Holy Year about to start in Rome

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Tuesday formally inaugurates the 2025 Holy Year, reviving an ancient church tradition encouraging the faithful to make pilgrimages to Rome, amid new security fears following a Christmas market attack in Germany.

At the start of Christmas Eve Mass, Francis will push open the Holy Door on St. Peter’s Basilica, which will stay open throughout the year to allow the estimated 32 million pilgrims projected to visit Rome to pass through.

The first Holy Year was called in 1300, and in recent times they are generally celebrated every 25 to 50 years. Pilgrims who participate can obtain “indulgences” — the centuries-old feature of the Catholic Church related to the forgiveness of sins that roughly amounts to a “get out of Purgatory free” card.

The last regular Jubilee was in 2000, when St. John Paul II ushered in the church’s third millennium. Francis declared a special Jubilee in 2015-2016 dedicated to mercy and the next one planned is in 2033, to commemorate the anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ.

What are indulgences?

According to church teaching, Catholics who confess their sins are forgiven and therefore released from the eternal or spiritual punishment of damnation. An indulgence is designed to remove the “temporal” punishment of sin that may remain — the consequence of the wrongdoing that might disrupt the sinner’s relationships with others.

Martin Luther’s opposition to the church’s practice of selling indulgences inspired him to launch the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. He was excommunicated, and the practice of buying and selling indulgences has been illegal since the 1562 Council of Trent. But the granting of them has continued and is an important element in Holy Year pilgrimages.

According to the norms issued for the 2025 Jubilee, Catholics can obtain an indulgence if they: 

Undertake a pious pilgrimage, participating in Masses and other sacraments, at any of the four papal basilicas in Rome or the Holy Land, or other sacred Jubilee sites "so as to manifest the great need for conversion and reconciliation."
Participate in works of charity, mercy or penance, such as visiting prisoners, sick people or elderly people or undertaking corporal works of mercy "to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned and bury the dead." 
Abstain, in a spirit of penance, for at least one day of the week from "futile distractions," such as social media, or from "superfluous consumption," such as fasting; or donating a proportionate sum to the poor or to help migrants.

 

Why the focus on prisoners?

Francis has long made ministry to prisoners a hallmark of his priestly vocation, and a Holy Year dedicated to a message of hope is no exception.

In fact, the only other Holy Door that Francis will personally open this year is located at the chapel of Rome’s Rebibbia prison, to draw attention to the need to give prisoners in particular hope of a better future.

The final big event of the Holy Year before it closes on January 6, 2026, is the Jubilee of Prisoners on December 14, 2025.

What’s on the calendar?

The Jubilee calendar is a compilation of official and unofficial Holy Year events that will test the stamina of Francis, who just turned 88 and went into the Christmas season with a cold that made it hard for him to catch his breath.

Every month has two, three or four official Jubilee events that Francis is expected to attend that are designated for particular categories of people: the armed forces, artists, priests, poor people, volunteers and teachers. Then there are the unofficial Jubilee events, in which individual dioceses and other groups have organized their own pilgrimages to Rome.

One item on the Jubilee’s unofficial calendar, September 6, has made news because it has been organized by an Italian association, “La Tenda di Gionata” or “Jonathan’s Tent,” which is dedicated to making LGBTQ+ Catholics feel more welcome in the Catholic Church.

What about security for so many people?

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri has said the security plans call for a mix of traditional policing — a reported 700 extra officers — plus high-tech surveillance using drones and closed-circuit cameras that, thanks to algorithms informed by artificial intelligence, can keep track in real time of crowd sizes and congestion points.

“There will be more vehicles, more men, and very, very, shall we say, robust and important security devices,” Gualtieri told reporters last week.

The Vatican has tried to reduce congestion for pilgrims by allowing them to reserve their visits to St. Peter’s Basilica online in advance.

After a driver plowed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five people, Italian authorities last week sent a circular to police stations around the country recommending “maximum” investigative efforts and to immediately boost surveillance and police patrols around Christmas markets and displays and tourist attractions.

The Vatican, with its life-sized creche and giant Christmas tree in St. Peter’s Square and outdoor exhibit of nativity scenes in the Bernini colonnade ringing it, qualifies as an at-risk target. 

How else is Rome preparing?

Rome has had two years of intense preparations for the Holy Year that involved major public works projects and artistic renovations that have coincided with separate initiatives paid for by the European Union’s COVID-19 recovery funds.

Fewer than a third of the 323 Jubilee projects have been finished or will wrap up by next month, meaning traffic headaches and eyesores will continue well into 2025 and even 2026. But Romans and visitors are beginning to see some of the finished products.

