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VIENNA — Talks on forming a new three-party government in Austria collapsed Friday as the smallest of the prospective coalition partners pulled the plug on the negotiations. The talks had dragged on since Austria’s president tasked conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer in October with putting together a new government. That decision came after all other parties refused to work with the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which in September won a national election for the first time. Nehammer has been trying to assemble a coalition of his Austrian People’s Party with the center-left Social Democrats and the liberal Neos party. Nehammer’s party and the Social Democrats have governed Austria together in the past but have the barest possible majority in the parliament elected in September, with a combined 92 of the 183 seats. That was widely considered too small a cushion, and the two parties sought to bring in Neos. But Neos leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger said she informed Nehammer, Social Democratic leader Andreas Babler and President Alexander Van der Bellen early Friday that her party “won’t continue” talks on becoming a partner in a new government. She pointed to the implications of a “budget hole” left by the last government as a major source of difficulty, adding that the election showed a desire for change, but the talks appeared to be going backward rather than forward in recent days. The next government in Austria faces the challenge of having to save between 18 to 24 billion euros, according to the EU Commission. In addition, Austria’s economy is in decline with rising unemployment and continuing recession. “There was a repeated ‘no’ to fundamental reforms this week,” Meinl-Reisinger told reporters in Vienna. Austrian People’s Party general secretary Christian Stocker blamed “backward-looking forces” among the Social Democrats for prompting the collapse of the talks. Nehammer said in a post on social media Friday evening that he “regretted” the decision by the Neos party to pull out of the coalition talks. He said that his party continues to be ready to “assume responsibility,” and to implement reforms, especially in the areas of improving economic competitiveness and implementing a clear asylum and migration policy. “The constructive forces of the political center are called upon to come along on this path with us now,” Nehammer said. It wasn’t immediately clear how the situation could be resolved. The two bigger parties could potentially try to form a government … “Talks on new 3-party Austrian government collapse as one party leaves” →

PODGORICA, Montenegro — A top-level meeting in Montenegro on Friday looked for ways to curb illegal weapons after a gunman fatally shot 12 people in a second such tragedy in less than three years in the small Balkan country. An emergency session of Montenegro’s National Security Council is expected to call for a new gun law and urgent actions to confiscate what are believed to be abundant illegal weapons in possession of Montenegro’s 620,000 citizens. The Adriatic Sea nation has a deeply rooted gun culture. State television broadcaster RTCG reported that Montenegro is sixth in the world when it comes to the number of illegal weapons per capita. The gunman who killed a dozen people in a shooting rampage in the western town of Cetinje on Wednesday did so with an illegal 9 mm gun. Police have said they found 37 casings at the shooting locations, and more than 80 additional pieces of ammunition in the gunman’s possession. The 45-year-old man, identified as Aco Martinović, eventually shot himself in the head and died shortly after. He is believed to have snapped after a bar brawl and went home to get his weapon before launching a bloody rampage at several locations late Wednesday afternoon. Martinović’s victims included seven men, three women — among them his sister — and two children, born in 2011 and 2016. Four more people were seriously wounded and remain hospitalized. Police Commissioner Lazar Šćepanović has described Wednesday’s shooting as “one of the biggest tragedies in the history of Montenegro.” The shooting has fueled concerns about the level of violence in Montenegrin society, which is politically divided. It also raised questions about the readiness of state institutions to tackle the problems, including gun ownership. Hundreds of people throughout Montenegro lit candles in silence Thursday evening in memory of the victims, while also calling for answers as to why the shooting happened. Many were angry at the authorities for not doing more to prevent such tragedies and protests are being planned for the coming days. Mira Škorić, a retiree from Podgorica, said that “I can’t believe that we failed so much as a society. We failed as people too.” In a separate massacre in August 2022, an attacker killed 10 people, including two children, before he was shot and killed by a passerby in Cetinje, which is Montenegro’s historic capital located about 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the capital, … “Montenegro to tackle gun control after mass killing left 12 dead “ →

