Category Archives: Europe

Dutch feminists campaign for national monument to ‘witches’

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Thousands have been raised for site to commemorate victims of Satanic panic in 15th to 17th centuries

Three feminist campaigners in the Netherlands want to reclaim the insult “witch” and recognise the innocent victims of Dutch witch-hunts from the 15th to the 17th centuries with a national monument.

Susan Smit, Bregje Hofstede and Manja Bedner, the chair and board members of the National Witches Monument foundation, have raised €35,000 (£29,000) for an official site of memory for about 70,000 people who died during a Satanic panic that swept Europe and the Americas.

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EU court rules gender and nationality enough to grant Afghan women asylum

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ECJ ruling follows Afghan women’s challenge to Austrian court refusal to give them refugee status

The European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled that gender and nationality alone are sufficient grounds for a country to grant asylum to women from Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban have sharply curtailed women’s rights.

Authorities in Austria refused refugee status to two Afghan women after they applied for asylum in 2015 and 2020. The women challenged the refusal before the Austrian supreme administrative court, which in turn requested a ruling from the ECJ, the top European Union court.

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EU leaders back extra Chinese EV tariffs despite split vote

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Decision opposed by five countries including Germany, where car firms say it could be ‘fatal’ blow for industry

EU leaders have given the green light to extra tariffs on electric vehicles from China despite opposition from five countries including Germany, where car manufacturers condemned the decision as a potential “fatal” blow for the auto industry.

The European Commission – which provisionally approved the step in June after an inquiry found that Beijing’s state aid to auto manufacturers was unfair – now has free rein to impose steep tariffs for five years from the end of this month.

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Mike Lynch died from drowning, Bayesian yacht inquest hears

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Tycoon’s daughter’s cause of death still under investigation after vessel sank in August

The millionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s cause of death has been recorded as drowning after the Bayesian superyacht disaster but his daughter’s cause of death is still under investigation, an inquest has heard.

Seven of the 22 people onboard the Bayesian died when it sank in a storm in August. On Friday, inquests into the deaths of the four British nationals – 59-year-old Lynch, his daughter, Hannah, 18, and Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, 71 and 70 – were opened and adjourned at Ipswich coroner’s court.

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Boris Johnson calls for referendum on leaving ECHR

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Move over European convention on human rights likely to put pressure on Tory leadership candidates to follow suit

Boris Johnson has called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European convention on human rights, a move likely to increase pressure on those vying for the Conservative leadership to follow suit.

The former prime minister told the Daily Telegraph there was a “strong case” for a vote on the ECHR, which some Tories blame for hampering their efforts to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

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France’s 31-year treasure hunt for a buried owl statue finally ends

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Conclusion of search launched by 1993 picture puzzle book leaves chouetteurs with mixed emotions

Somewhere in France, a small statuette of a bird in flight has emerged from the soil in which it has lain buried for more than three decades. The quest for the golden owl, one of the world’s longest-running treasure hunts, appears finally to be over.

“A potentially winning solution is being verified,” read a post on the hunt’s official chatline, published at 6.11am on Thursday. “No more solutions may be submitted. Further information will be communicated as soon as possible.”

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How remigration became a buzzword for global far right

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Electoral success of parties in Germany and Austria backing mass deportation linked to the term’s growing use by mainstream politicians, say experts

They poured on to streets across Germany in the tens of thousands, wielding placards that read “Nazis out” and “Never again is now”.

Appalled by revelations that some among the far-right Alternative für Deutschland had attended a meeting in Potsdam at which “remigration” had been on the agenda, the protesters offered a powerful rebuttal to the idea that the mass deportation of migrants – including those with German citizenship – was a valid policy option for any decent politician.

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Dutch court fines man in first conviction under new sexual harassment law

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Man in Rotterdam faces €100 penalty after law introduced across Netherlands to tackle harassment in public spaces

A court in the Netherlands has fined a man for harassing and intimidating a woman on a street in Rotterdam, in the first conviction under a new law tackling sexual harassment in public spaces.

The 33-year-old man was fined €100 (£84) by a court in Rotterdam on Wednesday, months after he was accused of grabbing a woman on the street by the hips and holding her. The court set out an additional fine of €180 if he is caught reoffending.

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Russia’s exiled opposition rocked by claims over hammer attack on Navalny ally

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Accusations that another Kremlin critic ordered attack on Leonid Volkov throws scattered opposition into further disarray

When Leonid Volkov, a longtime associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was brutally attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania in March, it initially seemed yet another case of the Kremlin hunting down its enemies abroad.

The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and struck him repeatedly with a hammer, breaking his left arm and damaging his left leg. Western officials and opposition figures assumed the attack, which took place a few weeks after Navalny’s mysterious death in prison, had been orchestrated by the Kremlin.