Bernini’s fountains in Piazza Navona are glistening white again after a monthslong cleaning. A spiffed-up Trevi Fountain reopened over the weekend, and on Monday the main Jubilee project was unveiled: A pedestrian piazza linking Castel St. Angelo to the Via della Conciliazione, the main boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square. 

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VOA Russian: Moscow increases pressure on ‘foreign agents’

Russia recently expanded punishment against independent journalists and activists that the Kremlin designated as “foreign agents,” with Moscow charging a prominent exiled reporter, Tatyana Felgengauer, on criminal counts in absentia. The State Duma passed the law severely limiting the ability of “foreign agents” to get income from inside Russia. VOA Russian spoke to several people named “foreign agents” who said they expected repressions to ramp up further.

Click here for the full story in Russian.

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Germany looking into possible security lapses after Christmas market attack 

Berlin — Germany searched for answers on Monday on possible security lapses after a man drove his car into a Christmas market, killing at least five people and casting a renewed spotlight on security and immigration ahead of a snap election.

The possible motive of the arrested suspect, a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and a sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, remains unknown.

As a nation mourned, with citizens leaving flowers and lighting candles in Magdeburg where the incident took place on Friday, questions swirled about whether more could have been done and whether the authorities could have acted on warnings.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for tougher internal security laws to be adopted, including a new act to strengthen police forces as well as the introduction of biometric surveillance.

“It is clear that we must do everything to protect the people of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. To do this, our security authorities need all the necessary powers and more personnel,” Faeser told Spiegel newsmagazine.

The deputy head of a security committee in the Bundestag (parliament) announced he would convene a special session asking why previous warnings about the danger posed by the suspect, identified only as Taleb A., were not acted on. The arrested man has lived in Germany since 2006.

The main opposition Christian Democratic Union, which is on course to form the next government after an election in February, called for the strengthening of intelligence services.

“We can no longer be satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services,” Guenter Krings, justice spokesperson for the CDU, told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

“That is why our German security authorities need more powers of their own in order to gain more of their own knowledge, especially in the digital area.”

The security services also must be able to remove dangerous people from circulation based on such knowledge, he said.

“The authority and obligation for official cooperation and data exchange must also be improved,” he said.

Germany’s data protection rules are among the strictest in the European Union, which federal police say has prevented them from resorting to biometric surveillance to date.

Police in the northwestern city of Bremerhaven said on Monday they had arrested a man who had threatened in a TikTok video to commit “serious crimes” at the local Christmas market. In the video, the man said he would target people who looked Arab or Mediterranean on Christmas Day.

AfD LEADERS IN MAGDEBURG

A committee in the local parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, the state where Magdeburg is located, will also convene to discuss the possible causes of the attack and its consequences, a state interior ministry spokesperson said.

Holger Muench, president of the federal criminal police office (BKA), told public broadcaster ZDF over the weekend that Germany was reviewing security measures at Christmas markets and addressing any vulnerabilities.

Muench said Germany had received a warning from Saudi Arabia as far back as 2023 about the suspect, which German authorities investigated but found vague.

“The man also published a huge number of posts on the Internet. He also had various contacts with the authorities, made insults and even threats. But he was not known for acts of violence,” Muench said.

Leaders of the AfD, which has surged in support on an anti-immigration platform and is polling in second place ahead of the election, plan to stage an event in Magdeburg on Monday evening.

“The discussion about new security laws must not distract from the fact that #Magdeburg would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said on social media. “The state must protect citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!”

Also on Monday evening, an initiative organized under the motto “Don’t give hate a chance” is calling for a human chain to be formed in Magdeburg.

 

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South Korea says North Korea preparing to send more troops, weapons to Russia

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday there are indications that North Korea is preparing to send more troops and weapons to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

The additional weapons being readied include suicide drones, and North Korea has already sent 240mm rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled artillery to Russia, the JCS said in a statement.

North Korea has also sent about 12,000 troops already to Russia, according to South Korea, the United States and Ukraine.  

The JCS said Monday that at least 1,100 of the North Koreans have been killed or wounded.

Ukraine’s military said Monday it shot down 47 aerial drones that Russian forces launched in attacks overnight targeting multiple areas of the country.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia used a total of 72 drones in its latest round of daily aerial assaults.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down drones over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy and Zhytomyr regions, the military said.

Khmelnytskyi Governor Serhii Tiurin said on Telegram that the drone attacks damaged a business and some homes, while injuring one person.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday it destroyed a Ukrainian aerial drone over the Bryansk region, which is located along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram there were no reports of damage or casualties from the Ukrainian attack.

Some information for this story was provided by Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 

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Romanian parliament expected to approve new government

BUCHAREST — Romania’s outgoing president Klaus Iohannis is expected Monday to designate leftist Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to form a new government after three pro-European parties agreed to the details of a parliamentary majority. 

