Europe

BUDAPEST, March 29 (Reuters) - Hungary is holding up Sweden's admission to NATO because of grievances over criticism by Stockholm of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's policies, the Hungarian government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Bridging the gap will require effort on both sides, spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.

Sweden and its neighbour Finland asked to join the NATO military alliance last year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the process has been held up by Hungary and Turkey.

OSLO, March 29 (Reuters) - Sweden's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it will summon Russia's Stockholm ambassador to complain about an "attempt at interference" with the Swedish NATO application process.

Sweden and Finland in 2022 both sought NATO membership shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and are hoping to complete the process this year.

The Russian ambassador in a statement on the embassy's web site said joining NATO made the Nordic countries "a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures, including those of a military nature".

KYIV, March 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, deep behind the front line, on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

Unverified images on the internet showed explosions lighting up the night sky with streaks of contrails in Melitopol, base of the occupation administration in Zaporizhzhia, one of five Ukrainian provinces Russia claims to have annexed.

BUCHAREST, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Romania and Poland have agreed to establish a joint technical committee on the defense industry, to develop the production of military hardware, Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca announced here on Tuesday.

"I discussed with the prime minister the need to develop our own defense industry capabilities, which would ensure the production of equipment, the production of hardware and in particular the production of ammunition," Ciuca told a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki after an intergovernmental meeting.

PARIS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Some 740,000 people took to the streets in France on Tuesday in renewed protests against the government's pension reform bill, the French interior ministry said.

However, France's largest union, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), estimates the number of protesters was much higher than the official figure. According to the CGT, more than 2 million people nationwide took part in Tuesday's demonstrations.

Most of the protests were peaceful, although participants wearing black balaclavas looted a supermarket in Paris.

BELFAST, Britain, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Officials and experts from China and Northern Ireland on Tuesday expressed their desire to boost cooperation on new energy innovation, amid such challenges as climate change and biodiversity loss.

Green and low-carbon transformation is guiding countries as they upgrade their economic structures, Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom (UK) Zheng Zeguang said at the China-UK/Northern Ireland Forum on New Energy Innovation.

LONDON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Two-thirds of workers in the United Kingdom (UK) suffering long COVID symptoms claimed they were treated unfairly at their workplace, and one in seven had lost their job, said a report released on Monday.

The report, released by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the charity Long COVID Support, shows the results of the responses of a total of 3,097 long COVID sufferers who shared their experiences of work.

PARIS (AP) — Sanitation workers in Paris are set to return to work Wednesday amid heaps of trash that piled up over their weekslong strike as protests against French President Emmanuel Marcon’s controversial pension bill appeared to be winding down.

Trash mounds of up to 10,000 tons along the French capital’s streets — reportedly equal to the weight of the Eiffel Tower — have become a striking visual symbol of opposition to Marcon’s bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

MADRID (AP) — Renewable energy investors who lost subsidies promised by Spain are heading to a London court to try to claw back $125 million from the government — a decadelong dispute with ramifications for clean energy financing across the European Union.

The outcome will be closely watched by investors after the U.S. passed a new law offering incentives for homegrown green technology. Experts say the Inflation Reduction Act is already drawing clean energy investment away from EU countries like Spain, leaving the 27-nation bloc much less competitive globally.

ON A TRAIN FROM SUMY TO KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday that unless his nation wins a drawn-out battle in a key eastern city, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that could require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises. He also invited the leader of China, long aligned with Russia, to visit.

If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, their president, Vladimir Putin, would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.