Category Archives: Europe

Norway to ask ICJ for advisory opinion condemning Israel’s stance on Unrwa

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Draft resolution for UN general assembly seeks to protect the aid agency and allow it to keep functioning in Gaza

Norway is to seek an international court of justice (ICJ) advisory opinion condemning the Israeli government for ending cooperation with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa.

The Israeli Knesset passed two bills last month banning Unrwa from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli state contact with the agency, moves that would prevent it from delivering aid to Gaza, after allegations by Israel that members of Unrwa staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas. The UN launched an investigation into the Israeli claims and fired nine Unrwa staff as a result.

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Arthur Frommer, budget travel guide innovator, dies aged 95

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Europe on 5 Dollars a Day author revolutionized leisure travel and built one of best-known names in travel industry

Arthur Frommer, whose Europe on 5 Dollars a Day guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.

Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.

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Two telecoms cables in Baltic Sea severed, raising suspicions of sabotage

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Outages include 1,200km link between Germany and Finland and 218km cable between Lithuania and Sweden

Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, have been severed, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors.

The episode on Monday recalled other incidents in the same waterway that authorities have probed as potentially malicious, including damage to a gas pipeline and undersea cables last year and the 2022 explosions of the Nord Sea gas pipelines.

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UK expected to give Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia

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Move follows US president Joe Biden’s agreement to supply similar American long-range Atacms weapon

Britain is expected to supply Storm Shadow missiles for use by Ukraine on targets inside Russia, now that the US president, Joe Biden, has agreed to do the same for the similar American long-range Atacms weapon.

Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said at the G20 summit that the UK recognised it needed to “double down” on its support for Ukraine, while diplomatic sources briefed they expected other European countries to follow the US lead.

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Gisèle Pelicot rape trial: children tell of ‘devastation’ caused by their father

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Couple’s two sons and daughter beg Dominique Pelicot to reveal if other family members were abused

Gisèle Pelicot’s children have described their “devastation” to learn that their father had drugged their mother and invited dozens of men to rape her, begging him in court to tell the truth about whether he had abused other members of the family.

David Pelicot, 50, the couple’s oldest son, told the court in Avignon on Monday that he believed his sister Caroline Darian, 45, when she said she felt certain that she too had been drugged and abused by Dominique Pelicot, after photos were found on his computer of her asleep in bed in underwear that she did not recognise as her own.

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Letting Ukraine fire missiles into Russia unlikely to have decisive effect

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Military and political consequences of allowing Kyiv to use Atacms missiles remain uncertain

It has taken an election defeat in the US and the arrival of 10,000 North Koreans in Ukraine for Joe Biden to finally relent. After two years of asking, Ukraine’s army has been given permission to use US long-range Atacms missiles to strike against targets inside Russia. The military and political consequences remain uncertain.

Russia has been able to bomb targets across all of Ukraine throughout the war. On Sunday it attacked key sites across the country’s power network, forcing Kyiv to implement national electricity rationing as a result of the damage caused. Some missiles were aimed as far west as Lviv and at sites near the border with Moldova, and an energy crisis is closer as a result.

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Home Office pressed on EU citizens removed while awaiting approval to stay

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Watchdog seeks clarity on legal right to go on holiday or visit family abroad after applicants denied re-entry at UK border

Hopes have been raised for EU citizens who have faced being removed from the UK post-Brexit even while they wait on their applications to stay, after a statutory body wrote to the Home Office demanding clarity on their legal right to go on holiday or visit family abroad.

The move comes after a number of cases came to light involving the removal of EU citizens when they returned to the UK after a visit abroad.

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Nigeria celebrates victory over South African rivals with Miss Universe runner-up

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Chidimma Adetshina crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania after she was stripped of South African identity documents

Beauty queen Chidimma Adetshina’s second place in this year’s Miss Universe competition was not only an occasion for Nigerians to rejoice at their highest ever placing in the global pageant, but an opportunity to celebrate a victory over their continental rivals South Africa.

Adetshina came first runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjær Theilvig and was also crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania in Mexico on Saturday night.

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Vladimir Shklyarov, Russian ballet star, dies aged 39 after falling from building

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St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre says dancer was taking painkillers for an injury and fell from fifth floor

The acclaimed Russian ballet dancer Vladimir Shklyarov has died aged 39.

Shklyarov died after falling from the fifth floor of a building on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Mariinsky Theatre told the news outlet Fontanka at the weekend.

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Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine shows maximalist war aims remain unchanged

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As President-Elect Trump talks up negotiations, Putin has made clear his position hasn’t changed since launching invasion in 2022

Millions of Ukrainians woke up early on Sunday morning to a massive Russian missile and drone attack on their country’s infrastructure, the biggest assault from Moscow since the end of August and the first large-scale attack since the US election.

Donald Trump once promised to settle the Ukraine war in “24 hours” but the 120 missiles and 90 drones aimed at the nation’s utilities is a reminder that Moscow’s maximalist aspirations to cow and subjugate its neighbour remains unchanged.

