Category Archives: Europe

Manhunt under way after Ukrainian-born tycoon injured by Monaco bomb

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Normally safe principality left reeling from apartment blast that also injured Vadym Iermolaiev’s wife and child

An international search is under way for a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian tycoon and his family were injured in an explosion in Monaco in an unprecedented attack that has shaken the normally ultra-safe principality.

Stéphane Thibault, Monaco’s public prosecutor, told reporters that a man entered an apartment block on Monday evening, left a package in the lobby and walked away. Moments later, as three occupants of a ground-floor flat approached the entrance, the package exploded, he said.

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Six adults killed in shooting at youth welfare facility in Stade, Germany

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Four women among the dead and two people arrested after incident in city west of Hamburg

Four women and two men have been killed in a shooting at a youth welfare facility ⁠in northern Germany, police said. Two people including the suspected ⁠shooter were arrested.

The incident took place in Stade, a city close to the port city of Hamburg, on Monday afternoon. Police said the victims, employees of the shelter, were all shot inside the building. Five died at the scene and the sixth died in hospital. Police said the death toll could rise.

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Europe heatwave shows need to reject climate denial ‘lies’, says EU green chief

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Teresa Ribera blames ‘ideologically driven’ falsehoods, driven by those with vested interests in fossil fuels, for attacks on green policy

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says.

Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens.

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Extreme heat continues in central and eastern Europe with temperatures of 38C expected – Europe live

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Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary reached record temperatures of more than 40C on Sunday

Good morning, or dzień dobry, from Warsaw, Poland as the heatwave that affected much of the continent last week continues to impact central and eastern Europe.

It’s 9am local time and already 32C. I have seen two people cycling home with large fans, trying to get back before the heat hits the fan again. None of this is normal.

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‘We were broke, but fascinated by freedom’: exhibition showcases East German artist Gabriele Stötzer

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Show at Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin is biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum

Gabriele Stötzer remembers the days when she had to decide: “Am I buying a sausage, or film for my Super 8 camera?”

Stötzer was one of the most radical artists in communist East Germany, and her desire to create was born in defiance of and in spite of the material conditions and oppressive restrictions of the GDR regime.

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Putin admits Ukrainian strikes driving Russian fuel shortages

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Russia’s president says Ukraine’s attacks on infrastructure are causing ‘obvious’ but not critical problems

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that the country was suffering from “a certain shortage” of fuel in an interview published by the Kremlin on Sunday, after repeated Ukrainian strikes in their four-year war.

Kyiv calls the attacks fair retribution for Russia’s near-daily barrages on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure since its February 2022 offensive.

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French skydiving plane crashes near Nancy, killing all 11 onboard

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Five students and five instructors dead along with pilot after plane fell suddenly near aerodrome, says prefect

A skydiving plane has crashed in north-eastern France, killing all 11 people onboard, according to the region’s prefect.

The parachuting-school plane crashed near Nancy at 11am, said Yves Séguy, the prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region.

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Germany and Italy swelter in heatwave as records tumble across Europe

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Denmark experiences highest temperature on record on Saturday as weather system spreads eastward

Germany ⁠and Italy endured sweltering conditions on Saturday as a heatwave linked to dozens of deaths in western Europe spread eastwards, after temperatures broke records above 40C (104F).

Denmark registered its highest temperature on record on Saturday, according to the Danish meteorological institute. “With 36.6C north of Odense, we have the warmest day ever since measurements began in 1874,” it said in a post on X.

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Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax

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US president says levy would be imposed immediately and supersede pre-existing trade deals with the country

Donald Trump has threatened to place a 100% import tariff on any European country that imposes a tax on digital services from US companies.

Writing on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said that “numerous European countries” had been discussing putting a digital services tax on American companies and that “some of these countries are close to actually doing this”.

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Snow and ice on Swiss glaciers melting at alarming rate amid heatwave, expert says

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Accumulation on Switzerland’s glaciers from last winter expected to all be gone by Monday amid ‘enormous’ melt rates across Alps

Swiss glaciers are set to lose an enormous amount of ice due to the heatwave battering Europe, according to the head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos).

The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday, marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.

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‘Fork in the road’: CEO of Amazon-backed Rivian on why carmakers need to invest in EVs

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RJ Scaringe says firms focused on selling fossil fuel engines risk being ‘woefully behind’ on technology by end of decade

Carmakers that focus on selling fossil fuel engines are at risk of being “woefully behind” on technology by the end of the decade, according to the boss of Rivian, an Amazon-backed US electric carmaker.

RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and chief executive, said the car industry has reached a “fork in the road” in the choice between short-term profits and the heavy investments, particularly in software, that will be required to survive.

