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Tag: Western Europe

  • Pilots at Germany’s Eurowings start 3-day strike

    Pilots at Germany’s Eurowings start 3-day strike

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    Pilots at Eurowings, the German airline Lufthansa’s budget subsidiary, have started their second strike this month in a dispute over working conditions

    BERLIN — Pilots at Eurowings, German airline Lufthansa’s budget subsidiary, have started their second strike this month in a dispute over working conditions.

    The Vereinigung Cockpit union called pilots out on a three-day strike starting Monday morning.

    Despite the walkout, Eurowings said it expected more than 230 of Monday’s planned 400 services to go ahead as usual. Flights operated by Austrian subsidiary Eurowings Europe and by Eurowings Discover, which flies from Frankfurt and Munich, weren’t affected.

    At Duesseldorf airport, however, 102 of the day’s scheduled 171 Eurowings flights were canceled, German news agency dpa reported.

    Pilots are asking for the maximum number of flying hours to be reduced. They previously staged a one-day strike on Oct. 6. Eurowings described the latest strike as disproportionate and irresponsible.

    Strikes at parent company Lufthansa were called off last month after the airline and union reached a pay deal to address the effects of inflation.

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  • Turkey calls Greek claims on migrant mistreatment fake news

    Turkey calls Greek claims on migrant mistreatment fake news

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    ISTANBUL — Turkish officials on Sunday shot back at Greek allegations that Turkey forced 92 naked migrants into Greece, calling it “fake news” and accusing Greece of the mistreatment.

    Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi was “sharing false information” after the official tweeted a photo of the naked migrants on Saturday and blamed Turkey, said Fahrettin Altun, the communications director of Turkey’s president.

    Altun tweeted in Turkish, Greek and English that this was to “cast suspicion on our country,” while calling on Athens to abandon its “harsh treatment of refugees.”

    “Greece has shown once again to the entire world that it does not respect the dignity of refugees by posting these oppressed people’s pictures it has deported after extorting their personal possessions,” he said.

    Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli tweeted that the photo showed Greece’s cruelty. “Spend your time to obey human rights, not for manipulations & dishonesty!”

    Greek police said Saturday that police officers found the migrants stark naked on Friday, “some with bodily injuries” who had entered the country using plastic boats to cross the Evros River, which forms a border between the two countries.

    Relations between the two neighboring countries have been tense over a variety of issues, including migration.

    Turkey regularly accuses Greece of violently pushing back migrants entering the country by land and sea. Turkey’s coast guard frequently shares videos of such pushbacks.

    Greece accuses Turkey, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, of “pushing forward” migrants to put pressure on the EU.

    The U.N. refugee agency said it was “deeply distressed by the shocking reports,” condemning the “degrading treatment” and calling for an investigation.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • With far-right leaders, Italy remembers WWII roundup of Jews

    With far-right leaders, Italy remembers WWII roundup of Jews

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    ROME — Italy’s far-right political leadership marked the 79th anniversary of the World War II roundup of Rome’s Jews on Sunday with calls for such horror to never occur again, messages that took on greater significance following a national election won by a party with neo-fascist roots.

    Giorgia Meloni, who is expected to head Italy’s first far-right-led government since the war’s end, phoned the leader of Rome’s Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, to commemorate the anniversary, according to a community spokesman.

    Meloni said in a statement that the anniversary serves as a “warning so that certain tragedies never happen again.” She said all Italians bear the memory “that serves to build antibodies against indifference and hatred, to continue to fight anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

    On the morning of Oct. 16, 1943 during the German occupation of Italy, 1,259 people were arrested from Rome’s Ghetto and surrounding neighborhoods and brought to a military barracks near the Vatican, bound for deportation to Auschwitz. Only 16 survived.

    Meloni called it a “tragic, dark and incurable day for Rome and Italy,” that ended with the “vile and inhuman deportation of Roman Jews at the hands of the Nazi-Fascist fury: women, men and children were snatched from life, house by house.”

    Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party won the most votes in Sept. 25 national election — about 26% — and is expected to head a government along with the right-wing League and center-right Forza Italia. Her party traces its roots to the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, or MSI, which was founded in 1946 by the remnants of Benito Mussolini’s final government in the Nazi puppet state in Salo, northern Italy. It remained a small right-wing party until the 1990s, when it became the National Alliance, which sought to distance itself from its neo-fascist origins.

    Meloni, who joined the MSI as a teenager and headed the National Alliance youth branch, founded Brothers of Italy in 2012 along with another former MSI and National Alliance member, Ignazio La Russa, who was elected president of the Senate this week. La Russa has proudly shown off his Mussolini memorabilia collection and, early on in the pandemic, suggested Italians use the fascist salute rather than shake hands in a tweet that he blamed on an underling that was quickly removed.

