CANBERRA (Reuters) -- Australian media on Tuesday published messages between French President Emmanuel Macron and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, as Canberra seeks to push back against allegations it lied to Paris about a multibillion-dollar submarine contract. Australia in September cancelled a deal with France’s Naval Group, opting instead to build at least 12 nuclear-powered submarines after striking a deal with the United States and Britain. The cancellation caused a major bilateral rift, and Macron on Sunday said Morrison had lied to him about Australia’s intentions, a unprecedented allegation among allies. Morrison has denied the claim. According to a source familiar with the messages, when Morrison tried to set up a call with Macron about the submarine contract on Sept. 14, two days before the deal with the U.S. and Britain was announced, Macron responded with a message saying “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?” The message with Morrison’s response was not leaked. France has said Australia did not attempt to inform it of the cancellation until the day Canberra announced its deal with the United States and Britain.

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PARIS (Reuters) -- Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy refused to answer questions as he appeared as a witness in a trial in which his former aides are accused of misusing public funds on polling contracts, BFM TV reported on Tuesday. “As President of the Republic, I am not accountable to the court but to the French people,” BFM quoted Sarkozy as saying. Sarkozy, who has presidential immunity in this specific case, had initially said he would not appear as a witness after being tried and convicted twice this year in separate cases. The 66-year-old Sarkozy, was, however, ordered by a judge to appear as a witness in the trial about the opinion polls commissioned during his time as president. Sarkozy was president from 2007 until 2012. He lost presidential immunity from legal prosecution a month after he left office and has since faced investigations into alleged corruption, fraud, favoritism and campaign-funding irregularities.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Several Russian regions said on Tuesday they could impose additional restrictions or extend a workplace shutdown to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases that has already prompted Moscow to re-impose a partial lockdown nationwide. Russia reported 1,178 deaths related to COVID-19 on Tuesday, its highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic, as well as 39,008 new infections. President Vladimir Putin last month ordered a week-long nationwide workplace shutdown from Oct. 30 that could be extended by regional authorities as they see fit. The Novgorod region has already announced it is prolonging the shutdown by a week. On Tuesday authorities in the Pskov region, which borders Estonia, Latvia and Belarus, said the QR code system used to access certain public facilities would remain in place during the New Year holidays.

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LAGOS (Reuters) -- Rescuers on Tuesday dug through rubble searching for survivors a day after a luxurious high-rise building collapsed while under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, as officials put the death toll at 10 and scores were reported missing. Emergency services used earth moving equipment to lift chunks of masonry at the site in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi after torrential rains pounded Lagos overnight and briefly stopped the search. Large trailers were brought in to help move debris, blocking one of Ikoyi’s main roads. Building collapses are frequent in Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard. Lagos state government had sealed off the building in June for failing to meet structural requirements and demanded the anomaly be corrected before construction could proceed, state deputy governor Obafemi Hamzat said in a statement.

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PRAGUE (Reuters) -- The next Czech government will not adopt the euro, the man tipped to be the finance minister in the new centre-right coalition said on Tuesday. Although the five parties forming coalition are generally in favour of the eventual adoption of the euro, it has not been high on their agenda for the next four-year term. “We have to put our public finance in order, so even if someone wanted (the euro), we don’t have a shot at entering now, because we don’t meet the criteria,” said Zbynek Stanjura of the Civic Democrats (ODS), who looks set for the Finance Ministry role.

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ENCINITAS, Calif. (AP) — The bloom of a giant and stinky Sumatran flower nicknamed the “corpse plant” because it smells like a dead body is drawing huge crowds to a Southern California botanical garden. The bloom of the Amorphophallus titanum plant began Sunday afternoon at the San Diego Botanic Gardens in Encinitas. By Monday morning, timed-entry tickets had sold out, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. More than 5,000 people were expected to visit the garden by Tuesday evening. The bloom of the “corpse plant” lasts just 48 hours and during its peak it emits a putrid odor of rotting flesh to attract carrion beetles and flesh flies that help its pollination process. The blooming flower’s “rotting corpse smell that was so thick and heavy you could cut it with a knife,” said John Connors, horticulture manager for the San Diego Botanic Gardens.