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City of Paris achieves partial victory over TotalEnergies in climate risks case

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French capital hails ‘landmark decision’ against oil firm relating to disclosure of emissions from oil and gas products

A Paris court has ​ruled that the French oil company TotalEnergies must disclose the climate risks linked to emissions from its oil and gas products and set out plans to ⁠address them in a high-stakes case brought by NGOs and the city of Paris.

The ruling on Thursday is a partial victory for climate change NGOs seeking to apply France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law to the climate crisis. However, the ⁠court stopped short of ordering specific measures such as limiting overseas exploration and production or setting binding ​emissions reduction targets.

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Unions urge teachers to strike as French school exams go ahead in up to 40C heat

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Claims health of staff and children at risk as France struggles to adapt heat-trap school buildings

Teachers in France are risking their own and students’ health in overheated schools as a severe heatwave sets new record temperatures, education unions said, urging staff to strike over “unacceptable working conditions”.

Several teaching unions on Thursday issued a joint statement denouncing a “blatant lack of preparation” by the government, after teachers have had to work in classrooms where temperatures reached up to 40C.

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Reform UK plan to target EU nationals based in Britain ‘absolutely outrageous’

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Exclusive: Rights group says Nigel Farage’s party is reneging on promises made during the Brexit referendum campaign

EU nationals based permanently in the UK have expressed alarm over a Reform UK plan to target their rights to accommodation and employment, saying the policy is a betrayal of promises made in the Brexit referendum 10 years ago.

Under updated migration policies, Nigel Farage’s party would evict all overseas nationals from social housing and make it notably more expensive for companies to employ them, with both policies also affecting EU nationals who have settled status.

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Rome airports threaten to suspend new EU passport system to avoid summer ‘disaster’

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Airports CEO says letting non-EU passengers skip entry-exit system would be only way to avoid peak season travel chaos

Rome’s airports will have to suspend the EU’s new digital border system for non-EU citizens to avoid a “disaster” during the peak tourism summer months, according to the head of the airports company.

Marco Troncone said that allowing passengers to skip the biometric entry-exit system (EES) was the only way of avoiding travel chaos over the summer amid warnings from other European airport officials.

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Germany’s railways grind to halt as IT maintenance snag takes down network

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Deutsche Bahn widely criticised after hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded in operator’s latest setback

Germany’s rail network ground to a halt late on Tuesday as a result of maintenance work that went wrong, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers unable to get home as the national operator faced widespread criticism over the chaos.

The Deutsche Bahn (DB) meltdown was initially thought to have been caused by a cyber-attack, but it later emerged that it was likely to have been triggered by a scheduled attempt to replace an ageing component in the railway’s internal communication network, without which the trains are unable to run.

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AI helps read papyrus scroll burnt to crisp during Vesuvius eruption

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Previously hidden text revealed without unrolling scroll discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art and human behaviour

The surviving part of an ancient scroll that was burnt to a crisp when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago has been virtually unwrapped and read with help from artificial intelligence.

Researchers uncovered 20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than a metre of charred papyrus without physically unrolling the scroll. The work discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art and human behaviour and dates to the second or late-third century BC.

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German swimming lake criticised for ban on non-German speakers

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Policy at Heidesee lake in Halle introduced after cases in which visitors ignored rules and lifeguards’ instructions

An open air swimming lake in the eastern German city of Halle which has refused entry to bathers who don’t speak German has been told it must lift the ban or face possible legal action.

The Heidesee lake, a lake in a flooded former open-cast mine, recently introduced a check at the entrance to filter out visitors whose German was deemed not good enough to follow safety instructions.

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France confirms first Ebola case in doctor who had worked in DRC

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French health ministry says patient’s contacts are being traced and that risk to European public is very low

The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in France, the country’s health ministry has said, in a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission to an area affected by the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The patient was transferred to a specialist facility and was in a stable condition, the ministry said in a statement. “All precautionary measures, including the patient’s isolation, were taken upon his arrival in the country, with transfer to the hospital under secure conditions to prevent any risk of contamination.”

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Nearly a quarter of voters in Europe now back far-right parties

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Analysis by more than 150 political scientists finds proportion who back such parties has increased nearly fivefold since 1995

Almost one in four voters in Europe now cast their ballot for far-right parties, research shows, a proportion that has grown nearly fivefold since the mid-1990s and climbed particularly steeply over the past three years.

Analysis by more than 150 political scientists in 31 countries found the proportion of Europeans voting for a far-right party in their country’s most recent national elections had risen to more than 23%, from about 10% a decade ago and roughly 5% in 1995.

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