Category Archives: Europe

Belgian police search EU parliament office over Russian interference

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Parliamentary staffer may have played ‘significant role’ in alleged payments to MEPs to promote propaganda on Voice of Europe website

Belgian police have searched the European parliament office and Brussels home of a parliamentary staffer who is believed to have played “a significant role” in a Russian interference operation, the national prosecutor has said.

French authorities also carried out a search of the employee’s European parliament office in Strasbourg at the request of the Belgian examining magistrate overseeing the inquiry into corruption and Russian interference.

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‘He couldn’t wait to join’: thousands of Russian youth die in Ukraine war

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Moscow is spending millions to try to mould a new generation willing to give their lives in military service

Shortly after turning 18 in February, Daniil Yermolenko fulfilled a long-held wish and signed a contract with Russia’s armed forces. A month later, he voted for the first time, casting a ballot in the presidential election for Vladimir Putin, who had already been in power for six years when Yermolenko was born in 2006.

By late March Yermolenko had completed a basic two-week military training, and he was sent to Berdychi in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces were engaged in a devastating assault as part of its spring offensive.

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‘Every piece of evidence is vital’: Holocaust survivor calls for victims’ shoes to be salvaged

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Manfred Goldberg, 94, urges authorities to preserve fragments of thousands of shoes left to rot at Stutthof concentration camp site

One of the last remaining survivors of the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp has appealed to authorities to salvage fragments of tens of thousands of shoes belonging to murdered Holocaust victims that were recently discovered in a forest at the site.

Manfred Goldberg, who was imprisoned as a teenager at Stutthof, 24 miles (38km) east of Gdańsk, said he was “shocked and dismayed” to hear of the existence of the remnants, eight decades after the shoes’ owners were forced to remove them before being gassed and cremated.

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Greens ‘will not back von der Leyen’ for re-election if she does deal with far right

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German Green MEP chair warns that EU plan to tackle climate crisis will be put at risk by agreement with hard right parties

Green members of the European parliament will not support Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the commission president if she makes a deal with hard-right nationalists, the party’s joint lead candidate has said.

Terry Reintke, the German Green MEP chair, said her group would “absolutely” not support von der Leyen – the incumbent centre-right commission president who is seeking a second term – if she made a deal with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s group in the European parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

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Biden official says more sanctions are needed to counter Russia war economy

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Daleep Singh said that sanctioning third parties that trade with Russia is needed, in addition to seizing assets for Ukraine

Russia’s shift towards a full-fledged war economy requires the west to extend its sanctions policy, including by sanctioning third-party entities that trade with Moscow, a senior White House official signalled on Tuesday.

Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the United States would consider export controls to prevent China-Russia trade that threatens American security and take further action to increase the cost of Russia using a shadow fleet to evade the G7 countries’ oil price cap.

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Georgian parliament overrides veto by president on ‘foreign influence’ law

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Salome Zourabichvili addresses protesters outside parliament by video link, urging them to mobilise against ‘Russian slavery’

Georgia’s parliament has voted to override a presidential veto on the controversial “foreign influence” law, a move that is poised to derail the EU aspirations of many Georgians in favour of closer ties with Moscow.

The divisive bill, which requires civil society organisations and media that receive more than 20% of their revenues from abroad to register as “organisations serving the interests of a foreign power”, was approved by the parliament earlier this month.

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Remains of horses buried 2,000 years ago found in central France

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Archaeologists trying to determine whether animals were killed in battle or buried as part of a ritual

French archaeologists have uncovered nine large graves containing the remains of horses from up to 2,000 years ago, in a find described as “extraordinary”.

The 28 stallions, all around six years old, had been buried shortly after they died, each placed in pits on their right side with their head facing south. Nearby a grave contained the remains of two dogs, heads facing west.

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Drawings depicting gladiators among latest discoveries at Pompeii

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Charcoal graffiti believed to have been sketched by children uncovered at ancient Roman city

Drawings of gladiators believed to have been made by children inspired by watching battles at Pompeii’s amphitheatre are among the latest discoveries in the ruins of the ancient Roman city.

The charcoal drawings were found during excavations at I’Insula dei Casti Amanti, a cluster of homes in Pompeii’s archaeological park that opened to the public for the first time on Tuesday.

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Munich’s Oktoberfest to ban Italian disco hit co-opted by far right

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Managers say no place at beer festival for song adapted with Nazi slogan ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’

The managers of Munich’s Oktoberfest have said they will seek to ban an Italian disco hit from being played at the world’s most famous beer festival after its hijacking by far-right revellers.

In recent months the schmaltzy love lyrics of L’amour Toujours, a catchy 2001 hit by Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino, have repeatedly been drowned out at public gatherings by a Nazi slogan: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out”.

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Spain to give Ukraine €1bn in military aid in decade-long defence deal

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Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, says the funding will improve Kyiv’s air defences, just days after Russia killed 18 people in Kharkiv

Spain will provide Ukraine with €1bn in military aid this year after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met in Madrid to sign an “enormously important”, decade-long defence and security deal.

