Ward’s body was found at her home and Ahmed Abdirahman was arrested in Dublin
A man has appeared in a Dublin court charged with the murder of Mary Ward in Belfast.
The 22-year-old was found dead at her home on 1 October with neck wounds. Her body was found after police officers went to her house, but she was last seen alive on 25 September, according to police.
Continue reading...People could face fines of up to 400,000 rubles, as data suggests birthrate has slid to lowest level in quarter of a century
A law that would ban “propaganda” seeking to champion a childfree lifestyle has cleared its first hurdle in Russia’s lower house of parliament, gaining unanimous approval among lawmakers for a bill promoted as a means to increase the country’s birthrate.
The new legislation sets out fines for those deemed to be discouraging people from having children, as official data released last month suggested Russia’s birthrate had slid to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, a slump exacerbated by the country’s ageing population and Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...French authorities say 65 people rescued after overloaded boat sinks off coast of Wissant
A baby died after a boat carrying people in the Channel towards Britain capsized off the French coast, local coastguards have said.
Sixty-five people were rescued after the overloaded boat started to sink off the coast of Wissant, in northern France, on Thursday night. Some people were in the water when rescuers arrived. An unconscious baby found in the water was later declared dead.
Continue reading...Ukrainians face new airborne threat that has killed 24 civilians and injured hundreds more since July
Sasha Ustenko has survived three attacks by the Russian drones that stalk the streets of Kherson carrying fragmentation grenades to drop on anything that moves. The first, in late July, targeted a parked police car in central Kherson just as Ustenko walked past, throwing him to the ground. The second, in mid-August, hit a drinking water tanker as he queued for supplies, killing the driver. Ustenko was concussed, and came round to see a man lying in a pool of blood.
The third time, in late September, he heard the drone buzzing above and sprinted for shelter under the branches of a cherry tree. He hoped its leaves would hide him but the grenade tumbled through the canopy and landed barely a metre away.
Continue reading...The new mood to tighten laws is driven in large part by the success of far-right parties, in power in seven countries
EU leaders met in Brussels today with migration at the top of the agenda. Here we examine why that has happened – and what the European Commission, as well as national capitals, might do about it.
Continue reading...Idea of ‘return hubs’ gains traction after mainstream EU politicians were unnerved by rise of far right
The EU has opened the door to the untested idea of “return hubs” – offshore centres for people deported from the bloc – at a summit dominated by plans for a tougher migration policy.
The idea of the offshore processing of asylum claims or vaguely defined “return hubs” in non-EU countries has gained traction in recent weeks, after large gains for the far right in European elections in June unnerved mainstream leaders across the continent.
Continue reading...Fall in inflation enables central bank to bring in quarter point cut to 3.25% after business and consumer slowdown
The European Central Bank has intervened to prevent a sharp slowdown in the eurozone economy with its first back-to-back interest rate cut since the euro crisis in 2011.
With Germany on the brink of a recession and inflation tumbling across the 20 member single currency bloc, the ECB followed a reduction in the cost of borrowing at its previous meeting in September with a further 0.25 percentage point cut in its key deposit rate to 3.25%.
Continue reading...Ukrainian membership would be part of five-point ‘victory plan’ to end war, president tells Brussels summit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged European leaders to issue an “immediate invitation” to Ukraine to join Nato as he pitched his “victory plan”, which he said would end the war in 2025 at the latest.
Addressing the EU’s 27 leaders at a Brussels summit, Ukraine’s president outlined his five-point plan, which urges allies to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons on military targets inside Ukraine’s occupied territories and Russia, as well as to help increase air defences.
Continue reading...Inspector dismissed emergency services’ concerns that incident was similar to Skripal poisonings, KC says
Police officers urged paramedics and firefighters to treat the second novichok incident in 2018 as a drug overdose despite warnings from the ambulance and fire services that it had similarities to the first poisoning four months earlier in Salisbury, a public inquiry has heard.
The UK government believes the novichok was brought into Britain by agents tasked by Vladimir Putin to target the former spy Sergei Skripal, who had been settled in Salisbury after a spy exchange, the inquiry heard earlier this week. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on 4 March 2018 and both survived.
Continue reading...Critics say plan mooted by coalition government led by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party is ‘totally unfeasible’
The Dutch coalition government, headed by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV), is considering sending Africans whose asylum requests are rejected to Uganda, in plans that opposition politicians have said are “totally unfeasible”.
