With minimal food and water, the 26-year-old drank from puddles, sheltered in a cave and used the sun for navigation
Carolina Wilga spent 11 freezing nights lost in the Western Australian outback, convinced she would never be found.
By “sheer luck” the confused and disoriented German backpacker came across a road, where she flagged down a woman in a passing car on Friday afternoon.
Continue reading...The 26-year-old has not been seen or heard from since visiting a general store in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region
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Police searching for German backpacker Carolina Wilga, who is missing in a remote part of Western Australia, have found an abandoned van believed to have mechanical issues.
The 26-year-old has not been seen or heard from since she visited a general store in the small town of Beacon, in WA’s north-east Wheatbelt region, on 29 June.
Continue reading...US defendants can waive right to jury trial and in Germany jury trials were abolished in 1924
One of the most significant recommendations in a review of the criminal courts in England and Wales, expected to be published this week, is likely to be the scrapping of jury trials for certain offences.
The idea in Sir Brian Leveson’s independent inquiry is that it will help reduce the record backlog in the courts. But for many the right to a jury trial, except for the most minor offences, is synonymous with the right to a fair trial and watering it down would be hugely controversial.
Continue reading...Vessels on Rhine in Germany and Danube in Hungary forced to sail partially loaded
Low water levels after heatwaves and drought are limiting shipping on some of Europe’s biggest rivers including the Rhine and the Danube and pushing up transport costs.
As much of Europe swelters in hot temperatures, water levels in its main rivers have fallen. This is affecting shipping along the Rhine – one of Europe’s key waterways – south of Duisburg and Cologne in Germany, including the choke point of Kaub, forcing vessels to sail about half full.
Continue reading...Tehran now places little faith in the European countries who played a key role in brokering the Iranian nuclear deal
Exposed as divided and marginalised during the Iran crisis, European nations are scrambling to retrieve a place at the Middle East negotiating table, fearing an impulsive Donald Trump has diminishing interest in stabilising Iran or the wider region now he believes he has achieved his key objective of wiping out Tehran’s nuclear programme.
On Tuesday the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was the latest senior European figure to phone the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, offering to be a facilitator and urging Tehran not to leave the crisis in a dangerous limbo by keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iran.
Continue reading...Stefan Scherer, boss of AMG Lithium, says Europe must become more self-sufficient in critical raw materials and new technologies
The EU may as well “apply to be a province of China” such is its inability to wean itself off that country’s supply of critical raw materials used in everything from electric vehicles to smartphones and wind turbines, a leading German industrialist has said.
As chief executive of AMG Lithium, the EU’s first factory to make the lithium hydroxide used in many car batteries, Stefan Scherer sits at the centre of what has been dubbed a new gold rush.
Continue reading...Proposal would cover uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programmes and aim to end terrorist funding
Europe is to make Iran a comprehensive offer to end its war with Israel that would include an Iranian move to zero uranium enrichment, restrictions on its ballistic missile programme and an end to Tehran’s funding of terrorist groups, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The proposals are surprisingly broad, spanning a range of complex issues beyond Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, and are likely to complicate any solution unless an interim agreement can be agreed.
Continue reading...Body unveils plans to ban all gas imports from Russia by January 2028 – but faces backlash from Hungary, Slovakia and Austria
The European Commission has insisted there will be no return to Russian gas, as it published plans to phase out fossil fuel imports from its eastern neighbour by 2028.
The EU energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, said a proposed ban on Russian gas imports would remain, irrespective of whether there was peace in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Cross-Channel rail operator, which is trying to fend off rivals for its London depot space, regards early 2030s as feasible
Eurostar has vowed to run direct trains from the UK to Germany and Switzerland, as it attempts to fend off potential competitors eyeing its London depot space.
The cross-Channel rail operator’s chief executive, Gwendoline Cazenave, said she had no doubt the direct services would run in the early 2030s despite the failure of previous ventures to connect London and Frankfurt.
Continue reading...Florence in Italy could hit 39C as hot weather sweeps continent, while parts of South Africa brace for snow
The severe thunderstorms that have been lashing parts of Europe over recent days are expected to give way to high temperatures this week. Several regions could climb to 10C (50F) above seasonal norms, with Italy braced for the full force of the heat. Florence in Tuscany is forecast to soar to a sweltering 39C on Thursday and across the weekend.
