CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

By Isil Sariyuce and Yusuf Gezer, CNN An Istanbul court on Monday sentenced Turkish civil rights activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala to life in prison for “attempting to overthrow the government,” according to state-run news agency Anadolu, concluding a high-profile trial that has concerned Western nations and human rights groups. Kavala was sentenced in connection

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Personal Birth date: May 6, 1953 Birth place: Edinburgh, Scotland Birth name: Anthony Charles Lynton Blair Father: Leo Charles Blair, lawyer Mother: Hazel (Corscadden) Blair Marriage: Cherie (Booth) Blair (1980-present) Children: Leo, Kathryn, Nicholas and Euan Education: St. John’s

By Joshua Berlinger, CNN French voters will choose between two very different visions for their country during Sunday’s presidential runoff election, as the centrist President Emmanuel Macron seeks to fend off a challenge from his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen. Macron, 44, is pitching voters on an innovative, globalized France at the head of a

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Isa Soares, Madalena Araujo, Sofiya Harbuziuk, Oleksandra Ochman and Marc Seeman, CNN They’ve endured intense battles, brutal airstrikes and unimaginable loss, but this weekend many Ukrainians will attempt to celebrate one of their most important holidays of the year: Orthodox Easter. Traditionally a time of reflection and rebirth, this Sunday will also

By Joe Ruiz, Maureen Chowdhury, Mike Hayes, Simone McCarthy, Amy Woodyatt, Amir Vera, Helen Regan and Andrew Raine, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Jessie Yeung, Brad Lendon, Amy Woodyatt, Sana Noor Haq, Emma Tucker, Angela Dewan, Adrienne Vogt and Joe Ruiz, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Jennifer Hauser, CNN At least one person was killed and another 27 are missing after the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, sunk earlier this month, according to Russian state media. Another 396 crew members were evacuated to nearby ships and sent on to Sevastopol, a city in Crimea, Russia’s Tass news

By Mostafa Salem and Ehsan Popalzai, CNN Thirty-three people are thought to have died in a blast at a mosque in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, according to the Taliban. Among the dead are children, according to Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, while a further 43 people were injured in the explosion. Mujahid said the blast took place

By Adam Pourahmadi and Bear Hutchison, CNN Anoosheh Ashoori points on a computer screen to the location of a makeshift shelter in the yard of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. “I used to sit here during winter and even when it was snowing,” Ashoori says in an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson. It was here that

By Hafsa Khalil, CNN Europe swung from unusually cold temperatures in the spring to its hottest summer on record last year, smashing temperature and daily rain records, while Mediterranean wildfires burned through land around the size of Cyprus. They are the main findings of the fifth European State of the Climate report, published Friday, which

By Nathan Hodge, Julia Presniakova, Katie Polglase, Jennifer Hauser, Hira Humayun and Julia Hollingsworth, CNN Ukrainian officials say they have identified mass graves outside the city of Mariupol, which they say adds to mounting proof of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. The claim is supported by photos collected and analyzed by US satellite imagery

By Tara John, Oleksandra Ochman and Sandi Sidhu, CNN When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived. But Yershova insisted she wanted to remain in Bucha, telling him: “Don’t talk nonsense, everything will be fine

By Joseph Ataman, CNN Hiba Latreche took a last gulp of water and reached for a date, her eyes flitting between the plates of food before her and her phone screen as it blinked toward 5:42 a.m., the beginning of her fast. This year, the month of Ramadan coincides with the presidential elections in France,

By Clarissa Ward, Brent Swails and Scott McWhinnie, CNN Galina Nikolaevna is weeping in the wreckage of her home in the village of Kamyshevakha in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Two days ago, a couple of Russian shells landed on the house and the garage, making it uninhabitable. But Nikolaevna and her husband are

By Andrew Carey, Abeer Salman and Hadas Gold, CNN Palestinians and Israeli security forces clashed early Thursday around the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and Israel responded to rockets fired from Gaza with airstrikes, as the worst tensions in months continued to simmer. Videos showed dozens of Israeli police on the

