Europe

MOSCOW, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza during a telephone conversation on Sunday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"The discussion focused on the critical situation in the Palestine-Israel conflict zone, in particular, the disastrous humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip," the Kremlin said.

GENEVA, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board adopted a resolution on Sunday, urging for prompt and unobstructed humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip.

At the request of 17 member states, the Executive Board convened a special session at the WHO headquarters in Geneva to discuss the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of loud explosions rang out in Ukraine’s capital early Monday followed by air raid sirens.

There was no immediate word on the origin of the explosions, but they sounded like air defense units firing into the sky.

Kyiv is routinely targeted by Russian drone and missile attacks.

Just over two weeks ago, Kyiv came under what Ukrainian officials said was the most intense drone attack since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

PARIS, Dec 9 (AA/APP): The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Friday that far-right politician Marine Le Pen will stand trial for alleged embezzlement of EU funds to fund her National Rally party’s activities.

The former presidential candidate will be in a court in March along with 26 other National Rally (RN) party members over the embezzling allegations.

They are accused of using EU parliamentary funds to pay for assistants who worked for the National Rally party, formerly called the National Front.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Kiev is in talks on getting various Western-made warplanes, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Attempts to artificially impose the "Korean model" of peace settlement in Ukraine are pointless, and other solutions are necessary, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview for AFP.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s claims that Russia stopped gas supplies to Europe a lie.

"The German lies blatantly! They rejected [the gas supplies] themselves, they embarrassed themselves before their own people because of their hatred for Russia, and now they wriggle and lie," Medvedev said on his X page.

KYIV, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Ukraine on Saturday strongly condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them "null and void" and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them.

Russia's upper house set the country's presidential election this week for next March, and chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time.

ROME (AP) — A fire broke out in a hospital on Rome’s outskirts, killing at least three people and forcing the overnight evacuation of the smoke-filled facility and its nearly 200 patients, officials said Saturday.

The blaze began in the ground floor emergency room of the St. John the Evangelist hospital in Tivoli at around 11 p.m. Friday, which was a holiday in Italy. The flames spread to a few other wards, “but the smoke went everywhere,” said chief prosecutor Francesco Menditto.

(AP) --- Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.

Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia — including one on the Kremlin itself — and corroded its aura of invincibility.