Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said on Monday he would not suspend his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon after her arrest as part of a police inquiry into the finances of the governing, pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP).

The police are investigating what happened to more than 600,000 pounds ($750,000) in funding raised by Scottish independence campaigners in 2017 that was supposed to have been ring-fenced, but may have been used for other purposes.

Yousaf has faced growing calls from senior members of his party and rival politicians to suspend Sturgeon, her husband Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, and its former treasurer, who have all been arrested and then released without charge, while the investigation continues.  

“I see no reason to suspend their membership,” Yousaf told the BBC. He said Sturgeon’s arrest was “quite painful personally” given their “long-standing friendship.”

After she was released on Sunday, Sturgeon said she had committed no offence and was innocent of wrongdoing. 

Sturgeon’s arrest marks a dramatic fall from grace for a politician who served as leader of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government for more than eight years until she announced she was stepping down earlier this year. 

Ash Regan, a former SNP leadership candidate, called on Monday for Sturgeon to resign her membership while under investigation as she had become a “distraction.”

Angus MacNeil, one of the SNP’s longest-serving members of the British parliament, said on Sunday Sturgeon should be suspended. “This soap opera has gone far enough,” he said. 

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party believes that the scandal will help them gain seats in Scotland, which is likely to be a key battleground at the next United Kingdom-wide election expected to be held next year.  

Large gains for Labour in Scotland could be key to the party’s hopes of winning a majority and returning to power in Westminster for the first time since 2010. 
…

Latest developments:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that representatives from the International Criminal Court visited the Kherson region following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting White House talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

A Ukrainian official said Monday the country’s troops retook control of Storozhov, a village in the Donetsk region as they conduct a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Russia.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar thanked a marine brigade in a Telegram post, saying the Ukrainian flag was flying over Storozhov.  She said the scene would repeat in every area until Ukrainian forces liberate all of Ukraine’s land.

The development came a day after Ukrainian officials said their troops recaptured three other villages in the area: Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka.

Ukraine’s armed forces general staff said Monday that during the past day there had been heavy fighting elsewhere in Donetsk, including in Bakhmut, and in the Luhansk region.

NATO drills

In Germany, NATO was beginning the largest air deployment exercise in its history with 250 aircraft from 25 nations.

Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz said last week the exercise had been in planning since 2018 when it was conceived in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Highlighting that NATO is a defensive alliance, Gerhartz said the exercise, which will last until June 23, would not involve sending any aircraft toward Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

In addition to NATO members, other participants include Japan as well as Sweden, which has applied to join NATO and received the necessary approval from all but two existing members.

Kakhovka dam

In his nightly video address Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried Russian attacks on evacuation routes for civilians escaping areas flooded after last week’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

“It was an evacuation from Kardashynka, a village on the left bank of Kherson region. … The occupiers created this disaster by blowing up a dam, leaving people to their fate in flooded towns and villages, and then shelling the boats that are trying to take people away,” he said. [[ https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/duzhe-vazhlivo-sho-predstavniki-mizhnarodnogo-pravosuddya-na-83553 ]]

There have also been concerns about the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant after the dam breach dramatically lowered the levels of water available for cooling operations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday it needs to access areas around the plant to verify current water levels.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement he expects IAEA experts will be able to go to the site soon.  He plans to travel the plant this week.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to meet outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House Monday as jockeying to secure Stoltenberg’s successor intensifies.

While the White House says the official agenda for the meeting is to discuss the alliance’s upcoming July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the issue of who will be next at NATO’s helm during this difficult period in its 74-year history will no doubt be front and center, as the alliance faces Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, is the longest-running NATO chief in a generation and has had his tenure extended three times since taking the job in 2014. In February, his spokesperson said he will leave office when his current term ends in October.

Stoltenberg is widely credited for managing rocky transatlantic relations between former U.S. President Donald Trump and European allies over defense spending, the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, and overseeing the alliance’s response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. His preference about his successor carries weight and Biden is expected to consult with him.

“A lot of people will look to him to say, ‘Who do you think is the best to follow up your leadership?” said Andrew Hyde, senior fellow at the Stimson Center, to VOA.

Whoever succeeds Stoltenberg will face the daunting challenge of shepherding the security of 1 billion people in 31 countries and growing. The next leader militarily while preventing the conflict from bleeding into the territory of a NATO member, which would trigger the alliance’s Article 5 principle of collective defense and potentially lead to World War III.

Consensus based

A U.S. general is traditionally the Supreme Allied Commander Europe but the post of NATO chief has always been assumed by a European,  even though there’s nothing in its charter that requires it.

There’s no formal process and candidates don’t announce that they’re running for the post. Selection is done through consensus, achieved mostly through quiet and informal diplomatic channels.

As the biggest donor, the U.S. plays a key role — the reason why two contenders have paid a visit to the Oval Office recently.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen met with Biden at the White House last Monday. She is seen as a front-runner; however, her candidacy would mean a third successive secretary-general from a Nordic country.

Another potential hurdle is that Denmark has long failed to meet the 2% minimum requirement in defense spending for member states. In December, her government launched a plan to meet NATO’s target by 2030, and recently ramped up military aid to Ukraine.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Washington days after Frederiksen, with a broad agenda that includes lobbying for his defense secretary, Ben Wallace. Britain, supplier of more military assistance to Ukraine than any country after the United States, has clout. And as one of the first defense ministers to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, Wallace is well-known among the alliance.

However, out of 13 chiefs in NATO’s history, three were British.

Biden was non-committal when asked whether it was time for another one. “Maybe. That remains to be seen,” he said during a joint news conference with Sunak Thursday.

All who have filled the post since 1952 were male.

Several women likely in running

There is a sense that it’s time the alliance selects a female leader, Hyde said. With the Russian war raging, “there’s also a feeling it should be somebody from Eastern Europe,” he added.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Lithuanian counterpart Ingrida Simonyte meet both requirements. However, some observers argue that a leader from one of the Baltic countries, which are usually hawkish on Russia, could be perceived as a provocation by Moscow.

