Europe

PARIS, Aug 25 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday he wanted to build the future of Franco-Algerian relations by confronting a painful colonial past but also by focusing on future challenges.

"We have a complex, painful common past. And it has at times prevented us from looking at the future," Macron said after meeting with Algeria President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on the first of a three-day visit to the North African country. 

BERLIN, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Almost four years after the start of trial operations, the world's first passenger train network powered by hydrogen was launched in the German federal state of Lower Saxony on Wednesday.

The 14 trains with hydrogen fuel cell drive produced by French manufacturer Alstom are to replace diesel trains, according to the local transport authority of Lower Saxony (LNVG). Five of the new trains are already in operation, with the others to follow by the end of the year.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major buildup of his country’s military forces Thursday in an apparent effort to replenish troops that have suffered heavy losses in six months of bloody warfare and prepare for a long, grinding fight ahead in Ukraine.

The move to increase the number of troops by 137,000, or 13%, to 1.15 million by the end of the year came amid chilling developments on the ground in Ukraine:

NIKOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the middle of the fighting in Ukraine was temporarily cut off from the electrical grid Thursday because of fire damage, causing a blackout in the region and heightening fears of a catastrophe in a country haunted by the Chernobyl disaster.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, August 24. /TASS/: Fires in the five-kilometer zone from populated areas in the Ryazan Region are of particular concern, it is necessary to eliminate the hotbeds as quickly as possible, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting on combating forest fires in the country's regions.

"In the Ryazan region, unfortunately, due to strong winds, fires continue to spread, and their hotbeds in several areas are within five kilometers from populated areas. This is of particular concern," the head of state stressed.

BELGRADE, August 24. /TASS/: Serbia’s Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin has asked US Ambassador to Belgrade Christopher Hill to abide by about the rules of decency and avoid treating Serbs like Indians on a reservation. Serbia’s Interior Ministry released Vulin's statement on Wednesday.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, August 24. /TASS/: The total area charred by wildfires in Russia is nearly two-thirds less than last year’s expanse, but the situation is still difficult, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Russian-installed head of the Ukrainian town of Mykhailivka in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia region was killed in a car bomb on Tuesday, an official in the region’s Russian-backed administration said.

Writing on Telegram, Zaporizhzhia region administration member Vladimir Rogov said that Mykhailivka head Ivan Sushko had been critically injured when a bomb placed under his car exploded, and died shortly afterward in hospital.

Mykhailivka has a population of 11,000.

Aug 24 (Reuters) - Russia has launched missiles at a railroad station in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a Ukraine-focused meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.

"This is our life every day. This is how Russia got prepared for this U.N. session," Zelenskiy said over video link. There were deaths and injuries in the missile strikes, Zelenskiy said, warning that the death toll could rise.

Aug 24 (Reuters) - Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Wednesday that prison authorities had transferred him to a punishment cell for the second time this month at the facility where he is being held on charges he says are trumped up.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic inside Russia, is serving an 11-1/2 year sentence after being found guilty of parole violations and fraud and contempt of court charges. He says all charges against him were fabricated as a pretext to smother dissent and thwart his political ambitions.