehammer has been trying to assemble a coalition of his Austrian People’s Party with the center-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos party.

Nehammer’s party and the Social Democrats have governed Austria together in the past but have the barest possible majority in the parliament elected in September, with a combined 92 of the 183 seats. That was widely considered too small a cushion, and the two parties sought to bring in Neos.

But Neos leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger said she informed Nehammer, Social Democratic leader Andreas Babler and President Alexander Van der Bellen early Friday that her party “won’t continue” talks on becoming a partner in a new government.

She pointed to the implications of a “budget hole” left by the last government as a major source of difficulty, adding that the election showed a desire for change, but the talks appeared to be going backward rather than forward in recent days.

The next government in Austria faces the challenge of having to save between 18 to 24 billion euros, according to the EU Commission. In addition, Austria’s economy is in decline with rising unemployment and continuing recession.

“There was a repeated ‘no’ to fundamental reforms this week,” Meinl-Reisinger told reporters in Vienna.

Austrian People’s Party general secretary Christian Stocker blamed “backward-looking forces” among the Social Democrats for prompting the collapse of the talks.

Nehammer said in a post on social media Friday evening that he “regretted” the decision by the Neos party to pull out of the coalition talks.

He said that his party continues to be ready to “assume responsibility,” and to implement reforms, especially in the areas of improving economic competitiveness and implementing a clear asylum and migration policy.

“The constructive forces of the political center are called upon to come along on this path with us now,” Nehammer said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the situation could be resolved. The two bigger parties could potentially try to form a government alone or turn to the environmentalist Greens as a prospective third partner.

Nehammer’s often-tense two-party outgoing coalition with the Greens lost its parliamentary majority in the election, though it remains in office as a caretaker administration.

The Freedom Party, which has seen its poll ratings rise since the election, called for Nehammer’s resignation. The far-right party won the parliamentary election in September with 29.2% of the vote but both Nehammer and Babler excluded working with far-right leader Herbert Kickl.

According to the latest opinion polls published in December, the Freedom Party increased its support to between 35% and 37%.

Its general secretary, Michael Schnedlitz, accused the chancellor of refusing to accept his election defeat and said it had long warned against a three-way coalition “on the German model” — a reference to the quarrelsome government in neighboring Germany that collapsed in November. Germany is holding an early election next month.
…

PODGORICA, Montenegro — A top-level meeting in Montenegro on Friday looked for ways to curb illegal weapons after a gunman fatally shot 12 people in a second such tragedy in less than three years in the small Balkan country.

An emergency session of Montenegro’s National Security Council is expected to call for a new gun law and urgent actions to confiscate what are believed to be abundant illegal weapons in possession of Montenegro’s 620,000 citizens.

The Adriatic Sea nation has a deeply rooted gun culture. State television broadcaster RTCG reported that Montenegro is sixth in the world when it comes to the number of illegal weapons per capita.

The gunman who killed a dozen people in a shooting rampage in the western town of Cetinje on Wednesday did so with an illegal 9 mm gun. Police have said they found 37 casings at the shooting locations, and more than 80 additional pieces of ammunition in the gunman’s possession.

The 45-year-old man, identified as Aco Martinović, eventually shot himself in the head and died shortly after. He is believed to have snapped after a bar brawl and went home to get his weapon before launching a bloody rampage at several locations late Wednesday afternoon.

Martinović’s victims included seven men, three women — among them his sister — and two children, born in 2011 and 2016. Four more people were seriously wounded and remain hospitalized.

Police Commissioner Lazar Šćepanović has described Wednesday’s shooting as “one of the biggest tragedies in the history of Montenegro.”

The shooting has 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.

Hundreds of people throughout Montenegro lit candles in silence Thursday evening in memory of the victims, while also calling for answers as to why the shooting happened. Many were angry at the authorities for not doing more to prevent such tragedies and protests are being planned for the coming days.

Mira Škorić, a retiree from Podgorica, said that “I can’t believe that we failed so much as a society. We failed as people too.”

In a separate massacre in August 2022, an attacker killed 10 people, including two children, before he was shot and killed by a passerby in Cetinje, which is Montenegro’s historic capital located about 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the capital, Podgorica.

The shootings “require a serious examination of the responsibility and preparedness of the security system,” the Human Rights Action and Women’s Rights Center groups said in a statement. “What has changed in the security system in Cetinje since 2022?”

Police have said that Martinović’s actions weren’t planned and were impossible to predict and prevent, though he had been convicted in the past of violent behavior and illegal weapons possession and had received psychiatric treatment.

Vesna Pejović, a Cetinje resident who lost her daughter and two grandchildren in the shooting back in 2022, said police had to do more to protect the citizens after the first killing.

“What kind of state and system is this where children are getting killed? Are we at war?” she asked. “Where were the police?”
…

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The foreign ministers of France and Germany are headed to Damascus on the first official visit to Syria by top diplomats from European Union countries after the fall of former President Bashar Assad, in what the German minister said is a clear signal that a “new beginning” between Europe and Syria is possible.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who began the visit Friday with a meeting with Christian religious leaders in Damascus, said in a statement on the social media platform X that the two countries “want to promote a peaceful and urgent transition in the service of Syrians and for regional stability.”

He and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are expected to meet with Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the Islamist former insurgent group that is now the de facto ruling party in Syria.

Baerbock said there can be a “political new beginning between Europe and Syria” only if the new Syrian society gives all people, regardless of ethnic or religious group, “a place in the political process” as well as rights and protection.

She said those rights should not be undermined by an overly long transition to elections or by “steps toward the Islamification of the justice or education system,” that there should be no acts of revenge against entire groups of the population, and that extremism should have no place.

Since Assad’s ouster in a lightning offensive by opposition forces, Damascus has experienced a flurry of visits from Arab and Western countries that had cut off relations with Assad’s government during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war.

However, Western countries have so far not lifted sanctions placed on Syria under Assad or removed the designation of HTS as a terrorist group, although the United States lifted a $10 million bounty it had previously placed on al-Sharaa. 
…