MOSCOW (RT) - Moscow will deliver a “harsh and painful” response to Hungary’s expulsion of ten Russian diplomats, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned. The remarks were in response to Budapest’s decision to expel ten members of Russia’s diplomatic mission over alleged activities deemed “unacceptable for diplomats” under the Vienna Convention. “The response to the Russophobic lobby in Budapest will be harsh and painful,” Zakharova said on Tuesday. Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban announced the decision on Tuesday. She said the Russian ambassador had been informed that, “according to the assessment of the Hungarian authorities,” the diplomats had engaged in activities incompatible with their status.

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MARSEILLE (AFP) - Two thieves broke into a museum dedicated to French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in southern France on Tuesday, stealing “four works of art”, one of which they dropped as they fled, a mayor said. “This morning, two individuals broke into the Renoir Museum and stole four works of art,” said Bryan Masson, the far-right mayor of the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer. “Spotted thanks to the town’s video surveillance cameras, the two individuals fled, abandoning one of the stolen paintings as they ran,” he said, adding his office estimated the value of the stolen works at 9 million euros ($10 million).

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PARIS (AFP) - More than 2.7 billion people including children have been exposed to second-hand smoke globally, contributing to nearly 1.7 million deaths in 2023, according to study published Tuesday in The Lancet. Tobacco remains a leading cause of disease globally, the study said, noting many “non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke” were among the estimate total of 8 million people who died in 2023 of smoking-related illnesses.  “Exposure to second-hand smoke is a globally recognized health risk, with no safe level of inhalation,” it said. 

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SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia expelled two Serbian diplomats on Tuesday and suspended plans to sign a regional cooperation accord in protest over Belgrade’s decision to hold a lavish public funeral for former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic. Mladic died on August 27 in The Hague, where he had been serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of at least 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica. Thousands of people attended his funeral in Belgrade on Monday, in a demonstration of how Mladic remains revered among many in Serbia and Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic. Government officials were among the mourners at the funeral, which was presided over by the head of Serbia’s Orthodox Church.

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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Rebel Tigrayan authorities accused Ethiopia of another drone strike in the country’s northern region on Tuesday. The federal government has launched multiple drone strikes in Tigray in recent weeks and massed troops at the regional border, raising fears of a return to the civil war of 2020-2022 that killed some 600,000 people. “There was a drone strike this morning in Hintalo district,” south of the regional capital, Mekelle, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) vice president Amanuel Assefa told AFP.