Europe

BERLIN, May 17. /TASS/: Germany doesn’t have the planes and other capabilities required to be part of a coalition for the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Wednesday.

"We can’t play an active role in this alliance, this coalition because we don’t have training capabilities, expertise or planes," he said at a joint news conference with his UK counterpart Ben Wallace in Berlin.

MOSCOW, May 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday oversaw, via video-link, the signing of a deal to finance and build an Iranian railway line as part of an embryonic international North–South Transport Corridor.

The Rasht-Astara railway is seen as an important link in the corridor, intended to connect India, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan and other countries via railways and sea - a route that Russia says can rival the Suez Canal as a major global trade route.

ROME, May 17 (Reuters) - At least eight people died and thousands were evacuated from their homes as torrential rain battered Italy's northern Emilia-Romagna region, triggering widespread floods, officials said on Wednesday.

Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said some areas had received half their average annual rainfall in just 36 hours, causing rivers to burst their banks, sending water cascading through towns and submerging thousands of acres of farmland.

KYIV, May 17 (Reuters) - Ukraine denied on Wednesday that a Russian hypersonic missile had destroyed a U.S.-made Patriot missile defence system during an air strike on Kyiv.

Russia's defence ministry made the assertion on Tuesday after an overnight air attack on the Ukrainian capital. Two U.S. officials later said a Patriot system had probably suffered damage but that it did not appear to have been destroyed.

"I want to say: do not worry about the fate of the Patriot," Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television.

MOSCOW, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has formally denounced the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), according to a statement published on its website Tuesday.

"Deputies of the State Duma, guided by the interests of our citizens, decided to denounce the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to ensure the security of the Russian Federation," said Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.

GENEVA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for caution when deploying large language model tools (LLMs) generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

In a statement released Tuesday, WHO said it was imperative for the risks of LLMs to be carefully examined.

LLMs are used to improve access to health information, as decision-support tools, and to enhance diagnostic capacity in under-resourced settings.

WHO has warned that the caution normally exercised for new technologies is not being consistently applied to LLMs.

BERLIN (AP) — A top official at the German economy and climate ministry resigned Wednesday following accusations that he was involved in choosing his best man to head the federally owned German Energy Agency and signed off on financial support for a project in which his sister was involved

Patrick Graichen was one of Economy Minister Robert Habeck’s closest aides and had been in charge of developing and implementing the government’s energy policies with the goal of achieving net zero emissions in Germany in 2045.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Dozens of Serbian schools on Wednesday received bomb threats, the education ministry said, amid security concerns following two mass shootings early this month, including one in an elementary school.

The education ministry said 78 elementary schools and 37 high schools in Belgrade received warnings by email early on Wednesday that explosive devices had allegedly been planted.

Classes were postponed and students evacuated as police checked the buildings.

ROME (AP) — Officials in northern Italy warned residents to get to higher ground Wednesday amid fears that rain-swollen rivers would again burst their banks, after flooding killed at least three people, forced the evacuation of some 5,000 and suspended some train services.

Days of heavy rain stretched across a broad swath of northern Italy and the Balkans, where “apocalyptic” floods, landslides and evacuations were also reported in Croatia and Bosnia.

17 May 2023; MEMO: The French government is to pay reparations to thousands more Algerians and their families who were held in internment camps in France after the North African country's war of independence, AFP reports.

According to the report, the French government agreed to increase the number of Algerians and their relatives eligible to claim compensation for being forced to live in deplorable and squalid living conditions several decades ago.