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Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’

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Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

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Former EU environment chief hits out at plans to delay anti-deforestation law

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Credibility ‘damaged’ by proposed 12-month delay, which followed lobbying from governments and firms around the world

A former top environment official has said the EU’s credibility on its climate commitments has been damaged by plans for a one-year delay to a law to combat deforestation that followed intense lobbying from companies and governments around the world.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, a Lithuanian MEP who was the environment commissioner until mid-July, said postponing the deforestation regulation would be “a step backward in the fight against climate change”.

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Starmer vows to turn page on UK’s relationship with the EU

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PM promises ‘constructive’ relations, despite resisting talks with the bloc on a proposed youth mobility scheme

Keir Starmer has vowed to turn the page on the UK’s relationship with the EU, despite differences with Brussels over proposals for a European youth mobility scheme.

The prime minister said: “Of course, there will be challenges” in resetting relations but insisted he was “turning the page on the old way of doing these negotiations” in favour of a more “constructive” approach.

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Migration during adolescence linked to increased psychosis risk, study finds

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Risk found to be highest among black and north African people, as experts call for better mental health provision

People who migrate in adolescence have an increased risk of psychosis, researchers have found, noting the link is particularly strong among black and north African people.

While research has previously suggested migration could play a role in the increased risk of psychosis among people from ethnic minorities, the study suggests age could be an important factor.

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Hand grenades thrown near Israeli embassy in Copenhagen

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In separate incident, Swedish police launch investigation after shots fired at Israeli embassy in Stockholm

Police in Denmark and Sweden are investigating after hand grenades were thrown near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen and shots were fired at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Tuesday night and the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Three Swedish men were arrested in the Danish capital on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in two explosions near the Israeli embassy at 3.20am in the Copenhagen district of Hellerup.

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Vatican bank fires man and woman who flouted staff marriage ban

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Newlyweds nicknamed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by Italian media had both refused to resign so other could keep job

A man and woman have been fired from their jobs at the Vatican bank because they flouted a ban on marriage between employees.

The young couple, nicknamed “Romeo and Juliet” by the Italian media, got married in August, after the bank imposed a rule banning marriage between employees aimed at preventing nepotism.

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Spain logs record number of summer visitors amid overtourism protests

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Figure of 21.8 million international visitors to Spain is 7.3% rise on 2023, says national statistics institute

Spain logged a record 21.8 million international visitors this summer, official data has revealed, during a period when anti-tourism protests also took place across the country.

The figure is a 7.3% rise on 2023, the national statistics institute (INE) said.

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Georgian president refuses to sign anti-LGBTQ+ rights bill into law

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Salome Zourabichvili opts not to advance bans on same-sex marriages and on adoptions by same-sex couples

Georgia’s president has refused to sign into law a bill aimed at severely curtailing LGBTQ+ rights, weeks after the controversial legislation was passed by the country’s parliament.

Last month Georgia’s parliament was heavily criticised after it approved the legislation, which sets out sweeping bans on same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples and curbs on gender-affirming treatments.

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New Caledonia election postponed for a year by France’s new prime minister

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The French Pacific territory has been hit by violent unrest between communities loyal to Paris and pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks

France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, has announced that a provincial election scheduled for December in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia has been postponed for a year.

During his inaugural address to parliament on Tuesday, Barnier also said a controversial bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron to amend the constitution to change voting lists in the territory would not be forwarded to a joint meeting of parliament for ratification. The territory’s Indigenous Kanak people fear changes to the voting registry would favour recent arrivals to the Pacific archipelago.

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Ukraine accuses Russia of executing 16 PoWs on eastern front

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Prosecutor general investigating drone footage apparently showing summary executions of surrendering soldiers

Authorities in Ukraine have launched an investigation into what they said was the apparent summary execution by Russian troops of 16 Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered on the eastern frontline.

“This is the largest reported case of the execution of Ukrainian PoWs on the frontline and yet another indication that the killing and torture of prisoners of war are not isolated incidents,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said on X. “This is a deliberate policy of the Russian military and political leadership.”

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Wim Hof biopic on hold after claims of domestic abuse against cold water guru

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‘Iceman’ files for defamation after allegations he subjected former partner and children to physical and verbal abuse

A biopic of the Dutch extreme athlete and wellness guru Wim Hof has been put on hold after allegations of domestic violence against the man who calls himself “the Iceman” emerged in the Dutch media over the weekend.

A report published in de Volkskrant newspaper on Saturday claimed the 65-year-old had subjected his former partner, their son and her two children from a previous marriage to physical and verbal abuse over a period of 13 years.

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