Category Archives: Europe

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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Europe blog: high-profile politician sprayed with liquid as Germany gears up for key state elections – as it happened

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Sahra Wagenknecht, whose alliance opposes Nato and military aid for Ukraine, said she was ‘scared but fine’ after incident in Erfurt

My colleague Deborah Cole has written a preview of this weekend’s elections in Saxony and Thuringia, looking at how the far-right AfD and the alliance founded by Sahra Wagenknecht – the politician who was attacked with liquid on Thursday – could spell an upheaval of the political landscape in Germany. You can read the full piece here:

The DPA news agency reports that German security authorities have warned of “unconventional incendiary devices” sent via freight service providers.

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Nicole Kidman’s erotic drama Babygirl sets pulses racing at Venice film festival

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Film among host of sexually explicit features on this year’s lineup as erotica returns to screens after years of chastity

It’s been 25 years since Nicole Kidman starred in Stanley Kubrick’s erotic classic Eyes Wide Shut opposite her then husband, Tom Cruise.

Although the Oscar-winner has evaded sexually explicit roles in recent years, she is making a comeback to the genre by playing the lead in one of the most risque feature films to premiere at the Venice film festival this year.

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Shell to cut hundreds of jobs in oil and gas exploration operations

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Reduction of about a fifth of workforce in two subdivisions part of plan to slash up to $3bn in costs by end of 2025

Shell is to cut hundreds of jobs from its oil and gas exploration operation in the latest move by the chief executive, Wael Sawan, to slash up to $3bn (£2.3bn) in costs by the end of next year.

The energy company is to cut about a fifth of its workforce in two subdivisions of its oil and gas business responsible for exploration strategy and developing its oil and gas finds.

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Funeral of refugee activist Viraj Mendis to draw mourners from all over Europe

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Mendis, who stayed in Manchester church for two years in 1980s to fight deportation, has died aged 68 in Germany

Refugees and human rights activists are making their way to Bremen in north-west Germany for the funeral of a man who fought for freedom and safety for asylum seekers.

Viraj Mendis came to prominence after seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church where he spent two years in the 1980s. He died aged 68 on 16 August in Bremen, which offered him sanctuary after he was deported from the UK.

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Basel to host Eurovision song contest for Switzerland in 2025

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City fought off competition from Berne, Geneva and Zurich to host event, which began in Switzerland in 1956

The Swiss city of Basel will host Eurovision in 2025, as the song contest’s 69th edition returns to the country where it was born in 1956.

The Alpine republic won the right to host next year’s event after the Swiss artist Nemo won the 2024 contest with the song The Code.

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Man sprays paint at German party leader during campaign event

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Sahra Wagenknecht attacked while about to speak on stage in run-up to Thuringia and Saxony state elections

The leader of a breakaway populist leftwing party in Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht, has been sprayed with pink paint while campaigning in elections in the eastern state of Thuringia.

Wagenknecht, a former high-profile member of the far-left party Die Linke, who this year founded the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), was attacked on stage on Thursday as she prepared to address crowds in Erfurt. She ducked as a man approached the stage and spattered paint in her direction, which hit her dress and face.

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Former Red Brigades member arrested in Argentina after four decades on run

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Leonardo Bertulazzi, 65, wanted in Italy for kidnapping and other crimes allegedly committed as part of far-left group

Police in Argentina have arrested a former Red Brigades member who has spent more than 40 years on the run from the justice system in Italy, where he is wanted for crimes including kidnapping and criminal association that he allegedly committed as part of the far-left guerrilla group.

Leonardo Bertulazzi had been living in Argentina for years as a refugee, a status he lost under the administration of the country’s radical rightwing president, Javier Milei. He was previously sentenced in absentia to 27 years in prison, and Italian police officers were present in Buenos Aires during his capture.

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Venezuela’s Maduro ‘has no democratic legitimacy’, EU decides

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Josep Borrell and European Council will not acknowledge president-elect as leader without seeing voting tallies

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said its members have given up hope of Nicolás Maduro producing evidence that he won Venezuela’s election and will not accept his legitimacy as president-elect.

Addressing reporters after EU foreign ministers held a video call with Edmundo González, the former diplomat widely believed to have beaten Maduro in the 28 July vote, Borrell announced: “The European Council decided that Maduro has no democratic legitimacy as president.”

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Clogs’ popularity helps Birkenstock to highest ever quarterly sales

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‘Ugly’ footwear trend boosts German company’s results but shares fall on bigger-than-expected drop in margins

Strong sales of clogs – which have been adopted by the American models Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner as part of this summer’s trend for “ugly” shoes – have helped Birkenstock to the highest quarterly sales in its history.

The German shoemaker, which listed on the US stock market in October last year valued at $7.5bn, said sales of “closed-toe silhouettes”, which include its clunky clogs, rose by more than twice the average for its products.

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Sweden warns of heightened risk of Russian sabotage

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Weapons facilities targeted as security companies report more sabotage attempts, espionage and cyber-attacks

Swedish authorities have warned of a heightened risk of Russian sabotage, in particular of weapons facilities, as the defence industry said it was being increasingly targeted.

Security companies in Sweden reported a rise in sabotage attempts, including using drones over defence company facilities to document and map them, “more aggressive” espionage, cyber-attacks and misinformation.

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