The Social Democrat Party (PSD) will hold eight cabinet posts including justice, transport, labor and defense, and most of its current ministers will stay on in their posts. 

The centrist Liberal Party (PNL) will have six cabinet jobs, including energy and interior and foreign ministries. The ethnic Hungarian party UDMR will have two posts, including finance. 

Together with representatives of local ethnic minorities, the three parties will have a slim majority in the legislative in which three ultranationalist and hard-right parties won over a third of seats in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election. 

The new government will need to approve a calendar for a new two-round presidential election. The three parties in the coalition have agreed to back a single presidential candidate in an attempt to prevent a representative from the radical right from winning. 

The original three rounds of votes to elect a new president and parliament in the European Union and NATO state, which shares the longest land border with Ukraine, descended into chaos when a little-known far-right pro-Russian politician won the first presidential round on Nov. 24. 

His shocking win prompted Romania’s top court to annul the election on suspicion of Russian meddling and order that it be re-run, likely in the first part of 2025. 

Romania’s new cabinet will also have the daunting task of lowering the budget deficit from an expected 8.6% of economic output this year – the EU’s largest – to around 7% in 2025 and ratings agencies and analysts expect tax hikes.

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Russia captures two villages in Ukraine as Moscow’s forces advance on two cities

Russian forces captured two villages in Ukraine, one in Kharkiv region in the northeast and one in eastern Donetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

Donetsk region is where Moscow is concentrating most of its efforts to seize two cities.

Russian forces, making steady progress across Donetsk region, are moving on the towns of Pokrovsk, a logistics center and site of an important coking colliery, and appear to be closing in on Kurakhove, farther south.

The Defense Ministry statement said troops had taken control of Lozova, near the town of Kupiansk, in an area north of Donetsk region also under Russian pressure in recent weeks. The village of Sontsivka, north of Kurakhove, was also captured.

The ministry on Saturday announced the capture of another village near Kurakhove, Kostiantynopolske.

The Ukraine military’s general staff made no mention of those villages falling into Russian hands, but said Sontsivka was in a sector subject to 26 Russian attacks in the past 24 hours. The general staff also reported heavy fighting near Pokrovsk, with 34 Russian attempts to pierce defenses.

The popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState said Sontsivka was under Russian control.

Russian reports have described intensified pressure on Kurakhove.

The Moscow-appointed governor of areas of Donetsk region occupied by Russian forces, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram that Russian troops now controlled the town center. He also said troops were advancing on Pokrovsk from the south.

Russian troops have been moving through eastern Ukraine in the past two months at the fastest rate since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Ukrainian military said on Friday its forces had pulled back from the area around two villages — one near Pokrovsk, the other near Kurakhove — to avoid being encircled by advancing Russian troops.

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‘El Gordo’ lottery in Spain spreads Christmas riches worth $2.8 billion

Madrid — For weeks, Spaniards had anticipated the arrival of “El Gordo” or “The Fat One.”

But unlike Santa Claus, El Gordo arrived three days before Christmas, before noon on Sunday.

El Gordo is the first prize of Spain’s hugely popular national Christmas lottery, which is said to be the world’s largest based on the total prize money involved, even though other lotteries have larger single prizes. This year’s draw will spread riches of around $2.8 billion, much of it in small winnings.

Several ticket holders with the number 72480 won the top prize, worth about $417,000 before taxes. The winning tickets were sold in Logrono, a city in northern Spain’s La Rioja region that is known for its wines.

Multiple tickets with the same number can be sold to different groups and full tickets are divisible into 10 parts. Buying and sharing these fractions, known in Spanish as “décimos” or tenths, is a popular tradition in the run-up to Christmas. Families, friends, and co-workers often take part, usually spending $21 each.

On Sunday, young students from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school selected the numbers from two revolving orbs in the capital’s Teatro Real opera house and sang them out in turn for nearly five hours in a cadence familiar to Spaniards. After “El Gordo” was announced, audience members — some dressed in costume as Don Quijote, Christmas elves, Biblical wise men and the lottery itself — began streaming out of the venue, from which the event was televised nationally.

María Angeles, a teacher from the southwestern province of Badajoz, said she waited for hours in line to get a seat inside the opera house to watch the event with a group of 14 friends and family members that she traveled with to Madrid.

“The point of coming to see the lottery is the hope,” Angeles said. She reckoned no one in her group won more than $146.

The lottery works on the premise of distributing the most winning numbers to the largest number of people possible. There are hundreds of small prizes and 13 major ones, including the “El Gordo” winner.

In the weeks leading up to the draw, lines form outside lottery offices, especially those with a history of selling prize-winning tickets in previous years.