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of Germany have been floated as potential candidates. So has Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, although her Ukrainian heritage may prove to be a complication.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been mentioned as another contender. And there’s always the possibility that the allies might prevail on Stoltenberg to extend his tenure yet again.

The issue of who is the next NATO secretary-general is expected to be settled by July, when the group’s leaders meet in Vilnius.
…

In a move that many hailed as a salve for the historic wounds between Europe and Africa, Germany last December returned 22 artifacts looted during the Colonial Era to what is now Nigeria.

But five months on, questions are being asked in Germany as to whether cultural guardians were wise to hand back the priceless treasures, known as the Benin bronzes.

Controversy erupted after Nigeria’s outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, suddenly declared in March that the artifacts would be returned to a traditional ruler — and not to the Nigerian state, as Germany had expected.

The recipient named by Buhari is the Oba of Benin, a descendant of the sovereign who reigned over the kingdom of Benin when the bronzes were looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.

Custody of any repatriated bronzes must be “handed over to the Oba,” who will be “responsible for the management of all places” where they are kept, Buhari’s statement said.

Buhari’s announcement was one of his last moves in office before he was succeeded by Bola Tinubu following elections.

But it stirred soul-searching in Germany, where critics said it appeared to breach a key understanding with Nigeria.

Under a July 2022 agreement, Germany promised to return around 1,100 bronzes from 20 of its museums, and both sides agreed on the importance of making the works accessible to the public.

Underpinning this were plans to display the bronzes in a new museum in Benin City in southern Edo state.

The state of Saxony has put the brakes on further restitutions pending clarification on whether the Oba’s ownership would affect public display of the bronzes.

Saxony’s Grassi museum was among five museums that handed over the 22 bronzes in December and other museums in the state still hold 262 pieces.

Before proceeding with returning them, the state wants to “wait to see what the effect of this declaration is … and how the new government is going to proceed,” a spokesman for the Saxon culture ministry told AFP.

“We will not take any new steps” before the situation is made clear, he said.

Asked about Buhari’s declaration, foreign ministry spokesman Christopher Burger said the return of the bronzes was “not subject to conditions.”

“It is the decision of the sovereign state of Nigeria to do what it wants,” he said, while adding that it was “important to us that the public continue to have access to the Benin bronzes.”

German Culture Minister Claudia Roth said she was “surprised and irritated” by the response to the declaration in Germany.

“What happens to the bronzes now is for the current owner to decide, and that is the sovereign state of Nigeria,” she told the ZDF broadcaster.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which runs the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, said he did not believe Buhari’s declaration placed future restitutions in doubt.

The Ethnological Museum has around 530 historical objects from the ancient kingdom of Benin, including more than 400 bronzes — considered the most important collection outside London’s British Museum.

The Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg is also among the German museums that returned the first tranche of bronzes in December

It has signed a deal to return 179 artifacts from its collection to Nigerian ownership, though a third of them are to remain in Hamburg

The museum told AFP it “has confidence in its Nigerian partners.”

Abba Isa Tijani, who heads the Nigerian government agency in charge of recovering looted works, said the planned museum project in Benin City was unaffected by the declaration.

“The museum construction is still in place,” he said.

“The Oba of Benin relies on this museum, nothing has changed because he doesn’t have the staff or the expertise to run the museum,” he added.

“We want to reassure our partners, the museums in Europe” that the objects will be “made available for researchers, and for the public and tourists to be seen,” Tijani said.

“The artifacts of course can’t be sold, because in Nigeria it’s forbidden to sell Nigerian antiquities.”

Peju Layiwola, an art historian and artist in Nigeria who was heavily involved in the battle for the return of the bronzes, said the reaction of Western museums to the declaration had been overblown.

“It’s an excuse… to not return those artifacts, because they didn’t want to give it back,” she said.
…

Forensic scientists will on Monday begin the exhumation of 128 victims of the Spanish Civil War from a vast burial complex near Madrid, El Pais newspaper reported.

It will be the first exhumation of its kind involving people whose bodies were moved from elsewhere after the 1936-1939 war and reburied without their families’ permission in the Valley of Cuelgamuros, which was formerly known as Valley of the Fallen.

El Pais reported that forensic scientists have installed a laboratory inside the vast burial site, which includes a monument and 150-meter-high cross, on the outskirts of Madrid prior to the exhumation work beginning.

The remains of some 34,000 people, many of them victims of Franco’s regime, are buried anonymously in the complex. Relatives of those whose remains lie inside have been fighting for years to give their loved ones a burial under their own names near their families.

Purificacion Lapena has been campaigning for the remains of her grandfather Manuel Lapena and his brother Antonio, a blacksmith, to be removed from the mausoleum.

“I have not been told anything about this,” she told Reuters by telephone. In 2016, a court approved the exhumation of the brothers, but seven years later the family is still waiting.

In April, the remains of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of Spain’s fascist Falange movement that supported the Francoist regime, were exhumed from the mausoleum.

His exhumation, which follows the 2019 removal of the remains of dictator Francisco Franco, is part of a plan to convert the complex built by Franco on a mountain near the capital into a memorial to the 500,000 people killed during Spain’s 1936-39 civil war.

At the time of Primo de Rivera’s exhumation, Presidency Minister Felix Bolanos said: “No person or ideology that evokes the dictatorship should be honored or extolled there.”

The Spanish government did not respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation of the report.
…

David Smith, a retired print technician from the north of England, was pursuing his hobby of looking for interesting shapes when he stumbled onto one unlike any other in November.  

When Smith shared his shape with the world in March, excited fans printed it onto T-shirts, sewed it into quilts, crafted cookie cutters or used it to replace the hexagons on a soccer ball — some even made plans for tattoos.

The 13-sided polygon, which 64-year-old Smith called “the hat,” is the first single shape ever found that can completely cover an infinitely large flat surface without ever repeating the same pattern.

That makes it the first “einstein” — named after the German for “one stone” (ein stein), not the famed physicist — and solves a problem posed 60 years ago that some mathematicians had thought impossible.

