Europe

BRUSSELS, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A Belgian judge charged four people on Sunday over allegedly receiving money and gifts from a Gulf state to influence decisions in the European Parliament, accusations that have caused consternation in Brussels.

Prosecutors searched 16 houses and seized 600,000 euros ($631,800) in Brussels on Friday as part of an investigation into money laundering and corruption.

Six people were initially detained. Four have been charged and two released, prosecutors said in a statement. They did not name any of those involved.

KYIV, Dec 10 (Reuters) - All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday.

"The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity... It doesn't take hours, but a few days, unfortunately."

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Some Russian officers fighting in Ukraine are unhappy with the military top brass and President Vladimir Putin because of the poor execution of the war, an influential nationalist Russian blogger said after visiting the conflict zone.

Nearly 10 months since Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, there is no end in sight to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Russia launched what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine because its concerns around peace accords between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists were ignored, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin spokesman as saying on Sunday.

President Vladimir Putin this week bemoaned the failure to implement the Minsk agreements - ceasefire and constitutional reform deals between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine brokered in 2014 and 2015 by Russia, France and Germany, at the outset of the conflict with Ukraine.

LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Jersey emergency services said on Sunday its search and rescue operation after an explosion at an apartment building on the island was now a recovery mission, a possible indication that there were unlikely to be more survivors from the blast.

Three people have been confirmed killed and police say around a dozen others remain missing after an explosion early on Saturday morning at a block of flats on the island of Jersey, off the coast of northern France.

LONDON (AP) — Rescuers searching the scene of an explosion at an apartment building on the English Channel island of Jersey said Sunday they expected to recover more bodies after three people were confirmed dead. Around a dozen people are still missing.

Robin Smith, chief of Jersey Police, said specialist teams were continuing a painstaking search of the area in St. Helier, the island’s capital, and warned it was likely to be weeks before investigations are completed.

ROME (AP) — A man opened fire Sunday during a condominium board meeting in a coffee shop in northern Rome, killing three people and injuring others, authorities and witnesses said.

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri called an emergency security meeting for Monday after what he called “the grave episode of violence that has struck our city.” In a tweet, he confirmed three people were killed in the shooting in the working class neighborhood of Fidene.

“The shooting occured in an enclosed outdoor seating area of the bar, called “Il Posto Giusto,” or “The Right Place.”

LONDON (AP) — U.S. and Scottish authorities said Sunday that the Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is in U.S. custody.

Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said in a statement that “the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi is in U.S. custody.”

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — A hand grenade jerry-rigged into the detergent tray of a Kherson home’s washing machine. A street sign maliciously directing passers-by toward a deadly minefield. A police station that allegedly housed a torture chamber but remains so booby-trapped that demining crews can’t even start to hunt for evidence.

Sunday marks exactly one month since Russia’s troops withdrew from Kherson and its vicinity after an eight-month occupation, sparking jubilation across Ukraine. But life in the southern city is still very far from normal.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Over the grinding wail of a chainsaw pruning trees, Oleh Braharnyk recalls how his crew sprang into action in Kyiv a week earlier to repair power lines downed by Russian missiles and keep electricity flowing to his beleaguered fellow Ukrainians.

Braharnyk, an electric company foreman, knows the stakes: Like many others in Ukraine, his family has dealt with daily power outages caused by Russian strikes.

“We, too, sit in the dark,” he says, acknowledging that his home gets power for only about half of each day.