CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

Exclusive by Matthew Chance and Zahra Ullah, CNN Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has refused to apologize for the widespread human rights violations in the country since his disputed re-election last year in an exclusive interview with CNN. CNN cited evidence from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of some detainees reporting injuries including broken bones

By Mostafa Salem, CNN Tunisian President Kais Saied has appointed Najla Bouden Romdhan as the first female prime minister in Tunisia and the Arab world, two months after he sacked the previous government and seized wide-ranging executive powers. “This is the first time in the history of Tunisia that a woman has led a government,”

By Manveena Suri, CNN Police in the Netherlands have arrested and released a former member of a far-right political party after Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s security detail suspected him of behaving suspiciously, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Hague. Arnoud Van Doorn, who once served as a senior political adviser for populist Freedom

Story by Reuters More than 80 aid workers including some employed by the World Health Organization (WHO) were involved in incidents of sexual abuse and exploitation during an Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an independent commission said on Tuesday. The probe was prompted by an investigation last year by the Thomson Reuters

By Hannah Ritchie, CNN Sixteen people have been injured — including four critically — after an explosion led to a large fire in an apartment building in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, emergency services told CNN Monday. The blast happened at 4:45 a.m. local time, according to Swedish police who are investigating the cause of

By Jeevan Ravindran, CNN Public urination at Glastonbury Festival led to illegal drugs entering a river running through the famous Somerset site in southwestern England, potentially harming wildlife, according to a new study. Researchers at Bangor University in Wales discovered high levels of cocaine and MDMA in the Whitelake River, which runs through Worthy Farm,

By Anna Chernova, CNN Russia reported its highest Covid-19 death toll in a single day on Tuesday with 852 coronavirus-related deaths recorded in the past 24 hours, according to the country’s coronavirus response center. The previous all-time high was recorded four days ago, on September 24, when 828 deaths were registered. There has been an

By Tara John, Nadine Schmidt, Stephanie Halasz and Frederik Pleitgen, CNN Germany’s left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) won the largest share of the vote in Sunday’s federal election, putting them in pole position to form the country’s next coalition government — but they could be in for some tricky negotiations. Angela Merkel, one of the

By Simone Bouvier and Tara John, CNN French President Emmanuel Macron was hit by an egg while taking part in a food event in Lyon on Monday. The egg “bounced off Macron’s shoulder and burst on the floor right in front of me,” Florence Lago, a journalist for French publication Lyon Mag, told CNN. Lyon

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN Olaf Scholz has some big shoes to fill. The German Finance Minister will be sworn in as German chancellor next month, barring any 11th-hour setbacks — weeks after he led his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to a narrow victory in September’s parliamentary elections. Under the agreement announced in Berlin on Wednesday,

By Caitlin Hu and Sharif Paget, CNN The tiny landlocked republic of San Marino voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to legalize abortion under certain circumstances, according to official results published by the country’s state secretariat of internal affairs. Around 77.30% of voters approved the measure which would make abortion legal in the first 12 weeks of

By Chris Liakos, Hannah Ritchie and Sharon Braithwaite, CNN One man has died and nine people have been injured following a strong earthquake that shook the Greek island of Crete on Monday, Greece’s General Secretariat for Civil Protection confirmed to CNN. The earthquake, which hit at 9.17 a.m. local time, had a magnitude of 5.8,

By Sugam Pokharel, Jennifer Deaton, Helen Regan, Frederik Pleitgen and Ivana Kottasová, CNN Germany’s left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) will begin negotiations to form a ruling coalition after preliminary results showed the party narrowly winning the largest share of parliamentary seats following Sunday’s federal election. With all 299 of Germany’s electoral districts reporting, the SPD

Story by Reuters Iceland looked to have elected a woman-majority parliament but a recount of votes on Sunday showed there will still be more men than women in the chamber, state broadcaster RUV reported. Thirty women were elected to the 63-seat parliament in Saturday’s election, up from 24 in the previous vote. Earlier results before

Story by Reuters Switzerland agreed to legalize civil marriage and the right to adopt children for same-sex couples by a nearly two-thirds majority in a referendum on Sunday, making it one of the last countries in Western Europe to legalise gay marriage. According to results provided by the Swiss federal chancellery, 64.1% of voters voted

By Frederik Pleitgen, Salma Abdelaziz, Nadine Schmidt, Stephanie Halasz and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN Germany’s left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) has won the most seats in the country’s federal election, preliminary results show, but it will be some time before the makeup of the new government is known. The SPD claimed a narrow victory over the

By Hadas Gold and Abeer Salman, CNN Five Palestinians have been killed and two arrested Saturday night as part of a days-long operation targeting Hamas in the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces said. Overnight Saturday, security forces including members of the IDF, Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency and the Yamam counterterrorism unit, attempted

By Laura Smith-Spark, Nadine Schmidt and Rob Picheta, CNN Germans were heading to the polls Sunday to vote in a closely fought federal election that will, in the coming days or weeks, result in a new chancellor taking the helm of the world’s fourth-largest economy. Chancellor Angela Merkel, 67, has been a symbol of stability

By Nadine Schmidt, CNN The race to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor remains wide open ahead of a national election on Sunday, according to the latest polls. Poll predictions on Saturday point to the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) holding a small but narrowing lead over Merkel’s party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel

By Larry Madowo, CNN Zambian leader Hakainde Hichilema is basking in the glow of his historic win in last month’s election during his first visit to the United States as president. On Thursday, he became the first Zambian president to visit the White House since 1992, a rare honor that world leaders covet. His defeat