After stunning the mathematics world, Smith — a hobbyist with no training who told AFP that he wasn’t great at math in school — then did it again.

While all agreed “the hat” was the first einstein, its mirror image was required one in seven times to ensure that a pattern never repeated.

But in a preprint study published online late last month, Smith and the three mathematicians who helped him confirm the discovery revealed a new shape — “the specter.”

It requires no mirror image, making it an even purer einstein.

‘It can be that easy’  

Craig Kaplan, a computer scientist at Canada’s Waterloo University, told AFP that it was “an amusing and almost ridiculous story — but wonderful.”

He said that Smith, a retired print technician who lives in Yorkshire’s East Riding, emailed him “out of the blue” in November.

Smith had found something “which did not play by his normal expectations for how shapes behave,” Kaplan said.

If you slotted a bunch of these cardboard shapes together on a table, you could keep building outwards without them ever settling into a regular pattern.

Using computer programs, Kaplan and two other mathematicians showed that the shape continued to do this across an infinite plane, making it the first einstein, or “aperiodic monotile.”

When they published their first preprint in March, among those inspired was Yoshiaki Araki. The Japanese tiling enthusiast made art using the hat and another aperiodic shape created by the team called “the turtle,” sometimes using flipped versions.

Smith was inspired back and started playing around with ways to avoid needing to flip his hat.  

Less than a week after their first paper came out, Smith emailed Kaplan a new shape.

Kaplan refused to believe it at first. “There’s no way it can be that easy,” he said.

But analysis confirmed that Tile (1,1) was a “non-reflective einstein,” Kaplan said.

Something still bugged them — while this tile could go on forever without repeating a pattern, this required an “artificial prohibition” against using a flipped shape, he said.

So, they added little notches or curves to the edges, ensuring that only the non-flipped version could be used, creating “the spectre.”

‘Hatfest’

Kaplan said both their papers had been submitted to peer-reviewed journals. But the world of mathematics did not wait to express its astonishment.

Marjorie Senechal, a mathematician at Smith College in the United States, told AFP the discoveries were “exciting, surprising and amazing.”

She said she expects the spectre and its relatives “will lead to a deeper understanding of order in nature and the nature of order.”

Doris Schattschneider, a mathematician at Moravian College in the U.S., said both shapes were “stunning.”

Even Nobel-winning mathematician Roger Penrose, whose previous best effort had narrowed the number of aperiodic tiles down to two in the 1970s, had not been sure such a thing was possible, Schattschneider said.

Penrose, 91, will be among those celebrating the new shapes during the two-day “Hatfest” event at Oxford University next month.  

All involved expressed amazement that the breakthrough was achieved by someone without training in math.

“The answer fell out of the sky and into the hands of an amateur — and I mean that in the best possible way, a lover of the subject who explores it outside of professional practice,” Kaplan said.

“This is the kind of thing that ought not to happen, but very happily for the history of science does happen occasionally, where a flash brings us the answer all at once.”
…

Iran’s supreme leader said Sunday a deal with the West over Tehran’s nuclear work was possible if the country’s nuclear infrastructure remained intact, amid a stalemate between Tehran and Washington to revive a 2015 nuclear pact.

Months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington to salvage the nuclear accord with six major powers have stalled since September, with both sides accusing each other of making unreasonable demands.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s guarded approval comes days after both Tehran and Washington denied a report that they were nearing an interim deal under which Tehran would curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

“There is nothing wrong with the agreement (with the West), but the infrastructure of our nuclear industry should not be touched,” Khamenei said, according to state media.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson declined specific comment on Khamenei’s remarks, reiterating the Biden administration stance that the United States “is committed to never allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

“We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal on a verifiable and durable basis, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table,” he said, alluding to the possibility of military action.

“We will not characterize the nature of an Iranian leader’s remarks,” the spokesperson added.

The 2015 agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activity to make it harder for Tehran to develop nuclear arms, in return for lifting international sanctions.

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump exited the pact in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy, leading Tehran to gradually move well beyond the deal’s nuclear restrictions and reviving U.S., European and Israeli fears that Iran may seek an atomic bomb.

Echoing Iran’s official stance for years, Khamenei said the Islamic Republic has never sought to build a nuclear bomb.

“Accusations about Tehran seeking nuclear weapons is a lie and they know it. We do not want nuclear arms because of our religious beliefs. Otherwise, they (the West) would not have been able to stop it,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei, who has the last say on all state matters, said the country’s nuclear authorities should continue working with the U.N. nuclear watchdog “under the framework of safeguards.”

However, Khamenei called on Iranian authorities not to yield to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) “excessive and false demands,” adding that a law passed by Iran’s hardline parliament in 2020 had to be respected.

Under the law, Tehran would suspend IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites and step-up uranium enrichment if sanctions are not lifted.

“This is a good law … which must be respected and not violated in providing access and information (to the IAEA),” Khamenei said.

Last month, the IAEA reported limited progress over disputed issues with Iran, including re-installing some monitoring equipment originally put in place under the 2015 pact that Tehran ordered removed last year.
…

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday said the first cargo of discounted Russian crude oil arranged under a new deal struck between Islamabad and Moscow had arrived in Karachi. 

“Glad to announce that the first Russian discounted crude oil cargo has arrived in Karachi and will begin oil discharge tomorrow,” Sharif tweeted. 

“This is the first ever Russian oil cargo to Pakistan and the beginning of a new relationship between Pakistan and Russian Federation,” he added. 

A port official said on Sunday evening that the oil was in the process of being unloaded. 

Reuters first reported on the deal in April. The discounted crude offers a relief to Pakistan, which is facing a payments crisis and is at risk of defaulting on its debt. 

Pakistan’s purchase gives Russia a new outlet, adding to Moscow’s growing sales to India and China, as it redirects oil from Western markets because of the Ukraine conflict. 

