Europe

04 Apr 2023; MEMO: Former President of Kosovo Hashim Thaci pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to atrocities carried out against Serbian forces during the 1998-1999 Kosovo War of Independence. Thaci, 54, is being tried in a special court in The Hague along with three other defendants.

PRAGUE, April 4 (Reuters) - Eugene Nayshtetik and his five co-workers shuttered their company developing medical and biotech startups to join the defense forces days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Within two months, their commanders agreed it would be more useful if they swapped their military gear for computers.

With the government's blessing, Nayshtetik and his team of engineers moved to neighboring Poland where they raised initial funding from a Polish company, Air Res Aviation, to develop a new drone for the Ukrainian military.

HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s parliamentary website was paralyzed by a denial-of-service attack on Tuesday, just before the country made its historic entry into NATO, a move that more than doubles NATO’s border with Russia and has angered Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The attacks — in which participants flood targets with junk data — made the parliament’s site hard to use, with many pages not loading and some functions not available for a time.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Nordic country’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Finland had adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II, but its leaders signaled they wanted to join NATO just months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine sent a shiver of fear through its neighbors.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday lashed out at China for its support of Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine, and called it “a blatant violation” of Beijing’s United Nations commitments.

“There cannot be siding with the aggressor,” Josep Borrell said ahead of a trip to Beijing by the bloc’s top executive, Ursula von der Leyen. “There is a clear expectation from a permanent member of the (U.N.) Security Council to stand up in defense of international rules-based order and China as a moral duty to contribute to a fair peace.”

VOORSCHOTEN, Netherlands (AP) — A passenger train slammed into a construction crane and derailed near The Hague in the early hours of Tuesday, sending two carriages into a field next to the tracks. One person died and 19 were hospitalized, Dutch emergency services said.

Police opened an investigation to establish if any crime was committed. Another independent probe was opened into the cause of the crash.

03 Apr 2023; MEMO: Germany and Jordan, on Monday, called for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, urging all parties to take steps to de-escalate the situation in the region, Anadolu News Agency reports.

German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and her Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, expressed their concern over recent developments in the region, following their meeting in Berlin.

MINSK, April 3. /TASS/: The defendants in the case of a terrorist attack against a Russian A-50 long-range airborne warning and control (AWACS) aircraft near Minsk may face capital punishment, Konstantin Bychek, deputy chief of the Belarusian State Security Committee’s (KGB) Investigative Directorate, said on Monday.

VIENNA, April 3./TASS/: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that its Director General Rafael Grossi will visit the Russian city of Kaliningrad on Wednesday, April 5, to discuss issues related to the safety of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), IAEA Spokesperson Fredrik Dahl told TASS on Monday.

Rafael Grossi will visit Kaliningrad on Wednesday as part of ongoing consultations aimed at ensuring the protection of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant during the military conflict, Dahl said.

MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/: Kiev's involvement in the terrorist attack in a cafe in St. Petersburg, where war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in an explosion, will be yet another testament to Ukraine's terrorist ways, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary circulated on Monday.

"Russian investigative agencies are investigating this crime. We are confident that those behind it will be punished. The involvement of the Kiev regime in this bloody action will be another confirmation of its use of terrorist methods," the diplomat said.