German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid a personal visit to Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny while he was undergoing treatment in a Berlin hospital for poisoning, her spokesman said on Monday.
News of the meeting is likely to annoy Moscow, which rejects the finding of German, French and Swedish experts that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent in Russia last month. Russia has repeatedly criticised Germany over what it says is a failure to share information on the case.
"It was a personal visit to Navalny in hospital," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference, declining to disclose details of what was said or how long the meeting lasted.
Germany still expects an explanation from Russia on the case, Seibert added.
Navalny wrote on Twitter that it was "a private meeting and conversation with the family". He added: "I am very grateful to Chancellor Merkel for visiting me in hospital."
The Navalny case has further worsened relations between Moscow and a number of Western countries. Merkel has faced calls to halt the nearly-completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline bringing Russian gas to Germany.
Navalny was flown from Russia to Berlin last month after falling ill on a domestic flight. He received treatment in the Charite hospital for 32 days before being discharged last week.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting and killing the CEO of UnitedHealth Group's insurance division Brian Thompson in New York last year.
Syria suffered a nationwide power outage on Tuesday night due to malfunctions at several points in the national grid, a spokesperson from the energy ministry told Reuters.
Aid groups in Myanmar on Tuesday described scenes of devastation and desperation after an earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, stressing an urgent need for food, water and shelter and warning the window to find survivors was fast closing.
The Trump administration has fired staff at U.S. health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 health jobs, according to sources familiar with the situation and a health official.
The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah operative in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs early on Tuesday, while three other people were reported killed and seven injured, further testing a shaky four-month ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
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