00:03French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney have called for closer
00:08ties as both countries face increasingly strained relations with the United States.
00:14Meeting in the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Michelin,
00:17Macron described France and Canada as two great independent nations who want to stay that way.
00:23Carney said the time had come to significantly strengthen relations with France and the European
00:28Union following a proposal for Canada to become an EU associate member. The leaders agreed to
00:35deepen cooperation in areas including fisheries, regional security and energy. Macron said Europe
00:41was seeking more stable energy supplies as the war in Iran disrupted global markets,
00:45highlighting Canada's oil, natural gas and critical mineral resources. He said France wanted agreements
00:52to deliver more Canadian liquefied natural gas to Europe's Atlantic coast. The talks come as
00:58U.S. tariffs, demands for economic concessions and Donald Trump's repeated talk of making Canada
01:03the 51st U.S. state, push Ottawa towards closer ties with Europe.
01:07The Canada and Europe will build an alliance for the future that will strengthen our collective resilience.
01:16German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU has suffered major setbacks in two state elections,
01:21according to exit polls. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, exit polls put the CDU at just 5.5% of the
01:29vote,
01:29its worst result in a German state election since 1949. Meanwhile, the AFD made significant gains in
01:36that state as first polls put it at 37%. In Berlin, exit polls put the left party in the lead
01:43with 24.5%
01:45ahead of the CDU at 20%, while the AFD stood at 16%. The results add to the pressure on Merz,
01:53following the AFD's strong showing in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago. The Chancellor acknowledged this
01:59party's result as a disaster but rejected any retreat from his government's reform agenda and said he
02:04intended to remain CDU leader. Merz became Germany's leader 16 months ago, promising to revive an
02:11economy that has barely grown in years, but has failed to lift the national mood and has become
02:16deeply unpopular. Ukraine has launched what Moscow's mayor described as the largest-scale attack on the
02:25Russian capital since the war began. Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defenses had shut down more than
02:311,600 drones across the country since Saturday, including around 450 heading towards Moscow.
02:38Several drones reached the oil refinery in Kapotnya and a logistic complex in Sofino, near Moscow,
02:43causing severe fires at both sides, while another drone struck a residential building.
02:49Moscow regional authorities said two people were killed and 20 injured in attacks across the wider
02:54region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strikes, revealing that the
02:58operation involved FB-1 attack drones and Paleontisia missiles saying Moscow must end its brutal war
03:04and choose peace. The strikes came as Russian attacks on Ukraine continued with 138 drones on
03:10Saturday night, as authorities reported deaths and damage in the Kiev and Kherson regions.
03:16The death toll from Russian strikes on the Kiev region on Saturday evening rose to four. Three
03:21people were also injured on Saturday as a result of a strike on a shopping center in Dnipro,
03:26which was completely destroyed.
03:30Russians voted on Sunday in the third and final day of tightly controlled parliamentary elections,
03:35with Vladimir Putin's United Russia party widely expected to retain its dominance.
03:39The vote fills all 450 seats in the state Duma and is the first parliamentary election since Russia
03:45launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022. However, there is little genuine opposition. The anti-war
03:52Yabloko party was barred from running its nationwide list by Russia's Supreme Court while the other main
03:58parties on the ballot all support Putin and the war. Most of Putin's prominent political opponents
04:03are now imprisoned, in exile, or dead. The election has also been overshadowed by fears that another
04:09military mobilization could follow the vote. Russia called up 300,000 reservists in 2022, triggering a
04:16large exodus of draft-aged men. Putin has repeatedly denied plans for another mobilization. The vote also
04:24comes as Ukrainian drone strikes increasingly bring the effects of the war deeper into Russia.
04:29The turnout has been announced by the Central Election Commission as a little over 50 percent.
04:35Russia's electoral chief also claimed that there had been over 1,000 waves of DDoS cyber attacks
04:40targeting election infrastructure in recent days without saying who was responsible.
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