CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

By Matthew Chance, Zahra Ullah and Katharina Krebs, CNN Ukraine’s ruling party acknowledged for the first time Friday a Ukrainian-led sting operation aimed at luring suspected war criminals out of Russia. In an exclusive CNN investigation released Tuesday, three former high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence officials described how they attempted to lure suspected war criminals out

By Jack Guy and AJ Davis, CNN Austrian police have found the body of a woman who, they say, was mummified by her son so he could keep claiming her social security. The 66-year-old man confessed to keeping his mother’s body in the basement of a property in the Innsbruck-Land region of western Austria after

By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN A new government has been formed in crisis-ridden Lebanon, ending a more than year-long power vacuum that began shortly after the August 2020 Beirut port blast. Prime Minister Najib Mikati, a billionaire who has already twice served as premier, will lead a cabinet of ministers that will preside over an economic

By Jack Guy, CNN Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family support Black Lives Matter (BLM), a senior representative has told UK broadcaster Channel 4. Ken Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, said that the issue of race is a “hot conversation topic” in the royal household, in an interview which will be aired

By Matthew Chance, Zahra Ullah and Katharina Krebs, CNN Ukrainian opposition politicians are demanding an immediate investigation into how a special operation to lure alleged Russian war criminals failed after Belarus arrested the men in Minsk last year. The new calls follow an exclusive CNN investigation in which former high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence officials described

By Anna Chernova, CNN A veteran Russian politician has complained that two opponents running against him in St. Petersburg have adopted his name and mimicked his appearance in order to confuse voters. Liberal Yabloko party candidate Boris Vishnevsky is standing to keep his seat in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly later this month. The Russian

By Anna Chernova, CNN Russian Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev has died in an accident during training exercises in the Arctic, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported Wednesday, citing the ministry. Zinichev, aged 55, was trying to save someone’s life when the incident in the Russian city of Norilsk occurred. “The Russian Emergencies Ministry informs with

EXCLUSIVE by Matthew Chance and Zahra Ullah, CNN Security forces shattered the early morning calm of the lakeside Soviet-era resort outside the Belarusian capital of Minsk, bursting in to arrest 32 Russian mercenaries. It was less than two weeks before Belarus’ presidential election last year, and authorities suspected that the outsiders had been sent from

By Nimi Princewill, CNN Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, has been named patron of Nigeria’s first sexual assault referral center in Lagos, the country’s largest city. The Duchess, 74, has long campaigned against domestic abuse and sexual violence and said she is “delighted to become Patron of the Mirabel Center in Lagos,” which was founded in

By Angela Dewan, International Climate Editor Europe experienced its hottest summer on record this year and temperatures in the Mediterranean smashed records by large margins, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said Tuesday. Like much of the Northern Hemisphere, Europe was battered by extreme weather events over recent months, including record levels of rain

By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN ​​”Abiy, Abiy,” the crowd chanted, waving Ethiopia’s tricolor flag and cheering as the country’s new prime minister, dressed in a white blazer with gold trim and smiling broadly, waved to a packed basketball arena at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, part of a whirlwind three-city tour of the

By Eliza Mackintosh and Katharina Krebs, CNN A Belarusian court on Monday sentenced Maria Kolesnikova, a prominent opposition figure who led mass street protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, to 11 years in prison, the latest move in a widespread crackdown on government critics following a contested election last year. Kolesnikova and another opposition activist, Maxim

By Abeer Salman, Amir Tal and Ibrahim Dahman, CNN Israeli authorities are hunting for six Palestinian militants who broke out of prison, apparently through a tunnel, sometime early Monday morning. The men escaped from Gilboa prison, which lies between the Sea of Galilee in Israel and the West Bank town of Jenin. A picture of

By Zixu Wang and Sophie Jeong, CNN The German Ambassador to China, Jan Hecker, has died suddenly at 54, after only a few weeks in his position, according to a statement posted on the German Embassy to China’s website on Monday. Hecker had worked as a foreign policy adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel before

By David McKenzie, CNN Former South African President Jacob Zuma has been released from prison on medical parole due to ill health, the government’s correctional services department said Sunday. Zuma, 79, has been serving a 15-month prison sentence since July for contempt of court after defying a summons to appear at an inquiry into corruption

By Umaro Djau, Kareem Khadder and David McKenzie, CNN A Guinean military officer broadcast a statement Sunday announcing that Guinea’s Constitution has been dissolved in an apparent coup. “We will no longer entrust politics to a man. We will entrust it to the people. We come only for that; it is the duty of a

By Nima Elbagir, Katie Polglase, Barbara Arvanitidis, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN The ghostly outlines of limbs emerge through the mist along the Setit River in eastern Sudan. As the river’s path narrows, the drifting bodies become wedged on the silty clay bank and their forms appear more clearly; men, women, teenagers and even

By Atika Shubert, CNN From his office window, Brigadier General Joshua Olson can see a daily football match organized by the Afghan children who are temporarily calling his air base home. “This is now my family — at least until they get off our airpatch,” Olson, the installation commander at Ramstein Air Base in Germany,

By Eyad Kourdi, Mostafa Salem and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN An oil spill that originated from Syria’s largest refinery is growing and spreading across the Mediterranean Sea, and could reach the island of Cyprus by Wednesday, Cypriot authorities have said. Syrian officials said last week that a tank filled with 15,000 tons of fuel had been

By Jeevan Ravindran and Barbara Wojazer, CNN Authorities in the French capital of Paris are forcing drivers to slow down, setting a speed limit on almost all the city’s roads, in a bid to reduce pollution and improve road safety. But will it work? There are questions over whether the rule — which limits drivers

By Nimi Princewill and Ahmad Ibrahim, CNN Scores of schoolchildren who were abducted at gunpoint at a school in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State have been freed and handed over to their families, a government spokesperson told CNN Friday. The students were released after their parents paid a ransom of $140,000 (70 million naira) and gave

By Nimi Princewill, CNN Emmanuel Agbenro sits helplessly inside his sparsely-decorated ward at a hospital in Nigeria. He is supposed to be having treatment for colon cancer but doctors in Nigeria have downed tools in a nationwide strike over better pay and conditions. “I’m only surviving by faith,” said Agbenro, who is supposed to be

By Jack Guy, CNN A man has been arrested on suspicion of contaminating food after processed meat and microwaveable products were injected with needles at three London stores. Metropolitan Police officers were called at around 7.40 p.m. local time (2.40 p.m. ET) Wednesday following reports of a man shouting abuse at people in the street,

By Inke Kappeler, CNN German police have opened an attempted murder investigation after seven people who had consumed food and drink at a university kitchen showed symptoms of poisoning on Monday. Blue discolorations appeared on their limbs following the incident at Darmstadt Technical University, German police and the public prosecutor in the federal state of

By Nimi Princewill, Bethlehem Feleke and Stephanie Busari, CNN Afghanistan’s only girls’ boarding school has evacuated dozens of students and staff to Rwanda, the president of the privately-run institution said Tuesday. The move came days after the Taliban ousted the government in Afghanistan, where girls and women were banned from being educated when the Islamist