Brest

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games flame will be lit on April 16, marking the countdown to the July 26-Aug. 11 event in the French capital, organisers said on Friday, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

The flame will be lit at Greece's ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Games, and will remain in the country until its departure to France from Athens on April 27.

More than 80 people have been detained in successive protests against the pension reform in France.

In Paris, there were clashes between the police and demonstrators for the third night in a row. Law enforcement used tear gas against the protesters, who erected barricades and started burning garbage containers.

A cyclist from Germany won a 4,000-kilometre race from Bulgaria to France and became the first woman to triumph at the endurance event, reports Euronews. 

Fiona Kolbinger crossed the finish line to win the seventh edition of the Transcontinental Race on Tuesday morning.

BREST, Belarus - Slavic Brotherhood 2017, anti-terror drills involving Serbian, Russian and Belarusian forces, began at the Brestsky military training range in Belarus on Tuesday.

Belarusian Special Operations Commander Maj-Gen Vadim Denisenko congratulated the representatives of the three armed forces at an opening ceremony, Tass reported.

Tanjug file photo, S. Radovanovic

In the operation launched on Thursday morning in villages close to the Kosovo border, police arrested at least five people suspected of providing logistical help to the armed ethnic Albanian group that fought a bloody battle with security forces in Kumanovo in northern Macedonia in May.

Members of the armed group that surrendered after clashes with Macedonian police in Kumanovo over the weekend have admitted they had been involved in an earlier attack on a police station in the village of Gosince, Macedonian news agency MIA reported on Tuesday.

Macedonian police said they had arrested one suspect in connection with the recently reported attack on a remote border post.

The suspect, aged 55 and from the border village of Brest, was found in possession of firearms and military uniforms during raids conducted over the  weekend.

Poland denied entry of ten Russian Night Wolves bikers, who are traveling from Moscow to Berlin to commemorate the 70thanniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

A spokesman for the Polish border guards stated that the bikers would not be allowed to pass through Polish territory as they did not fulfill the conditions for entry, TASS news agency reports.