    On Sunday, La Russa also commemorated the anniversary of the roundup, saying it was “one of the darkest days of our history.”

    “It is the duty of everyone, starting with the highest institutions, to pass on the memory so that similar tragedies will never happen again in the future. To the Jewish community, today as always, my sincere closeness,” he said in a Facebook post.

    Italy’s other political leaders also commemorated the anniversary with tweets, messages and statements. Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, attended a commemoration in the Ghetto itself alongside Dureghello and other members of the Jewish community. They paused for a moment in front of a wreath outside Rome’s main synagogue alongside Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni.

    The community launched a social media campaign #16ottobre43 with a video scrolling the names of the people killed “whose only ‘guilt’ was that of being Jewish.”

    Dureghello recalled that the anniversary marked “the date in which we remember the first Nazi-Fascist deportation of the Roman Jews. Men, women and children torn from their homes and sent to die. Keeping the memory alive is a moral imperative that serves to extinguish the sirens of hatred and fanaticism.”

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  • Hundreds of Paddington bears left for queen to go to charity

    Hundreds of Paddington bears left for queen to go to charity

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    LONDON — More than 1,000 Paddington bears and other teddies left in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II in London and Windsor will be donated to a children’s charity, Buckingham Palace said Saturday.

    Mourners left thousands of tributes, including flowers and teddy bears, outside Buckingham Palace and in royal parks in London and outside Windsor Castle in an outpouring of grief after the U.K.’s longest-reigning monarch died on Sept. 8 at age 96.

    The queen became linked to Paddington bear, another British national treasure, after the two appeared together in a short comedy video during Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this year to mark the monarch’s 70 years on the throne. The video, which featured the queen taking afternoon tea with a computer-animated Paddington bear, saw her telling the bear that she shared his love for marmalade sandwiches — and that she liked to hide them in her purse “for later.”

    Buckingham Palace and the royal parks said Saturday the hundreds of bears left in tribute of the queen will be professionally cleaned before being delivered to Barnado’s, a children’s charity.

    Elizabeth was patron of the charity for over 30 years, and in 2016 she passed the patronage to Camilla, the wife of King Charles III and now known as the Queen Consort.

    “We are honoured to be able to gives homes to the teddies that people left in her memory,” said Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo’s. “We promise to look after these bears who will be well-loved and bring joy to the children we support.”

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  • Oil flow to Germany resumes after Poland fixed pipeline leak

    Oil flow to Germany resumes after Poland fixed pipeline leak

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    WARSAW, Poland — The Polish operator of an oil pipeline running to Germany said Saturday that it has fixed the damage that caused a leak earlier this week and that the flow of crude oil from Russia has been fully restored.

    The state-run operator, PERN, said that both lines of the Druzhba pipeline were operating normally, transporting oil.

    It said that the cause of the leak that occurred Tuesday in a field in central Poland is still being investigated.

    The Druzhba pipeline, which in Russian means “Friendship,” was built in the 1960s and is one of the world’s largest pipeline systems, bringing crude oil from Siberia to central Europe. It branches to reach Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany.

    The leak follows attacks last month on the Baltic Sea Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, in which explosives are said to have been used. Europe has been taking steps to reduce its reliance on Russian energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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  • More than 1 in 4 French gas stations out of at least one fuel | CNN Business

    More than 1 in 4 French gas stations out of at least one fuel | CNN Business

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    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Some 28.5% – nearly one third – of gas stations in mainland France are out of stock of at least one fuel, French Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told journalists Friday.

    In the Parisian Ile de France region, this figure is at 25.5% Friday, down from 31.7% yesterday, she added.

    A source from the office of the French prime minister on Friday blamed the long lines and exhausted stocks at French gas stations this week on panic buying, rather than just supply problems.

    This is despite gas companies providing between a 30% and 50% increase in supply of gas to pumps this week, compared to a normal week, the source said.

    Sources from the prime minister’s office and energy transition ministry said that, this week, demand at the gas pump had been at least 20% higher than normal.

    The sources added that once strike action ended, it will take one or two weeks for refinery output and the logistical situation in France to be back to normal.

    Earlier this week, the French government ordered staff at an ExxonMobil refinery in Normandy to return to work, a highly unusual step.

    Despite agreements being reached with certain unions, strike action continues at four of seven refineries in France. All of these four sites are run by TotalEnergies.

    The CGT union – one of the country’s largest – refused to accept Total’s offer, with CGT Secretary of the TotalEnergies European Committee, Thierry Defresne, on Friday calling for wider industrial action on October 18. The CGT has requested a 10% pay rise for workers.