By Hannah Ritchie, Masha Angelova and Rob Picheta, CNN A brigade accused of committing war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha has been awarded an honorary title by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Troops in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were named by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense as war criminals earlier this

By Jonny Hallam, Brad Lendon, Uliana Pavlova and Ivana Kottasová, CNN New photos and a short video clip emerged early Monday on social media showing Russia’s guided-missile cruiser, the Moskva, badly damaged and on fire in the hours before the ship sank in the Black Sea on Thursday. The sinking of the Black Sea fleet

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati is due to visit Saudi Arabia in the next two weeks, a first trip by a Lebanese premier to the Arab powerhouse in almost four years following an unprecedented rupture in relations. The last visit was in 2018 by then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who in 2021

By Phil Black, Sandi Sidhu, Roman Tymotsko and Ivana Kottasová, CNN Before Russia’s war on Ukraine began, Kira Obedinsky was a joyful, loved 12-year-old girl. Now orphaned, injured and alone in a Russian-controlled hospital in eastern Ukraine, she has become an unwitting pawn in Moscow’s information war. Obedinsky’s mother died when she was a baby.

By Jessie Yeung, Tim Lister, Darya Tarasova, Julia Kesaieva, Manveena Suri and Ivana Kottasová, CNN Ukrainian forces besieged in Mariupol have rejected Russia’s demands to surrender and are still resisting an unrelenting assault on the southeastern port city, top Ukrainian officials said on Sunday. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the city, which has been

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN The war in Ukraine could soon enter a new, even more dangerous phase. Russia, angry over the loss of its Black Sea Fleet flagship, has warned of “unpredictable consequences” if the US continues supplying weapons to Ukraine, while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky struck a somber note telling CNN the world should

By Julia Hollingsworth, Brad Lendon, Ivana Kottasová, Sana Noor Haq, Joe Ruiz, Adrienne Vogt and Ray Sanchez, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Aditi Sangal, Travis Caldwell, Helen Regan, Sana Noor Haq, Jack Bantock, Laura Smith-Spark, Adrienne Vogt, Melissa Macaya and Meg Wagner, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Joshua Berlinger and Joseph Ataman, CNN It’s Macron vs. Le Pen, round two. France’s presidential election will be a rematch of the 2017 contest, when the far right’s Marine Le Pen faced off against political newcomer Emmanuel Macron. Macron won that race by nearly two votes to one. But while the candidates remain the

By Max Foster and Toyin Owoseje, CNN Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will not join other members of the royal family for an Easter Sunday service at Windsor Castle this year, according to a royal source. It comes just a few days after it was announced that she would not be attending Thursday’s annual Maundy Service

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of retired professional soccer player David Beckham. Personal Birth date: May 2, 1975 Birth place: London, England Birth name: David Robert Joseph Beckham Father: David Edward “Ted” Beckham, an appliance repairman Mother: Sandra (West) Beckham, a hairdresser Marriage: Victoria (Adams) Beckham (July 4, 1999-present) Children: Harper,

By Amy Cassidy and Jack Bantock, CNN More rain and damaging winds are expected across South Africa’s east coast, following days of severe storms and flooding in which nearly 400 people have died, the KwaZulu-Natal regional government warned on Friday. Heavy rains and flooding first hit KwaZulu-Nata, which includes the coastal city of Durban, on

By Andrew Carey, Abeer Salman, Hadas Gold, Amir Tal and Michael Schwartz, CNN Palestinians and Israeli forces clashed in and around the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City for hours on Friday morning, before an uneasy calm returned to the city later in the day. Videos shared on social media showed serious unrest and violence

By Nimi Princewill and Sarah Diab, CNN Thirty-five people have died after a bus carrying more than 100 members of the Zion Christian Church crashed Thursday night near the town of Chimanimani, in eastern Zimbabwe, according to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP). The fatal accident occurred at around 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m.ET), when

