Europe

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The Bosnian Serbs’ separatist leader vowed to carry on weakening his war-scarred country to the point where it will tear apart, despite a pledge by the United States to prevent such an outcome.

“I am not irrational, I know that America’s response will be to use force … but I have no reason to be frightened by that into sacrificing (Serb) national interests,” Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s Serb-run part, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

LONDON (AP) — Eurostar services to and from London were canceled Saturday after a tunnel under the River Thames became flooded, disrupting festive travel plans.

Hundreds of travelers trying to get across the English Channel were stranded at London’s St. Pancras International station and the Gare du Nord station in Paris. Eurostar, which runs services from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, said it canceled at least 29 trains Saturday and is not expected to run any services for the rest of the day because of the flooding.

BAKU, December 28. /TASS/: Azerbaijan and Armenia are not far from concluding a peace agreement, and Baku deems it necessary to take results-oriented actions, Azerbaijani Special Presidential Representative Elchin Amirbayov said.

"What is important to understand is that, at this crucial stage in negotiations, where apparently we’re not that much far away from the final agreement, [is that] we do need a result-oriented exercise," Amirbayov said, as quoted by The Guardian.

MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/: Growing traffic jams at crossings on the Russian-Lithuanian border, caused by Vilnius’ obstruction, ultimately stem from the inability of Lithuania and the EU to comply with existing agreements on the transit of goods, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary.

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia has redirected its oil exports from Europe to China and India, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said, almost two years after Moscow was hit by Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.

After President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, Western countries hit Russia with a slew of sanctions including a European Union embargo on its seaborne oil deliveries.

“We previously supplied a total of 40 to 45 percent of oil and oil products to Europe,” said Novak, who is in charge of energy policy.

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era Antonov-24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia's far east on Thursday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said.

The Polar Airlines An-24 landed safely on the Kolyma river near Zyryanka in the Yakutia region, the prosecutors said.

"According to preliminary information, the cause of the aviation incident was an error by the crew in piloting the aircraft," a spokesperson for the Eastern Siberian transport prosecutor said in a statement.

ROME, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Italy has experienced a record-setting number of extreme weather events in 2023, a year that is set to be the warmest in more than 150 years, reports said on Thursday.

According to the climate observatory run by the environmental lobby group Legambiente, Italy reported 378 severe weather events in 2023, an increase of 22 percent compared to last year -- ranging from heatwaves to drought and from hailstorms to floods and extreme winds, which were directly responsible for at least 31 deaths.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the dead in one of the most devastating chapters of the 22-month war in Ukraine — the flooding that followed the catastrophic explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in the southern Kherson region.

MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russia and India have made tangible progress in talks on plans to jointly produce military equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow.

Speaking at a news conference, Lavrov said such cooperation was of a strategic nature and was in both countries' interests and would help ensure security on the Eurasian continent.

MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a decision to bar a former TV journalist who opposes the war in Ukraine from taking part in a presidential election in March, Yekaterina Duntsova, the would-be candidate, said on Wednesday.

Members of the central electoral commission voted unanimously to reject the candidacy of Duntsova, citing "numerous violations" in the papers she had submitted in support of her bid.

Duntsova, in a post on her Telegram channel, confirmed that her appeal against the decision had been rejected by the Supreme Court.