France continues to study the possibility of sending its heavy Leclerc tanks to Ukraine, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Wednesday.. "Regarding the Leclerc tanks, we are continuing our analysis with the armed forces ministry," Borne told parliament when asked on Wednesday.
Germany's move to deliver battle tanks to Ukraine, expected to be followed by a similar announcement from the US, marks a politically weighty step that could also offer Kyiv increased ability to breach Russian invaders' lines.. Fears in some capitals -- especially Berlin -- that the front-line battle tanks could be seen as a new step in escalation appear to have been soothed, not least in light of taboos that have already fallen since the Russian invasion.
As rising waters fuel fears that Venice may one day be entirely submerged, local children are being educated on how to protect the lagoon, a fragile ecosystem threatened by climate change.. "We want the children to learn to observe nature and the lagoon, to learn to understand it, to love it and learn how better protect it," said programme coordinator Francesca Santoro.
The United Nations on Wednesday inscribed an ancient city and its dam in war-torn Yemen and a futurist park in cash-strapped Lebanon on its world heritage list.. The newly listed sites include the ancient city of Marib, two temples and the remains of the city's ancient dam, a feat of ancient hydrological engineering whose bursting is mentioned in the Koran.
Germany is set to narrowly escape a recession this year, the government said Wednesday, as Europe's biggest economy weathers the fallout from the Ukraine war better than expected.. The ministry acknowledged in its report that many "uncertainties" hung over the German economy, including the ongoing fallout from the war in Ukraine. mfp/sr/imm
Mauritania's ex-president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz went on trial on Wednesday, accused of amassing an illicit personal fortune from his 11-year stay in power.. He was succeeded by his former right-hand man, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, in the first transfer of power between elected leaders in the history of a country marked by military coups and upheaval.
Eight years after facing a refugee crisis in 2015, the European Union is still struggling with how to reform its asylum system -- just as migrant entries are once again rising.. The EU's outer countries facing irregular migrant inflows -- Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain -- back the proposed reform that would see asylum-seekers relocated across the bloc.
Spanish police arrested a suspect Wednesday in the letter bombing campaign that targeted the prime minister and the Ukrainian embassy, authorities said.. Kyiv ramped up security at its embassies abroad after the embassy in Madrid was targeted by a letter bomb.
Tanzanian opposition stalwart Tundu Lissu has been arrested countless times, pumped full of bullets in an assassination attempt and lived largely in exile for more than five years.. He had already been arrested six times that year, and then, in September, as he pulled up outside his house in Dodoma, gunmen sprayed his car with bullets.
Hundreds of dolphins are washing up on France's Atlantic coast and thousands more are believed killed in fishermen's nets each year, as environmentalists and Brussels pressure the government to protect the marine mammals.. The Pelagis ocean observatory has spotted a surge in dolphin deaths on the Atlantic coast, with 127 common dolphins washed up in January alone -- up from 73 in the same month last year.
