Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad in Moscow on Wednesday, the Kremlin said, as relations between Middle East states undergo a realignment.. Syria's war led to strained relations between Damascus and Ankara, which has long supported rebel groups opposed to Assad.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived late Tuesday in Ethiopia on a bid to support the peace process after a brutal two-year civil war, and renew ties with a longtime ally. . Blinken is expected to meet Wednesday in Addis Ababa with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed -- a Nobel Peace Prize winner once seen as at the vanguard of a new generation of forward-looking African leaders, but who quickly turned into a near pariah for Washington over the war.
Orthodox monks from Kyiv's 11th-century Pechersk Lavra monastery are fighting eviction by the Ukrainian government because of their church's links with Russia.. - Security service raids - The Pechersk monastery and other Church premises were raided last year by security services over suspected links to Russian agents.
Rail traffic will resume "gradually" in Greece from March 22 as the country reels from its deadliest train crash, the transport minister said on Tuesday.. Rail traffic, halted after the incident at Tempe, 350 kilometres (220 miles) from Athens, "will gradually resume from March 22," Transport Minister George Gerapetritis said.
A Russian fighter jet on Tuesday dumped fuel on an American drone over the Black Sea then collided with it, causing the drone to crash, the US military said.. "In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.
Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high with garbage.. Tourists flock to Paris for fairy-tale walks and iconic monuments, but piles of uncollected trash because of strikes against a pension reform are spoiling the experience for many foreign visitors.
A small concrete box marked with the word SHIZO (punishment cell in Russian) in giant red letters sits incongruously next to a 13th-century church just behind the Louvre museum in Paris.. The grey box is a mock-up of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's punishment prison cell that his team unveiled in the French capital on Tuesday.
Riyadh Air and Saudia will purchase 78 Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes under agreements announced Tuesday in a giant order that underlines Saudi Arabia's goal to remake itself as a global aviation hub. . - Vision for Riyadh - Under the particulars, Riyadh Air agreed to purchase 39 Dreamliners, with options for 33 more jets, while Saudia will buy 39 Dreamliners with options for 10 more.
Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the "Mona Lisa" and a symbol of the Renaissance, was only half-Italian, his mother a slave from the Caucasus, new research revealed on Tuesday.. In the Italian city, she met a young notary, Piero (Peter) da Vinci, "and their son was called Leonardo".
Demolition crews have begun knocking down a second home used by notorious Belgian child-killer Marc Dutroux in a bid to erase the stain of his crimes, local officials said Tuesday.. Dutroux, now 66, had been arrested a few days before the discovery and in 2004 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and raping six young girls and killing four of them. mad/dc/del/ea