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  • Official: 14 dead, 28 hurt after blast in Turkish coal mine

    Official: 14 dead, 28 hurt after blast in Turkish coal mine

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    Miners carry the body of a victim in Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin, Turkey, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. An official says an explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey has trapped dozens of miners. At least 14 have come out alive. The cause of Friday’s blast in the town of Amasra in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin was not immediately known. (Nilay Meryem Comlek/Depo Photos via AP)

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  • Actor Robbie Coltrane, Harry Potter’s Hagrid, dies at 72

    Actor Robbie Coltrane, Harry Potter’s Hagrid, dies at 72

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    LONDON — Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72.

    Coltrane’s agent Belinda Wright said he died Friday at a hospital in his native Scotland, and but did not immediately other details. She called him “forensically intelligent” and “brilliantly witty” in just one of many tributes made to him.

    “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who decades ago had said Coltrane was her first choice to play Hagrid, tweeted Friday that he was “an incredible talent, a complete one off.”

    “I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him,” she wrote.

    Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, Scotland, Coltrane was in his early 20s when he began pursuing an acting career and renamed himself in honor of jazz musician John Coltrane.

    He already had a notable screen career, with credits including “Mona Lisa,” “Nuns on the Run” and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Henry V” when he broke through on his own as a hard-bitten detective in “Cracker,” the 1990s TV series for which he won best actor at the British Academy Television Awards three years running.

    He went on to appear in all eight “Harry Potter” movie as the young wizard’s mentor and had a wide variety of other parts, including a Russian crime boss in the James Bond thrillers “GoldenEye” and “The World is Not Enough” and Pip’s guardian Mr. Jaggers in a 2012 adaptation of Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” More recently, he received rave reviews for playing a beloved TV star who may harbor a dark secret in the 2016 miniseries “National Treasure.”

    On Friday, his “Nuns on the Run” co-star Eric Idle tweeted that he had been talking about Coltrane, “wondering where he was,” when he learned of his death.

    “Such a bright and brilliant man. A consummate actor, an extraordinarily funny comedian and an amazing actor. He was also a very good friend,” Idle wrote.

    Wright said Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and his children Spencer and Alice.

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  • In Norway, Russian man stopped with drones

    In Norway, Russian man stopped with drones

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    COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A 50-year-old Russian man has been detained in Arctic Norway with two drones and is suspected of flying the unmanned aerial vehicles somewhere in the country.

    Numerous drone sightings have been reported near Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms in recent weeks.

    The Russian citizen, who was not identified, was detained on Tuesday.

    Norwegian media reported that customs officers found two drones and several electronic storage devices in his luggage during a routine check at the Storskog border crossing, the sole crossing point between NATO-member Norway and Russia. Norway’s Arctic border with Russia is 198 kilometers (123 miles) long.

    He is suspected of breaching sanctions which came into force after Russia went to war against Ukraine, prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjør told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. Under Norwegian law, it is prohibited for aircraft operated by Russian companies or citizens “to land on, take off from or fly over Norwegian territory.” Norway is not a member of the European Union but mirrors its moves.

    The VG newspaper said that a local court on Friday ordered the man held for two weeks in custody. The man told the Indre and Oestre Finnmark District Court that he had been in Norway since August and had flown drones throughout the country, VG said. The seized material included 4 terabytes of stored images and files, with parts of them encrypted.

    The man’s defense lawyer, Jens Bernhard Herstad, told Norwegian daily Dagbladet that his client has acknowledged flying the drones but has declined to say what he was doing in Norway.

    Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said it was “too early to draw conclusions.”

    “It is known that we have an intelligence threat against us which has been reinforced by what is happening in Europe,” Enger Mehl told NRK.

    There is heightened security around key energy, internet and power infrastructure following last month’s underwater explosions that ruptured two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea that were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany.

    The blasts and ruptures in the Baltic Sea happened in international waters off both Sweden and Denmark but within the countries’ exclusive economic zone. The damaged Nord Stream pipelines discharged huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the air.

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  • Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones

    Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s capital region was struck by Iranian-made kamikaze drones early Thursday, officials said, sending rescue workers rushing to the scene as residents awoke to air raid sirens for the fourth consecutive morning following Russia’s major assault across the country earlier this week.

    Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the strike occurred in the area around the capital. It wasn’t yet clear if there were any casualties.

    Deputy head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram that “critical infrastructure facilities” in the area were hit, without offering any details on which ones.

    In the southern city of Mykolaiv, overnight shelling destroyed a five-story apartment building as fighting continued along Ukraine’s southern front.