Energy imports make up the majority of Pakistan’s external payments. The country’s imports of crude are expected to reach 100,000 barrels per day after the first cargo arrives on Monday. 

There has been no confirmation of how payment would be made, but Pakistan recently announced a plan to allow barter trade with Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, which analysts said could reduce the need for dollars and the risk of cross-border smuggling of energy products. 
…

Environmental groups and aid agencies say a long road awaits Ukraine when it comes to assessing the real impact of its latest environmental catastrophe. An explosion at a vital dam last week flooded swaths of land in southern Ukraine, threatening a host of ecosystems and even Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Pope Francis did not deliver his Sunday blessing in public but his recovery from surgery was progressing normally and he has begun physical therapy to help his breathing, the Vatican said.

As previously announced, the 86-year-old pope did not say his Sunday traditional noon Angelus prayer in public and watched Mass on television, the statement said.

Doctors had recommended he avoid putting strain on his abdomen after a three-hour operation at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to repair a hernia on Wednesday.

“What could be a better occasion than being able to support the Pope here at Gemelli?” said Giovanna Vitiello from Pompeii, who went there for medical tests and was praying under Francis’ hospital window.

“I send him best wishes and a hug because without him we would feel like lost sheep.”

Francis will stay in hospital for at least all of this week. Audiences have been canceled until June 18.

The pope has two trips planned for this summer, to Portugal on Aug. 2-6 and Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4.

Sunday’s Vatican statement said the pope showed no signs of fever and had normal blood levels.

He also received communion, it said.

Francis managed to recite the Angelus during his 2021 stay in the same hospital, also for abdominal surgery, when he had part of his colon removed to address a painful bowel condition called diverticulitis.

The pope, who has been affected by a string of health problems, earlier this year said the condition had returned and was one cause of his increasing weight.

 
…

Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who dominated politics in Scotland for years, was arrested Sunday by police investigating the finances of the governing, pro-independence Scottish National Party.

Police Scotland said a 52-year-old woman was detained “as a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigating into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party.”

“The woman is in custody and is being questioned by Police Scotland detectives,” the force said.

U.K. police do not name suspects until they are charged. The BBC and other media outlets identified the arrested woman as Sturgeon. The party did not immediately comment.

Scottish police have been investigating how 600,000 pounds ($745,000) designated for a Scottish independence campaign was spent.

Party treasurer Colin Beattie and former chief executive Peter Murrell were arrested previously and questioned as part of the investigation. Neither has been charged.

Murrell is Sturgeon’s husband, and police searched the couple’s home in Glasgow after his arrest in April.

Sturgeon unexpectedly resigned in February after eight years as Scottish National Party leader and first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government. She said that it was the right time for her, her party and her country to make way for someone else.

Sturgeon left office amid divisions in the SNP and with her main goal — independence from the U.K. for the nation of 5.5 million people — unmet.

Scottish voters backed remaining in the U.K. in a 2014 referendum that was billed as a once-in-a-generation decision. The party wants a new vote, but the U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that Scotland can’t hold one without London’s consent. The central government has refused to authorize another referendum.

Sturgeon’s departure unleashed a tussle for the future of the SNP amid recriminations over the party’s declining membership and divisions about the best path towards independence.
…

After a rocket attack in eastern Ukraine, half of Rambo’s face was mangled and bloody. Shrapnel had ravaged the right side of his head, and it was uncertain if he would survive.

The 3-year-old German shepherd, who had accompanied Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines of the war, received emergency surgery that saved his life. Now, Rambo is training with the Budapest police department in neighboring Hungary and serving as a reminder that dogs — and people — with disabilities can do great things.

Recovered from his brush with death in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv province, Rambo is learning how to interact with children, older adults and disabled people at police demonstrations and rehabilitation institutions, according to Lt. Col. Maria Stein with the Budapest Metropolitan Police.

Demonstrating the tasks performed by canine units is part of the department’s crime prevention program, with a goal of teaching young people to be more tolerant and to respect one another’s differences, Stein said.

“Nowadays, unfortunately, it happens that children mock each other because they wear glasses, because they have braces, because their ears look funny or whatever — because they’re different,” she said. “With Rambo, we might be able to sensitize these children a little and show them that yes, he is injured, he’s different, but he can do the same things as other dogs.”

Rambo’s journey to police service didn’t come easy. Last year, shrapnel from the rocket attack, which also injured some Ukrainian soldiers, blew away pieces of skull, damaging his jaw and severely mangling his right ear.

After his initial surgery, Rambo was taken to safety in western Ukraine. Violetta Kovacs, head of a Hungarian organization dedicated to rescuing German shepherds, soon collected him and brought him to a rehabilitation center near Budapest.

“The dog needed immediate help,” Kovacs, head of the German Shepherd Breed Rescue Foundation, said. “We had to operate again here in Hungary because several of his teeth were causing him great pain because of the injury, which required immediate intervention.”

Rambo spent eight months at the center, where his jaw was reconstructed, his right ear amputated and several teeth removed. He underwent training to be socialized with other dogs, Kovacs said, but his fondness for children was clear from the start.

Gyula Desko, a lieutenant colonel with the Budapest Metropolitan Police, then adopted Rambo, providing him with further training and a home.

He called Rambo a “very friendly, good-natured dog” who is making good progress in his training and whose survival was “a miracle.”

“Working with him requires more patience and more attention, as we do not know what kind of mental problems his head injury caused him,” Desko said, but Rambo is “so open with people and accepts them, despite his injuries and the shock that befell him.”

It’s those qualities, Desko said, that the police force hopes will inspire those who meet Rambo to open themselves to kindness and acceptance.

“As a police dog, one can see through him that you can live a full life even when injured and can be a useful member of society and do very diverse things,” Desko said.
…

Huge strides in life expectancy worldwide are bringing new challenges that come with increased longevity, the Dutch health minister told VOA this week.

“If you look at it from a global perspective, we’ve seen that over the past 25 years, on average we added more than five years of global life expectancy,” Ernst Kuipers, Dutch minister of health, welfare and sport, noted during a stop in Washington.