DUBAI — Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Italian ambassador on Friday over the detention of an Iranian national wanted by the United States for his alleged role in a deadly drone strike against U.S. forces, Iranian state media reported. The summons came a day after a similar move by Italy over Iran’s arrest of Italian reporter Cecilia Sala, who was seized in Tehran on December 19 while working under a journalist visa. An Iranian foreign ministry official “urged Italy to reject America’s hostage policy — which is contrary to international law, particularly human rights — and provide for Mr. [Mohammad] Abedini’s release as soon as possible and prevent damage to bilateral ties,” state media reported. On Thursday, the Iranian embassy in Rome said Sala was being given all the humanitarian care necessary, and for the first time, linked her case to that of Abedini. Iran’s said on Monday that Sala had been arrested for “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic.” It gave no further information. Sala was detained three days after Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. Iran has denied involvement in the attack. Abedini is currently being held in prison and a court is due to decide this month whether to grant him house arrest while judges consider the U.S. extradition request. In recent years, Iran’s security forces have arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals, mostly on charges related to espionage and security. Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests. Iran denies this.   …

KYIV, UKRAINE — A Russian drone attack towards the Ukrainian capital on Friday killed one person and wounded four in the Kyiv suburbs, local officials said. Moscow’s forces have escalated their aerial strikes across Ukraine through the first weeks of winter, including a New Year’s Day drone attack targeting central Kyiv that killed two. “One person killed and four wounded in enemy air attack on Kyiv region,” said Mykola Kalashnyk, the head of the Kyiv region, which surrounds the capital, said on social media on Friday. He said a truck driver had been killed after he was hit by falling debris from a Russian drone that had been shot down. Wreckage also fell on a house, wounding three — including a 16-year-old boy and his father. The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 93 drones overnight. It said 60 attack drones and 26 decoy-style drones were downed or “lost” — either shot down or disabled by electronic interceptors. Downed drones also fell on two districts of Kyiv, but there were no injuries, the city mayor said.  …

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The foreign ministers of France and Germany are headed to Damascus on the first official visit to Syria by top diplomats from European Union countries after the fall of former President Bashar Assad, in what the German minister said is a clear signal that a “new beginning” between Europe and Syria is possible. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who began the visit Friday with a meeting with Christian religious leaders in Damascus, said in a statement on the social media platform X that the two countries “want to promote a peaceful and urgent transition in the service of Syrians and for regional stability.” He and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are expected to meet with Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the Islamist former insurgent group that is now the de facto ruling party in Syria. Baerbock said there can be a “political new beginning between Europe and Syria” only if the new Syrian society gives all people, regardless of ethnic or religious group, “a place in the political process” as well as rights and protection. She said those rights should not be undermined by an overly long transition to elections or by “steps toward the Islamification of the justice or education system,” that there should be no acts of revenge against entire groups of the population, and that extremism should have no place. Since Assad’s ouster in a lightning offensive by opposition forces, Damascus has experienced a flurry of visits from Arab and Western countries that had cut off relations with Assad’s government during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. However, Western countries have so far not lifted sanctions placed on Syria under Assad or removed the designation of HTS as a terrorist group, although the United States lifted a $10 million bounty it had previously placed on al-Sharaa.  …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could be “decisive” in the outcome of the yearslong war between Ukraine and Russia. “Trump can be decisive. For us, this is the most important thing,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukrainian television. Zelenskyy said Trump had told him he would be one of the first to visit Washington after the presidential inauguration later this month. “His qualities are indeed there,” Zelenskyy said about Trump. “He can be decisive in this war. He is capable of stopping [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin.” Trump has previously said he would be able to stop the war in Ukraine in one day, but he has never detailed how he would accomplish that. Zelenskyy’s comments came as the Ukrainian military said it had carried out a high-precision strike Thursday on a Russian command post in Maryino, in Russia’s Kursk region. “These strikes disrupt the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct terrorism against innocent Ukrainian civilians,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement on Telegram. Russia’s military said air defense units had downed four Ukrainian missiles in the region. The regional governor said the strikes had damaged a high-rise apartment building and other buildings in a nearby village. Another post from the Ukrainian military showed a video of what the military said was damage to a Russian base in Ivanivskoye, next to Maryino. A school, pharmacy and apartment building were among the structures damaged in the strike, Kursk regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said. VOA could not immediately verify the reports. Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia five months ago. Ukrainian forces remain in the Kursk region, but the Russian military says much of the lost territory has been regained. Meanwhile, Russia said it had attacked energy facilities in Ukraine that support Kyiv’s military-industrial complex. The Russian Defense Ministry said that over the past 24 hours, it had used its air force, drones, missiles and artillery to target energy facilities, military airfields and Ukrainian military personnel across multiple locations. VOA could not independently verify that report. Russian forces have been advancing quickly on the eastern front of Ukraine. “They are putting pressure on our boys, who are exhausted, and that is a fact. We will do everything to at least stabilize the front in January,” Zelenskyy said in his Thursday interview. Ukraine’s military said … “Zelenskyy says Trump could be decisive in stopping war in Ukraine  “ →

