PARIS (AFP) - The appeal trial in the embezzlement case of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will take place from January 13 to February 12, 2026, the Paris appeals court said Monday, in a potential boost to her hopes of standing in the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen suffered a blow in March when a French court convicted her and other officials in her National Rally (RN) party over an EU parliament fake jobs scam. Le Pen was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which were suspended, and a fine of €100,000 ($117,000). The ruling also banned her from standing for office for five years, which would scupper her ambition of taking part in the 2027 vote unless overturned on appeal.

 

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WASHINGTON (Fox News) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized President Donald Trump’s summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a new interview, saying it played into Moscow’s hands. “It’s a pity that Ukraine was not there, because I think President Trump gave Putin what he wanted,” Zelenskyy told ABC’s Martha Raddatz. Trump and Putin met in Alaska on Aug. 15, marking the first time Putin had been invited to the U.S. outside the United Nations since 2007. Trump campaigned on ending the Russia-Ukraine war on the first day of his second term, but forging peace has proven elusive. 

 

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BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Thousands of Romanian teachers marched in the capital Bucharest and classes were suspended across the country at the start of the school year on Monday in protest against the restructuring of schools and an increase in weekly teaching hours. Romania’s broad coalition government is facing a public sector backlash and strong opposition to spending cuts as it tries to lower the European Union’s highest budget deficit and unlock billions of euros worth of recovery funds from Brussels. On Monday, crowds of teachers and students, whom police in the street estimated to number more than 10,000, marched in Bucharest, demanding the resignation of the education minister and the cancellation of the measures.

 

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KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Unrest killed at least 19 people in Nepal on Monday, authorities said, as police in the capital fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to storm parliament in anger at a social media shutdown and corruption. Some of the mainly youth protesters forced their way into the parliament complex in Kathmandu by breaking through a barricade, a local official said, setting fire to an ambulance and hurling objects at lines of riot police guarding the legislature. More than 100 people including 28 police personnel were receiving medical treatment for their injuries, police officer Shekhar Khanal told Reuters. Protesters were ferrying the injured to hospital on motorcycles. Another two people were killed when protests in the eastern city of Itahari turned violent, police said.

 

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RABAT (AFP) – Survivors of Morocco’s 2023 earthquake that killed nearly 3,000 people rallied in Rabat on Monday, demanding their houses be rebuilt as part of the government’s reconstruction program. Marking the disaster’s second anniversary, dozens of protesters gathered outside parliament in the Moroccan capital, protesting what they described as their “exclusion” from the reconstruction program. Many held signs that read “No to exclusion, no to marginalization” and “A roof for every life, dignity has no price”. Ibrahim Achkijou, 30, told AFP he was still living in a shipping container south of Marrakesh, in what he described as a “big injustice”.

 

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court announced on Monday it was postponing a pretrial hearing for former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte over concerns about his health. Lawyers for the 80-year-old filed a motion in August for the proceedings to be delayed indefinitely, saying their client is “not fit to stand trial.” Prosecutors at the ICC accuse Duterte of crimes against humanity for deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he oversaw while in office. The exact concerns over the former president’s health are not specified and the filings in the case are heavily redacted.