Looking at it another way, the former internist continued, “It actually means that for more than 20 years in a row, every week we added more than a day to the life expectancy of our world population. That is huge!”

Kuipers and a Dutch delegation co-led by the country’s minister of economy are in the U.S. to take part in a trade fair focused on international health and life sciences in Boston.

The Dutch are known to be the tallest people in the world and rank high in the world longevity list. Kuipers looked at the global picture when discussing the worldwide jump in life expectancy in the past quarter century.

While clean water supply, improved hygiene, sanitation conditions, access to vaccines, medicines and medical treatments have contributed to rising life expectancy in low-income countries, breakthroughs in many areas of life sciences have helped prolong life in higher-income countries, he pointed out.

“For example, new drugs in cancer treatment, newly developed interventions to treat cardiovascular diseases, and also improvement in public health.”

The good news about longevity aside, the former doctor pointed out some of the challenges that come with longer lifespans.

“We have an aging population [in the Netherlands], like in most places. People tend to get older, but they live longer usually with certain [health] conditions, with reduced mobility, etc., very similar to here,” Kuipers said.

Kuipers said his country is also experiencing a shortage in health care personnel, even as the number of working men and women affiliated with the health care industry takes up an increasing percentage of the workforce.

“If you look at the Netherlands, at the moment, one out of every six people with a job works in health care,” he said. That figure includes not just nurses or physicians, but also those serving the health care industry in human resources, finance and legal matters.

If the current pattern continues, one in five Dutch jobs will be related to health care by the year 2030, and that number will increase to one in four by the year 2040. Kuipers said this pattern will be very, very difficult, if not impossible, to sustain, “simply because we’re also going to need people in other areas of society.”

Given that health care is very labor intensive, Kuipers said governments and societies have no choice but to think of ways to meet the demands in a different, yet still effective way, to successfully cope with changing demographics.

In addition to the shortage of manpower, increased life expectancy also requires more money to care for the elderly, causing each country and government to think harder about budget priorities.

“Like the U.S., we have many burning issues, whether it’s energy transmission, preparation for climate change, infrastructure, you name it – the question of how to deliver and provide high-quality, good-access care to everyone while also limiting the increase in budget, that is very, very relevant, like it is here,” the Dutch minister said.

The Netherlands has universal health insurance and caps most people’s out of pocket expenses at 385 euros a year, a little more than 400 U.S. dollars a year.

“So far we [the country as a whole] can still afford this,” he said, “but it’s a continuous debate.”

The problem is especially acute in the case of certain very expensive drugs, the cost of which is increasing “very, very rapidly” and putting the “solidarity underlying our system” under pressure, the minister said.

He cited “orphan drugs,” which are needed by only a small number of people but are often a matter of life and death for those patients.

Kuipers and the Dutch delegation are among over 10,000 health science professionals and government officials from around the world who gathered in Boston this week to exchange ideas and find out the latest in health science at a biotech trade fair put together by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
…

Romania has recalled its ambassador to Kenya after Dragos Tigau allegedly compared Africans to monkeys.

Tigau is reported to have said, “The African group has joined us,” when a monkey appeared outside a window during a meeting in April at a United Nations building in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

CNN reports it has obtained documents showing that African diplomats formally condemned the Romanian diplomat’s remarks during a meeting with Eastern European envoys at an April meeting.

CNN reports that it has also seen two letters of apology Tigau sent to the diplomats.

Romania said Saturday that it had just recently learned about the April incident.

Romania’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, “We deeply regret this situation and offer our apologies to all those who have been affected.”
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The southern reach of the Dnipro river is likely to return to its banks by June 16 following a vast flood unleashed by the breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam this week, a Russian-installed official said Saturday.

The flood has inundated towns and villages below the dam, trapping residents and sweeping away entire houses on both sides of the Dnipro, which separates Ukrainian-controlled Kherson province from the southern section that Russian forces control.

Vladimir Saldo, who heads the Russian-controlled part, said the water level at Nova Kakhovka, the town adjacent to the dam on the downstream side, had dropped by 3 meters from Tuesday’s peak.

“The pumping of water and garbage collection from the streets have started,” he said.

Late on Saturday, Saldo added that almost 7,000 people had now been evacuated from the flooded districts of Nova Kakhovka, including 323 children, while 77 people have been hospitalized.

He said preliminary calculations by the Russian hydroelectricity producer RusHydro indicated the Dnipro would return to its usual course below the now-destroyed Kakhovka power station by Friday.

Saldo also accused Ukraine of shelling temporary refuges for those displaced by the flood, saying one woman had died as the result of the attacks. He posted a picture of a destroyed building, saying it was a hotel.

Reuters could not independently verify the assertion of shelling, which echoes similar allegations made in recent days. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv. Ukraine has also accused Moscow’s forces of shelling and killing civilians on flooded territory that it controls.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the hydroelectric power station and dam from inside the plant, which had been under Russian control since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion more than a year ago. Moscow has blamed Ukraine. 
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Lithuania’s capital was flooded with pink food, decor, and colorful outfits on Saturday, as residents celebrated the Baltic nation’s love for a cold beetroot dish commonly known as “pink soup.” 

While beetroot soup is beloved in many eastern European nations, Lithuania lays claim to Saltibarsciai — made of kefir, cucumbers, beetroot, and dill — eaten cold and a favorite on a hot summer’s day. 

“It’s not just soup – it’s a way of life,” said the city’s tourism agency Go Vilnius, which organized the inaugural festival in its honor. 

French student Victor Delcroix came dressed as a bowl of “Pink Soup.” 

“I fell in love with Saltibarsciai and I felt obliged to wear this to honor it,” he said before jumping on a giant pink slip-and-slide covered in foam. 

Elsewhere some festivalgoers prepared to set a record with the largest-ever bowl of Saltibarsciai. 

Topped with sour cream and boiled eggs and served with boiled or fried potatoes, “pink soup” is a summer staple in Lithuania. 

