Reuters

By Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Germany in May and will spend more days than planned with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, government sources said, in a sign of their ambition to bring more unity to EU relations.

Macron's previously announced state visit from May 26-28, might be followed by another trip to Germany in June, the sources told Reuters on Saturday.

This could signal that... (continue reading...)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia may respond to any U.S. confiscation of its currency reserves frozen in the West by seizing the assets, including property and cash, of U.S. citizens and investors in Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, a senior security official, said on Saturday.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing the Biden administration to confiscate Russian assets held in American banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the Kremlin... (continue reading...)

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia has sent more troops to Ocheretyne in eastern Ukraine to reinforce an offensive there, but Kyiv's forces largely hold the village and expect U.S. arms deliveries to turn the tide in their favour, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday.

Russian troops have slowly advanced through at least half a dozen villages on the eastern front since capturing the bastion town of Avdiivka in February as exhausted Ukrainian forces rationed... (continue reading...)

(Reuters) - Lebanon has moved towards accepting the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction to prosecute violations on Lebanese territory since October, in what Human Rights Watch said on Saturday was a "landmark step" towards justice for war crimes.

Lebanon has accused Israel of repeatedly violating its sovereignty and committing breaches of international law over the last six months, during which the Israeli military and Lebanese armed group... (continue reading...)

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said for the first time on Saturday that he supports a reform of the country's constitutionally-enshrined debt brake, but does not currently see any possibility of doing it right now.

Altering the rules of the debt brake, which limits public deficits to 0.35% of gross domestic product, would require a two-thirds majority in the upper and lower houses of parliament.

The brake is fiercely... (continue reading...)