Reuters

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Norway condemns Israel's decision to "legalise" five settlement outposts in occupied Palestinian territory, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said on Thursday.

Israel last week said it was going to legalise five outposts in the West Bank and was advancing plans for constructing further settlements in the territory, among those Palestinians seek for an independent state.

Barth Eide added that Norway found it "totally... (continue reading...)

By Dawoud Abu Alkas

GAZA (Reuters) - St. Philip's church once offered a haven of devotion to Gaza's small Christian community. After nine months of Israeli military action that has devastated the Palestinian enclave's health system, priests have turned it into a hospital.

Beds line the pale stone walls under a vaulted roof as doctors tend to patients unable to find a space at the Anglican-run Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital, which like Gaza's... (continue reading...)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Thursday sentenced U.S. citizen Robert Romanov Woodland to 12-1/2 years in a maximum security penal colony after finding him guilty of attempting to sell drugs, Woodland's lawyer and Moscow prosecutors said.

Stanislav Kshevitsky, his lawyer, told Reuters that Woodland, who was detained in Russia in early January, had partially admitted his guilt.

Video footage released by the authorities showed a... (continue reading...)

PARIS (Reuters) -France's far-right National Rally party is set to fall short of an absolute majority in Sunday's parliamentary election run-off, an opinion poll showed on Thursday, suggesting efforts by mainstream parties to block the far right might be working.

It was the second survey in as many days to show Marine Le Pen's RN winning more seats than any other party, but also missing the 289 threshold required for an absolute majority.

PARIS (Reuters) - Water pollution levels in Paris' Rive Seine have improved, data showed on Thursday, three weeks before the Olympics in which the French capital’s landmark waterway is meant to be one of the swimming venues.

Data published by the city and regional authorities showed the concentrations of enterococci and E.coli bacteria were below legal thresholds six out of nine days between June 24-July 2.

"Despite a still high flow... (continue reading...)