“There are bars … that prepare them in interesting ways, like a sushi place that makes it with wasabi,” said Ricardas Andrijauskas, at the festival. 

“We usually make it more traditionally.” 

He was not entirely convinced by all the innovations, he confessed. “Not with wasabi,” he said, shaking his head. 

Long culinary history

Elsewhere at the festival vendors were selling pink ice-cream, coffee, cocktails and perfumes. 

Go Vilnius wants the soup to boost food tourism to the city. 

“Our city’s gastro scene has skyrocketed in the past years,” Inga Romanovskienė, director of Go Vilnius, told AFP.  

“Historical cuisine recipes from the 700 years of the capital’s multicultural heritage, which celebrate a unique local fusion of Lithuanian, Jewish, Polish cuisine, have also settled in the menus of the city’s restaurants,” she added.

According to Lithuanians, the dish originated in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which existed until 1795 and included swaths of territory in present-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. 

However, Poland and Belarus are among those who contest its heritage. 

Instagrammable soup  

Pink soup has also become a star on social media. 

“It’s called one of the most ‘instagrammable’ soups,” said Dovile Seliuke, spokesperson of the country’s tourism promotion agency, Travel Lithuania. 

The Pink Soup Fest is taking place against the backdrop of hundreds of Ukrainian flags fluttering around the capital.  

Over 80,000 Ukrainians have now sought asylum in Lithuania, a Baltic country of 2.7 million people.  

“The celebration helps take your mind off … the war in Ukraine,” said Rasa Kasitiene, who with her daughter was dressed up all in pink.  
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French judges Saturday handed preliminary charges of attempted murder to a man suspected of stabbing four young children and two adults in a French Alps park, an attack that reverberated across France and beyond. 

The suspect, a 31-year-old Syrian refugee with permanent Swedish residency, has a 3-year-old daughter living in Sweden, regional prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said. Witnesses told investigators that the suspect mentioned his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ during the attack Thursday targeting a playground in the lakeside town of Annecy. 

The victims, who came from multiple countries, are no longer in life-threatening condition, the prosecutor said. The children, between 22 months and 3 years old, remain hospitalized. 

Police detained the suspect in the lakeside park in the town of Annecy after bystanders — notably, a Catholic pilgrim who repeatedly swung at the attacker with his backpack — sought to deter him. 

The suspected attacker, whose name was not released, was presented to investigating judges in Annecy Saturday and given charges of attempted murder and armed resistance, Bonnet-Mathis said. He is in custody pending further investigation. 

The suspect refused to talk to investigators and was examined by a psychiatrist and other doctors who deemed him fit to face charges, the prosecutor said. She said that the motive remained unclear, but it didn’t appear to be terrorism related. 

Witnesses said they heard the attacker mention his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ, according to the prosecutor, who said he wore a cross and carried two Christian images with him at the time of the attack. He also had $516 in cash, a Swedish driver’s license, and had been sleeping in the common area of an Annecy apartment building. 

He had traveled to Italy and Switzerland before coming to France last October, and French police are coordinating with colleagues in those countries to learn more about his trajectory, said Damien Delaby, director of the regional judicial police. 

The child victims were two French 2-year-old cousins, a boy and a girl, who were in the playground with their grandmother when the assailant appeared; a British 3-year-old girl visiting Annecy with her parents; and a 22-month-old Dutch girl, according to the prosecutor. 

French President Emmanuel Macron visited the victims and their families, first responders and witnesses Friday. Macron said doctors were “very confident” about the conditions of the two cousins, who were the most critically injured. 

The wounded British girl “is awake, she’s watching television,” Macron added. A wounded Dutch girl also has improved and a critically injured adult — who was both knifed and wounded by a shot that police fired as they detained the suspected attacker — is regaining consciousness, Macron said. 

The seriously injured adult was treated in Annecy. Portugal’s foreign ministry said he is Portuguese and “now out of danger.” He was wounded “trying to stop the attacker from fleeing from the police,” it said. The second injured adult was discharged from a hospital, his left elbow bandaged. 

The pilgrim, Henri, a 24-year-old who is on a nine-month walking and hitchhiking tour of France’s cathedrals, said he’d been setting off to another abbey when the horror unfolded in front of him. The attacker slashed at him, but Henri held his ground and used a weighty backpack he was carrying to swing at the assailant. 

Henri’s father said his son “told me that the Syrian was incoherent, saying lots of strange things in different languages, invoking his father, his mother, all the Gods.” 

The suspect’s profile fueled renewed criticism from far-right and conservative politicians about French migration policies. But authorities noted that the suspect entered France legally, because he has permanent residency status in Sweden. Sweden and France are both members of the EU and Europe’s border-free travel zone. 

He applied for asylum in France last year and was refused a few days before the attack, on the grounds that he had already won asylum in Sweden in 2013, the French interior minister said. 
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An explosion at a rocket and explosives plant in Turkey caused a building to collapse Saturday, killing all five workers inside, an official said. 

The explosion occurred at around 8:45 a.m. at the compound of the state-owned Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, on the outskirts of the capital, Ankara, Gov. Vasip Sahin told reporters. 

Sahin said the explosion was likely to have been caused by a chemical reaction during the production of dynamite. Prosecutors have launched a formal investigation, he said. 

Gray smoke was seen rising from the compound as ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the area, private NTV television reported. 

Shop and house windows in surrounding areas were shattered by the force of the blast, the report said. 

Family members rushed to the compound for news of their loved ones, the station said. 
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Pope Francis’s recovery from surgery is going well but doctors advised him not to deliver his Sunday blessing from a hospital balcony so as not to put strain on his abdominal walls. 

Briefing reporters at the Gemelli hospital Saturday, chief surgeon Sergio Alfieri also said the 86-year-old pope had agreed with doctors’ suggestions that he remain there for at least all next week. 

Francis underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia Wednesday. 

Alfieri said that in 2021, the last time the pope underwent surgery at the same hospital, he did deliver his blessing standing from the balcony, but it was about seven days after the intestinal operation. 

