Europe

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Prosecutors in southern Portugal are formally accusing a suspect in the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a British girl who disappeared nearly 15 years ago while on a family vacation in the southern European country.

A statement on Thursday by the Public Ministry district of Faro, the largest city in Portugal’s Algarve region, did not name the suspect but said they were acting on a request by German authorities and in coordination with English investigators.

BERLIN (AP) — The United Nations’ human rights office on Friday pointed to what it said is growing evidence of war crimes since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, declaring that humanitarian law appears to have been “tossed aside.”

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said that “our work to date has detailed a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians.”

PARIS (AP) — France’s presidential contenders Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen traded final blows on the last day of campaigning Friday to drive home why their particular political brand — and not the other’s — is the right choice for voters in one of the world’s wealthiest large democracies.

Macron, the center-right incumbent, laid into the nationalist rival he is set to face in a Sunday runoff, accusing the far-right leader of trying to divide France over Islam.

PARIS (AP) — As France elects a president, Paris-based artist Vincent Aïtzegagh is going to ground, escaping to a bucolic village to avoid what for him — and millions of other left-wing French voters — is a painful, even impossible, electoral choice. For the first time in his life, the 65-year-old has decided to not vote at all in the decisive ballot this Sunday.

“I am fleeing,” he says. “Because it stinks.”

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — New satellite images show apparent mass graves near Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians to conceal the slaughter taking place in the ruined port city that’s almost entirely under Russian control.

21 April 2022; MEMO: After an eight-year legal battle, a Swiss court has recognised the statelessness of Palestinian refugees from Syria and acknowledged their right to protection. The landmark case could open the door for other Palestinians to secure basic rights as refugees that have been denied to them since their ethnic cleansing by Israel.

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: Russian-Ukrainian talks are accompanied by Kiev’s aggressive rhetoric and the Ukrainian delegation’s stance still wiggles from side to side, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s second department of the CIS countries, Alexey Polishchuk, told TASS in an interview.

"At the ongoing negotiations the Ukrainian delegation’s stance is wiggling from side to side. Just as before, the negotiating process is accompanied by aggressive rhetoric in Kiev and in the West, Western arms supplies and the sending of instructors and mercenaries," he said.

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: Russia has all necessary financial resources, there is no threat of default, Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said on Thursday.

"Russia has all necessary financial resources, there is no threat of default," she said.

According to the Russian Ministry of Finance, as of February 1, 2022, Russia's external public debt amounted to $59.5 bln, including debt on external bonded loans - $38.97 bln. In total, Russia has 15 active bonded loans with maturities from 2022 to 2047.

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: A number of people killed in a fire at the Central Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense Forces in the Russian city of Tver climbed to seven, at least 25 sustained injuries, a source in the local emergencies service told TASS on Thursday.

"We confirm a number of seven deaths at the moment," the source said adding that the number of casualties may increase. The source stated earlier that five people were killed in the fire killed and more 25 injured.

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, voted for appointment of Elvira Nabiullina to the office of the Chairperson of the Bank of Russia for the next tenure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the candidacy of Nabiullina to the State Duma on March 18. A special resolution was passed on the initiative of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin for Nabiullina to present a report on Central Bank’s operations in the past year before consideration of her nomination for reappointment.