MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Friday dismissed as a “provocation” accusations by Ukraine that a Russian drone had damaged the containment shelter at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant overnight.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that he did not have precise information on the alleged incident but that Russia does not attack nuclear infrastructure.

“The Russian military doesn’t do that. They don’t. This is most likely just another provocation,” Peskov said.

“That’s exactly what the Kyiv regime like to do and sometimes, in fact, does not shy away from doing.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the U.N.’s nuclear energy watchdog both said that radiation levels remained normal after the incident, which came as top U.S., Ukrainian and European officials gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the war in Ukraine.
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ROME — Pope Francis was taken to the hospital on Friday morning for tests and to continue treatment of his ongoing bronchitis, the Vatican said.

“This morning, at the end of his audiences, Pope Francis was admitted to the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli [hospital] for some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue his treatment for bronchitis, which is still ongoing, in a hospital environment,” it said in a statement.

Francis, 88, has been pope since 2013 and has suffered from influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years.

Earlier this month, Francis told pilgrims at a weekly audience that he was suffering from a “strong cold,” which the Vatican later described as bronchitis.

The pope has been keeping up his daily schedule of appointments despite his illness, taking meetings at the Vatican residence where he lives. Before going to hospital on Friday, the pope had an official meeting with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Francis suffered two falls recently at his Vatican residence, bruising his chin in December and injuring his arm in January.

Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the largest in the city, has a special suite for treating popes. Francis spent nine days there in June 2023, when he had surgery to repair an abdominal hernia.
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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron urged Syria’s interim government to cooperate with a U.S.-led coalition fighting against extremist groups in that region as he hosted a conference Thursday on the Mideast country’s future.

Macron’s comments come amid uncertainty over the United States’ commitment to the region. Thursday’s conference in Paris among European and Arab nations was the third on Syria since the repressive government of Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December and was attended by Syria’s interim foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani.

“Syria must very clearly continue to fight against all the terrorist organizations that are spreading chaos,” Macron said. “If Syria decides to offer cooperation” with the international coalition, France would support the move, he added.

The Paris conference of foreign ministers and other officials from participating countries was meant to coordinate efforts to support a peaceful transition, as the new government in Damascus underlines its desire to improve relations with the West.

Integration of Kurdish-led forces

Macron also called on the Syrian interim government to “fully integrate” the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian transition, calling them “precious allies.”

“I think your responsibility today is to integrate them and also to allow these forces to join in,” he said.

On Thursday, Syrian organizers of a conference in Damascus to chart the country’s political future said those talks will include all segments of Syrian society except for the Kurdish-led administration in the northeast and Assad loyalists.

Most of the country’s former insurgent factions have agreed to dissolve and join the new Syrian army and security services, but the Kurdish-led SDF so far has refused to do the same. SDF forces have been clashing with Turkish-backed groups in northern Syria, and the Kurds are concerned about losing political and cultural gains they have made since carving out their own enclave in the northeast during the country’s civil war.

Discussions are ongoing between the SDF and the government in Damascus.

Billions in aid needed

More aid is crucial to achieve a peaceful reconstruction during the post-Assad transition. The country needs to rebuild housing, electricity, water and transportation infrastructure after nearly 14 years of war. The United Nations in 2017 estimated that it would cost at least $250 billion, while some experts now say the number could reach at least $400 billion.

With few productive sectors and government employees making wages equivalent to about $20 per month, Syria has grown increasingly dependent on remittances and humanitarian aid. But the flow of aid was throttled after the Trump administration halted U.S. foreign assistance last month.

The effects were particularly dire in the country’s northwest, a formerly rebel-held enclave that hosts millions of people displaced from other areas by the country’s civil war. Many of them live in sprawling tent camps.

The freeze on USAID funding forced clinics serving many of those camps to shut down, and nonprofits laid off local staff.

A workshop bringing together key donors from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, the United Nations and key agencies from Arab countries will be held alongside the conference to coordinate international aid to Syria.

Doubts about US military support

Uncertainty also surrounds the future of U.S. military support in the region.

In 2019 during his first term, Trump decided on a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from the northeast of Syria before he halted the plans. And in December last year, when rebels were on their way to topple Assad, Trump said the United States should not “dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war.”

Now that Syria’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, is trying to consolidate his power, the U.S. intentions in the region remain unclear. A U.S. official attended Thursday’s conference in Paris.
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German voters head to the polls this month for an election that will determine who the country’s new chancellor will be. The Feb. 23 poll is a snap election, following the collapse of center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last year.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, founded in 2013, appears to be gathering strength and support across the country and has emerged as a factor in the election.

The party’s popularity has been fueled by dissatisfaction with the large numbers of immigrants in the country. While AfD has evolved to focus its attention on other issues, including the immediate lifting of sanctions against Russia, immigration remains its central theme.