    Mykolaiv regional governor Vitali Kim said that an 11-year-old boy was rescued from under the rubble, where he had spent six hours, and rescuers on Thursday morning were searching for seven more people, Kim said.

    He said that the building was hit by an S-300 missile which is ordinarily used for targeting military aircraft, but Russians have apparently been increasingly using them for unprecise ground strikes.

    Early morning attacks on Ukraine’s southern front have become a daily occurrence in Russia’s war as Kyiv’s forces push a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory occupied by Moscow.

    Attacks on Kyiv had become rare before the capital city was hit at least four times during Monday’s massive strikes, which killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100 across the country.

    Western leaders this week pledged to send more weapons to Ukraine, including air defense systems and weapons Kyiv has said are critical to defeating the invading Russian forces.

    Britain said Thursday that it will provide missiles for advanced NASAM anti-aircraft systems that the Pentagon plans to send to Ukraine in coming weeks. It’s also sending hundreds of additional aerial drones for information gathering and logistics support, plus 18 more howitzer artillery guns.

    U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that “these weapons will help Ukraine defend its skies from attacks and strengthen their overall missile defense alongside the U.S. NASAMS.”

    The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks.

    The offer comes as NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels, aiming to help bolster Ukraine’s aerial defenses after Monday’s widespread Russian assault.

    Ukraine’s military said this week that its current air defenses have shot down dozens of incoming Russian missiles and Shahed-136 drones, the so-called kamikaze drones that have played an increasingly deadly role in the war.

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht

    Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht

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    HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said Tuesday he will only implement United Nations sanctions, after the U.S. warned the territory’s status as a financial center could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals.

    Lee’s statement Tuesday came days after a luxury yacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov docked in the city.

    Mordashov, who is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and the European Union in February after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hong Kong authorities have said that they do not implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other governments.

    “We cannot do anything that has no legal basis,” Lee told reporters. “We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law,” he said.

    A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that “the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment.”

    The State Department spokesperson also said the city’s reputation as a financial center “depends on its adherence to international laws and standards” and that U.S. companies “increasingly view Hong Kong’s business environment with wariness” due to an erosion of Hong Kong’s once high degree of autonomy and its freedoms.

    The $500-million superyacht Nord, allegedly owned by Mordashov, moored in Hong Kong’s harbor on Wednesday following a weeklong journey from the Russian city of Vladivostok.

    Mordashov is one of Russia’s richest men, with an estimated wealth of about $18 billion. He also is the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russia’s largest steel and mining company. Mordashov has tried to challenge the sanctions against him in European courts.

    U.S. and European authorities have seized over a dozen yachts belonging to sanctioned Russian tycoons to prevent them from sailing to other ports that are not affected by the sanctions. So Russian oligarchs have begun docking their yachts at ports in places like Turkey, which has maintained diplomatic ties with Russia since the war began.

    The Nord measures 141.6 meters (464.6 feet), has two helipads, a swimming pool and 20 cabins. It is operating under a Russian flag.

    Beijing sets foreign policy for Hong Kong and has demurred from participating in sanctions against Russia for its attack on Ukraine.

    Britain handed control over its colony Hong Kong to China in 1997, promising to respect its semi-autonomous status as a separate economic and customs territory. The semi-autonomous city’s status as an international business hub and financial center has suffered in recent years after Beijing imposed a tough national security law on the city, aimed primarily at stamping out dissent following months of antigovernment protests in 2019.

    Critics say the security law, which in certain cases allows for suspects to be transferred to mainland China for trial in its opaque legal system, could threaten Hong Kong’s rule of law.

    Following passage of the law in 2020, the United States sanctioned Lee, then Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other Hong Kong and mainland Chinese government officials, for “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and restricting the freedom of expression or assembly.”

    Lee blasted the ban on personal and official travel to the U.S. and access to the American financial system.

    He was responding to a question of whether he is paid in cash, as was the case for Lam, who was also placed under U.S. sanctions that limit the ability of those designated for such penalties to transfer funds across national boundaries or convert them into different currencies.

    “The second thing about the so-called sanction imposed on people in Hong Kong without justification, it is a very barbaric act, and I’m not going to comment on the effect of such barbaric act, because officials in Hong Kong do what is right to protect the interests of the country, and the interests of Hong Kong, so we will just laugh off the so-called sanctions,” Lee said.

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  • Pope slams treatment of migrants as 2 Italians become saints

    Pope slams treatment of migrants as 2 Italians become saints

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    VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday denounced Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea as he elevated to sainthood an Italian bishop and Italian-born missionary whose work and life paths illustrated the difficulties faced by 19th Century Italian emigrants.