Spain’s Dec. 22 Christmas lottery began during the Napoleonic wars in 1812 and has continued largely without interruption since then, even during the Spanish Civil War. Students from the San Ildefonso school have been singing the prizes since the start.

Spain’s national lottery was first established as a charity in 1763 by the Bourbon monarch King Carlos III. It was later used to shore up state coffers. Today, it supports various charities.

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Pope Francis calls for ceasefire on all fronts in his prayer ahead of Christmas

Vatican City — Pope Francis called for a ceasefire on all war fronts in his Sunday Angelus prayer ahead of Christmas, condemning the “cruelty” of bombing schools and hospitals in Ukraine and Gaza.

“Let the weapons fall silent and let the Christmas carols ring out!” Francis said, delivering his Sunday blessing from indoors due to a cold and as a precaution ahead of a busy Christmas period.

“Let us pray that at Christmas there will be a ceasefire on all war fronts, in Ukraine, in the Holy Land, throughout the Middle East and throughout the world,” the pope said.

Francis recalled, as he often does, the “battered Ukraine” that continues to be hit by attacks on cities, “which sometimes damage schools, hospitals and churches.”

He also expressed his pain thinking of Gaza, “of such cruelty, to the machine-gunning of children, to the bombing of schools and hospitals … How much cruelty!”

Francis on Saturday also criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and said that his envoy had been unable to enter the territory because of Israeli bombing. Israeli authorities on Sunday allowed Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, to enter Gaza and celebrate a pre-Christmas Mass with members of the territory’s small Christian community.

Israel says it has made great efforts to spare civilians and is only at war with Hamas, which it accuses of genocidal violence in the attack that ignited the war.

The pontiff, who turned 88 this past week, appeared in good shape on Sunday, after looking wheezing and congested during his annual Christmas greeting to Vatican bureaucrats on Saturday.

The Vatican cited the cold temperatures outside and Francis’ strenuous week ahead in deciding to deliver his Sunday blessing indoors.

The pope on Tuesday is due to inaugurate his big Holy Year and preside over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations in St. Peter’s Basilica. On Thursday, he is scheduled to travel to Rome’s main prison to inaugurate the Jubilee there.

Francis has long suffered bouts of bronchitis, especially in winter. In 2023, he ended up in hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics. He had part of one lung removed as a young man and frequently seems out of breath, especially after walking or exerting himself.

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Albanian PM says TikTok ban was not ‘rushed reaction to a single incident’

Tirana, Albania — Albania’s prime minister said Sunday the ban on TikTok his government announced a day earlier was “not a rushed reaction to a single incident.”

Edi Rama said Saturday the government will shut down TikTok for one year, accusing the popular video service of inciting violence and bullying, especially among children.

Authorities have held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents since the November stabbing death of a teenager by another teen after a quarrel that started on social media apps. Ninety percent of them approve of the ban on TikTok.

“The ban on TikTok for one year in Albania is not a rushed reaction to a single incident, but a carefully considered decision made in consultation with parent communities in schools across the country,” said Rama.

Following Tirana’s decision, TikTok asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” in the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had “found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok.”

“To claim that the killing of the teenage boy has no connection to TikTok because the conflict didn’t originate on the platform demonstrates a failure to grasp both the seriousness of the threat TikTok poses to children and youth today and the rationale behind our decision to take responsibility for addressing this threat,” Rama said.

“Albania may be too small to demand that TikTok protect children and youth from the frightening pitfalls of its algorithm,” he said, blaming TikTok for “the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on.”

Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.

Many youngsters in Albania did not approve of the ban.

“We disclose our daily life and entertain ourselves, that is, we exploit it during our free time,” said Samuel Sulmani, an 18-year-old in the town of Rreshen, 75 kilometers north of the capital Tirana, on Sunday. “We do not agree with that because that’s a deprivation for us.”

But Albanian parents have been increasingly concerned following reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok.

“Our decision couldn’t be clearer: Either TikTok protects the children of Albania, or Albania will protect its children from TikTok,” Rama said.

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Putin meets Slovak PM Fico at Kremlin 

Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks at the Kremlin on Sunday with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of the few European leaders he has stayed friendly with since the eruption of hostilities with Ukraine, according to Russian television.

“Putin is currently holding talks in the Kremlin with Slovak Prime Minister Fico,” Russian TV journalist Pavel Zarubin, a Kremlin insider, posted on his Telegram channel, along with a short video showing the two leaders.

The visit by Fico, whose country is both a NATO and European Union member, had not been previously announced.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told Zarubin however that it had been arranged “a few days ago.”

Peskov did not give details of the talks but said it could be “presumed” that supplies of Russian gas would be discussed.

