Day: February 18, 2022

MUNICH | At the height of the East-West conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the world is now a more dangerous place than it was during the Cold War. Guterres warned that a small mistake or miscommunication between major powers could have catastrophic consequences. “I am often asked whether we are in a new Cold War,” Guterres said in his opening speech at an annual security conference in Munich. “My answer is that the threat to global security…

LONDON | Millions of people in the U.K. were urged to cancel travel plans and stay indoors Friday as the second major storm this week prompted warnings of high winds and flying debris across northern Europe. Britain’s weather service said Storm Eunice, known as Storm Zeynep in Germany, was likely to cause significant disruption and dangerous conditions, with gusts that may exceed 90 miles per hour in highly exposed coastal areas. Authorities in the U.K. took the unusual step of issuing ”red” warnings — indicating a danger to life —…

OTTAWA | Going nose-to-nose with protesters in some cases, police began arresting people and towing away trucks Friday in a bid to break the three-week, traffic-snarling siege of Canada’s capital by hundreds of truckers angry over the country’s COVID-19 restrictions. Hundreds of officers descended into the protest zone and led demonstrators away in handcuffs through Ottawa’s newly snow-covered streets as drivers blared their horns in defiance. Scuffles broke out in front of a downtown hotel, and members of the crowd began singing the national anthem, “O Canada.” Tow truck operators…