CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

By Heather Chen, Jack Bantock, Hafsa Khalil, Aditi Sangal and Adrienne Vogt, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Richard Roth and Jonny Hallam, CNN The “alarming” situation at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine had reached a “grave hour,” the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Thursday, as he called for an immediate inspection of the facility by international experts. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael

By Benjamin Brown, CNN A roller coaster crash at a Legoland theme park in southern Germany injured 31 people on Thursday, according to local authorities. One person suffered severe but not life-threatening injuries and 15 people were taken to hospital with light injuries after the incident in the Bavarian town of Günzburg, a police spokesperson

By Jorge Engels and Jennifer Hansler, CNN US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said he had raised “serious concerns” related to human rights as well as issues about regional tensions with the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo during a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the capital Kigali. Speaking at a press

By Nimi Princewill, Stephanie Busari CNN and Reuters Eight police officers were killed during violent anti-government protests in Sierra Leone on Wednesday, the country’s youth minister told CNN Thursday, while hospital sources told Reuters that at least 21 civilians were killed in different locations in the country. The officers, six men and two women, were

By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN An armed man held employees and customers hostage at a bank on Beirut‘s bustling Hamra street Thursday demanding his frozen funds be released, according to a security source and Lebanon‘s state-owned National News Agency. After an hours-long standoff, the man surrendered to security forces after receiving a portion of his bank

By Heather Chen, Jack Guy, Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Maureen Chowdhury and Elise Hammond, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Brad Lendon and Paul P. Murphy, CNN At least seven Russian warplanes were destroyed after explosions rocked annexed Crimea on Tuesday, new satellite images show, in what CNN research found could be Moscow’s biggest loss of military aircraft in a single day since World War II. The destroyed warplanes appear to be Su-24 bombers

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN Children living in London will be offered an extra dose of the polio vaccine following the discovery of poliovirus in sewage in the British capital, health authorities announced Wednesday. The UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said a targeted inactivated polio vaccine booster dose should be offered to all children

By Pierre Bairin, Amandine Hess and Radina Gigova, CNN A beluga whale that was rescued after being stuck in France’s Seine River for more than a week died while in transit to the sea, officials have confirmed. The cetacean had been stuck in the freshwater lock at St.-Pierre-La-Garenne, some 45 miles northwest of Paris, since

By Jessie Yeung, Jack Guy, Adrienne Vogt and Aditi Sangal, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Nick Paton Walsh, Daria Markina, Sebastian Shukla, Oleksandra Ochman and Darya Tarasova, CNN Promises of freedom and riches are made to convicts in cramped jail cells. Frantic phone calls ensue between relatives and inmates weighing the offer. Then prisoners vanish, leaving their loved ones to sift through reports of the wounded arriving in hospitals.

By Abeer Salman, Amir Tal and Kareem El Damanhoury Three Palestinian men were killed during an Israeli military operation against suspected militants in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning, according to information from the Palestinian health ministry. Among the dead is Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, the apparent target of the Israeli raid. The other men killed

By Kathleen Magramo, Heather Chen, Jack Guy, Hafsa Khalil, Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt and Meg Wagner, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Nimi Princewill, Stephanie Busari and Bethlehem Feleke, CNN Polling has officially closed in Kenya’s crucial general elections as outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta prepares to hand over power to a new leader. About 22 million Kenyans registered to vote, the country’s electoral body (IEBC) said, and polls opened from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. local

By Jo Shelley, Jason Carroll, Charbel Mallo and Daria Markina, CNN Fourteen-year-old Serhii Sorokopud is still haunted by what happened when Russian tanks rolled into his village five months ago. He lifts his T-shirt to show the deep scars across his back — a reminder of a trauma both hidden and visible. Russian troops set

CNN’s Adam Pourahmadi, Jennifer Hansler, Ramin Mostaghim A “final text” to revive the Iran nuclear deal is ready to be signed in Vienna, according to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. However, the text must still be approved by Iran and the US, he said on Monday. “What can be negotiated has been

By Elinda Labropoulou and Chris Liakos, CNN Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis faces fresh scrutiny after revelations by the leader of opposition party PASOK that his phone was tapped by Greece’s intelligence service while he was a member of the European Parliament in September 2021. In an attempt to limit the political damage caused by