    Francis departed from prepared remarks to slam Europe’s treatment of migrants as “disgusting, sinful and criminal.” He noted that people from outside the continent are often left to die during perilous sea crossings or pushed back to Libya, where they wind up in camps he referred to as “lager,” the German word referring to Nazi concentration camps.

    He also recalled the plight of Ukrainians fleeing war, which he said “causes us great suffering.”

    “ The exclusion of migrants is scandalous,’’ Francis said, generating applause from the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the canonizations of Don Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants in 1887, and Artedime Zatti, an Italian who emigrated in 1897 to Argentina and dedicated his life as a lay-worker there to helping the sick.

    “Indeed, the situation of migrants is criminal. They are left to die in front of us, making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world. The situation of migrants is disgusting, sinful, criminal. Not to open the doors to those who are in need. No, we exclude them, we send them away to lager, where they are exploited and sold as slaves.”

    He urged the faithful to consider the treatment of migrants, asking: ‘’Do we welcome them as brothers, or do we exploit them?”

    The pontiff said the two new saints “remind us of the importance or walking together.”

    Francis said Scalabrani showed “great vision,’’ by looking forward “to a world and a Church without barriers, where no one was a foreigner.” And the pontiff called Zatti “a living example of gratitude” who devoted his life to serving others after being cured of tuberculosis.

    Scalabrini founded the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo, known as the Scalabrian Fathers, and the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo Scalabrians, to minister to the many Italians who left their homeland due to what he wrote were the combined effects of an agricultural crisis, social change, a poorly managed economy, exorbitant taxation and “the natural desire to improve one’s condition.”

    Disturbed by statistics on Italian emigration that swelled to 84,000 in 1884 alone, Scalabrini wrote that the mass emigration and separation of families would “help strew white the lands of America with their bones.”

    He died in 1905 in Piacenza, where he was bishop, and was beatified in 1997 by St. John Paul II. Pope Francis dispensed with the canonization requirement of Scalabrini having a miracle attributed to him after his beatification.

    The order he founded currently operates 176 missions around the world, including 27 migrant shelters and 20 schools and centers for children.

    Francis, himself the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, has recalled being inspired by Zatti’s life while he was Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina, saying the number of men entering the Catholic order increased after he prayed for the late bishop’s intercession.

    Zatti was one of eight children born to a farming couple in northern Italy that emigrated to Argentina in 1897 when he was a teenager.

    After entering the Salesian order at age 20, Zatti fell ill with tuberculosis and was sent to a Salesian-run hospital in northern Patagonia to be treated. He made a vow to serve the sick and poor for the rest of his life, if he recovered. Zatti went on to work in the same hospital for 40 years, working as a nurse, in the pharmacy, and later as an administrator.

    His fame for treating the ill attracted the sick from all over Patagonia. Zatti was known to travel the city of Viedma with his bicycle with a medical case to help the sick. The pontiff on Sunday also recalled an occasion when Zatti was seen removing a dead patient on his own shoulders from the hospital, to prevent the sick from seeing the body.

    Zatti died in 1951, and was beatified in 2002. Paving the way for canonization, Francis signed the decree recognizing Zatti’s intercession in the healing of a man in the Philippines who had suffered a brain bleed.

    ————

    Barry reported from Milan. Francesco Sportelli in Rome and Gianfranco Stara in Vatican City contributed.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • European champs Italy draw England in Euro 2024 qualifying

    European champs Italy draw England in Euro 2024 qualifying

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    FRANKFURT, Germany — The finalists of Euro 2020 will meet again on the way to the next tournament in two years’ time, with Italy and England drawn in the same qualifying group.

    The draw for the tournament, which will be staged in Germany, was held by UEFA on Sunday.

    Italy versus England was one of the standout match-ups in the Euro 2024 qualifying draw, with European giants Netherlands and France also facing each other.

    Italy defeated England on penalties at Wembley last year to be crowned European champions. But the team coached by Roberto Mancini failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, which kicks off next month.

    Italy and England will also face Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta in Group C.

    Netherlands and France are joined by Republic of Ireland, Greece and Gibraltar in Group B.

    Italy manager Roberto Mancini welcomed the draw, telling Sky Sports: “I think it’s always good to play against England in Wembley. It’s a good thing.

    “It don’t change nothing for us. Maybe Italy and England will be favourites in this group, but it’s important to play all the games 100 per cent.”