Ukraine announced this year that it would not renew a contract allowing the transit of Russian gas through its territory that runs out on December 31.

Slovakia and Hungary, which rely on Russian gas, have raised concerns about the prospect of losing supplies.

Fico ended military aid to Ukraine when he became prime minister again in October 2023, and like Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban has called for peace talks.

Fico announced in November that he would go to Moscow in May for ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

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Thousands protest in Serbian capital over fatal train station accident

Belgrade — Thousands protested Sunday in Serbia’s capital Belgrade to demand that leaders take responsibility for the collapse of a train station roof that killed 15 people last month.

For over seven weeks, the Serbian government has been under pressure from nation-wide demonstrations following the deaths in the northern city of Novi Sad, with many protesters accusing authorities of corruption and inadequate oversight.

Sunday’s protest organized by university students started with 15-minutes of silence as tribute to the 15 victims in the incident.

The demonstration occupied Slavija square, a key roundabout, snarling traffic in the city center.

“The state is children’s property” and “Protests are exams” read some of the banners of the demonstrators who have demanded that the prime minister and the Novi Sad mayor resign, and that those found responsible be prosecuted.

Farmers, actors and other citizens from across Serbia have come to support the students.

Students have also called for legal proceedings to be dropped against demonstrators, and for the prosecution of assailants who have attacked the protesters.

In a bid to dilute the anger and calm the protests, the authorities over the past weeks have promised various subsidies for young people.

On Friday, the government announced plans to close schools early for winter holidays.

Students continued to protest, saying their demands have only been partially met.

Fourteen people, aged between six and 74, were killed on November 1 when the roof collapsed after major renovation works on the station.

A 15th victim died in hospital weeks later. 

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Italy’s Meloni says security threat posed by Russia is far-reaching 

SAARISELKA, Finland — Russia poses a bigger threat to European Union security than just defense as Moscow can use illegal immigration and other issues to undermine the bloc, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday.

Finland hosted the leaders of Italy, Sweden and Greece, as well as the EU foreign affairs chief, in its northern Lapland region at the weekend to discuss security in the Nordic region and the Mediterranean, as well as migration challenges in southern Europe.

“We have to understand the threat is much wider than we imagine,” Meloni, who leads a conservative government, told a press conference when asked about Russia.

The danger to EU security from Russia or from elsewhere would not stop once the Ukraine conflict ended and the EU must be prepared for that, she said.

“It’s about our democracy, it’s about influencing our public opinion, it’s about what happens in Africa, it’s about raw materials, it’s about the instrumentalization of migration. We need to know it’s a very wide idea of security,” Meloni said.

She urged the EU to do more to protect its borders and not let Russia or any “criminal organization” steer the flows of illegal migrants.

Some EU members, including Finland and Estonia, have accused Russia of allowing illegal migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere to enter EU states via Russia without proper checks, undermining the EU’s security.

Moscow has denied Russia was deliberately pushing illegal migrants into the EU.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said securing his country’s 1,340-km border with Russia was “an existential” question for Finland and for other EU members and NATO allies.

Meloni said the EU had been wrong in dealing with the issue of immigration over the years simply in terms of how to share the burden.

“Tackling the issue of illegal immigration solely as a solidarity-based debate was a mistake,” she said. “The result is that we have been unable to protect our borders. … We want to defend our external borders and we will not allow Russia or criminal organizations to undermine our security.”

While NATO remained “the cornerstone” of EU security, the bloc had to tackle wider challenges, Meloni said.

“Security also means critical infrastructure, it means artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, raw materials, supply chains. It means a new and more effective foreign and cooperation policy, it means migration,” she said.

 

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German police say Christmas market attack killed 4 women and a boy

MAGDEBURG, GERMANY — More details emerged Sunday about those killed when a man drove a car at speed through a Christmas market in Germany, while mourners continued to place flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, said that the victims were four women ranging in age from 45 to 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy they had spoken of a day earlier.

Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

Saturday evening, the suspect was brought before a judge, who ordered behind closed doors that he be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left the faith.

He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The horror triggered by yet another act of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a key issue as German heads toward an early election on Feb. 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party had already been polling strongly amid a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for having allowed high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is known for a strong anti-migration position going back years, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union’s migration policies.

At an annual news conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”

Orban vowed to “fight back” against the EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too.”

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France supports Ethiopia’s quest for sea access through discussion

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — French President Emmanuel Macron said his country supports Ethiopia’s quest for access to the sea through discussion and respecting international laws and neighboring countries.

Macron spoke on Saturday after a one-day visit to Addis Ababa, where he held bilateral talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

During a news conference, Macron welcomed the Ankara Declaration reached by the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Federal Republic of Somalia on Dec. 11.

