Europe

KYIV, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament and its speaker taunted billionaire Elon Musk on Monday after he posted a meme on his social media platform mocking President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's pleas for wartime assistance from the West.

Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communication services that are vital for Ukraine's defence effort, but his statements have sometimes angered Kyiv since the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in February last year.

BERLIN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Serbia's troop deployment on Kosovo's border recalls Russia's behaviour towards Ukraine before its invasion, the Kosovar foreign minister said, urging the European Union to take action against Belgrade such as freezing its candidacy status.

The warning comes after the United States said on Friday it was monitoring a troubling Serbian military build-up along the Kosovo frontier that is destabilising the area, and NATO said it was authorizing additional peacekeeping forces for Kosovo.

WARSAW, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people held an opposition rally in Warsaw on Sunday, two weeks ahead of an election that the liberal Civic Platform (PO) says may decide Poland's future in the European Union and its democratic standing.

Opinion polls suggest the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government could win the vote but may struggle to form a majority amid discontent among some over rising living costs and concern over an erosion of democratic checks and balances.

KYIV, Oct 2 (Reuters) - EU foreign ministers held their first ever meeting outside the bloc in Ukraine on Monday, a show of support for the country after a pro-Russian candidate won an election in Slovakia and the U.S. Congress omitted funding for Kyiv from a spending bill.

"We are convening a historic meeting of EU Foreign Ministers here in Ukraine, candidate country and future member of the EU," Borrell said on X. "We are here to express our solidarity and support to the Ukrainian people."

MADRID (AP) — Five people who were missing and feared dead in a nightclub fire in the city of Murcia have been located, a Spanish official said Monday. The death toll in the country’s worst nightclub fire in 33 years stands at 13, with 24 people injured.

Francisco Jiménez, the national government representative in the southeastern region of Murcia, told Spanish National Television that no further bodies had been found and that there was no longer anyone missing.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A few years ago, Pope Francis told the head of the main Vatican-backed Catholic women’s organization to be “brave” in pushing for change for women in the Catholic Church.

Maria Lia Zervino took his advice and in 2021 wrote Francis a letter, then made it public, saying flat out that the Catholic Church owed a big debt to half of humanity and that women deserved to be at the table where church decisions are made, not as mere “ornaments” but as protagonists.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania.

30 September 2023; MEMO: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced on Thursday that it will start hearings on the case of the Syrian regime’s crimes against Syrians.

01 October 2023; MEMO: The General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has adopted a resolution to consider Palestine as a state, news agencies reported on Friday.

According to Al Sharq Al Awsat newspaper, this came as the IAEA’s members voted on a draft-resolution to officially adopt the designation of “State of Palestine.”

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Ukraine's air force shot down 30 out of 40 Iranian-made "Shahed" drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack on central and southern regions, regional and military officials said on Saturday.

The South Military command said that 20 drones were shot down in the central Vinnytsia region and another 10 over the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.