Europe

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday he will appoint a regional official as the new defense minister following the resignation of the much-criticized Christine Lambrecht.

The defense minister-designate, Boris Pistorius, is a member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and has served as interior minister of Lower Saxony state since 2013.

“I am very pleased to have won Boris Pistorius, an outstanding politician from our country, for the post of defense minister,” Scholz said in a written statement.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch Senate on Tuesday approved an amendment to the country’s constitution, expanding its first article to specifically ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or disability, a move hailed as historic by rights groups.

The constitution’s updated Article 1 mandates that all people in the country must be treated equally and that “discrimination on the basis of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other basis is not allowed.”

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Norwegian police unit that investigates war crimes said Tuesday that it wants to talk to a Russian asylum-seeker who reportedly is a former high-ranking member of the private Russian military contractor Wagner Group.

Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, which takes part in the investigation of war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court, said it was in contact with Andrey Medvedev and his Norwegian lawyer and “would like to conduct an interrogation of him in the near future. Medvedev has the status of a witness.”

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — A trial in absentia opened Tuesday for Belarus’ top opposition leader, who denounced the proceedings as a farce and urged the West to bolster support for the country’s beleaguered opposition.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was the main challenger in the August 2020 presidential election that extended President Alexander Lukashenko’s rule and was rejected by the Belarusian opposition and the West as a sham.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union pushed forward on Tuesday with a major clean tech industrial plan which not only should keep the continent in the vanguard of plotting a greener future but also guarantee its economic survival as it faces challenges from China and the United States.

GRAFENWOEHR TRAINING AREA, Germany (AP) — Monday was just Day Two for Ukrainian soldiers at the U.S. military’s new training program, but the message was coming through loud and clear.

These are urgent times. And the lessons they will get in the next five weeks on weapons, armored vehicles and more sophisticated combat techniques are critical as they prepare to defend their country against the Russian invasion.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The final death toll from a weekend Russian missile strike on an apartment building in southeastern Ukraine reached 44, officials said Tuesday, as the body of another child was pulled from the wreckage. The strike in the city of Dnipro was the war’s deadliest attack since the spring on civilians at one location.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Ukraine’s first lady scolded world leaders and corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the snowy Swiss town of Davos for not all using their influence at a time when Russia’s invasion leaves children dying and a world struggling with food insecurity.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Alina Kapatsyna often dreams about getting a phone call from her mother. In those visions, her mother tells her that she’s coming home.

Men in military uniforms took 45-year-old Vita Hannych away from her house in eastern Ukraine in April. She never returned.

Her family later learned that Hannych, who has long suffered from seizures because of a brain cyst, is in custody in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region.

16 Jan 2023; MEMO: A major Swedish bank continues to host an active account fundraising for the outlawed and designated terror group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), despite efforts by Sweden's government to limit the influence of the group within the country in agreement with Turkiye.