In the declaration, brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “the leaders of Somalia and Ethiopia reaffirmed their respect and commitment to one another’s sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity, as well as the principles enshrined in international law, the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitutive Act of the African Union.”

The two sides also agreed to start “technical negotiations” by February on details of Ethiopia’s sea access, and that those negotiations would be facilitated by Turkey and be “concluded and signed” within four months.

The breakthrough came after an almost yearlong dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia that began Jan. 1 when Somaliland’s former president, Muse Bihi Abdi, and Ethiopia’s Abiy signed a memorandum of understanding to lease 20 kilometers of Somaliland seafront to Ethiopia for 50 years, in return for diplomatic recognition.

The Somali government rejected the deal and accused Ethiopia of a “blatant violation” of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On Saturday, President Macron expressed his readiness to support Ethiopia’s legitimate quest for sea access.

He said France is interested in playing its part in facilitating ways in which sea access can be achieved responsibly through talks, in a way that recognizes international laws and respects neighboring countries.

Abiy said the two leaders have thoroughly discussed his country’s pursuit of peaceful access to the Red Sea. He said the French president accepted Ethiopia’s request for support in its quest for sea access through international law, peacefully and diplomatically.

“The ties between our two nations continue to be strengthened and I look forward to our discussions during his stay in Ethiopia,” Abiy said of Macron in a post on X.

Macron also touched on a domestic issue in Ethiopia: the implementation of the Pretoria agreement signed in November 2022 by Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front that ended a deadly two-year war.

Macron said France is keen to support those affected by the conflict and would like to see the rule of law upheld through the transitional justice process.

Abiy and Macron also toured Ethiopia’s newly renovated National Palace in Addis Ababa, the former home of emperor Haile Selassie that was restored with the help of 25 million euros provided by the French Development Agency. The Ethiopian government plans to open it to the public as a museum.

French architects and other professionals have also participated in the renovation process, Macron said.

According to Macron, France is also providing funding and technical support for ongoing renovation at the Rock-Hewn Churches at Lalibela in the Amhara region. The site was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1978.

It’s the second time Macron has visited Ethiopia in six years.

Before traveling to Ethiopia, Macron visited the cyclone-hit Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, where residents demanded more support in light of the cyclone that devastated the island and claimed dozens of lives.

Macron also stopped by Djibouti, which hosts the largest French military base in the continent, where he dined with his troops.

After meeting with President Ismail Omar Guelleh, Macron described relations with Djibouti as a solid, deep-rooted and forward-looking partnership.

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Albania to shut down TikTok for 1 year, says platform promotes violence among children

TIRANA, ALBANIA — Albania’s prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. 

Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok. 

Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be fully closed for all. … There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania.” Rama said the shutdown would begin sometime next year. 

It was not immediately clear if TikTok has a representative in Albania. 

In an email response Saturday to a request for comment, TikTok asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” on the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had “found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok.” 

Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers. 

There has been increasing concern from Albanian parents after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok. 

TikTok’s operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, “promoting how to better study, how to preserve nature … and so on,” according to Rama. 

Albania is too small a country to impose on TikTok a change of its algorithm so that it does not promote “the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on,” Rama’s office wrote in an email response to The Associated Press’ request for comment. Rama’s office said that in China TikTok “prevents children from being sucked into this abyss.” 

Authorities have set up a series of protective measures at schools, starting with an increased police presence, training programs and closer cooperation with parents. 

Rama said Albania would follow how the company and other countries react to the one-year shutdown before deciding whether to allow the company to resume operations in Albania. 

Not everyone agreed with Rama’s decision to close TikTok. 

“The dictatorial decision to close the social media platform TikTok … is a grave act against freedom of speech and democracy,” said Ina Zhupa, a lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party. “It is a pure electoral act and abuse of power to suppress freedoms.” 

Albania holds parliamentary elections next year. 

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Pope describes Israeli airstrikes of Gaza as ‘cruelty’

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people. 

Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza. 

“Yesterday, children were bombed,” the pope said. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.” 

The pope, as the leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been designated a terror group by the United States, the U.K. and other Western countries. 

In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.” 

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide. 

On Saturday, Francis also said that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry. 

The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry. 

The Israeli military said on Saturday the patriarch’s entry had been approved, and he would enter Gaza on Sunday, barring any major security issues. Aid from the patriarch’s office entered last week, the military said.  

Israel allows clerics to enter Gaza and “works in cooperation with the Christian community to make it easier for the Christian population that remains in the Gaza Strip — including coordinating its removal from the Gaza Strip to a third country,” a statement from the military said. 

The war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. 

Israel’s retaliatory campaign, which it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins. 