Germany, France and Belgium will also face hot weather from Wednesday, with widespread highs at least 9C above the June average. Many other parts of Europe are forecast to experience temperatures 5-7C above normal. This is the result of a high-pressure system creating a heat dome over the region, whereby sinking air compresses and warms as it descends, trapping heat near the surface.
Continue reading...Friedrich Merz struggles to get word in as US president focuses on record of former German leader who left office in 2021
Donald Trump has heaped criticism on the former German chancellor Angela Merkel for opening up her country to refugees, telling her successor: “I told her it shouldn’t have happened.”
During an appearance with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Thursday, Trump was asked about the sweeping travel restrictions on 19 countries that he announced the previous day.
Continue reading...About 20,000 people relocated while allied munitions dropped on German city in 1940s are made safe
The biggest evacuation in Cologne since the second world war is under way after the discovery of three unexploded bombs dropped by allied forces 80 years ago.
About 20,000 people are having to leave their homes and businesses, while hotels, a care home for elderly people and a hospital are being evacuated. Three bridges over the Rhine have been closed and rail traffic has been halted or diverted.
Continue reading...CEO of Europe’s largest industrial group says he has been in direct talks with Donald Trump’s administration
Volkswagen, Europe’s largest industrial group, has said it will make a “massive” investment in the US. The group, which includes Porsche, revealed it has been in direct talks with Donald Trump’s administration as it faces damaging tariffs.
Oliver Blume, who heads the group, said the talks were “constructive” and “fair”, in an interview that suggests the company, whose market capital is £44bn, is not willing to leave tariff negotiations to Brussels alone.
Continue reading...Event commemorates estimated 75,000 Herero and Nama people killed under German colonial rule
Namibia has observed its first genocide remembrance day, honouring the estimated 75,000 victims who were massacred by soldiers or forced into concentration camps during German colonial rule.
Between 1904 and 1908, an estimated 65,000 Herero people and 10,000 Nama people were killed when the groups rejected colonial rule. It amounted to 80% and 50% of their respective populations at the time.
Continue reading...Berlin agrees to help finance construction in Ukraine of weapons that can strike targets inside Russia
Ukraine and Germany have agreed to future military cooperation in which Berlin will help finance long-range weapons production on Ukrainian soil.
The deal came as Zelenskyy warned that Russia had amassed 50,000 troops in the Sumy region bordering Russia, where Vladimir Putin has declared an intention to establish a buffer zone.
Continue reading...The German chancellor’s desire to lift restrictions on longer range weapons for Ukraine has been frustrated by his SPD and Social Democrat partners
The German chancellor’s drive to keep a campaign pledge of more robust backing for Ukraine is running into blocks within his own government as he prepares to welcome Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Berlin.
Friedrich Merz made a full-throated declaration on Monday, hours before Zelenskyy’s one-day visit was announced, that Germany was for the first time lifting previous range restrictions on weapons supplied to Kyiv, along with Ukraine’s other main western supporters.
Continue reading...Braunschweig court gives two former executives prison sentences for roles in emissions test-cheating scandal
A German court has convicted four former Volkswagen managers of fraud and given two of them prison sentences for their part in the “dieselgate” emissions test-cheating scandal that erupted almost a decade ago.
The former head of development Heinz-Jakob Neusser received a suspended jail term of one year and three months from the court in the city of Braunschweig, according to the news agency Bloomberg.
Continue reading...Removal of restrictions, which is backed by UK, France and US, improves Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia
The German chancellor has said that Germany, along with Ukraine’s other main western supporters, will remove range restrictions on weapons delivered to Kyiv for the first time, to enable it to defend itself against Russia.
Friedrich Merz said Germany, Britain, France and the US had lifted the restrictions to enable Ukraine to be better able to hit military targets on Russian territory.
Continue reading...Enactment of 50% tariffs postponed until July so both sides can ‘reach a good deal’ after pressure from European leaders
Donald Trump has announced that he will pause his threatened 50% tariffs on the European Union until 9 July, after a “very nice call” with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.
The European Commission president announced in a social media post that she had spoken with Trump and secured the delay to give the two sides more time to negotiate.
Continue reading...Police say six victims critically wounded in attack by 39-year-old assailant in Germany’s second-largest city
German police have arrested a woman after at least 12 people were injured in a knife attack at the main station in the northern city of Hamburg.
Some of the injured sustained life-threatening injuries in the stabbing, emergency services said, although the exact number remained unclear.
Continue reading...