Category Archives: Europe

Anger in Romania over theft of national treasures in heist at Dutch museum

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Revered Helmet of Coțofenești among items from ancient Dacian civilisation stolen while on loan at Drents Museum

Hours before the sun rose over the Netherlands, the group crowded around the large external door, appearing to pry it open. Seconds later, the grainy security video appeared to show a powerful explosion, sending plumes of smoke and sparks into the air, and the thieves rush into the museum in the north-eastern city of Assen.

Minutes later they were gone. But the mystery of what exactly took place during their few minutes in the Drents Museum – and what came afterwards – has left officials in the Netherlands scrambling for answers, and prompted a row that has stretched to the other side of Europe.

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‘Insanely tasty green food’: how the meaty Danes embraced a world-first plant-based plan

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Agreement between farmers, politicians and environmental groups led to a €170m action fund for plant based food

“Plant-based foods are the future.” That is not a statement you would expect from a right-wing farming minister in a major meat-producing nation. Denmark produces more meat per capita than any other country in the world, with its 6 million people far outnumbered by its 30 million pigs, and it has a big dairy industry too. Yet this is how Jacob Jensen, from the Liberal party, introduced the nation’s world-first action plan for plant-based foods.

“If we want to reduce the climate footprint within the agricultural sector, then we all have to eat more plant-based foods,” he said at the plan’s launch in October 2023, and since then the scheme has gone from strength to strength. Backed by a €170m government fund, it is now supporting plant-based food from farm to fork, from making tempeh from broad beans and a chicken substitute from fungi to on-site tastings at kebab and burger shops and the first vegan chef degree.

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Nearly half of Danes see US as threat and 78% oppose Greenland sale, poll shows

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Exclusive: More Danish people regard US as a threat than see North Korea or Iran as danger

Almost half of Danish people now consider the US to be a considerable threat to their country and the overwhelming majority oppose Greenland leaving to become part of the US, new polling has found.

The research by YouGov, shared exclusively with the Guardian, comes after weeks of tension between Denmark, Greenland and the US over Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that he plans to take control of the autonomous territory, which is part of the Danish kingdom.

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Tulsi Gabbard grilled on Snowden, Assad and Putin in tense Senate hearing

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Skeptical senators ruthlessly questioned Trump’s national intelligence director nominee ahead of confirmation vote

Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, refused to call the whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” but sought to rein in her unorthodox views on foreign dictators and opposition to electronic surveillance during a tense confirmation hearing that could sink her nomination to oversee the country’s sprawling intelligence community.

In a three-hour hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, Gabbard, a former congresswoman and member of the Hawaii army national guard, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, said she had “no love” for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and denied meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a trip to Lebanon in 2017.

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‘Did they learn nothing?’: Auschwitz survivor to return German honour over AfD vote role

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Albrecht Weinberg ‘horrified’ that MPs relied on far-right party to pass anti-immigration motion

A 99-year-old Holocaust survivor has said he will return his federal order of merit to the German president in protest over MPs passing an anti-immigration motion in parliament with the support of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

Albrecht Weinberg, whose parents were murdered in Auschwitz, told the Guardian he was “horrified” on learning that a proposal submitted by the conservative parties had relied on the anti-immigrant, xenophobic AfD to get it over the line.

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Angela Merkel rebukes CDU leader for alliance with far-right on immigration

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Ex-chancellor makes rare intervention to criticise her own party for passing asylum policy with support of AfD

The former German chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised Friedrich Merz, her eventual successor as leader of the country’s conservatives, for pushing through proposals on migration and asylum with the backing of the far-right AfD party.

In a rare intervention in public affairs since stepping down from politics in December 2021, Merkel said Merz, who is tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor, had in effect performed a U-turn.

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European Central Bank cuts interest rates to support growth as eurozone economy stagnates – as it happened

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Live coverage of business, economics and financial news as ECB cuts main interest rate by 0.25 percentage points in effort to support European economies

It was a flash reading on the Eurozone economy, so we don’t have the details on what the drivers were. But it’s clear that it was a weak end to 2024.

But the European Central Bank might be able to spur a bit of economic growth in the eurozone with looser monetary policy.

This marks a weak end to last year, following positive growth in the first three quarters of 2024. As a result, first estimates suggest that the currency bloc as a whole grew by 0.7% in 2024. Declining activity in Germany – the Eurozone’s largest economy – has weighed on the bloc’s growth, with German GDP contracting by 0.2% on the quarter. This suggests Germany has now seen annual declines in activity for two consecutive years.

In 2025, further loosening of monetary conditions is expected to provide a modest uptick in activity for both Germany and the Eurozone, with growth expected to amount to 0.3% and 1.0% respectively.

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Sweden points to ‘foreign power’ after Iraqi refugee on trial for Qur’an burnings shot dead

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Five arrested after Salwan Momika reportedly killed during TikTok live stream, hours before trial verdict due

Sweden’s prime minister has said a foreign power may have been involved in the fatal shooting of an anti-Islam campaigner just hours before a trial verdict over his burning of the Qur’an was due.

Police arrested five people over the killing of Salwan Momika, 38, who was shot late on Wednesday in a house in the town of Södertälje, near Stockholm. Authorities did not say whether the shooter was among those detained.

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Five skiers killed in French Alps after avalanches hit off-piste areas

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Four Norwegians and one Swiss person died in the Savoie and Haute-Savoie regions

An avalanche in the French Alps has killed four Norwegian skiers who were swept away by an off-piste torrent of snow and ice in the southeastern Savoie region.

Also on Wednesday, a separate avalanche near Chamonix, in the Haute-Savoie region, killed a Swiss skier, according to the public prosecutor’s office in Bonneville.