“Each time he gets out of bed and sits in an armchair puts stress on the abdominal walls. Only three days have passed. We asked the Holy Father to be prudent and avoid the strain (of standing at the balcony),” he said. 

He said the pope was taken off intravenous tubes Friday and was now on a semi-solid diet. All medical parameters were within the norm and there were no cardiac problems. 
…

The United Nations and Russia began talks Friday about Russia’s continued participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which facilitates the export of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products from Back Sea ports.

Rebecca Greenspan, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, held discussions with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin.

Before the talks, however, Vershinin said some recent Ukraine developments could not be overlooked in the talks.

Those events include the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the Kharkov region and the destruction of Russia’s Togliatti Odessa ammonia pipeline, also in Kharkov. The pipeline is one of the world’s longest for transporting ammonia.

Russia said earlier this week a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group were behind the pipeline destruction.

The initial 120-day grain agreement has been extended several times, most recently in May.
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The United States and Kosovo are continuing to engage in an unusual public spat, after the staunch U.S. ally’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, resisted calls to take steps that the West says are necessary to de-escalate ethnic tensions in the country’s north.

Tensions flared last week as ethnic Albanian mayors entered municipal buildings with the backing of police, despite having won with only 3.5 percent of the vote in local elections that ethnic Serbs boycotted.

U.S. Special Envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar and EU Special Envoy Miroslav Lajcak visited Kosovo and Serbia this week, where they asked the leaders of the two countries to de-escalate, hold quick new elections in northern Kosovo and resume their dialogue.

It’s unclear if they will be able to persuade the two sides. Escobar has called Kurti inflexible and uncooperative, and Kurti complained that Washington and Brussels are biased in favor of Serbia.

What’s at stake is a deal between Kosovo and Serbia aimed at normalizing relations, but so far no concrete steps have been taken.

On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill was blunt in an interview with VOA’s Serbian Service, saying Washington has a problem with Kurti. “He’s not willing to comply, and I think we have some very fundamental issues with him on whether we can count on him as a partner,” he said.

Kurti fired back, complaining in an interview with The Associated Press of bias against his country from the United States and the European Union and tolerance of what he calls Serbia’s authoritarian regime. “Behaving well with an autocrat doesn’t make him behave better. On the contrary,” he told AP.

Hill confirmed a view that many who have followed the Western Balkans and U.S. engagement with Kosovo share these days. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a deep division, really … what we have going right now between Pristina and Washington,” he said.

US approach debated

While analysts agree that the situation is dangerous, they have different opinions on the United States’ open criticism of Kurti.

Luke Coffey, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, said the biggest concern for him has been the way the Biden administration has handled the situation, calling Escobar’s approach “almost reckless.”

“I understand this desire to put pressure on both sides by the U.S. government, but it seems like right now the pressure is disproportionately on Kosovo. … And I think this is unhealthy,” he told VOA Albanian in an interview.

But Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the criticism is justified. “He [Kurti] has taken actions of late that I deem to be needlessly provocative, including … using armed guards to seat ethnic Albanian mayors that were elected with less than 4 percent of the vote. These are not helpful maneuvers,” he told VOA Albanian.

Kupchan said the United States and the EU still need to maintain an even-handed approach, considering that “Serbia has been a difficult player on these issues from the very beginning, that Serbia likely advised Serbs in the north not to participate in the recent elections.”

“So, whereas I do think that the criticism of Kurti is justified, the pressure needs to stay on both Pristina and Belgrade if we’re going to see progress toward normalization and implementation of the agreements, including some form of Serb self-management in Kosovo,” he said.

The U.S. and the EU have asked Serbia to withdraw troops that it sent to the border with Kosovo and to urge protesters to be calm.

But observers notice that there has not been a calling out of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, like there has been with Kurti.

Coffey said the West is trying to appease Serbia, and Vucic is trying to have it both ways.

“He wants to pretend like he is going to get closer to the West and be a productive member of the Euro-Atlantic community, but all the while he is very cozy with Moscow, very cozy with the Kremlin. And Serbia, under his leadership, remains Russia’s main foothold in the Balkans,” he said, adding that this undermines U.S. interests in the region.

When visiting Pristina, special envoy Escobar made sure to distinguish in his remarks between sharp disagreements with the Kosovo government and the overall relationship with the country as a whole. Kupchan said the unique relationship between Kosovo and the United States has not changed.

“By making public statements of this sort, I think the United States is, as I said, trying to create a situation in which there is political public pressure on Kurti to take a different line, and in which I think the United States is also sending a message to Serbs, to Serbia, to the Serbian government, that it is an even-handed player,” he said.

Many disputes

The tensions over local elections are just the latest in a long list of disagreements between Kosovo and Serbia over what each country needs to do to make progress toward normalizing ties, a process spearheaded by the EU with strong support from the U.S.

Kupchan said Western leaders’ frustration stems from the fact that they thought normalization was within reach, and the parties don’t seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity.

“This is, in my mind, the best opportunity that we’ve seen really in a very long time, perhaps even since the initial independence of Kosovo in 2008,” he said.

The issue of self-management of Serbs in northern Kosovo is essentially the Achilles’ heel in this process.

Visiting the region, Escobar repeated that Kosovo needs to establish an Association of Serb Municipalities if it wants to move closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions. Kosovo officials have resisted, talking about more autonomy for Serbs but stopping short of committing to a concrete plan.

“That seems to be the key sticking point here. It is also, in my mind, the key that would lead to a breakthrough in which the Serb majority that lives north of the river would feel that they have a voice in the institutions, the governance of Kosovo, and that they may then be more comfortable integrating into the country,” Kupchan said.

He added that the question is not whether Kosovo has a right to be frustrated, considering that “Belgrade has been sustaining parallel structures and has been manipulating the population inside Kosovo.”

In his view, the main question facing Kosovo is, “What is the best course for the government to take to get to a satisfactory, stable, durable peace in which Serbia forms a normal relationship with Kosovo, and ultimately all the countries of the world, including Serbia, recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state?”

