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The Bahrain School Falcons wrapped up a homecoming spirit week as the school hosted a Department of Defense Education Activity opponent for the first time in its 50-year history on Friday night.

One migrant family's night voyage across the English Channel ended an hour after it began, back on a beach in northern France, after their overloaded rubber boat listed and two small Iranian children slid into the frigid, murky water before being hauled back to safety.

Russia said Friday the Pentagon's new missile defense strategy will trigger an arms race in space and further undermine global stability.

The U.S. will soon start lifting a decades-old arms embargo on Cyprus because Washington acknowledges the Mediterranean island nation's contribution to bolstering regional stability and security, the Cypriot foreign minister said Friday.

A North Korean diplomat has arrived in Sweden to take part in an unannounced meeting in Stockholm, officials said Friday.

The Army is planning to boost the pace of rotations to its combat training centers in the United States and Germany, going from 20 this year to 32 in 2020 as the service emphasizes higher end combat skills.

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U.S. warplanes thundered off the runway as the USS John C. Stennis maneuvered through the Persian Gulf during an intense 24 hours that sent scores of bomb-carrying fighters into Iraq and Syria, where American air power remains on display despite talk of a troop drawdown.

Moscow police said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Anastasia Vashukevich was detained in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on charges of inducement to prostitution along with three people deported alongside her.

A Georgia National Guard first lieutenant pleaded guilty to assaulting a German ex-girlfriend and was sentenced by a military judge to 60 days confinement on Wednesday.

A Navy SEAL will become a fleet master chief for only the second time in the service’s history this spring when Master Chief Petty Officer Derrick Walters takes the post at Naval Forces Europe and Africa.

The 589th Brigade Support Battalion uncased its unit colors during an activation ceremony in Grafenwoehr, Germany, on Friday.

The change in staffing standards – the first in about 10 years – is necessary to free up more funds for school needs from a budget top-heavy with payroll expenses, DODEA said.

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Jazz, one of America’s homegrown musical forms, has long been eclipsed in popularity by rock, hip-hop and pop, but the jazz tradition marches on in DODEA-Europe.

Kleber Kaserne was locked down and personnel were advised to shelter in place Thursday evening after an Army retiree purportedly mentioned a bomb to guards at the Kaiserslautern base’s main gate.

Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Barboza was found not guilty of dereliction of duty, maltreatment and disrespecting an NCO by a panel of nine male officers and senior NCOs.

Christmas came late for some Army troops on rotation to Europe when officials canceled an order Wednesday that for nine days banned various sexual acts, including cuddling, for a unit’s soldiers in the rotational barracks at the Grafenwoehr Training Area.

French President Emmanuel Macron says France will remain militarily involved in Syria this year regardless of the U.S. intention to withdraw its troops from the country.

GALLERY

The plane had been missing since May 23, 1969, when Sgt. Paul Meyer, a U.S. Air Force assistant crew chief stationed at RAF Mildenhall, got drunk, impersonated an officer and took off from the flight line.

Lodging at many U.S. military bases worldwide is getting pricier due to a Pentagon requirement that such facilities become self-sustaining. Rates at some locations could go up by as much as $75 a night.

An imprisoned model from Belarus who claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping elect Donald Trump president has told Russian media that she can't wait to be released.

The head of the World Health Organization has ordered an internal investigation into allegations the U.N. health agency is rife with racism, sexism and corruption, after a series of anonymous emails with the explosive charges were sent to top managers last year.

Russian troops are already active in the Central African Republic, where they train local forces in combat techniques as part of an agreement reached in 2018. The next step could be a military base, Russian state media reported.

Turkey deported a Dutch journalist on Thursday after receiving information about her from prosecutors in the Netherlands involved in a terrorism investigation. A Dutch prosecutor's office spokeswoman said the reporter is a suspect in an investigation, but not for terrorism offenses.

Amid a lavish welcome, Vladimir Putin arrived in Serbia on Thursday in a show of the Russian president's support for the Balkan country's populist leader and his pro-Moscow policies.

A jeweled crown and two other pieces of Swedish royal treasure taken on July 31 during a daring daytime heist haven't been recovered, national police investigator Filippo Bassini said.

A Polish cybersecurity expert charged with spying for China cooperated with Poland's government on security measures for a visit by Pope Francis and a Catholic Church event that brought hundreds of thousands of young people to the country in 2016, a Polish radio station said Thursday.

Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. and the West of destabilizing the Balkans with NATO expansionist policies as Serbia prepares a hero's welcome for the Russian president.

