Pope resting after sleeping through the night with a ventilation mask as he battles pneumonia

BUCHAREST: Romania detained six people on charges of trying to overthrow the state with Russia’s help, prosecutors said on Thursday, and a 101-year-old former army major general said his home had been raided as part of the investigation.
The suspects were detained on Wednesday, the same day Romania — a European Union and NATO member state — declared the Russian embassy’s military attache and his deputy personae non grata for what it said were acts contravening diplomatic rules.
Moscow has said it will respond to the move.

“The members of the criminal group repeatedly contacted agents of a foreign power, located both in Romania and the Russian Federation,” anti-organized crime prosecutors agency DIICOT said in a statement, which did not name the suspects.
Romania’s intelligence agency SRI said the two expelled Russian diplomats “collected information in areas of strategic interest and took measures to support the anti-constitutional moves of the group.”
Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MILITARY STRUCTURE
Prosecutors said the group had a military-type structure, with judicial sources naming 101-year-old former army major general Radu Theodoru as a suspect.
Theodoru, a Holocaust denier who has repeatedly praised Romania’s fascist World War Two leadership, said in a recorded interview with his daughter posted on his Facebook page that he believed the current government represented “an anti-Romanian state, a system organized to rob this country.”
“They wasted this country and now they defend themselves and find reasons to misinform the public,” he added. Theodoru did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors said the group had taken steps to negotiate with external forces regarding the potential withdrawal of Romania, which shares a border with Ukraine, from the NATO military alliance.
They said the group aimed to install a new government and dissolve the current constitutional order, introducing a new flag, national anthem and changing the country’s name.
Political tensions have been running high in Romania since its top court voided the presidential election in December amid accusations of Russian interference — denied by Moscow — in favor of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu.
Georgescu is himself under investigation on six charges, all of which he denies.
The investigation announced on Thursday is unrelated to Georgescu, prosecution sources said. Judicial sources quoted by TV station Antena3 said one of the expelled Russian officials was loosely tied to a suspect in the Georgescu investigation.

BRUSSELS: Poland and Baltic nations welcomed Thursday a proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to launch talks about using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats, a move Moscow quickly dismissed as “extremely confrontational.”
The comments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined European Union leaders in Brussels for an emergency summit on defense and security.
On Wednesday, Macron said he has decided to open a “strategic debate” on using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect European allies amid concerns over potential US disengagement. The French president described Moscow a “threat to France and Europe,” in a televised address to the nation.
France is the only nuclear power in the European Union.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday Macron’s speech was “extremely confrontational.”
“One can conclude that France thinks more about war, about continuing the war,” he said during a regular call with journalists.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Peskov, saying during a news conference in Moscow that Macron’s comments were a “threat” against Russia.
In Brussels, several eastern European nations welcomed Macron’s move.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said “we must seriously consider this proposal.”
He noted that “as always, the details matter, but France’s willingness in this regard is very significant.”
Baltic nations also showed interest in Macron’s offering as they push for more defense spending by EU countries to avoid any future aggression by neighboring Russia.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda praised a “very interesting idea.”
“We have high expectations because a nuclear umbrella would serve as really very serious deterrence toward Russia,” Nausėda said.
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa called the French proposal “an opportunity to discuss,” stressing that more time was needed to have talks with other European allies and at the domestic level.
The Federation of American Scientists, or FAS, says France maintains the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal, with an estimated 290 nuclear warheads.
The United Kingdom, which is no longer an EU member but is working on restoring closer ties with the 27-nation bloc, also has nuclear weapons.
“In terms of extending our nuclear deterrent or using it to protect other European nations –- we already do,” said Tom Wells, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “The UK already commits its nuclear forces to NATO, helping to safeguard European Euro-Atlantic security.”
During the Cold War, the US nuclear umbrella was aimed at ensuring that allies, especially NATO members, would be protected by American nuclear forces in case of a threat. That’s one of the reasons why many nations in Europe and across the world haven’t pursued their own nuclear arsenals.
Last month, Germany’s election winner and likely future chancellor Friedrich Merz called for a discussion on “nuclear sharing” with France. Germany is among the European countries that host US nuclear weapons under NATO’s nuclear sharing policy,
Macron said Wednesday any decision to use France’s nuclear weapons would remain only in the hands of the French president.