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence that it declared in 2008, and that came almost a decade after U.S.-led NATO forces intervened to stop ethnic cleansing by the Serbian regime at the time.

Keida Kostreci reported from Washington. Jovana Djurovic reported from Belgrade. Ivana Konstantinovic contributed. Some information came from The Associated Press.
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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Friday she is “gravely concerned by the growing military cooperation” between Russia and Iran because it enables “Russia’s prosecution of its brutal war against Ukraine.”

Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement, the recent release of information by the United States documenting how Iran has provided Russia with hundreds of one-way, attack unmanned aerial vehicles and UAV production equipment, has enabled Russia to use the UAVs “in recent weeks to strike Kyiv, destroy Ukranian infrastructure, and kill and terrorize Ukrainians civilians.”

She said Russia and Iran’s actions violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, “which prohibits all countries – including permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – from transferring these types of weapons from Iran.”

Many countries, including Ukraine and the United States, have reported these violations to the Security Council and have also provided supporting material and analysis, according to Thomas-Greenfield.

“There is an urgent need for the secretary-general to respond to calls from the international community to investigate these violations,” she said. “Doing so could save lives.”
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From up close, the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine appears worse than how it’s depicted in news reports and far off satellite imagery, according to U.N. officials who assessed conditions in the area on Friday.

“We have been visiting this morning with the authorities the communities, the small villages along the river that have been completely submerged by the flooding,” said Denise Brown, one of several U.N. officials who addressed journalists via satellite from the town of Bilozerka, on the west bank of Dnipro River.

“The status situation is dramatic,” said Brown, humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine for the U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, OCHA.

“This is a town that is five kilometers from the front line,” Brown said. “Daily shelling, including yesterday, and now because of the destruction of the bridge, which is a result of the war, and now this flooding, which came in the middle of the night. It came very fast, very quickly and people were totally taken by surprise.

“We visited a few homes this morning with people who are, as you can imagine, totally distraught by this latest catastrophe to hit them,” she said. “But I must say, as always, they are incredibly resilient and vowing to stay in their homes.”

Ukrainian authorities report at least 80 towns and villages in the Kherson region are fully or partially flooded, as well as thousands of hectares of agricultural land, with some 17,000 people in government-controlled areas affected by the flooding.

Shabia Mantoo, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, said, “Many thousands more in the areas under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation, to [which] humanitarian organizations currently have no access, have also been affected.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that it has repeatedly asked the Russian Federation for access to the territories it occupies.

“The Russian Federation has denied us this access,” said Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the OHCHR. “Not only OHCHR monitors, but humanitarian actors cannot get into the occupied territories.”

He added, “We reiterate the broader U.N. call to the Russian Federation to grant access to the occupied territories, to assist clinicians who have suffered from the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the destruction of the Khakhova dam.”

Humanitarian agencies report that Ukrainian authorities, the International Red Cross, as well as U.N., and non-governmental organizations reacted quickly after the dam broke on June 6 by bringing in relief supplies and aiding victims caught in the disaster.

Mantoo said the UNHCR was participating in an inter-agency convoy of five trucks that will be delivering essential relief supplies Friday and Saturday to the worst affected areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

“With interagency partner agencies, we are also currently carrying out damage assessments to understand the scale of the impact of the flooding,” she said.

After humanitarian agencies get on top of the short-term risks, they will have to concentrate on dealing with the more complex long-term risks threatening the local communities.

OCHA coordinator Brown cited the dangers posed by unexploded landmines in the heavily infested Kherson region as a major long-term problem. She said a U.N. mine expert was working with the U.N. system to produce a map of areas where mines were likely to be located and to communicate the threats posed by those weapons to the population, especially to children, who are most at risk of being killed and maimed.

“Mines may have moved and so when the flood waters recede, there may be mines where there were not mines before, which means there are not any markings. And this is a significant risk,” she said.

Laurence agreed noting that “the whole flood zone is a mine-contaminated area.”

However, he added that circumstances regarding the destruction of the dam remained unclear. Therefore, he said that it was “premature to examine the question whether a war crime may have been committed” by Russia in its attacks on the dam and its ongoing shelling of people trying to recover from the disaster.

“We reiterate our call for an independent, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation,” he said.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by his wife, Brigitte, traveled to the French Alps Friday to be with families of the victims stabbed Thursday in a lakeside park in the city of Annecy. 

The couple’s first stop was a hospital in the French city of Grenoble, where three of the four young children are receiving treatment.  

Government officials said all four children have undergone surgery and are “under constant medical surveillance,” with one child in critical condition. 

The fourth child is being treated in Geneva, in Switzerland.  

It is not immediately clear whether the president and his wife will go to Geneva. 

A man stabbed the children and two adults at the park Thursday morning in an attack Macron said shocked the country. 

All four children suffered life-threatening knife wounds, lead prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said. The youngest is 22 months old, two are 2 years old and the oldest is 3, the prosecutor said.

Police quickly detained the suspect — a 31-year-old Syrian national. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the suspect has refugee status in Sweden.

“The nation is in shock,” Macron tweeted. He described the assault as an “attack of absolute cowardice.”

Video appearing to show the attack circulated on social media. In the video, a man in dark glasses with a blue scarf covering his head wielded a knife as people screamed for help.  

One woman tried to fend off the attacker in the enclosed play park, but she could not stop him from leaning over her stroller and stabbing downward multiple times.  

Two of the young victims were French.  The other two were tourists, one British, the other Dutch. 

Two adults also suffered knife wounds. One of the adults was also injured by a shot fired by police as they were arresting the suspect, Bonnet-Mathis said.  

In Paris, lawmakers paused a debate to hold a moment of silence for the victims.  

The National Assembly president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said, “There are some very young children who are in critical condition, and I invite you to respect a minute of silence for them, for their families, and so that, we hope, the consequences of this very grave attack do not lead to the nation grieving.”

“Nothing more abominable than to attack children,” Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. 

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