    ———

    The draw in full:

    Group A: Spain, Scotland, Norway, Georgia, Cyprus

    Group B: Netherlands, France, Republic of Ireland, Greece, Gibraltar

    Group C: Italy, England, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Malta

    Group D: Croatia, Wales, Armenia, Turkey, Latvia

    Group E: Poland, Czech Republic, Albania, Faroe Islands, Moldova

    Group F: Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Azerbaijan, Estonia

    Group G: Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Lithuania

    Group H: Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Northern Ireland, San Marino

    Group I: Switzerland. Israel, Romania, Kosovo, Belarus, Andorra

    Group J: Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Liechtenstein

    ———

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Magnitude 5.0 tremor strikes Greece; no damage reported

    Magnitude 5.0 tremor strikes Greece; no damage reported

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    ATHENS, Greece — A magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit central Greece early Sunday, but there were no early reports of damage or casualties.

    The tremor struck at 1:02 a.m. and had an epicenter 12.7 kilometers (8 miles) below sea level in the Gulf of Corinth, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west-northwest of the capital, the Athens Institute of Geodynamics reported.

    The tremor lasted at least 15 seconds and was felt over a large area. Near the sparsely populated epicenter, residents reported hearing a buzzing sound, according to local media.

    Tremors of this magnitude are common in Greece, which lies in a highly earthquake-prone area, north of where the African plate is pushing underneath the Eurasian plate.

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  • Death toll rises to 10 in blast at gas station in Ireland

    Death toll rises to 10 in blast at gas station in Ireland

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    LONDON — The death toll from a gas station explosion that shattered a small village in northwest Ireland rose to 10 on Saturday, and emergency workers who combed through piles of rubble said they did not expect to find more bodies.

    Irish police said no one remained missing after Friday’s explosion in Creeslough, County Donegal. Police are investigating the cause of the blast, and Superintendent David Kelly said evidence “is pointing toward a tragic accident.”

    Ireland’s police force, An Garda Siochana, said the midafternoon explosion killed four men, three women, two teenagers and a girl of primary school age. Eight people were hospitalized — one in critical condition — after the blast destroyed the Applegreen service station in the community of about 400 people near Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast.

    Emergency responders from Ireland and neighboring Northern Ireland joined in what police said Saturday was “search and recovery” operation. Sniffer dogs combed the debris, and a mechanical digger lifted piles of rubble from the site on Saturday.

    The explosion leveled the gas station building, which holds the main shop and post office for the village, damaged an adjacent apartment building and shattered the windows in nearby cottages.

    “There were blocks thrown a hundred yards away from the scene,” local medic Dr. Paul Stewart told Irish broadcaster RTE. “The whole front of the building collapsed… and the roof of the first floor collapsed down into the shop. It’s a miracle they got anyone out.”

    Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said it was one of the “darkest of days for Donegal and the entire country.”

    “People across this island will be numbed by the same sense of shock and utter devastation as the people of Creeslough at this tragic loss of life,” Martin said.

    Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, who represents Donegal in Ireland’s parliament, said the service station was well known across the country because of its prominent position on the area’s main N56 road, and was “the heart” of the local community.

    “People are shocked and numbed,” he told Irish broadcaster RTE. “People have been rallying together and everyone’s concern is with the families of those who have lost their loved ones and how they can support them.”

    Another local lawmaker, Pearse Doherty, said people in the community were in shock.

    “(It’s) something nobody ever thought could happen in a little village like this where everyone knows each other,” he said. “A quarter past three yesterday, kids were coming out of school, people were going to collect their welfare payments. For such a nightmare to occur, that will take some time to sink in.”

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  • Sabotage hits trains in north Germany, forcing 3-hour halt

    Sabotage hits trains in north Germany, forcing 3-hour halt

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    BERLIN — A train communications system in Germany was targeted by sabotage Saturday, forcing both passenger and cargo trains to halt for nearly three hours across the northwest of the country, authorities said.

    Operator Deutsche Bahn said early Saturday that no long-distance or regional trains were running in the states of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bremen. That also affected trains between Berlin and Cologne, neither of which was directly affected by the system failure, and between Berlin and Amsterdam, while trains from Denmark weren’t crossing the border into Germany.

    The sabotage hit a primary mode of regional and intercity transport in Germany as well as disrupting supply lines for industries using cargo trains.

    After the nearly three-hour suspension, Deutsche Bahn said the problem — a “failure of the digital train radio system” — had been resolved but that some disruptions could still be expected. It later said the outage was caused by sabotage.

    Transport Minister Volker Wissing said cables that are “essential for handling railway traffic safely” were deliberately severed at two separate locations. He said Germany’s federal police were investigating the incident.

    Federal police said the crime scenes were in a Berlin suburb and in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, German news agency dpa reported. There was no immediate word on who might have been responsible.

    “We can’t say anything today either about the background to this act or the perpetrators,” Wissing said. “The investigation will have to yield that.”