By Radina Gigova, CNN Amnesty International said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused by a report the group published on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics, but added that it “fully” stands by the findings, which concluded those tactics violated international humanitarian law. The human rights watchdog published a press release last week accusing

By Tim Lister, Yulia Kesaieva and Tara John, CNN United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described recent artillery and rocket fire around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in central Ukraine as “suicidal,” further adding to fears of an accident at the plant, which is the largest of its kind in Europe. “Any attack on nuclear power plants

By Rhea Mogul, Heather Chen, Amy Woodyatt and Aditi Sangal, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN Luiza Baloh left her home in Dnipro, central Ukraine, in March. Fleeing the constant sound of explosions, she and her five children came to the Czech Republic hoping to find refuge. Instead, they found themselves behind a barbed wire fence in a repurposed immigration detention center that was, she says, dirty

By Larry Madowo and Bethlehem Feleke, CNN Just before sunset, Umra Omar boards a speedboat that will take her around the historic Lamu channel for meetings with voters. As her boat zooms past idyllic islands and arrives at shore 30 minutes later, dozens of women and children rush to greet a candidate they hope will

Uliana Pavlova and Jonny Hallam, CNN A leading Russian scientist in hypersonic flight was arrested on suspicion of treason on Friday, according to Russian state media. Dr Alexander Shiplyuk, director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch, is the third Russian scientist this summer to be

By Toyin Owoseje, CNN A French scientist has apologized after tweeting a photo of a slice of chorizo, claiming it was an image of a distant star taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Étienne Klein, a celebrated physicist and director at France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, shared the image of the spicy

By Nima Elbagir, CNN Yemen’s warring parties have renewed a two-month-long truce, first signed in April this year. It was one of the first concrete steps taken towards peace in years and a genuine moment for celebration. But for thousands of families, time is running out. While many in the international community celebrate, some families

By Andrew Carey, CNN The Israeli military campaign against Islamic Jihad went into its second day Saturday evening with continued airstrikes on what it said were militant targets in Gaza. Twenty-nine people have been killed in the escalation, among them several children, including a five-year-old girl, Alaa Qadoum, who was among those killed in the

By Tara John and Angela Dewan, CNN As the Razoni left the Ukrainian port of Odesa on Monday with the first shipment of grain since the early days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, there were sighs of relief from Somalia to Turkey, Indonesia and China, given how reliant these countries have been on Ukrainian grain

By Jessie Yeung, Megan Trimble, Tara John and Adrienne Vogt, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Rob Picheta, Josh Pennington and Vasco Cotovio, CNN The US and Russia have indicated they are ready to hold talks over a prisoner swap, a day after basketball star Brittney Griner was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to nine years in prison for carrying less than a gram of cannabis oil through a

By Mostafa Salem, Ehsan Popalzai, Paul P. Murphy and Ivana Kottasová, CNN The Taliban have claimed they were not aware that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was residing in the Afghan capital of Kabul where the US said he was killed in a drone strike over the weekend. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has no

By Nadine Schmidt, CNN A large fire broke out on Thursday morning in one of Berlin’s biggest city forests — the Grunewald — following several explosions at a police-run munitions disposal site inside the forest. The blaze spread across 15,000 square meters (3.7 acres), according to Berlin’s fire brigade. Big explosions could be heard from

By Ben Wedeman, CNN As he walked up the steps to greet former President Donald Trump at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban seemed to be modeling himself on his host. He wore a similar dark suit, white shirt and plain tie, albeit orange rather than Trump’s trademark red.

By Tara John, CNN An ordinary red-brick library in the southern English town of Reading is an unlikely backdrop for the latest front in the battle for equality for the LGBTQ+ community. But last week — in scenes later repeated across the country– Covid-19 conspiracists and far-right supporters lobbed homophobic and transphobic slurs at parents

By Rob Picheta, Vasco Cotovio and Olga Voitovych, CNN Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has opened the door to legalizing same-sex civil partnerships in the country, in response to a petition that called for equal marriage to be introduced in the war-ravaged nation. In a written reply online, Zelensky explained that it would be impossible to

By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN Clocks stopped when one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history ripped through Beirut. Inside wrecked homes and shops, the force of the shockwaves froze the dials of timepieces, some vintage, others sleek and modern. It was 6:07 pm. Thousands of lives were upended and the Lebanese capital — no stranger