Israel says that at least a third of the dead have been militants and says it tries to avoid harm to civilians, but that it is battling militants who it accuses of embedding among the population in dense urban areas. Hamas rejects this accusation. 

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France adds first nuclear reactor in 25 years to grid

PARIS — France connected the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor to its grid on Saturday morning, state-run operator EDF said, in the first addition to the country’s nuclear power network in 25 years.

The reactor, which began operating in September ahead of the grid connection, is going online 12 years later than originally planned and at a cost of about $13 billion — four times the original budget.

“EDF teams have achieved the first connection of the Flamanville EPR to the national grid at 11:48 a.m. The reactor is now generating electricity,” EDF said in a statement.

The Flamanville 3 European Pressurized Reactor is France’s largest at 1.6 gigawatts and one of the world’s biggest, along with China’s 1.75 GW Taishan reactor, which is based on a similar design, and Finland’s Olkiluoto.

It is the first to be connected to the grid since COVAX 2 in 1999 but is being brought into service at a time of sluggish consumption, with France exporting a record amount of electricity this year.

EDF is planning to build six new reactors to fulfill a 2022 pledge made by President Emmanuel Macron as part of the country’s energy transition plans, although questions remain around the funding and timeline of the new projects.

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Germans mourn attack on Christmas market with no answers about why

MAGDEBURG, GERMANY — Germans on Saturday mourned a violent attack and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove a black BMW into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least two people, including a small child, and injuring at least 60 others.

Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack Friday evening and took him into custody for questioning. He has lived in Germany for nearly two decades, practicing medicine, officials said.

Several German media outlets identified the man as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

There were still no answers Saturday as to what caused him to drive into a crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, he shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.

He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the “Islamism of Europe.” Some described him as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.

Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann said he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.

“After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar,” Neumann, the director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College London, wrote on X.

The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin, where a truck attack on a Christmas market in 2016 killed 12 people, kept its markets open but has increased its police presence at them.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives,” Scholz wrote on X. “We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”

Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.

The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn’t be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.

“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city,” Saxony-Anhalt’s governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 and who had been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X but did not mention the suspect’s connection to the kingdom.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Hours after Friday’s tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.

Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud “you had to assume that something terrible had happened,” she said, calling it “a dark day” for the city.

The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.

“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring,” the governor said.

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Ukraine strike kills 6 in Russia’s Kursk region

Ukraine attacked a town in Russia’s Kursk region Friday, killing six people, including a child, a senior local official said.

Ten others were hospitalized in the town of Rylsk after the attack with U.S.-supplied HIMARS rockets, Kursk acting Governor Alexander Khinshtein said.

The attack, Ukrainian officials said, followed an earlier Russian missile attack on Kyiv.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said an early Friday morning Russian ballistic missile attack on the capital killed at least one person, wounded 13 and damaged six foreign embassies and a university in the city’s center.

On its Telegram social media account, Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted five Iskander short-range ballistic missiles fired at the city, but falling missile debris caused damage and sparked fires in three districts. City officials reported damage to multiple residential buildings, medical facilities and schools.

Air force officials urged citizens to immediately respond to reports of ballistic attack threats because they provide very little time to find shelter.

At a briefing in Kyiv on Friday, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tykhyi said the missile attack did significant damage to a building that houses the embassies of Albania, Argentina, the Palestinians, North Macedonia, Portugal and Montenegro. He shared pictures of the damage to the buildings. No injuries were reported in those attacks.

The Kyiv National Linguistics University said on its Instagram account that its building also had been hit, and it shared a picture of an area near an entrance where two large windows had been blown out.

Russia has said it launched the attack in retaliation for Kyiv’s firing U.S.-made weapons into Russia.

Russia’s attacks on Kyiv came one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s year-end press conference. Putin has been talking about negotiations to end the war “for quite some time, but the bombing has continued,” said Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

President-elect Donald Trump has talked about the possibility of talks with the Russian and Ukrainian presidents to end the war. He has said he could broker a deal to end the war in 24 hours.

Kupchan said Trump is “naive” to think he could get the two countries to come to an agreement so swiftly.

Trump “cannot afford a deal that effectively subjugates Ukraine and leaves it a ward of Russia,” Kupchan said. Ukraine must be defensible, he said, and “not left in a geopolitical limbo that invites Russia to simply pick up the war where it left off six months from now … or a year later.”

Meanwhile, Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister of justice, reported Friday that Russia had launched a cyberattack on state registers, resulting in a shutdown.

Stefanishyna made the initial report from her Facebook page, where she said it was clear the attack was orchestrated by Russia to “sow panic among citizens of Ukraine and abroad.”

