Aircraft operated by KLM was preparing to depart when incident occurred at busy Amsterdam hub
A person has died after falling into the spinning turbine blades of a departing passenger jet at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The death occurred on the apron outside the busy hub’s terminal as a KLM flight was preparing to depart for Billund in Denmark.
Continue reading...Copy of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Refugees was due to be returned to Helsinki’s central library month after USSR invaded Finland
A book borrowed from a Helsinki library has been returned – 84 years overdue.
A Finnish translation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s historical novel Refugees was received by librarian Heini Strand on Monday at the main desk at the Helsinki Central Library Oodi.
Continue reading...The actor, who became the first transgender woman to win the best actress prize at Cannes, had earlier dedicated her award to ‘all the trans people who are suffering’
The first transgender woman to be awarded the best actress prize at the Cannes film festival filed a legal complaint on Wednesday over a “sexist insult” from a far-right politician after her win.
Karla Sofía Gascón and co-stars jointly received the accolade on Saturday for their performances in French auteur Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set narco musical Emilia Perez.
Continue reading...Plumes of lava reach 50 metres into air as people are moved away from Grindavík near Blue Lagoon spa
A volcanic eruption has begun on the Reykjanes peninsula in south-western Iceland, according to the country’s meteorological office, shortly after authorities evacuated the nearby town of Grindavík.
“An eruption has started near Sundhnúkagígar, north of Grindavík,” the Icelandic meteorological office said in a statement on Wednesday, almost three weeks after the end of a previous eruption that started on 16 March.
Continue reading...A parliamentary employee’s home and offices raided amid accusations they were ‘paid to promote Russian propaganda’
Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office has said that police carried out searches at the residence of an employee of the European parliament and at his office in the parliament’s building in Brussels over possible Russian interference. Prosecutors said in statement that the suspect’s office in Strasbourg, where the EU parliament’s headquarters are located in France, was also searched, AP reported.
The Swedish government has said it will donate military aid to Ukraine worth 13 billion kronor (£962 million) in the largest help package Sweden has so far donated. “It consists of equipment that is at the top of Ukraine’s priority list,” deputy prime minister Ebba Busch said. It includes air defence, artillery ammunition and armoured vehicles, AP reported.
Russia’s human rights commissioner said on Wednesday that prisoner of war exchanges between Russia and Ukraine had been suspended for several months, the state TASS news agency said on Wednesday. TASS cited Tatyana Moskalova as blaming what she called Kyiv’s “false demands.” There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Antony Blinken, is set to arrive in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Wednesday. It the first stop of a brief Europe tour during which he will aim to solidify the western support for Ukraine across Nato allies and neighbouring countries. The US top diplomat’s trip comes as Ukraine is trying to fend off intensifying Russian attacks in the east and as President Vladimir Putin warns that allowing Kyiv use western weapons to hit inside Russia would trigger a global conflict.
Western countries should let Ukraine strike military bases inside Russia with the sophisticated long-range weapons they are providing to Kyiv, French president Emmanuel Macron said, pressuring his allies in the most recent sign of a potentially significant policy shift that could help change the complexion of the war. The question of whether to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weaponry has been a delicate issue since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, AP reported.
Ukrainian military shot down 13 drones out of 14 launched by Russia in an overnight attack on three regions, the country’s air force said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday. Drone debris fell on energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northwestern region of Rivne, governor Oleksandr Koval said on Telegram. The attack triggered a defence mechanism that cut power to some localities, although it has since been restored, Reuters reported.
The Russian capital Moscow has been successfully protected from Ukrainian drones, a high-ranking Russian air force official said on Wednesday, according to the TASS state news agency. The official was quoted as saying that Ukrainian drones could cover a distance of up to 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles).
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk has said its forces will further fortify the border with Belarus and can use “all available means” to defend the Nato nation’s frontier, after a soldier was seriously wounded with a knife by a migrant. Tusk said that a buffer zone some 200 metres (660ft) wide would be set up along the border, which is also the European Union’s eastern frontier, in addition to a 190-kilometre (118-mile) long metal barrier already in place to prevent an influx of migrants crossing from Belarus.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that planes from its Black Sea Fleet had destroyed two Ukrainian Crimea-bound sea drones in the north-western part of the Black Sea.
Western countries should let Ukraine strike military bases inside Russia with the sophisticated long-range weapons they are providing to Kyiv, French president Emmanuel Macron said, pressuring his allies in the most recent sign of a potentially significant policy shift that could help change the complexion of the war.
Continue reading...Catalan authorities ask relatives to provide DNA to help identify 522 members of International Brigades from US, Canada, Britain and Ireland
Researchers in Catalonia have identified 522 members of the International Brigades, including 286 American and 86 British volunteers, who died or disappeared in the region during the Spanish civil war, raising hopes their remains could be found and buried with dignity nine decades after they perished.
About 35,000 people from 50 countries travelled to Spain between 1936 and 1938 to join the brigades to help defend Spain’s democratically elected government against Gen Francisco Franco’s military coup.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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).
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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Here are more images from Tbilisi today.
Last week, the speakers of seven European parliaments called on Georgia’s parliament to withdraw the controversial ‘foreign agents’ law.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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