An Azerbaijani student studying in Germany has disappeared after traveling to Iran to meet his girlfriend, according to his family. Farid Safarli’s mother, who is currently in Iran searching for him, told VOA that Iranian law enforcement agencies have not given her any information about him. “There was no information about Farid in the system of law enforcement agencies. Some agencies even refused to check the system,” Dilara Asgarova told VOA. “They said that if Farid had committed a misdemeanor, there would have been information about him in the system. But information about felonies does not appear in the system….

King Charles III arrived in Berlin on Wednesday for his first foreign trip as Britain’s monarch, hoping to improve the U.K.’s relations with the European Union and show he can win hearts and minds abroad, just as his mother did for seven decades. Charles and Camilla, the queen consort, landed at Berlin’s government airport in the early afternoon. The king and his wife paused at the top of their plane’s stairs to receive a 21-gun salute as two military jets performed a flyover. The royal couple said in a joint statement, released on their official Twitter account, that it was…

Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, tens of thousands of women have voluntarily joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As of the end of last year, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense says almost 60,000 women were serving. Myroslava Gongadze met with two female former journalists who have been part of Ukraine’s war effort for a year now. VOA footage by Eugene Shynkar. Video editing by Daniil Batishchak. …

The French ship the Plastic Odyssey is on a world tour to show how billions of tons of plastic waste is affecting the ocean. Allison Fernandes has this story from the Port of Dakar in Senegal. Salem Solomon narrates. …

U.S. officials said Tuesday they will await the findings of three independent European investigations into the September blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.  White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters President Joe Biden is confident the probes will be as thorough as possible, and that they should provide a better sense of what happened.  Kirby said last week the United States believes the blasts were an act of sabotage and that the U.S. was not involved in any way.  A Russian resolution at the U.N. Security Council calling for an international…

On board a Boeing 737 medevac plane, Poland, March 29, 2023 (AFP) – You can see the pain held just in check in the faces of Ukraine’s war wounded as they are evacuated in a flying hospital. “It’s the first time I’ve taken a plane,” says 22-year-old Mykola Fedirko, who was hit by a shell holding off Russian troops in a trench in the Donetsk region. “I would have loved to be going to Denmark for a holiday and not to hospital because of my wound,” says the 22-year-old salesman-turned-soldier, whose lower leg is held in place by metal pins….

Pirates boarded a Danish-owned Liberian-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Guinea over the weekend, the owner said Tuesday, adding that contact with the 16 crew members had been lost. The 135-meter Monjasa Reformer “experienced an emergency situation” on Saturday around 260 kilometers west of Port Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo, owner Monjasa said. The ship owner said the crew had sought refuge in the tanker’s secure room when the pirates boarded, “in accordance with the onboard anti-piracy emergency protocol.” “Onboard communications channels are currently down, and we are working with the local authorities to establish communication to understand…

Black-clad groups set fire to garbage cans and threw projectiles at police in Paris, who charged at them and threw tear gas in confrontations on the fringes of a march against President Emmanuel Macron and his deeply unpopular pension bill.  Clashes also erupted on Tuesday at similar rallies in other cities including Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse, with a bank branch and cars set ablaze in Nantes.   However, while public frustration has evolved into broader anti-Macron sentiment, there was less violence than last week and rallies were otherwise largely peaceful.  Earlier in the day, the government rejected unions’ demand to…

In response to reports of military actions against civilians during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, Poland, has established a center that collects and preserves evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. Lesia Bakalets has a story from Warsaw. …

Romania and Poland are in talks with the European Commission over export tracing mechanisms for Ukrainian grains to ensure local farmers are not hurt by a flood of cheap imports, the Polish and Romanian prime ministers said on Tuesday.  Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has seen its Black Sea ports blocked since Russia invaded more than a year ago and has been forced to find alternative shipping routes through European Union states Poland and Romania.  But logistical bottlenecks mean that large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the European Union, have ended…

The global response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should act as a blueprint for addressing mass human rights violations, according to an annual report released by Amnesty International on Tuesday. But the group accuses the West of ignoring other crises, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

Portuguese police shot and injured a man suspected of stabbing two women to death Tuesday at an Ismaili Muslim center in Lisbon, authorities said.  The women were Portuguese staff members at the center, Ismaili community leader Narzim Ahmad told Portuguese TV channel S.I.C.  Police were called to the center late Tuesday morning where they encountered a suspect “armed with a large knife,” a police statement said.  Police ordered him to surrender but he advanced toward them and was “neutralized,” the statement said. The suspect was taken to a Lisbon hospital where he was in police custody.  Several other people were…

President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Tuesday rejected a new demand by unions to rethink a deeply unpopular pension bill, infuriating labor leaders who said the government must find a way out of the crisis. Meanwhile, as protesters across France staged generally peaceful marches on a tenth nationwide day of strikes and protests, clashes broke out in some areas. In the western city of Nantes, the boarded-up front of a BNP Paribas bank branch was set on fire. Also in western France, protesters blocked the Rennes ring road and set an abandoned car on fire. In the Normandy city of Rouen,…

Russia’s navy fired supersonic anti-ship missiles at a mock target in the Sea of Japan, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday.  “In the waters of the Sea of Japan, missile ships of the Pacific Fleet fired Moskit cruise missiles at a mock enemy sea target,” it said in a statement on its Telegram account.  “The target, located at a distance of about 100 kilometers, was successfully hit by a direct hit from two Moskit cruise missiles.”  The P-270 Moskit missile, which has the NATO reporting name or SS-N-22 Sunburn, is a medium-range supersonic cruise missile of Soviet origin, capable…

Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle is set to close its Turkey office Tuesday after Ankara declined to extend its operating license, a move condemned by media rights groups. The case shows the pressure that Ankara is putting on foreign media to make it harder for them to work in the country, some analysts say. Authorities had already blocked access to the Turkish-language websites of DW and VOA last year when the broadcasters refused to comply with license requirements that they said amounted to censorship. In the case of DW, the broadcaster says the Ministry of Industry and Technology informed it…

The government of Botswana said Monday it will buy a 24% stake in Belgian diamond company HB Antwerp. The deal comes amid uncertainty over Botswana’s long-standing sales agreement with industry giant De Beers.    Officially opening HB Antwerp’s cutting and polishing plant in Gaborone, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said Botswana must gain more from its diamond resources, for the “simple reason that the returns that come with having control to sell our diamonds with value addition, are much, much, higher than the returns on the sales of rough diamond stones.”  To that end, Masisi said that, “It is time for Botswana…