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Keir Starmer promises Ukraine will be ‘top of the agenda’ at G20

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UK prime minister to meet world leaders at summit in Brazil that Vladimir Putin has declined to attend

Ukraine will be “top of the agenda” this week at a meeting of leaders from the world’s most powerful economies, Keir Starmer has pledged, though he said he had “no plans” to follow the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and speak directly to Vladimir Putin.

Starmer will meet world leaders on Monday at the G20 summit in Brazil, which the Russian president has declined to attend, sending his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in his place.

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Free Democrats reportedly planned German coalition exit weeks before final split

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Pro-business party internally referred to its plans as ‘D-day’

Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats, who collapsed Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition earlier this month in a dispute over the budget, reportedly plotted their exit weeks before the final split, referring to their plans internally as “D-day”.

Newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the FDP had intended from at least September to force a situation that would provoke the German chancellor into pulling the plug on his tripartite coalition.

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Ukraine war: Emergency power outages after Russia launches massive missile strike on energy grid – as it happened

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Biggest air strike in months also hits residential areas and raises fears for Ukraine energy infrastructure ahead of winter

The exiled Russian opposition will hold its first major demonstration against the invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin on Sunday afternoon.

The Russian opposition lost its main figurehead in February, when Putin’s rival Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in mysterious circumstances.

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Swedes left longing for sweets as viral TikTok starts craze for candy

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The tradition of chomping through a kilo of sweets once a week is under threat as demand soars for sugary sweets

Swedes love sweets. So when an American TikToker sparked a craze for Swedish candy this year, there was pride that an important part of national culture was being recognised around the world. The Danes may have Ozempic but the Swedes have lördagsgodis – Saturday sweets – where families chew through more than 1kg of sticky treats in an evening.

That pride has given way to some irritation. Supplies of some Swedish sweets ran dry in the autumn due to the high demand in the US, South Korea and in Scandinavia. And there was another factor, an equally important Swedish tradition: the six-week summer holiday.

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‘Treasure trove’ of unseen letters sent by Charles de Gaulle up for auction

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Lot includes ‘very unusual’ correspondence between celebrated general and American singer Josephine Baker

A stash of never-before-seen correspondence and artefacts belonging to the former French president Charles de Gaulle, including coded letters he wrote to his mother while he was a German prisoner in the first world war and messages from the American singer Josephine Baker, is to go on sale after its unexpected discovery earlier this year.

The correspondence is part of a “treasure trove” of documents and personal belongings belonging to de Gaulle, found in a safe in a bank vault, that will be auctioned in Paris next month.

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Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid in biggest missile strike in months

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Ukraine orders nationwide energy rationing after more than 200 missiles and drones used in attack that killed seven people

Russia launched more than 200 missile and drones at Ukraine’s energy grid overnight and in the early morning, killing seven people in its largest-scale attack in months, and forcing the country to announce nationwide electricity rationing from Monday.

Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s principal energy supplier, said blackouts and consumption restrictions would be introduced “in all regions” as engineers tried to repair as much of the damage to power facilities as possible.

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How a fatal bear attack led an Italian commune to rally against rewilding

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Brown bears, introduced into Trentino province 20 years ago, have begun to clash with the local human population

Franca Gherardini used to cherish the sublime views from her home in Caldes, a village surrounded by forests on the slopes of the Brenta Dolomites in northern Italy’s Trentino province.

But now she tries to shut out the scene as much as possible, rolling down the window canopy in the morning to avoid looking towards the area where her son, Andrea Papi, 26, was killed by a bear.

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Japan’s minister visits Ukraine to stress ‘grave concern’ over North Korean troops

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Tokyo to also discuss growing military links between North Korea and Russia, Japan’s foreign ministry said

Japan’s foreign minister arrived in Kyiv on Saturday to discuss North Korea’s deepening military alliance with Russia, including the deployment of thousands of troops to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Takeshi Iwaya will meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, to reaffirm Japan’s “strong support” for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and to discuss further sanctions against Moscow, Japan’s foreign ministry said.

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Former Greek PM expelled from ruling New Democracy party

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Hardline nationalist Antonis Samaras ousted over persistent criticism of government policies

Former Greek prime minister and lawmaker Antonis Samaras was expelled from the ruling New Democracy party over his persistent criticism of government policies.

Samaras, 73, a hardline nationalist, had criticised Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ approach to negotiations with Turkey, which he has likened to appeasement. He also strongly disapproved of government policy that he considered too “centrist” or “woke”, especially the decision to legislate in favour of same-sex marriage earlier this year.

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Paint thrown over Georgia elections chief as ruling party victory confirmed

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US and EU have called for investigation into alleged irregularities in pro-Russia ruling party’s election victory

The head of Georgia’s election commission was splashed with paint as the body confirmed the ruling party’s victory in the parliamentary elections.

David Kirtadze, a member of the former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM), splashed black paint on the central election commission chair, Giorgi Kalandarishvili, on Saturday, resulting in an eye injury, a video broadcast on local TV channels showed. Hundreds of opposition supporters staged a rally outside the commission’s headquarters during the session.

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