Category Archives: Europe

AfD’s success in German elections piles pressure on a fragmented EU

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The centre ‘may be holding’ but if the far right continues to win elections, the European project faces a rocky few years

Alternative für Deutschland’s stunning success in Germany’s regional elections was described as “bitter” and “worrying” by chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is also concerning for the EU, which is grappling with existential problems, from Russia’s grinding war on Ukraine to the climate crisis, while at the beginning of a new five-year cycle after the European elections earlier this summer.

“A dark day for Germany is a dark day for Europe,” said French centrist MEP leader Valérie Heyer. While the results in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony were not a surprise after the AfD’s strong showing in June’s European parliamentary vote, they confirm the steady rise of parties once considered beyond the pale.

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Two US soldiers assaulted by nationalist youth group in Turkey, authorities say

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Fifteen suspected assailants, members of the Turkey Youth Union, were detained after attack in port city of Izmir

Two US military service members were “physically attacked” in the port city of Izmir in western Turkey on Monday by members of an anti-American youth group, authorities said.

Fifteen suspected assailants were detained in the attack on the two service members, who were dressed in civilian clothing at the time of the incident. Five other US service members joined in the incident after seeing the violent encounter, officials said.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Man accused of enlisting strangers to rape drugged wife goes on trial in France

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Dominique Pélicot, 71, being tried with 50 other men over alleged abuse of woman for years at couple’s Provence home

A husband who allegedly drugged his wife and invited more than 80 strangers to rape her at their home for almost a decade went on trial on Monday in a case that has shocked France.

Fifty men accused of taking part in the abuse of the woman are also on trial at the court in Avignon. More than a dozen feminists dressed in black protested outside the courthouse as the trial opened.

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Anti-immigration leftists have potential to upend German political scene

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State election results for Sahra Wagenknecht Allianz mean Russia-leaning populists could play decisive role

It was, Sahra Wagenknecht declared on the social media platform X on Sunday, “a historic result” achieved from almost a standing start. Within eight months, her leftwing-conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has gone from an upstart party of breakaway populists to a decisive player with the potential to upend the German political scene.

The BSW party’s third place position in state elections in the eastern states of Thuringia (16%) and Saxony (12%), behind the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), now puts it in the position of kingmaker.

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Volkswagen considers German plant closures to save billions in costs

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Plans underline European carmakers’ problems in switching from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric models

Volkswagen is considering shutting two German factories, in what would be the carmaker’s first closures ever in its home country, as it struggles with the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Wolfsburg-based manufacturer on Monday informed its works council, which represents employees, that it was looking at closing “at least one larger vehicle manufacturing plant and one component factory in Germany” in order to find cost savings worth billions of euros.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian foreign minister urges its partners for permission for long-range strikes into Russia – as it happened

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Dmytro Kuleba calls on Kyiv’s Asian partners to consider increasing military aid to Ukraine after Moscow stages missile attack on Kyiv

Russian forces are fighting in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Selydove and Ukrainsk, pro-Russian bloggers said on Monday, as Moscow’s forces try to smash through part of Ukraine’s defensive line.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the purported Russian advance, Reuters reported.

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‘A dark day for Germany is a dark day for Europe’: liberals react to far right success in German state election – as it happened

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Election results in Germany causes consternation across Europe as German chancellor says preliminary results in Thuringia are ‘bitter’

Here’s the updated seat distribution in Saxony.

The state election commission corrected the preliminary results.

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Norwegian outdoor tourism campaign shelved over environmental fears

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State-owned company halts initiative after warnings over opening up ‘right to roam’ laws to large numbers of visitors

A Norwegian tourism campaign aimed at promoting the country as a destination for outdoor activities has been suspended after warnings that opening up the country’s “right to roam” laws to mass tourism could lead to environmental destruction.

Allemannsretten – which gives Norwegians the legal right to camp, swim, ski and walk freely in nature, regardless of who the landowner is – provides the basis of friluftslivet (outdoor life), seen as foundational to the mountainous country’s culture.

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German far-right party AfD poised for state election victory in east

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Alternative für Deutschland leader speaks of ‘historic success’ of top place in Thuringia and second in Saxony

A far-right party became the biggest force in a German state parliament for the first time since the second world war, preliminary results showed on Sunday, while a new populist force on the left established a firm foothold in the country’s political landscape.

Voters in two closely watched elections in the former communist east made their dissatisfaction with Germany’s mainstream political parties clear, putting the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in the top spot in Thuringia, with 32.8% of the vote, and second place in Saxony, with 30.6%, according to preliminary results.

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Spanish police arrest three over raids on ‘at least 22’ luxury Ibiza homes

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Two men and one woman accused of carrying out robberies at night and using gas to make residents groggy

The string of robberies, spanning years and all following a similar pattern, had left Spanish police perplexed.

Late at night as residents slept, the thieves – dressed in black and with their faces covered – would gain entry to some of Ibiza’s most exclusive homes, often making off with thousands of euros in stolen goods. The victims frequently reported the same groggy feeling when they woke up, leading police to suspect that the perpetrators were using some sort of gas to induce drowsiness.

