Europe

GENEVA (AP) — A court in northern Switzerland on Thursday acquitted a former security Belarusian operative over the enforced disappearances of three of President Aleksander Lukashenko’s political opponents in the late 1990s, said an advocacy group that spearheaded the case.

Judges in the northern town of Rorschach said they were not convinced that the defendant, Yuri Harauski, a former member of a Belarusian military unit known as SOBR, was involved in the disappearances.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh said Thursday it will dissolve itself and the unrecognized republic will cease to exist by year’s end after a three-decade bid for independence, while Armenian officials said over half of the region’s population has already fled.

The moves came after Azerbaijan carried out a lightning offensive last week to reclaim full control over the breakaway region and demanded that Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh disarm and the separatist government disband.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the status of the war and needs of troops on Thursday, the day after Russia accused Ukraine’s Western allies of helping plan and conduct last week’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three people were killed overnight in separate incidents in Sweden as a feud between criminal gangs escalated, making September the deadliest month on record for gun violence in the country.

Two gangs are reportedly fighting over drugs and weapons, and this month has seen a sharp increase in fatal shootings in the northern European country, which has a relatively low crime rate and is considered a very safe place to live.

LONDON (AP) — A 16-year-old boy was arrested Thursday in northern England in connection with what authorities described as the “deliberate” felling of a famous tree that had stood for nearly 200 years next to the Roman landmark Hadrian’s Wall.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — People have been killed in two shootings Thursday at a university hospital and a nearby home in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, police said, but they did not immediately announce the number of victims.

Rotterdam police said on X, formerly Twitter, that they were informing next of kin before releasing any more details. A suspect had been arrested after the shootings at the Erasmus Medical Center and the nearby apartment.

Fire also broke out at both locations, local authorities said.

26 September 2023; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Tuesday that the US is “creating a Kurdish quasi-state” in Syria, Anadolu Agency reports.

He spoke at a news conference in Moscow and said he briefed his Tunisian counterpart, Nabil Ammar, at a meeting Tuesday about the work that Russia, Turkiye and Iran are carrying out within the framework of the Astana format to promote Syrian settlement.

27 September 2023; MEMO: British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has urged Germany to approve the delivery of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, in an apparent bid to save the United Kingdom’s economy from further detriment.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russia is expecting that its signals regarding relations with Armenia will find a receptive ear among the South Caucasus country's leadership in Yerevan, and that all bilateral agreements between Moscow and Yerevan will be put into practice, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has noted high production rates demonstrated by the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV). At the same time, he hopes that the production pace will increase further in certain areas, the Defense Ministry has said.

Shoigu noted that KTRV was developing modern aviation weapons, including high accuracy ones.