Europe

KATOWICE, Poland (AP) — Germany is reluctant to host the 2019 U.N. climate talks after Brazil’s incoming right-wing government canceled its offer.

Deputy environment minister Jochen Flasbarth told reporters on the sidelines of this year’s meeting in Poland that Berlin has signaled to the United Nations it’s “not available for an event on the scale of last year.” He cited the increased costs of organizing the meeting at short notice.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Top European Union officials on Tuesday ruled out any renegotiation of the divorce agreement with Britain, as Prime Minister Theresa May fought to save her Brexit deal by lobbying leaders in Europe’s capitals.

May began her quest over breakfast with Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte, a day after she abandoned a vote in the U.K. Parliament to secure support for the agreement thrashed out with the EU over more than a year. She acknowledged that the deal would be rejected in London “by a significant margin.”

RIMBO, Sweden (AP) — Yemen’s warring government and the Houthi rebels say they have set Jan. 20 as a final date to exchange more than 15,000 prisoners from both sides.

The two sides said Tuesday in press conferences in Sweden that they have exchanged prisoner lists, allowing four weeks for review, ahead of a final swap to be facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The two sides met for a sixth day on Tuesday at a castle outside Stockholm.

Berlin, Dec 11 (AFP) Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May embarked on a tour of European capitals on Tuesday in a desperate bid to salvage her Brexit deal, a day after delaying a parliamentary vote on the text to avoid a crushing defeat.

May had breakfast with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague before heading to Berlin for lunch with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and was then to travel on to Brussels.

German rail workers went on a nationwide four-hour strike on Monday to protest for higher wage increases. Two of Germany's biggest rail unions plan to return to negotiations with Deutsche Bahn (DB) on Tuesday.

Long-distance rail travel came to a halt across Germany on Monday morning, with regional trains also heavily affected, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and the southwestern cities of Karlsruhe and Mannheim. There were also cancellations in Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, Hamburg and Lower Saxony.

10 Dec 2018; DW: The French president made a televised statement announcing a rise in the minimum wage and some tax concessions for pensioners and others on low wages. He is seeking to ease tensions after street protests.

French President Emmanuel Macron proposed an increase in the minimum wage of €100 ($113) in a televised speech to the nation on Monday. He said he would speed up tax cuts and raise wages at a "historic time" for France.

10 Dec 2018; AFP: President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on the "yellow vest" crisis Monday and meet trade unionists and business leaders in search of a way to end the protests that have rocked France.

The president will speak to the French people at 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), his Elysee office announced -- his first public comments after four weeks of nationwide anti-government demonstrations which again turned violent Saturday in Paris and other cities.

10 Dec 2018; AFP: A Russian court on Monday found a former policeman guilty of 56 murders, while he is already serving a life sentence for killing 22 women, making him one of Russia's most prolific serial killers.

The court in the Siberian city of Irkutsk found Mikhail Popkov "guilty of killing 56 people between 1992 and 2007," Irkutsk regional prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Popkov "has a pathological attraction to killing people." He was also found guilty of raping 10 of the victims.

10 Dec 2018; AFP: Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has won a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections, results showed Monday, cementing his authority months after sweeping to power in a peaceful revolution.

Pashinyan, a 43-year-old former journalist, has pledged to root out endemic corruption and address widespread poverty in the impoverished, landlocked ex-Soviet republic of three million people.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union official Donald Tusk says the bloc won’t renegotiate the Brexit deal with the U.K. government as he called a summit Thursday to examine ways to help Britain ratify the deal.

Tusk, the president of the European Council, tweeted that “we will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop, but we are ready to discuss how to facilitate U.K. ratification.”

He said that “as time is running out, we will also discuss our preparedness for a no-deal scenario.”