Flooding and landslides disrupted access to the Gourette and Artoustein ski resorts in southwestern France, with the commune of Laruns running out of drinkable water due to problems with its supply.

Prime Minister Johnson’s Conservatives won a landslide victory in Thursday’s snap parliamentary vote, picking up 48 seats and securing a comfortable majority in the House of Commons. Labour, meanwhile, lost 60 seats, suffering its worst defeat since 1935, prompting party leader Jeremy Corbyn to announce plans to step down.

This comes as the Duke of York is facing serious repercussions stemming from last month’s “car crash” interview with the BBC, during which he admitted to his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein who took his own life in a New York prison in August.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulled off a commanding victory for his Conservative Party on Thursday, paving the way for him to deliver on his Brexit pledge and push through a renegotiated withdrawal deal with Brussels by the end of January.

On 17 November, France’s most prominent protest movement marked one year since the beginning of rallies that have since spread across the country, with demonstrations leading to clashes with police and numerous arrests.

Politicians in Brussels are concerned that if they do not protect European industries, which are forced to comply with emissions reduction targets, companies may move abroad to countries with less onerous targets.

After Boris Johnson's Tories gained a landslide victory in the general election on 12 December, the prime minister is expected to hold a Cabinet reshuffle over the weekend.

For decades, radar instruments have crisscrossed Antarctica, sending down microwave pulses to peer through the ice and trace the underlying rock topography, yet there are still vast areas for which there is little or no data.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has repeatedly underscored Ankara’s determination to continue carrying out hydrocarbon exploration in Cyprus' exclusive economic zone despite the EU’s threat to sanction Ankara over the move.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A fire started at about 4 a.m. local time on Saturday (03:00 GMT) at French oil giant Total's refinery in the department of Seine-Maritime, the company said.

The ancient handwritten Bible appears to be in the Aramaic language and is inscribed on papyrus.

The Open Society Foundation, an NGO created by US billionaire George Soros, has been repeatedly accused of meddling in the domestic affairs of several countries, including Ukraine, where the fund reportedly donated to a number of prominent politicians.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to deliver Brexit and repay his voters trust after leading his Conservative Party to a "historic" general election triumph, offering him a majority of 80 in the House of Commons - the party's largest since 1987.

German observers insist that Berlin is not doing enough in terms of criticising Washington's interference in its economic affairs, after the US Congress has introduced a bipartisan bill imposing targeted sanctions on those involved in the Gazprom-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – There were attempts to hold tense conversations at the recent Normandy Four summit but the talks overall took place in a working spirit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Head of the French National Railway Company Jean-Pierre Farandou called on employees to make a pause in French National Railway Company during the Christmas holidays so that people could spend holidays with their families.

HELSINKI (Sputnik) - Mayors of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, and Reykjavik have signed the Nordic Capital Code of Action aimed at combating terror at the Nordic Safe City Summit 2019 in Stockholm, the press service of Nordic Cooperation said on Friday.

KIEV (Sputnik) - The Pechersky court of Kiev arrested for two months doctor Yulia Kuzmenko, who is suspected of murdering journalist Pavel Sheremet.

An English woman living in Australia recently experienced some holiday horror after she and her partner noticed their Christmas tree had been adorned with a new, living, breathing, reptilian decoration that definitely wasn’t garland.

After regaining his own seat in London, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to get Brexit done next month as planned. He also said that the election result proves that leaving the EU is the "irresistible" decision of the British people.