The Human Rights Association in Turkey announced that three female prisoners had been tortured in Patnos Prison in Agri, and despite some complaints, no investigation has been initiated. The prison administration neither denied nor confirmed the torture to VOA.   Click here for the full story in Kurdish.     …

The Haitian government on Wednesday celebrated the 221st anniversary of the country’s independence. In his speech, Leslie Voltaire, president of the Presidential Transition Council, called for peace in the country and took the opportunity to ask France to repay the debt of independence and reparations for slavery. Click here for the full story in Creole. …

London — European gas prices reached a 15-month high on Thursday after Ukraine blocked the transit of Russian gas across its territory into the European Union. The Russian state-run firm Gazprom is set to lose more than $5 billion a year following the route’s closure, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats.” Kyiv will lose about $800 million in transit fees from Moscow. Despite the rise in gas prices on Thursday, the impact on Europe will likely be limited, said energy analyst Thomas O’Donnell, a global fellow at the Wilson Center based in Berlin. “It was all prepared for. It’s basically all priced in. Of course, there’s winners and losers to a certain point. Certain countries are more dependent on this than others – Slovakia and Hungary, for example, and Austria,” O’Donnell told VOA. “Austria is pretty well prepared. They have alternative supplies lined up from Germany and Italy and others. And Slovakia will not run out of gas. They will have plenty of gas. It’s just that they’ll have to pay more, like everybody else has all along,” he added. Moldova was among the countries most reliant on Russian gas supplied via Ukraine. In the breakaway region of Transnistria, which is controlled by Russian forces, residents lost heating and hot water on Wednesday as authorities urged people to dress warmly and use electric heaters. Ukraine war Ukraine’s Zelenskyy indicated last month that he would not renew a five-year contract to allow the transit of Russian gas across his country, which expired on December 31, explaining that he would no longer give Moscow “the opportunity to earn additional billions on our blood.” Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Europe has since managed to wean itself off Moscow’s gas supplies far more quickly than Russian President Vladimir Putin anticipated, O’Donnell said. “He thought this would force all the European countries that get this gas into a situation where they would capitulate — and they would be unwilling to support Ukraine in the war, and unwilling to show their solidarity. He also thought the war would be over in three or four days. But it just didn’t work,” O’Donnell said. “They’ve lost their entire European market, essentially. The second-largest gas fields in the world in Western Siberia have no outlet now,” he added. “Putin portrays himself as a great Russian nationalist. Well, this great Russian … “Ukraine blocks transit of Russian gas to Europe, prompting price hike “ →

Natural gas prices in Europe have risen since Ukraine ended the flow of Russian gas across its territory into the EU. Moscow once supplied more than a third of Europe’s needs, but the continent has weaned itself off Russian gas following the Kremlin’s ’22 invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

