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Blinken in Paris For Talks On Ukraine, Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (File Photo: Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (File Photo: Reuters)
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Blinken in Paris For Talks On Ukraine, Gaza

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (File Photo: Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (File Photo: Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

France is among major military suppliers to Ukraine, which has faced critical shortages of arms and troops as it holds off an onslaught of Russian attacks.

The United States has been the key military backer for Ukraine but a $60 billion aid package has been held up in Congress.

Paris has also advocated for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The United States, Israel's main ally, recently let pass a UN Security Council resolution that calls for a ceasefire during the month of Ramadan.

Blinken will meet with Macron to discuss the mounting international crises, the French presidency told AFP. He will also have talks with Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne.

France held an international conference in February in a bid to rally financial and military support for Ukraine. The results will be reviewed by Blinken and French leaders, officials said.

Both sides want an "intensification" of support for Ukraine, a member of Sejourne's entourage said.

The French minister was in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the Gaza war and in China on Monday to urge Beijing to press Russia over the Ukraine war.

The French foreign ministry said Sejourne and Blinken will discuss preparations for a NATO summit in Washington in July, as well as the "crises" in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

They will hold a joint press conference after their meeting.

In a symbolic visit, Blinken was to accompany France's Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu to a factory near Paris of Franco-German defense group KNDS, which makes artillery guns being used in Ukraine.

Blinken is also to go to the Paris headquarters of the UN cultural organization, UNESCO, that the United States rejoined last year. Blinken will hold a meeting with UNESCO leader Audrey Azoulay.

The visit marks the first trip to France for Blinken, a fluent French speaker, in nearly two years.

Macron paid a state visit to Washington in December 2022.

After Paris, Blinken will head to Brussels for NATO foreign ministers' talks ahead of the alliance's 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July.

Blinken will also hold a three-way meeting in Brussels with EU leaders and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has been seeking to branch out from his country's historic alliance with Russia.

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World

Australia Spy Chief Warns of Iran Terror Threat

Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Australia Spy Chief Warns of Iran Terror Threat

Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)

An Australian citizen living in Iran who was a senior member of its Revolutionary Guards orchestrated a major antisemitic firebomb attack in Sydney, Australia's spy chief said Wednesday.

Giving an annual threat assessment, Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), said he was also concerned that an Iranian group active in Europe could conduct further attacks or an assassination in Australia.

ASIO has come under scrutiny after 15 people were killed in an antisemitic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in December, with an independent inquiry into antisemitism noting a drop in the share of funding for counter-terrorism investigations.

In his Canberra speech, Burgess defended the agency as it faced "concurrent, cascading, and compounding threats", and revealed details of investigations into two antisemitic firebombings traced to Iran.

An Iran-based Australian citizen orchestrated the 2024 firebombing of a Bondi restaurant, Lewis' Continental Kitchen, in the first major antisemitic attack in Australia, he said.

"This person is a senior agent of the IRGC Quds Force, running its networks around the world," he said, referring to the Guards' foreign operations branch.

A former Australian resident living in Iraq but working for Iran had directed another major firebomb attack, on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, he said. Australia expelled Iran's ambassador last year over the attack.

- State hackers -

An Australian crime figure was arrested in January after pressure from Australian and Iraqi police.

"Iran recruited him through a complex web of Iraqi-based militia groups. Valuing his high wealth and criminal connections, the IRGC protected him and supported his illegal enterprises," Burgess said.

Iran continued to view Australia as a target, and could "conduct or inspire acts of arson, vandalism or even assassinations on Australian soil".

The Bondi Beach attack, allegedly by father-and-son killers, was shocking but not surprising in the context of a deteriorating global and domestic security environment, he said.

There were "misunderstandings" about how ASIO allocates resources, he added.

The number of officers working on counter-terrorism doubled between 2005 and 2025 and the agency was using new tools including artificial intelligence.

ASIO had foiled 31 major terrorism plots since 2014, and its cases had become more complex as people became radicalized in online chat rooms not prayer halls, within weeks, and at a younger age.

Burgess said state hackers had penetrated a critical infrastructure network, and outlined how a particular nation had sought to coerce eight people, including five Australians, to return to their place of birth to silence them.

Foreign spies were seeking to recruit Australians to reveal official secrets about AUKUS, the country's security partnership with Britain and the United States.

"What's more important: the liberty and agency of an individual, countering antisemitism, the availability of critical infrastructure or defending AUKUS? I don't believe we can prioritize the major threats -- you must deal with all of them," he said.

World

France Announces First Ebola Case

Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
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France Announces First Ebola Case

Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)

France on Wednesday announced its first confirmed case of Ebola identified on its territory, a doctor who had returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The health ministry "confirms today the identification of a first positive case of Ebola virus disease on national territory,” it said. Contacted by AFP, the ministry specified that the case was identified in mainland France.

The ⁠patient is being isolated and authorities are contact tracing, the ministry said ⁠in a statement, adding that the risk for the general European population was low.

Congo's Ebola outbreak, which has infected more than 1,000 people and killed 267, has ⁠had ⁠the largest number of confirmed cases within the first month of any episode of the disease, the World Health Organization has said.

World

Ukrainian Strike Cuts Power to Crimean City to Isolate the Russian-Held Peninsula

A satellite image shows smoke rising by the Crimea Bridge, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Crimea, June 22, 2026.(Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
A satellite image shows smoke rising by the Crimea Bridge, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Crimea, June 22, 2026.(Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
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Ukrainian Strike Cuts Power to Crimean City to Isolate the Russian-Held Peninsula

A satellite image shows smoke rising by the Crimea Bridge, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Crimea, June 22, 2026.(Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
A satellite image shows smoke rising by the Crimea Bridge, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Crimea, June 22, 2026.(Vantor/Handout via Reuters)

Ukrainian strikes on Crimea triggered power outages in its largest city, Sevastopol, both sides reported Wednesday, as Kyiv intensifies its attempts to cut off the peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Crimea has been forced to suspend fuel sales to the public as Ukraine's army targets Russian logistics to the region and has hit a series of oil refineries and depots across southern Russia that provide supplies.

Sevastopol's Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev urged residents to help vulnerable neighbors and reserve phones for emergency communication to save battery and avoid overloading the grid.

"The enemy is once again striking treacherously, attempting to deprive us of normal living conditions and sow panic," he posted.

He said some areas of the city -- where temperatures are approaching 30C -- would be without power until at least Wednesday evening.

Separate Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region, hundreds of kilometers from the front line, and one in the border region of Belgorod, the local governors reported.

And a Russian drone attack killed a 56-year-old woman in the Ukrainian border region of Kharkiv, authorities said.

Russia's defense ministry said the country's forces had destroyed more than 300 drones from Ukraine overnight, with the warring neighbors having stepped up strikes in recent weeks.

Kyiv's air force said Wednesday that Moscow launched 101 drones at Ukraine overnight, of which 95 were destroyed.

US-led talks on ending Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II have remained effectively frozen, with Washington's attention diverted towards the Middle East since launching strikes on Iran in late February.