Alice Weidel, AfD’s first candidate for chancellor, is a staunch supporter of so-called “remigration,” a term used to describe the mass deportation of immigrants.

Political analysts say Weidel has little chance of becoming chancellor, but as AfD’s popularity has risen, it has forced politicians to rethink their conversations and debates about immigration.

AfD won its first parliamentary seats in 2017, with 12.6% of the votes.  In 2021, the party had only 10.3% of the votes.  It has supporters across the country and its politicians have been elected to 14 of Germany’s 16 state legislatures.

Its emergence as a political force occurs at the same time that other far-right parties are rising in Europe, including Austria’s Freedom Party and the National Rally in France.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the U.S. adversaries to cut their own spending.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”

“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,” Trump said.

While the U.S. and Russia have held massive stockpiles of weapons since the Cold War, Trump predicted that China would catch up in its capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years.”

He said if the weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion.” 

Trump said he would look to engage in nuclear talks with the two countries once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine.

“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi [Jinping] of China, President [Vladimir] Putin of Russia. And I want to say, ‘Let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”

Trump in his first term tried and failed to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks when the U.S. and Russia were negotiating an extension of a pact known as New START. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty during the Biden administration, as the U.S. and Russia continued on massive programs to extend the lifespans or replace their Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.
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WASHINGTON — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Britain for the first time on Thursday, marking the restart of a diplomatic dialogue mechanism that has been paused for nearly seven years.

Wang had talks with Britain’s foreign minister and national security adviser and briefly met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The top Chinese diplomat’s visit restarts the U.K.-China Strategic Dialogue, which has been frozen since 2018 over human rights abuses in Hong Kong, spying allegations and China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that discussions would involve “areas of bilateral economic cooperation” and security issues such as the war in Ukraine.

“We will also discuss issues where the U.K. and China do not always see eye to eye, and in some cases, the U.K. does have significant concerns,” Lammy said.

In the meetings, Wang said that cooperation was increasingly urgent, given the current state of global affairs.

“Under the current situation, it is more important than before for China and the U.K. to demonstrate their responsibilities as major countries, practice multilateralism, support free trade, advocate win-win cooperation, and promote political solutions to hot spot issues, so we can jointly work for the peace and stability of the world,” Wang said through an interpreter.

“It is important that we use channels such as this for robust but constructive discussion, as we are both members of the U.N. Security Council and we’ll be better able to understand each other, and each other’s perspectives,” Wang added.

Wang’s visit is another step in the new British labor government’s effort to improve its relations with China.

Lammy visited China in October, and British Treasury chief Rachel Reeves traveled to Beijing in January to reopen talks of investment between the countries.

As British diplomats met with Wang, a small group of demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese Embassy to protest his arrival and Chinese human rights violations.

“We will take this opportunity to call on China, to hope that China can have freedom of speech, human rights and can end its dictatorship rule,” said Cheng Xiaodan, a Chinese immigrant living in England.

Members of the crowd held small paper signs with images of Wang and banners that read “Long live freedom. Long live human rights.”
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Kurds in Turkey are expecting their imprisoned leader to announce a ceasefire soon, ending decades of war between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government. But Turkey’s president has not made clear what terms he’s willing to accept. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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At this week’s Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, world leaders and technologists gathered to discuss the rapidly evolving field of generative artificial intelligence. Many are eager to join the global AI race, while others are proceeding with caution. Tina Trinh reports.
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Brussles — Thousands of Belgians took to the streets on Thursday in protest over the new government’s planned pension reforms in the first day of a multi-day strike that halted all air traffic in the country. 

Brussels airport canceled 430 flights on Thursday, a spokesperson said, adding that the disruption to the air traffic sector would last just one day. 

Protesters held signs with slogans such as “We’re not lemons,” and some displayed plaques featuring Latin phrases, a nod to new Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s tendency to include Latin quotes whenever possible. 

The strike was also expected to disrupt public transport and postal services, with firefighters and military personnel joining the protests as well. 

The planned pension reform rewards those who work past retirement age, with 35 years of service, while early retirees without 35 years, face a penalty. The new system is less favorable for lower-income earners compared to the previous one, which provided a lump sum based on career length. 

Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever’s government was sworn in on Feb. 3, after eight months of negotiations that resulted in a five-party coalition including right-wing, centrist, and socialist party, Vooruit.  

The socialist union had warned that a strike would be called if Vooruit joined the predominantly center-right government.
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BERLIN — A car was driven into a crowd in Munich, Germany on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people.

Police said authorities detained the driver, and during the arrest fired a shot at the vehicle.

They identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker.

The incident took place as members of a service workers’ union held a demonstration.

Bavarian Governor Markus Soder told reporters that what happened appeared to be an attack.

Authorities said several of the people hurt had serious injuries.

The city is due to host the Munich Security Conference beginning Friday.

Conference organizers issued a statement saying they were “deeply saddened” by the incident.

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