The Kremlin is using uncertainty following the ouster of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, and the potential loss of Russia’s military toehold in Syria, to accuse the United States of sowing instability in the country.  On Dec. 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signaled that the end of the Assad regime would push Russia to “make certain adjustments to Russia’s military presence in Syria.”  Lavrov said the continued deployment of Russian forces and the future of its bases “could be the subject of negotiations with the new Syrian leadership.”  Particularly of concern to Moscow are the fates of its Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim air base located on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. The naval base established by the Soviet Union during the cold war, and the air base in 2015 as a strategic command post, both served as Russia’s military hubs in the Middle East.   Amid this backdrop, Russian intelligence is pushing conspiracy theories that the U.S. and allies are planning attacks on those facilities and otherwise seeking to destabilize the country.  On Dec. 28, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, accused U.S. and British intelligence agencies of “working out plans to stage a series of terrorist attacks on the Russian military facilities in Syria.”  Those plans, the SVR claimed, without evidence, would involve the use of Islamic State, or IS, militants.   Russia has long propagated the false narrative that the U.S. sought the ouster of Assad to destabilize the Middle East and control its oil resources.  Despite Russia’s claim, the U.S. has worked for years to eradicate the IS threat, including with Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in Syria’s northeast.   The U.S. and SDF defeated IS in its final holdout, Baghuz, near Syria’s Iraqi border, in March 2019. That year, U.S. forces killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a raid in northwestern Syria.   The Kurds oversee prisons housing thousands of IS fighters and their families.  Russian forces, by contrast, regularly targeted armed groups who were fighting IS, and did not prioritize fighting IS terrorists during Moscow’s intervention in Syria.  On Dec. 19, the U.S. Defense Department announced an additional 1,100 U.S. personnel had been deployed to Syria, bringing the total to 2,000 U.S. troops, to help stabilize the situation in the post-Assad era.   At the same time, the United States Central Command, CENTCOM, has announced multiple airstrikes against IS targets to prevent the terrorist group from reestablishing foothold … “Russia ramps up disinformation efforts as its grip weakens over post-Assad Syria” →

LONDON — A worker digging up clay in a southern England limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a “dinosaur highway” and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said Thursday.  The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said.  “These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited,” said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham.  Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18 meters in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9-meter predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago.  An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores.  “Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.  Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world’s most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there’s limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings.  The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3-D models of the prints. The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved.  “The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum. “Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to … “‘Dinosaur highway’ tracks dating back 166 million years discovered in England” →

CETINJE, Montenegro — Shock and dismay prevailed in Montenegro on Thursday after a gunman fatally shot 12 people, including two children, in a western town before killing himself.  At least four others were wounded in the shooting rampage in Cetinje on Wednesday that followed a bar brawl, officials said. This was the second such incident in the town in the past three years.  The shooter, identified as 45-year-old Aco Martinovic, killed the owner of the bar, the bar owner’s children and his own family members, officials have said.  The attacker, who first fled after the rampage, was later located and surrounded by police. He died after shooting himself in the head, Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic said.  Residents of Cetinje, a town of some 17,000 people, were stunned and grief-stricken.  “I knew all of these people personally, also the attacker. I think when he did that, he was out of his mind,” said Vesko Milosevic, a retiree from Cetnje. “What do I know, he went from place to place and killed people. It’s a catastrophe.”  Vanja Popovic, whose relatives are among the victims, said that “we are all in shock.”  “How can I feel after this?” Popovic said. “No one expected it. You can’t even ask anyone anything.”  Police had dispatched a special unit to search for the attacker in the town, which is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) northwest of Podgorica, the capital. All roads in and out of the city were blocked for hours as police swarmed the streets.  Saranovic said that the shooter had died while being taken to a hospital in the capital and succumbed from the “severity of his injuries.”  Officials have said that the attacker was at the bar throughout the day with other guests when the brawl erupted. He then went home, brought back a weapon and opened fire at around 5:30 p.m.  Prosecutor Andrijana Nastic said Thursday that the attacker went to six locations during the shooting rampage, including the last one, where he shot himself.  Four men were killed at the bar, Nastic said. The shooter then moved on to another location where he killed four more people, and then two children at a third site. He then went on to kill two more people at two other locations before eventually shooting himself, Nastic said.  “Further investigation will determine the exact circumstances of the events,” she added.  The government has declared three … “Montenegro mourns after gunman kills at least 12 people before shooting himself” →