To this day, Silvia Foti is not sure if she was supposed to expose or exonerate her grandfather Jonas Noreika. In Lithuania, he is remembered as General Storm. Streets are named for him. But a court is deciding if he was a hero or a Nazi collaborator.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday it was putting the Alternative for Germany party under increased observation amid concerns it is flirting with extremism, the first time in the country's post-war history that a party represented in the national parliament has faced such scrutiny.

Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour Party leader, called the loss historic — and unrivaled since the 1920s. He said her process of “delay and denial” had lead to failure. He then introduced a motion of no-confidence, to be debated on Wednesday.

German prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against a German woman arrested after allegedly spending several years in a part of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group.

Bulgaria's Parliament has approved a government plan to open talks with the United States on a deal for eight new F-16 fighter jets to replace its aging Russian MiG-29s and bring its air force in line with NATO standards.

Top Russian officials ridiculed the idea that U.S. President Donald Trump could have worked for Russia's interests, dismissing them Wednesday as "absurd" and "stupid."

Drivers of diesel vehicles in the Stuttgart military community may want to consider selling their cars to troops in other parts of Germany as a new environmental law barring many of them takes effect in the city.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a revision of the 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War, saying they failed to address the former Yugoslav republic's future.

British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament on Wednesday to remain in office — but saw more of her power ebb away as she battled to keep Brexit on track after lawmakers demolished her European Union divorce deal.

Authorities in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia said 17 people, including five alleged members of an militant Islamist cell, were arrested Tuesday as part of an ongoing anti-terror operation.

A Serbian appeals court has acquitted the suspects in the 2008 rioting and torching of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade after a rally against Kosovo's declaration of independence.

Authorities have conducted raids in several parts of Germany on suspected members of a group calling itself the National Socialist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Deutschland.

Thousands gathered Tuesday in the southern Kosovo village of Recak to mark 20 years since 45 ethnic Albanians were slain by Serb forces in a mass killing that sparked international anger.

The two accidents brought to at least 26 the number of weather-related deaths reported in parts of Europe this month.

Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying he would sit down with Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson in Geneva to discuss the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

British Prime Minister Theresa May made a frantic last push Monday to swing lawmakers' support behind her seemingly doomed Brexit deal, warning that its defeat risked scuttling the U.K.'s departure from the European Union and "betraying the vote of the British people."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov damped expectations of a breakthrough in a dispute with Japan over four islands that's prevented the signing of a World War II peace accord, saying the two countries "still have significant differences."

Prosecutors in Germany say an army employee has been detained on suspicion of spying for the Iranian intelligence service.

Greece and Macedonia agreed last June to a deal that would change the name of Greece's northern neighbor to North Macedonia.

Prosecutors say Munib Ahmetspahic traveled twice to Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2018 where he joined the Islamic State group and other extremist organizations in those countries.

The assassination of Pawel Adamowicz, 53, a six-term mayor of Gdansk who often mingled freely with citizens of his city, sent Poland into shock.

On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News before departing from Cairo that an international conference on Iran and the Middle East will take place Feb. 13-14 in Poland.

Analysis

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are about to sign a new treaty outlining a closer relationship between their two countries. But the differences between the EU's mightiest powers are at least as pronounced as they were when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer signed their declaration of the two countries' friendship almost 56 years ago.

The deal ran into trouble after Washington said Israel needed to strip off upgrades that were added after Israel took delivery of the aircraft from the United States some 30 years ago.

Locals say the emerging structure is meant as a sign of admiration for Putin and the centuries-long brotherly ties between the two nations that share common Slavic roots and the Orthodox Christian religion.

A powerful explosion apparently caused by a gas leak blew apart a Paris bakery on Saturday and devastated the street was on, killing three people and injuring dozens as it blasted out windows and overturned nearby cars, French authorities said.

The new allegations come after reports in 2017 of more than 100 gay men arrested and subjected to torture, and some of them killed, in the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia.

Prague's regional court ruled Monday that 71-year-old Jaromir Balda cut down two trees in 2017 that fell on train tracks near the city of Mlada Boleslav, about 30 miles north of Prague.

The order says that on its last mission the boat violated "the obligation to leave those rescued at sea at the nearest port" when in December it brought some 300 migrants it had saved near Libya back to Spain.

Deadly winter weather blasted Europe for yet another day Tuesday, trapping hundreds of people in Alpine regions, whipping up high winds that caused flight delays and cancellations and raising the risks of more deadly avalanches in the mountains.

Romania's defense ministry has suspended the $1.83 billion acquisition of four warships following a political dispute over which offer best serves the NATO member.