By Rob Picheta, CNN Fighting in Ukraine has rounded on Donbas, a sprawling and beleaguered heartland region that has suffered years of conflict and now serves as the bloody stage on which Russia’s war could be decided. Donbas blankets much of eastern Ukraine, and has been the front line of the country’s conflict with Moscow

By Salma Abdelaziz, Sarah Dean and Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou, CNN In a wooded area on the Polish side of the Poland-Ukraine border, men dressed in crisp, clean, camouflage are given tourniquets. They kneel on the muddy ground and start to learn basic survival training. They call themselves the Pohonia Battalion, a group of fewer than

CNN Editorial Research Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and a Washington Post columnist, was critical of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies. He was allegedly killed and dismembered on October 2, 2018, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by men with close ties to the highest levels of the Saudi government and

By Brad Lendon, CNN One of the Russian Navy’s most important warships has sunk in the Black Sea, a massive blow to a military struggling against Ukrainian resistance 50 days into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his neighbor. Russian state news agency TASS reported Thursday evening that the guided-missile cruiser Moskva had sunk, citing a statement

By Brad Lendon, CNN Think about modern warfare and it’s likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with

By Helen Regan, Travis Caldwell, Matias Grez and Jeevan Ravindran, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Tara John, Oleksandr Fylyppov, Sandi Sidhu and Julia Presniakova, CNN Lviv, Ukraine (CNN) — All Vladimir Nesterenko wanted to do when he grew up was to play basketball. The brown haired 12-year-old dribbled and shot hoops with his dad Oleh in the village where they lived in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. He idolized NBA

By Becky Anderson, Adam Pourahmadi and Amy Woodyatt, CNN Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he went to Moscow to “look in President Putin’s eyes and confront him with what I saw” in Ukraine, he told CNN Wednesday. Nehammer said he raised alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine during a “tough” and unfriendly meeting Monday with Vladimir

By Hadas Gold and Abeer Salman, CNN In the well-appointed house in the West Bank village of Husan, members of Ghada Sabateen’s family welcomed a stream of mourners with bleary eyes. Sabateen, a 47-year-old widow, mother of six and math teacher, died from her wounds after being shot in the legs by Israeli forces near

By David McKenzie, Larry Madowo, Mia Alberti and Angela Dewan, CNN Heavy rains and flooding battered the eastern coast of South Africa on Wednesday, killing at least 306 people, damaging roads and destroying homes. The tragedy marked “one of the darkest moments in the history” of the KwaZulu-Natal province, the regional government said in a

By Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Helen Regan, Matias Grez, Jeevan Ravindran, Laura Smith-Spark, Maureen Chowdhury and Mike Hayes, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour and Emmet Lyons, CNN (CNN) — When Russian troops invaded their homeland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and first lady Olena Zelenska refused to flee or to give in, opting instead — like many of their countrymen and women — for defiance in the face of aggression. While the President’s

By Jack Guy, Richard Roth and Laura Ly, CNN The United Nations has called for the increasing reports of rape and sexual violence against Ukrainian women and children during the Russian invasion of the country to be independently investigated. Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, a United Nations entity dedicated to advancing gender equity

By Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Travis Caldwell, Jessie Yeung, Matias Grez and Jeevan Ravindran, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Vasco Cotovio and Frederik Pleitgen, Byron Blunt and Daria Markina, CNN On the outskirts of Kyiv, Lt. Col. Mykola Opanasenko kneels down in a remote field as he winds up a small electrical generator to power a blast. “Fire,” he shouts, before bracing and pressing the trigger. A fraction of a second later, an

By Kyung Lah, Sarah Boxer and Rachel Clarke, CNN Jan Gebert handed his apartment keys to the family he had just met. The Ukrainian mother wanted to pay. No, insisted Gebert, this is free. It was days after Russia invaded Ukraine and one of the countless acts of kindness being shown to those fleeing danger

By Nadine Schmidt, Nic Robertson and Rob Picheta, CNN Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said he raised alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine during a “tough” and unfriendly meeting Monday with Vladimir Putin — the first Western sit-down with the Russian President since he launched his invasion in February. “This is not a friendly visit. I have