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  • Sabotage hits trains in north Germany, forcing 3-hour halt

    Sabotage hits trains in north Germany, forcing 3-hour halt

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    BERLIN — A train communications system in Germany was targeted by sabotage Saturday, forcing both passenger and cargo trains to halt for nearly three hours across the northwest of the country, authorities said.

    Operator Deutsche Bahn said early Saturday that no long-distance or regional trains were running in the states of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bremen. That also affected trains between Berlin and Cologne, neither of which was directly affected by the system failure, and between Berlin and Amsterdam, while trains from Denmark weren’t crossing the border into Germany.

    The sabotage hit a primary mode of regional and intercity transport in Germany as well as disrupting supply lines for industries using cargo trains.

    After the nearly three-hour suspension, Deutsche Bahn said the problem — a “failure of the digital train radio system” — had been resolved but that some disruptions could still be expected. It later said the outage was caused by sabotage.

    Transport Minister Volker Wissing said cables that are “essential for handling railway traffic safely” were deliberately severed at two separate locations. He said Germany’s federal police were investigating the incident.

    Federal police said the crime scenes were in a Berlin suburb and in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, German news agency dpa reported. There was no immediate word on who might have been responsible.

    “We can’t say anything today either about the background to this act or the perpetrators,” Wissing said. “The investigation will have to yield that.”

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  • Greece: Gales stall efforts to find missing migrants

    Greece: Gales stall efforts to find missing migrants

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    KYTHIRA, Greece — Strong winds were hampering efforts around two Greek islands Friday to find at least 10 migrants believed to be missing after shipwrecks left 23 people dead, officials said.

    A dinghy and a sailboat sank in two separate incidents late Wednesday and early Thursday off the islands of Lesbos, near the coast of Turkey, and Kythira, south of the Greek mainland — prompting a dramatic nighttime rescue, with survivors hauled to safety up cliffs.

    Coast guard, navy and volunteer rescuers focused efforts around a rugged cove on Kythira where the sailboat smashed into rocks and broke up, leaving bodies floating in the wreckage on Thursday.

    Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was attending a meeting of European leaders in the Czech capital, Prague, blamed neighbor Turkey for failing to stop boats crammed with migrants from leaving its coastline.

    “Once again, I call on Turkey to cooperate with Greece to stop these ruthless networks of traffickers of people in distress so no more lives are needlessly lost in the Aegean Sea,” he told reporters at the start of the meetings.

    “The root of this problem is the boats leaving the Turkish coastline,” he said. “And there is no doubt that Turkey, if it wants to, can do more to tackle this problem.”

    Turkey maintains that Greece is putting migrants’ lives at risk with reckless interceptions of boats at sea.

    The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, says that before the latest incidents in Lesbos and Kythira, it had recorded 237 people as dead or missing while attempting to cross the eastern Mediterranean route so far this year, out of a total of 1,522 deaths in the Mediterranean.

    We have witnessed another two tragedies in the Mediterranean. People desperate for safety and better lives are risking everything in fatal journeys,” said Gianluca Rocco, head of the IOM mission in Greece.

    “This reiterates the need to intensify international cooperation to save lives and improve rights-based pathways for safe and regular migration.”

    Several hundred people joined a demonstration in the main port of Lesbos, Mytilene, late Thursday, calling on authorities in Greece and Turkey to cooperate to save lives in the eastern Aegean Sea.

    Wreaths of flowers were thrown into the sea to honor the victims who died off the Lesbos coast — 16 women, a boy and an adult man, most believed to be from Somalia.

    ——— Follow AP’s coverage of global migration: https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • Wembanyama’s 2-game Las Vegas exhibition stay ends with win

    Wembanyama’s 2-game Las Vegas exhibition stay ends with win

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    HENDERSON, Nev. — Victor Wembanyama blocked a shot Thursday afternoon, ran to the other end of the court, went airborne from just inside the foul line, corralled an alley-oop pass with one hand and slammed home a dunk.

    The entire sequence lasted eight seconds.

    It may have been the signature moment — and there were a lot of candidates — from Wembanyama’s two-game trip to the U.S., which ended Thursday with the French phenom’s Metropolitans 92 team rallying from 16 points down to top the G League Ignite 112-106. He led the way, of course, with 36 points and 11 rebounds.

    “As a first impression of the American game, that was really great,” Wembanyama said.

    So was he.

    His final numbers from two exhibitions: 73 points on 22-for-44 shooting, nine 3-pointers, 15 rebounds and nine blocked shots. He flies back to France on Saturday, and the next time he plays in the U.S. there likely will be an NBA logo on his jersey, presumably after he becomes the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

    “It’s very, very special for France,” Metropolitans 92 coach Vincent Collet said. “Not only for France. He has huge potential. He’s a huge talent.”

