- Hefty Australian penguin chick 'Pesto' becomes star
- Fashion's fun 'Frankenstein' flies after Olympic triumph
- Volkswagen crisis pits homegrown leaders against each other
- Princess Zelda takes the lead in 'Echoes of Wisdom'
- Astros clinch division title, Yankees kept waiting
- Asian markets boosted again after another Chinese rate cut
- The struggle to keep track of Gaza war deaths
- China cuts another key interest rate to boost economy
- Restarting nuclear power plants: the unprecedented gamble in the US
- US state executes man despite conviction doubts
- Asylum seeker lifts South Korea hopes at Homeless World Cup
- Hostages freed in Gaza truce pine for those left behind
- Pope offers refuge to Myanmar's jailed Suu Kyi: report
- Tragic tale of two West Bank teenagers freed in Gaza truce
- US intel warns of Iran threats to assassinate Trump: campaign
- In election, Hollywood is about cash not endorsements
- UK foreign minister Lammy seeks 'strongest position' for Ukraine
- Macron presses Iran president for Lebanon de-escalation
- UNRWA fears new 'tragedy' as Lebanon violence adds strain: chief to AFP
- Russia mulls ban on 'childless propaganda'
- Blackwater founder probed by Venezuela over anti-Maduro campaign
- Crypto CEO and Bankman-Fried ex Caroline Ellison gets two-year sentence
- Hezbollah announces death of commander after strike on south Beirut
- Tatum hungry for more after breakthrough Celtics success
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs sued for alleged 2001 rape
- Biden pleads for democracy in emotional UN farewell
- New York area port prepares for possible US strike disruption
- Rodri 'irreplaceable' but Guardiola confident Man City will still compete
- Brook 'relieved' as maiden ODI hundred sets up first win as England captain
- Dior's arrows and Amazons as Saint Laurent revives its master
- Mbappe strikes again as Madrid hold off Alaves
- Nkunku hits Chelsea hat-trick, Man City edge into League Cup last 16
- Amnesty calls for commission to probe Kenya protest deaths
- Bolivian government rejects Morales ultimatum for cabinet reshuffle
- US Congress calls on Novo Nordisk to lower drug prices
- Stock markets advance on China stimulus
- Russia 'can only be forced into peace," Zelensky tells UN
- Hundred hero Brook keeps England alive in Australia ODI series
- Biden pleads for democracy in final UN address
- Brook's hundred sees England beat Australia in 3rd ODI
- Alarm grows as Israel and Hezbollah exchange intense fire
- NFL legend Favre reveals Parkinson's diagnosis
- Biden urges world to 'stop arming generals' in Sudan
- Defying experts, Trump vows tariff-driven US economic boom
- Stokes open to England white-ball return
- No peak oil demand 'on the horizon', phaseout a 'fantasy': OPEC
- Sri Lanka's new leftist leader dissolves parliament, calls snap polls
- England scrum-half Mitchell to see specialist on neck injury
- Under-pressure Masood to lead Pakistan in England Tests
- Storm Helene on track to hit Florida as major hurricane
Pope wants to meet Putin, compares Ukraine war to Rwanda
Pope Francis said in an interview published Tuesday that he requested a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, while comparing the scale of the bloodshed to Rwanda's genocide.
The pontiff told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that he had sent a message to Putin around 20 days into the conflict saying that "I was willing to go to Moscow".
"We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting, though I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time," Francis said.
"But how is it possible to not stop such brutality? Twenty-five years ago, we lived through the same thing with Rwanda," he said.
About 800,000 people were killed between April and July 1994 as the extremist Hutu regime tried to wipe out Rwanda's Tutsi minority, in one of the 20th century's biggest massacres.
The pope has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine and denounced a "cruel and senseless war" without mentioning Putin or Moscow by name.
"I'm not going to Kyiv for now. I feel I shouldn't go. I have to go to Moscow first, I have to meet Putin first," he said.
Francis also said Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close Putin ally, "cannot become Putin's altar boy".
Dialogue with the Orthodox Church, which separated from the Catholic Church in 1054, is a priority of Francis's pontificate.
But since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the pope's calls for peace have contrasted with Kirill's defence of Putin's fight against Russia's "external and internal enemies".
- Knee pain -
In the interview, the pope also addressed the pain in his knee that has forced him to cancel various public engagements in recent months.
"I have a torn ligament, I will undergo an intervention with infiltration, and we'll see," he said.
The Vatican would not say what the pontiff was being injected with or when, but a source told AFP the ligament problem was linked to chronic arthritis in his right knee.
Infiltration can involve injecting drugs directly into inflamed or damaged joints and has an immediate effect.
"I've been like this for a while, I can't walk," Francis told Corriere della Sera.
"Once upon a time, popes were carried on gestatorial chairs," he said, referring to the ancient shoulder-carried ceremonial throne on which popes were borne aloft until 1978.
He appeared to rule out reviving the throne.
"A bit of pain, of humility, is necessary," he said.
Francis told a newspaper in Argentina in April he was treating the torn ligament by putting ice on it and taking some painkillers.
J.Bergmann--BTB