She held a briefing later Friday in Kyiv along with Ukraine’s acting head of the Cybersecurity Department of the security service, Volodymyr Karastelov.

She told reporters that while it appeared no data were lost or stolen, the ministry suspended the activities of all state registers to avoid further deployment of threats. The affected registries include civil acts such as marriages, wills, births and car registrations, and Stefanishyna said they were working to restore them.

The Cybersecurity Department said its main line of investigation was that a hacker group affiliated with Russian military intelligence was behind the attack. Russia has yet to comment on the attack.

VOA’s Kim Lewis contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

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Musk backs German far-right party in social media post

Elon Musk, the billionaire ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, has praised the far-right Alterative for Germany party ahead of the election due in Germany early next year. The party wants to end Western support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. Henry Ridgwell reports.

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VOA Russian: Moscow ramped up repressions against journalists and LGBTQ+ in 2024

VOA Russian spoke to OVD-Info, Russia’s most trusted watchdog dealing with political arrests and trials. It said 620 people were persecuted in Russia on political grounds in 2024, with court cases involving terrorism charges rising sharply. Journalists became the most persecuted part of the society in the past year, while numerous arrests of LGBTQ+ people formed a worrying trend in 2024.

Click here for the full story in Russian. 

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VOA Russian: Russian society broadly supports Putin’s ideas, including possible nuclear strikes

A well-known expert on Russia, CSIS analyst Maria Snegovaya, has presented her new, much-discussed report in which she outlined how Russian society closed its ranks behind Russian President Vladimir Putin with the support for the country’s war against Ukraine remaining stable and high at up to 70%. Snegovaya also notes that Russian elites would not stand in the way of any Putin’s initiatives, while the support for use of Russia’s nuclear weapons is rising.

Click here for the full story in Russian.

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Teen stabs 7-year-old girl to death at school in Croatia

A 7-year-old girl was stabbed to death Friday at an elementary school in Croatia by a knife-wielding teenager who also wounded three other children and a teacher, officials said.  

Video footage Friday showed children running away from the school as a medical helicopter was landing.   

The attacker is a former student of the Precko Elementary School in Zagreb where the attack took place, according to Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic. 

The teen had a history of mental health issues and after Friday’s incident “shut himself in a nearby health center where he tried to injure himself with the knife,” according to Bozinovic. Police were able to prevent him from committing suicide. 

Last year, the teen also tried to kill himself, the minister said.  

“Five persons have been hospitalized, and their lives are not in danger,” Croatian Health Minister Irena Hrstic said, including the attacker in the count. 

Leaders declare day of mourning

School attacks are rare in Croatia.   

“There are no words to describe the grief over the horrible and unthinkable tragedy that shocked us all today,” said President Zoran Milanovic. 

“We are horrified,” said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.  

Following the assault at the school, Croatian officials declared Saturday as a day of mourning.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.   

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Russian missiles target Kyiv after Ukraine fires US-made missiles across the border

KYIV, UKRAINE — A Russian ballistic missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early Friday killed at least one person and injured nine others, officials said. Moscow claimed it was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons.

At least three loud blasts were heard in Kyiv shortly before sunrise. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted five Iskander short-range ballistic missiles fired at the city. The attack knocked out heating to 630 residential buildings, 16 medical facilities, and 30 schools and kindergartens, the city administration said, and falling missile debris caused damage and sparked fires in three districts.

“We ask citizens to immediately respond to reports of ballistic attack threats, because there is very little time to find shelter,” the air force said.

During the almost three years since the war began Russia has regularly bombarded civilian areas of Ukraine, often in an attempt to cripple the power grid and unnerve Ukrainians. Meanwhile Ukraine, struggling to hold back Russia’s bigger army on the front line, has attempted to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the strike was in response to a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia’s Rostov border region two days earlier. That attack used six American-made Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, missiles and four Storm Shadow air-launched missiles provided by the United Kingdom, it said.

That day, Ukraine claimed to have targeted a Rostov oil refinery as part of its campaign to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort.

The use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russia has angered the Kremlin. Ukraine fired several American-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia for the first time on Nov. 19 after Washington eased restrictions on their use.

That development prompted Russia to use a new hypersonic missile, called Oreshnik, for the first time. President Vladimir Putin suggested the missile could be used to target government buildings in Kyiv, though there have been no reports of an Oreshnik being used for a second time.

Answering the Ukrainian attack on Rostov on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said it carried out a group strike with “high-precision, long-range weapons” on the command center of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and another location where it said Ukraine’s Neptune missile systems are designed and produced.

The attack also targeted Ukrainian ground-based cruise missile systems and U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, the Defense Ministry said.

“The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All objects are hit,” the defense ministry said in a Telegram post.

Its claims could not immediately be verified. 

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