Europe

Early summer heatwave claims first victim in Cyprus

NICOSIA, June 14, 2024 (AFP) – A 91-year-old woman became the first death from an early heatwave gripping Cyprus as the island sweltered under record June temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) on Friday. Health officials said a woman died at Nicosia General Hospital suffering from heatstroke; another five elderly patients were being treated in hospitals with severe symptoms of heatstroke. State health organisation spokesperson Charalambos Charilaou told reporters the woman suffered a cardiac […]

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‘Constant blood’: Ukraine’s frontline medics battle exhaustion

By Maryke VERMAAK Ukraine, June 15, 2024 (AFP) – When Vitaliy signed up to join the Ukrainian army as a surgeon, he made a promise not to burn himself out, fearing he could be needed for a lengthy and bloody war. More than two years after Russia invaded and with the fighting showing no sign of subsiding, that promise is being put to the test. Vitaliy serves at a medical post in the Pokrovsk area […]

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Meta pauses AI plans in Europe after privacy complaints

VIENNA, June 14, 2024 (AFP) – Meta has paused plans to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence technology in Europe, Ireland’s regulator said Friday, after the social media giant was hit with privacy complaints. Last week, a Vienna-based privacy campaign group filed complaints in 11 European countries against Meta, saying the global tech giant’s planned privacy policy change would allow “unlawful” use of personal data to train an “undefined” type of current and […]

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Iran, Sweden free prisoners in Oman-mediated swap

By Ramin KHANIZADEH, Payam DOOST MOHAMADI TEHRAN, June 15, 2024 (AFP) – Iran and Sweden announced on Saturday a prisoner exchange that saw a former Iranian official jailed in Sweden freed as Stockholm said Tehran had released a European Union diplomat and a second Swede. “Hamid Noury, who has been in illegal detention in Sweden since 2019, is free and will return to the country in a few hours,” Kazem Gharibabadi, head of Iran’s High […]

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Ukraine seeks path to just peace at Swiss summit

By Robin MILLARD with Jake CORDELL in Warsaw BURGENSTOCK, Switzerland, June 15, 2024 (AFP) – President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped to find paths to a “just peace” as soon as possible, as a first international summit on pathways to end Russia’s war in Ukraine opened Saturday. More than 50 world leaders were joining Zelensky at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland for a two-day peace summit — though with Moscow rejecting the event, it only […]

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UK’s Princess of Wales makes first public appearance since cancer diagnosis

By Sylvain PEUCHMAURD, Joe JACKSON LONDON, June 15, 2024 (AFP) – Catherine, Princess of Wales, on Saturday tentatively returned to UK public life for the first time since being diagnosed with cancer, attending a military parade in London to mark King Charles III’s official birthday. Kate, as she is widely known, travelled in a state carriage alongside her three children at the outset of the annual event before watching the ceremonial proceedings from a viewing […]

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Putin says Ukraine must withdraw troops to start peace talks

MOSCOW, June 14, 2024 (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would only halt its offensive on Ukraine if Kyiv effectively surrenders by pulling its troops out of the east and south and dropping its bid for NATO membership. Ukraine, NATO and the United States immediately rejected Putin’s hardline conditions to halt the full-scale military offensive that he launched in February 2022. The two countries have been locked in bloody conflict for […]

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Austria landslide kills one child, injures another

  VIENNA, June 13, 2024 (AFP) – A landslide after heavy rains in Austria has killed a five-year-old boy, police said, as the environment minister warned Thursday that climate change was hitting the mountainous country “harder and harder”. In recent weeks, heavy rains have led to widespread flooding and hundreds of landslides across Austria. The area close to the border with Slovenia and Hungary in the southern provinces of Styria and Burgenland has been especially […]

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Swiss govt hit by cyberattack ahead of Ukraine peace summit

GENEVA, June 13, 2024 (AFP) – Switzerland government websites were hit Thursday by the first of an expected wave of cyberattacks ahead of a weekend summit on peace in Ukraine hosted by Bern. The National Cyber Security Centre said the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which make websites or network resources unavailable by flooding them with malicious traffic, resulted in minor outages. “A first DDoS attack on various federal government websites and organisations involved in the […]

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EU votes as far right eyes gains

By Max Delany, with Yannick Pasquet in Athens, Claire Morand in Berlin, and Geza Molnar in Paty, Hungary BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 9, 2024 (AFP) – Voters across Europe cast ballots Sunday on the final — and biggest — day of elections for the EU’s parliament, with far-right parties expected to make gains at a pivotal time for the bloc. “In the current world situation, where everyone is trying to isolate each other, it’s important to […]

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British TV presenter Michael Mosley found dead on Greek island

ATHENS, June 9, 2024 (AFP) – British diet guru and TV personality Michael Mosley was found dead on Sunday on the Greek island of Symi where he went missing this week, police said. “People on a boat saw a body close to the rocky coast,” said Petros Vassilakis, police chief for the southern Aegean region. The lifeless body was spotted by a television crew from Greece’s ERT public channel out filming in the area where […]

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Ukraine says hit Su-57 fighter jet inside Russia

KYIV, Ukraine, June 9, 2024 (AFP) – Ukraine said Sunday it had hit an Su-57 fighter jet parked at an airfield in southern Russia, its first ever attack on Moscow’s latest generation stealth aircraft. The flagship Su-57 entered into service with Russia’s aerospace forces in December 2020 and was designed to replace ageing Soviet-designed fighter aircraft like the Su-27 and MiG-29. “On 8 June 2024, a Su-57 multi-purpose fighter jet of the aggressor state was […]

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