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German immigration motion passes, breaking taboo on cooperation with AfD

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Narrow passage of controversial CDU-CSU motion ends longstanding boycott on cooperating with far-right party

The German parliament has narrowly passed a motion urging tough restrictions on immigration that was highly controversial because it was backed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.

The motion was brought by the conservative opposition CDU-CSU and backed by, among others, the AfD, breaking a longstanding taboo on cooperation with the anti-immigration party.

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Man convicted of drunk-driving a drone in Sweden’s first case of its kind

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Man fined for flying device under influence as court applies same punishment it would for drunk-driving a vehicle

A man has been convicted for drunk-driving a drone in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in Sweden.

The 55-year-old man was found guilty in July of flying the device at a classic car event in Rättvik, a town in Dalarna, central Sweden, in a temporary no-fly zone.

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‘Groundbreaking’: scientists develop patch that can repair damaged hearts

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Cells taken from blood and ‘reprogrammed’ into heart muscle cells may help patients with heart failure

Damaged hearts can literally be patched up to help them work, say researchers, in what has been hailed as a groundbreaking development for people with advanced heart failure.

According to a recent study, heart failure affects more than 64 million people worldwide, with causes including heart attacks, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

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EU launches ‘simplification’ agenda in effort to keep up with US and China

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Ursula von der Leyen announces plans to cut red tape and boost innovation in second term as head of European Commission

The EU executive has announced “an unprecedented simplification effort” to cut regulations and boost innovation in an attempt to reverse Europe’s economic decline and better compete with China and the US.

In her first major policy announcement since starting a second term as the European Commission president last month, Ursula von der Leyen outlined policy proposals intended to boost Europe’s flagging economy.

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How Trump tariffs could upend car markets in Europe, the US and China

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Levies threaten exporters to US market, while scrapping of subsidies will hit EV sales – and Tesla could gain

The internal combustion engine appears to hold a special place in Donald Trump’s psyche. During his inauguration speech last week, he made a “sacred pledge” to raise US car production to “a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago”.

Car making and the oil industry – not AI, computer chips, or even cryptocurrencies – were the only two industries the new US president highlighted as he promised to make America a “manufacturing nation once again”.

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Louvre’s decision to move Mona Lisa is a misguided act of snobbery

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Crowds give life to the Paris museum and the painting is a silent, compelling mystery at the heart of the hubbub

What a wonderful headache for a museum to have. The Louvre in Paris gets so many visitors it is taking drastic measures to cope, which include moving its most famous treasure to a dedicated space where fans can visit without entering the main museum at all. It will no longer suck the oxygen from other art.

Nearly 9 million visitors a year stream through the Louvre and it’s believed 80% of them are looking for Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, better known as La Gioconde, better still as the Mona Lisa.

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Woman accused of stealing Ukrainian soldiers’ mobile numbers, court hears

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Prosecutor at Old Bailey says Katrin Ivanova was only member of Bulgarian spy ring able to pull off plot

A lab technician has been accused of being the only member of a Bulgarian spy ring able to pull off a plot to steal the mobile numbers of Ukrainian soldiers training in Germany.

Katrin Ivanova, 33, was told by prosecutor Alison Morgan KC at the Old Bailey that she had been described by the plotters’ leader as the most technically adept member of the group and that she was necessary to the planned surveillance in Stuttgart.

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Giorgia Meloni says she is under investigation for repatriation of Libyan warlord

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Rome prosecutor launches investigation into controversial release of Osama Najim, who is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes

Giorgia Meloni has said she is under investigation in connection with Italy’s unexpected release and repatriation last week of a Libyan general who is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court.

The Italian prime minister said in a video message posted on social media that she is suspected of aiding and abetting a crime and embezzlement in connection with the case of Libya’s chief of judicial police, Osama Najim – also called Almasri.

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Doomsday Clock set closer to midnight than ever to stress global catastrophe risks

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Atomic scientists push clock to 89 seconds before midnight, citing nuclear risk, AI and climate crisis as a ‘warning’

A panel of international scientists has moved their symbolic “Doomsday Clock” closer to midnight than ever before, citing Russian nuclear threats amid its invasion of Ukraine, tensions in other world hotspots, military applications of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis as factors underlying the risks of global catastrophe.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock to 89 seconds before midnight – the theoretical point of annihilation. That is one second closer than it was set last year. The Chicago-based non-profit created the clock in 1947 during the cold war tensions that followed the second world war to warn the public about how close humankind was to destroying the world.

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Mexicans make Emilia Pérez parody poking fun at French stereotypes

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Spoof fires back at supposed inauthenticity of Oscar-tipped screen musical with a song-and-dance tale of boulangeries at war

The war of words between Mexico and France over trans gangster musical Emilia Pérez has heated up even more after the release of a spoof film called Johanne Sacreblu poking fun at French stereotypes.

Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard and which is up for the best picture Oscar along with a best actress nomination for its star Karla Sofia Gascón, is the story of a cartel boss who hires a lawyer (played by Zoe Saldana) to enable a gender transition, and has attracted much criticism in Mexico, where it is supposedly set.

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Italy sends 49 refugees to Albania in bid to resume disputed scheme

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Latest push to process migrants in Balkan country despite court challenge comes amid increase in boat arrivals

Italy has transported 49 people to Albania, in the latest push by Giorgia Meloni’s government to enforce a legally disputed plan to have asylum claims processed in the Balkan country as part of a hardline policy critics have called “disgraceful”.

The Italian navy ship Cassiopeia arrived at Shëngjin port on Tuesday morning carrying passengers intercepted on Saturday in the Mediterranean south of the island of Lampedusa. They will be identified and have a health check before being transferred to a detention centre in Gjadër, about 12 miles away.

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