During a visit this week to the East African country, the Dutch minister for trade and development, Reinette Klever, said the cabinet was exploring the ideaand that Uganda was “not averse” to it, the Dutch public broadcaster Nos reported on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Leaders can only spend limited political capital on Euro initiatives while weighed down by domestic troubles
It has become a wry joke in Brussels that the most stable country in the EU is Italy, once infamous for its succession of short-lived governments.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz have been humbled by punishing electoral defeats. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, presides over a minority government in a country riven by division after a controversial amnesty bill. In Poland, Donald Tusk enjoys a much stronger position, but grapples with an unwieldy coalition and an opposition-allied president.
Continue reading...Nova university programme criticised for only having white instructors and for some of its content, such as session on ‘does racism really exist?’
A top university in Lisbon has suspended plans to launch a postgraduate programme on racism and xenophobia after the course was criticised for hiring only white instructors.
The programme, offered by the faculty of law at Nova University in tandem with the government-backed Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia, was also condemned for some of its content, such as a session entitled: “Does racism really exist?”
Continue reading...Italians who go abroad to have a baby via surrogacy will face jail terms and fines of up to €1m
Italy’s parliament has made it illegal for couples to go abroad to have a baby via surrogacy – a pet project of the prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s party that activists say is meant to target same-sex partners.
Since taking office in 2022, Meloni has pursued a highly conservative social agenda, looking to promote what she sees as traditional family values, making it progressively harder for LGBTQ couples to become legal parents.
Continue reading...Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd organisation faces extradition to Japan after arrest in Nuuk in July
Paul Watson, the anti-whaling activist detained in Greenland and awaiting possible extradition to Japan, has appealed to Emmanuel Macron for political asylum in France.
Watson was detained in July after a Japanese request to Interpol over his confrontational tactics aimed at disrupting whaling operations in the Antarctic, and could face up to 15 years in prison if he is extradited and convicted.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president wants ‘unconditional invite’ to join Nato and rules out conceding territory to Russia
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has laid out details of his “victory plan” in a speech to parliament that acknowledged increasing pressure from allies to negotiate an end to the conflict.
An “unconditional invite” to join Nato is at the heart of the plan he had pitched in private meetings in Washington DC and on a tour of European capitals before unveiling it publicly in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Continue reading...After expulsion of hundreds of embassy-based spies, Kremlin is using riskier and less conventional methods
A developing Russian campaign of arson, sabotage and even murder plots has left western intelligence agencies alarmed over the past year.
The ramping up of activity has come as the Kremlin’s spy apparatus recovered from the initial shock of seeing 450 agents posing as diplomats expelled from Europe in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Migration to dominate summit as four people including two toddlers die after falling from crowded speedboat off Kos
A growing number of European leaders are expected to back calls for offshore immigration centres, as the EU casts around for tougher measures to stop asylum seekers reaching the bloc.
EU officials were preparing for intensive talks on migration at a leaders’ summit on Thursday, as it emerged that four people, including two toddlers, had died after falling overboard from an overcrowded speedboat off the Greek island of Kos.
Continue reading...Organisations assisting deserters hope France’s decision will lead to more soldiers fleeing war
Six Russian soldiers who fled the war in Ukraine have been granted temporary entry permits as they apply for political asylum in France, in what human rights activists describe as the first major case of a group of deserters being admitted to a EU country.
The men arrived in Paris on separate flights over the last few months after initially fleeing Russia to Kazakhstan in 2022 and 2023, according to an organisation that assists soldiers in fleeing, and to accounts from the deserters.
Continue reading...European Commission president cites Italy-Albania deal as possible model for reducing irregular arrivals to Europe
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for an exploration of “return hubs” outside the EU in a letter to the bloc’s national leaders on irregular migration, citing a deal between Italy and Albania as a possible model.
EU leaders are to meet on Thursday and Friday for a summit on migration as the commission has said it will propose new measures.
Continue reading...Mikhail Pichugin survived but the ordeal claimed the lives of his brother and teenage nephew
A Russian man survived more than two months drifting in icy seas on an inflatable boat in an ordeal that claimed the lives of his brother and teenage nephew, officials and reports said.
Mikhail Pichugin may have survived because of his 100kg (220lb) build, according to his wife. Media reports said he weighed just 50kg when found on Monday.
Continue reading...