Poland has arrested a director at the Chinese tech giant Huawei and one of its own former cybersecurity experts and charged them with spying for China, authorities said Friday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, is accused of espionage and will face trial.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel assailed growing nationalism in Europe ahead of a continent-wide election in May, expanding on a theme that's dominating the final chapter of her tenure.

europe quick trips

A sensory deprivation tank is a soundproof, lightless pod filled with salt water kept at normal body temperature. In it, one can float as though bathing in the Dead Sea, where the immense salt concentration keeps much of your body mass above the water level.

To hear the Russians tell it, American security executive Paul Whelan was a patient spy. They claim he spent years cultivating confidential sources via social media until he was arrested last week at his room in the Metropol hotel in Moscow.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was created in 2015 to investigate allegations that some fighters for independence committed war crimes during and after the war.

Macedonia's prime minister says he expects Greece's parliament to do its part and ratify the deal changing his country's name to North Macedonia so it can soon join NATO.

Thousands of French yellow vest protesters marched through Paris on Saturday for a ninth straight weekend as others took to the streets in the central city of Bourges to denounce President Emmanuel Macron's economic policies amid high security measures as authorities feared more violence.

The Ukrainian foreign minister says Russia "will be doing everything to break up Ukraine, somehow to divide Ukraine further."

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Heavy snow cut off access to villages, swamped the inside of a Swiss hotel and contributed during the last week to at least 20 weather-related deaths in Europe, including four reported Friday in the Balkans region and countries to its north.

Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived an unassuming life in New York City for decades until his past was revealed and he was deported to Germany last year, has died, German media reported Thursday. He was 95.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he's canceling his trip later this month to a global forum in Switzerland because of the partial government shutdown, now in its 20th day.

A French fighter jet carrying two pilots disappeared from radar screens while flying in a snowstorm near the Swiss border Wednesday, prompting an extensive search across a rugged, mountainous area.

Threatening Bosnia's fragile peace, Bosnian Serbs on Wednesday celebrated a holiday associated with a bloody civil war and criticized as divisive by the Balkan country's other ethnic groups.

U.S. military police and Italian police are jointly patrolling local bars and nightclubs following incidents involving troops that “reflected negatively” on the Army.

The first time Lord Kitchener's mug was used for British Army recruitment, it was 1914 and the world was fighting the Great War. Now, the British Army is reviving the historic slogan - with new faces and messaging targeting millennials and Gen Z.

europe quick trips

The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace hosts rotating exhibitions of art and treasure from the Royal Collection held in trust by the queen for the public.

Many famous musicians have served in the armed forces, but it’s unlikely that any assignment to Europe influenced the history of rock ’n’ roll and country music as much as when Johnny Cash learned to play the guitar here.

Stuttgart High School student Gavin Kisby recently received his last merit badge after successfully water skiing around St. Leoner Lake near Heidelberg.

Israel has failed to overcome U.S. objections to its plan to sell 12 used fighter jets to Croatia and the $500 million deal will likely be canceled, Croatia's defense minister said Thursday.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his country and "the whole world" want Britain to avoid leaving the European Union without a deal to ensure trade continues smoothly.

U.S. Air Forces Europe said troops holding “Make America Great Again” hats during President Donald Trump’s visit Thursday to Ramstein Air Base were not in violation of military rules that prohibit taking part in partisan activities while in uniform.

The leader of Belarus sternly warned Russia Thursday that it could lose its ally if it fails to offer compensation for higher oil prices.

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday rejected the appeal of a German couple who have been fighting for years to home school their kids, saying the government was within its rights to temporarily remove their children.

About 60 Holy See runners — Swiss Guards, priests, nuns, pharmacists and even a 62-year-old professor who works in the Vatican's Apostolic Library — are the first accredited members of Vatican Athletics.

Bremen police said they believe the attack on Frank Magnitz, a lawmaker in Germany’s national parliament who leads the party’s local branch, was politically motivated.

Heavy snowfall has blanketed parts of southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland in recent days.

U.S. troops are advised not to travel to Russia, where a Marine Corps veteran accused of spying has been detained by authorities and where security services have a history of harassing American military personnel visiting on vacation.

A plan to stand up 24 mobile air base kits — part of a $797 million program to bolster American air power in Europe — has been hampered by vague deadlines and insufficient oversight, according to an IG report.

Turkey's foreign minister says a planned Turkish military offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria doesn't depend on whether the United States withdraws its troops from the region.

Apart from the financial crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras are expected to discuss migration, as well as a deal Greece reached with Macedonia, which will be renamed North Macedonia in return for Greece dropping its objections to the country joining NATO.