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Success of far-right AfD shows east and west Germany are drifting further apart

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Likely win in Thuringia and second place in Saxony highlight how eastern voters are asserting their own political identity

After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the former West German chancellor Willy Brandt predicted that reunification would finally allow “what belongs together to grow together”.

How optimistic that image of organic healing sounds 35 years on. Tonight’s historic election results from Thuringia and Saxony paint a picture of a Germany whose eastern and western regions are, if anything, drifting further and further apart.

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German state elections: Far right leads in Thuringia exit poll, centre-right ahead in Saxony – as it happened

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Exit polls show strong performance for far-right Alternative für Deutschland in both German state elections

The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has taken a narrow lead in Saxony, with the far right Alternative für Deutschland following closely in second place, according to the first exit polls.

Saxony ZDF exit poll

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Ukrainian drone attacks hit power stations and refineries in Russia

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Russia plays down overnight strikes as its forces make incremental gains in Donbas and launch missiles at Kharkiv

Ukraine has carried out one of its biggest ever drone attacks on Russia, with videos showing a series of explosions and fires at power stations and refineries including in Moscow.

Russia’s defence ministry played down the overnight strikes. It said it had intercepted and destroyed 158 unmanned enemy aerial vehicles. These were shot down over 15 regions, it claimed.

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How a little-known 17th-century female scientist changed our understanding of insects

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Maria Sibylla Merian’s beautiful and disturbing illustrations, which shaped how we look at the natural world, will be on show at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum

More than three centuries after she made a perilous transatlantic voyage to study butterflies, a rare copy of the hand-coloured masterwork by the great naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian is returning to Amsterdam.

The Rijksmuseum, which holds more than half-a-million books on art and history, last week announced it had acquired a rare first-edition copy of Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium), described as a high point of 18th-century book production when the Dutch Republic was “the bookshop of the world”.

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‘Written in the stars’: Norwegian princess and California shaman tie the knot, with Netflix in waiting

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Unconventional marriage of Princess Märtha Louise and Durek Vellet celebrated with three-day schedule of events and a documentary to follow

She is the clairvoyant daughter of one of Europe’s longest-serving monarchs; he is a self-styled sixth-generation shaman from California. The wedding of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway to Durek Verrett on Saturday on Saturday afternoon wasn’t your conventional royal affair, but that didn’t stop spectators lining the overcast streets of Geiranger in the hope of catching a glimpse of the bride.

The eldest daughter of Crown Prince Harald and Queen Sonja, 52-year-old Märtha Louise is fourth in line to the Norwegian throne. She married Verrett, 49, in a traditional church of Norway ceremony attended by royals and celebrities at the four-star Hotel Union in a small village beneath the Geiranger fjord.

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Russia-Ukraine war: five killed after Russia targets Chasiv Yar in Donetsk – now closed

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Official says strike hit a house and a high-rise building, killing five young men

The US has decided against a proposal to deploy American contractors to Ukraine to maintain Western military equipment, including F-16 fighter jets.

A Wall Street Journal report carried by Euromaiden stated that the Biden administration elected not to send contractors due to safety concerns, after Ukraine lost the first F-16 fighter jet it received from Western allies earlier this month.

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Portugal declares day of mourning after four die in helicopter crash

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One person still missing after aircraft that was returning from a firefighting mission crashed into river

Portugal has declared a day of mourning after a firefighting helicopter crashed in the Douro River leaving at least four dead and one missing.

The pilot survived the accident, which happened in Lamego a little after 12.30pm on Friday afternoon while the helicopter was returning from fighting a fire near Baião, just inland from the city of Porto.

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Woman arrested after six hurt in knife attack on bus in Germany

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Bus was heading to festival in Siegen near Cologne when incident took place on Friday evening

A 32-year-old woman has been arrested after six people were hurt in a knife attack on a bus headed to a festival in western Germany. Authorities said there was no evidence of a political or religious motive.

Three of those attacked are in life-threatening condition, police said on Friday evening.

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Protest from US after Kosovo closes Serbian offices

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Risk of raising tensions after parallel institutions serving Serb minority are declared illegal and shuttered by ethnic Albanian-led government

Kosovo authorities on Friday closed five parallel institutions working with the ethnic Serb minority, a move that was immediately criticised by the US and could further raise tensions with neighbouring Serbia.

Elbert Krasniqi, Kosovo’s minister of local administration, confirmed the closure of five so-called parallel institutions in the north – where most of the ethnic Serb minority lives – writing online that they “violate the Republic of Kosovo’s constitution and laws”.

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Zelenskiy fires head of air force after fatal crash of donated F-16 fighter jet

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Mykola Oleshchuk’s dismissal thought to be linked to death of pilot and loss of plane newly delivered to Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired the head of Ukraine’s air force a day after it emerged that a recently delivered F-16 jet had crashed earlier this week, killing the pilot.

“I have decided to replace the commander of the air forces … I am eternally grateful to all our military pilots,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video address on Friday, without giving a reason for the dismissal of Mykola Oleshchuk.

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