Although the precise details of the agreement have not been made public, the Spanish government said its assistance would “allow Ukraine to prioritise its capacities, including its air defences”.

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François Hollande’s ‘love scooter’ fetches over €20,000 at auction

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Former French president’s bike, on which he was snapped riding to visit his lover in 2014, sells for double its listed price

It was the vehicle that sparked a French presidential scandal, the end of a secret love affair and legal action from a bodyguard nicknamed “Croissant Man”.

The former French president François Hollande’s scooter was sold for more than €20,000 (£17,000) at auction this weekend, double its listed price and many times more its secondhand value.

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Le Pen invites Meloni to form ‘super-group’ in European parliament

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French far right leader suggests alliance of ID and ECR groups, including Italian PM’s Brothers of Italy

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has suggested the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, join forces with her in a new alliance, as the EU’s resurgent but divided nationalist parties gear up for European parliamentary elections next month.

The move came as European centre-left parties reiterated a warning to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that they would not support her bid for a second term if it entailed the backing of hard-right parties – including Meloni’s.

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Lost Caravaggio that was nearly sold for €1,500 goes on display at Prado in Madrid

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Museum’s experts realised painter’s Ecce Homo had been misattributed in auction catalogue

Four centuries after it was painted, three and a half centuries after it arrived in Spain and three years after it came perilously close to going under the hammer for just €1,500, a lost, luminous and lovingly restored Caravaggio has gone on display at the Prado in Madrid.

The Ecce Homo, painted in the Italian master’s dark and desperate last years, made headlines around the world after experts at the museum spotted it in an auction catalogue and rang Spain’s culture ministry to share their suspicions that the painting had been misattributed.

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Russia-Ukraine war: EU needs to find way around Hungary obstructing support for Ukraine, says Lithuania – as it happened

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Hungary ‘systematically blocking all efforts’ to support Ukraine, says Gabrielis Landsbergis, Lithunian foreign minister

A former German armed forces officer was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Monday for spying for Russia, German media reported, in a case that highlighted Germany’s vulnerability to the increasingly hostile neighbour to its east.

The former army captain, who was stationed at the army’s procurement office in Koblenz, was accused of handing over classified documents to Russia’s consulate in Bonn and embassy in Berlin.

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‘Putin’s patience snapped’: Insiders marvel at Russia’s military purge

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Under new defence minister Andrei Belousov, FSB is tackling corruption aggressively with serious implications for Ukraine

In the weeks since Vladimir Putin sacked his longtime defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s FSB security service has pursued a series of high-level corruption cases against a deputy minister and department heads in what many insiders are now calling a purge in the defence ministry.

Andrei Belousov, the technocrat economist appointed to replace Shoigu, has a mandate to reduce corruption in the defence ministry and streamline military production for a long war against Ukraine that could largely be decided by industrial output.

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Lithuania President Nausėda wins landslide re-election in vote shaped by Russia fears

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Incumbent, who beat challenge from prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė, says Lithuania’s independence a ‘fragile vessel that we must cherish’

Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda has won re-election, official results showed, in a vote marked by defence concerns over neighbouring Russia.

The count published by the electoral commission showed that Nausėda won 74.6% of votes with 90% of ballots counted after polls closed on Sunday in the second-round vote.

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Thousands of Parisians take part in free picnic on the Champs-Élysées

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Event aims to reverse decline in local people visiting boulevard, which has become hub for wealthy tourists and designer stores

Thousands of people have gathered on the Champs-Élysées for a giant free picnic organised by a committee of local traders and businesses fighting to halt the slow decline of the boulevard long known as “the most beautiful avenue in the world”.

Once a favourite haunt of Parisians, the Champs-Élysées has in recent years been steadily abandoned by local people as popular stores and cinemas have given way to luxury boutiques and the avenue has become the preserve of wealthy tourists.

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Nicki Minaj says sorry to fans as Manchester gig cancelled after arrest

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US rapper detained in Amsterdam on suspicion of ‘possessing soft drugs’ before being fined by Dutch police

Nicki Minaj has offered her “deepest and most sincere apologies” after her Manchester concert was cancelled at the last minute after she was arrested in Amsterdam.

The US rapper was detained for hours at Schiphol airport on suspicion of “possessing soft drugs” before being fined by Dutch police and allowed to continue her journey.

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Zelenskiy calls on world leaders to attend Ukraine ‘peace summit’ after deadly Kharkiv strike

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Ukraine president urges Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to ‘show your leadership’ and send message to Moscow

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has released a desperate video plea calling on world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland after a deadly Russian attack on a DIY hypermarket in Kharkiv on Saturday killed at least 16people and injured dozens more.

Zelenskiy appealed in particular to the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to attend the summit, which is due to start on 15 June. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” said Zelenskiy in English.

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