By Kathleen Magramo, Sana Noor Haq, Ed Upright, Adrienne Vogt and Mike Hayes, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Paul P. Murphy, CNN CNN has identified the house in Kabul, Afghanistan — a so-called “poppy palace” surrounded by the homes of druglords and warmongers — that was hit by a Hellfire missile drone strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the early hours of Sunday morning. The identification was made by

By Andrew Carey and Amir Tal, CNN Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid made a rare allusion to the country’s widely suspected nuclear arsenal during a speech on Monday. Speaking at an event to mark a change of leadership at the country’s Atomic Energy Commission, Lapid referred to Israel’s defensive and offensive capabilities, as well as

By Jessie Yeung, Sana Noor Haq and Adrienne Vogt, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Anna Chernova and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN The examination of the substance contained in vape cartridges that WNBA star Brittney Griner’s carried at a Moscow airport in February did not comply with Russian law, a defense expert testified Tuesday in her high-stakes drug-smuggling trial. Among the violations is that results of the examination do not

By Sam Kiley, CNN A maelstrom of howling brown dust engulfs travelers through Isiolo. A few weeks earlier, 11 people were reported to have been killed around the north Kenyan town in the space of 10 days. The pestilence of Covid is still in the dust-choked air, the ground is baked by drought. The murder

CNN Editorial Research Here’s some background information about the Berlin Wall, which enclosed West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, in an attempt to prevent East Germans from fleeing to the West. It became a symbol of East/West relations during the Cold War. The Wall The Berlin Wall began as a border of barbed wire fencing

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN Iraq is in the midst of its worst and longest political crisis in years. At the center of this overheating conflict stands Iraqi political kingmaker Moqtada al-Sadr and a rival bloc of parties with strong ties to neighboring Iran. In a show of strength, supporters of Shiite cleric Sadr last week

By Katie Hunt, CNN A previously unknown species of giant panda that roamed Europe’s wetlands 6 million years ago has been identified after the discovery of two teeth stored in a Bulgarian museum. The fossilized upper molar and canine were originally found in the late 1970s in coal deposits and held in the collection of

By Darya Tarasova and Larry Register, CNN Former high-level Russian official Anatoly Chubais is in a European hospital suffering from symptoms of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological condition, according to prominent Russian journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak. Sobchak said she spoke to Chubais’ wife, who said her husband’s “state is unstable. He felt bad very

By Ivana Kottasová and Ana Sârbu, CNN There was nothing obviously untoward about the woman who approached the Palanca border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova with a 15-year-old boy she said was her nephew. But something about the pair just seemed odd. The boy, in particular, appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable. Suspicious, border officials started asking

By Kathleen Magramo, Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Megan Trimble, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Nima Elbagir, CNN Sudan’s military authorities have launched a “manhunt” for people suspected of providing information to CNN for an investigation that exposed Russia’s plundering of gold in the African nation, according to multiple former and current officials. Relatives were also threatened in a bid to silence suspected leakers. One source said authorities were

By Ivana Kottasová, Olga Voitovych, Darya Tarasova, Manveena Suri, Kareem Khadder, Josh Pennington and Nic Robertson, CNN A Ukrainian grain mogul and his wife were killed after the southern city of Mykolaiv came under intense shelling on Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials, as Russian President Vladimir Putin used his nation’s Navy Day to issue more

By Ramin Mostaghim, Sara Mazloumsaki, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Mostafa Salem and Ivana Kottasová, CNN At least 69 people have been killed in flooding and landslides that hit cities across Iran, Iran’s Crisis Management Organization said on Sunday. Nezhad Jahani, a senior official at the organization, said at least 45 people are still missing in Tehran and

Story by Reuters Austrian leaders appealed for national unity after a doctor who faced death threats from anti-vaccination activists and coronavirus pandemic conspiracy theorists took her own life. “Let’s put an end to this intimidation and fear mongering. Hate and intolerance have no place in our Austria,” President Alexander Van der Bellen said, hailing Lisa-Maria

By Anna Pantelia, for CNN Photographs by Anna Pantelia for CNN Dimitris Mitsaris opens his garage door and the smell of fermenting grapes emerges, as the first morning light bounces off dozens of steel tanks. Mitsaris and his family live here, in Agios Panteleimonas, a mountainous village of just 800 residents in northern Greece, and