    The reviews are in from this two-game Vegas residency for Wembanyama, who stands 7-foot-3 in bare feet, and they were of the raving variety. The best of the bunch may have come from Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, who suggested that calling Wembanyama a unicorn might not fully indicate how unique he is.

    Instead, James went with an out-of-this-world comparison.

    “Everybody’s been a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien,” James said. “No one has ever seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and as graceful as he is out on the floor … He’s, for sure, a generational talent.”

    Sure enough, when Wembanyama’s around, a viral moment can happen at any time. It might be a dunk. It might be a block. It might be a fadeaway 3-pointer from the corner while his momentum has him drifting toward the baseline. It might be a 28-foot 3-pointer from the wing. It might be him kicking a ball into a monitor and narrowly missing fellow French center Rudy Gobert.

    Yes, all those things happened.

    The scene: Gobert and fellow Minnesota Timberwolves standout D’Angelo Russell, in town to play the Lakers in a preseason game later Thursday, decided to postpone their afternoon nap — a staple of the NBA gameday routine — and make the 20-minute ride from Las Vegas to watch the game, arriving at halftime.

    Gobert made a quick appearance on the game’s televised broadcast. Wembanyama, standing nearby, stuck one of his massive feet into the path of a pass by Ignite center Eric Mika. The ball ricocheted into the monitor near Gobert’s seat, knocking it over.

    Gobert laughed. Wembanyama raised his hand to apologize.

    “Hey, he played soccer too,” Gobert said.

    Gobert raves about Wembanyama, who almost certainly will be the first top-five draft pick from France. And he doesn’t think there’s any real comparison: Gobert said Wembanyama’s defensive instincts remind him of himself, while his ballhandling and shooting remind him of Kevin Durant.

    “What strikes me the most about him is his maturity,” Gobert said. “Obviously, he’s a very unique talent and he has a very unique physique. But his maturity and his confidence … he’s very unique.”

    Thursday’s game had a bit of a scare, and the other top NBA draft headliner in this showcase got the worst of that moment.

    Scoot Henderson, the guard whose 28 points led the Ignite to a 122-115 victory on Tuesday night in the exhibition opener, left Thursday’s game after less than five minutes. The reason: He banged knees with Wembanyama.

    Henderson switched onto Wembanyama, who was dribbling on the wing. Wembanyama made a move, collided into Henderson and tumbled to the court, looking initially like he got the worst of that exchange. But Henderson, who was called for a foul on the play, wound up limping off for evaluation and the Ignite quickly said he wouldn’t be returning.

    “Scoot’s fine,” G League coach Jason Hart said. “It was precautionary.”

    There are 31 games left on Metropolitans’ 34-game schedule in the French league, and the plan — as of now — is for Wembanyama to finish his season, which is slated to go through mid-May. The NBA Draft is June 22.

    Bouna Ndiaye, one of Wembanyama’s agents, said some NBA teams might not understand why he’s playing. The reason, he says, is because nobody can get Wembanyama out of the gym.

    “He wants to live on the court,” Ndiaye said.

    What these two games showed, in many ways, was just that the tapes of Wembanyama that have been coming out of Europe over the last few years weren’t lying. He needs to get stronger. There’s much he can still polish. He is, by all accounts, exceptional already.

    “Just before we came in last Saturday, we had a meeting with our doctor and we are going to prepare to plan the next two months to increase what he is doing, besides the court, to strengthen the body,” Collet said. “We’re always careful also with how much time he is practicing, not to go too far. … We plan so that we limit the risk.”

    When Thursday was over, when the comeback was complete, Wembanyama briefly lifted his arms skyward in celebration, then shook a lot of hands, partook in a lot of hugs and posed for a lot of pictures.

    With that, the draft hype continued on.

    “I’m still excited and so happy about it,” Wembanyama said. “I know I’m so lucky to have this chance.”

    ———

    More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Munich Re to stop its backing for new oil, gas fields

    Munich Re to stop its backing for new oil, gas fields

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    Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, says it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April

    BERLIN — Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, said Thursday that it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April.

    The company said it will also no longer invest in or insure new oil pipelines and power plants that weren’t already under construction by Dec. 31, 2022.

    Munich Re said the moves were part of its effort to reduce the harmful impact its business has on the environment. The burning of oil and gas is one of the main sources of greenhouses gases fueling climate change.

    Munich Re provides so-called reinsurance contracts that help other insurers spread risks. It also invests the insurance premiums it receives from customers and third-party assets, making it a major institutional investor.

    ———

    Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

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