Brazilian, 40, has been charged with the rape of a 23-year-old woman in a nightclub
The former Barcelona and Brazil footballer Dani Alves will appear in court on Monday charged with the rape of a 23-year-old woman in a Barcelona nightclub.
Alves, 40, faces damning scientific and video evidence, as well as witness accounts.
Continue reading...French government to hear last-ditch appeal this week over new culture minister’s ‘compromise’ for Pavillon des Sources
Campaigners battling to save part of Marie Curie’s Paris laboratory have said the decision to take it apart brick by brick and rebuild it is “totally absurd”.
They warned that once the Pavillon des Sources is dismantled under the “compromise” plan announced by the new culture minister last week, it is unlikely to be restored.
Continue reading...GUR agency says it is working to confirm whether Oleg Sergeevich Stegachyov, ‘directly involved in missile strikes on Ukraine’, survived attack
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been visiting Ukrainian troops on the southeastern front and handing out medals, his office said on Sunday.
Reuters reports that the move comes amid intense speculation that his popular army chief could soon be sacked.
Continue reading...Less well-off residents in the southern city of Antakya feel left out of the city’s rebuilding efforts
• Read more: A year in the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake – a photo essay
Rows of bright white marble gravestones dot a hillside on the outskirts of Antakya, some bearing the words “martyr of the earthquake”. The final resting place for the city’s dead will soon be overshadowed by tower blocks for those who survived. Bright yellow cranes jut into the skyline on the next hillside, slowly birthing a cluster of concrete skeletons, new government housing for some of the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes when deadly earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria last February.
“No one can bring back what was lost, as we lost everything,” said İsa Akbaba, who lost seven members of his extended family along with his home.
Continue reading...Arrest of pro-west politician Nikola Sandulović, who dared to apologise over Kosovo crimes, exposes tensions still festering in the Balkans
Bed-bound in the gargantuan brick and marble villa that is his home, Nikola Sandulović recounts the attack that has, he says, left him paralysed on his right side and unable to walk.
It was 3 January at 3.20pm when three vehicles carrying agents from Serbia’s BIA secret service screeched to a halt outside his home in Belgrade’s plush Senjak area. Bundled into a black van – its tinted windows shielding what would happen next – the masked men soon told him why they had come: the former entrepreneur and one-time opposition politician had dared to apologise for crimes committed by Serbs when inter-ethnic conflict convulsed Kosovo in the late 1990s after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia.
Continue reading...Russian claims that western weapons used in attack on town in Moscow-controlled Luhansk region
Russia’s emergencies ministry said workers had retrieved the bodies of 20 people from the rubble following a Ukrainian attack on a building housing a bakery in the city of Lysychansk in the occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
On Saturday, the ministry shared video of emergency workers lifting two bloodied people on to stretchers and carrying them out of the ruins of a building. It said previously that its workers rescued 10 people and handed them to doctors.
Continue reading...Network says role will be recast after Ukraine hit out over casting of Serbian for new season
The makers of hit TV show the White Lotus have dropped actor Miloš Biković from the upcoming series after criticism from Ukraine over the Serbian native’s ties to Russia.
Biković, who was cast for the third season of the award-winning dark comedy just weeks ago, has protested against HBO’s decision as “the triumph of absurdity and the defeat of art”.
Continue reading...Chancellor says protests are ‘strong sign in favour of democracy’ as demonstrators gather in Berlin, Dresden, Hanover and other cities
About 200,000 people have taken to the streets of Germany in further protests against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Protests on Saturday also took place in Dresden, Mainz and Hanover in a sign of growing alarm at strong public support for AfD.
Continue reading...Andrzej Duda sparked row after saying he was unsure if Kyiv could regain control of Russian-occupied Crimea
Poland’s president has declared he has always been unwavering in his support for Ukraine after being criticised for saying he was unsure whether Kyiv would be able to regain control of Crimea.
Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters since Russia invaded the country in 2022 and has said Ukraine must regain control over all of its territory in order to deter Moscow from further aggression.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Poland’s president Duda sought to defuse the row over his statement on Ukraine, saying in a post on X that his “actions and position on Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine have been and are clear from day one”.
He added:
Russia’s attack on Ukraine and occupation of internationally recognised territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, is a crime... We all stand shoulder to shoulder for a free, sovereign and independent Ukraine against aggression and brutal imperialism!
Continue reading...Police arrest man who was reportedly tackled by passengers after leaving three victims with non-life-threatening injuries
A man has been arrested after three people were stabbed at a busy railway station in Paris.
Reports suggested the alleged attacker was first tackled by passengers and a security agent at the Gare de Lyon just before 8am on Saturday, before officers arrived at the scene. Police said early indications suggested the attack was not terrorism-related.
Continue reading...She’s pledged to be first minister ‘for all’ and her ability to navigate political tensions will shape her Stormont tenure
When Michelle O’Neill is sworn in as Northern Ireland’s first minister, it will be a moment of personal triumph steeped in irony.
As a teenage mother, she was treated as if she had the “plague”, and wept, yet went on to ascend the ranks of Sinn Féin and is now poised to make history as the first nationalist to lead Northern Ireland – a state that, in theory, she wishes to eradicate.
Continue reading...Vittorio Sgarbi, who denies allegations over painting, cites separate antitrust investigation in resignation
An Italian art critic who was recently placed under investigation over allegations that a 17th-century painting in his possession was stolen from a castle more than a decade ago has resigned as a junior culture minister.
“I am resigning with immediate effect as undersecretary of the government and will inform [the prime minister, Giorgia] Meloni in the next few hours,” Vittorio Sgarbi said on the sidelines of a conference in Milan.
Continue reading...Court rules not enough evidence provided to prove defendants failed to comply with section 14 order at anti-fossil fuel rally
Greta Thunberg and four others charged with public order offences over a protest in London have been cleared after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer.
Thunberg was charged alongside Christofer Kebbon, Joshua James Unwin, Jeff Rice and Peter Barker with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act”.
Continue reading...Marco Raduano broke out of high-security wing of a prison in Sardinia in February 2023
A notorious mafia boss who escaped from a high-security prison in Italy last year using bedsheets has been recaptured in France, according to authorities in both countries.
Marco Raduano, recognized as dangerous on Europol’s list of most wanted criminals, was captured in Bastia on the French island of Corsica, authorities said on Friday.
Continue reading...Election commission finding could disqualify anti-war Boris Nadezhdin from running
Russia’s elections commission has said it found “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Boris Nadezhdin, the sole anti-war candidate in next month’s presidential election, in a sign that he could be disqualified from a carefully managed ballot meant to deliver victory for Vladimir Putin.
Nadezhdin, a veteran politician who has associated with Kremlin insiders and the opposition to Putin, has been waging a last-minute campaign to get on the ballot for the election, with thousands of Russians standing for hours in the freezing cold to add their signature in his support.
Continue reading...Green campaigners hope to win landmark vote, which is being watched closely by other cities such as London
Green activists in Paris are making a final push to win a landmark vote tripling parking charges for SUVs in a move aimed at tackling air pollution that is being closely watched by other cities such as London.
Paris residents will be asked to vote on Sunday for or against a special parking tariff for heavy, large and polluting SUVs parked by non-residents, as the French capital aims to target rich, out-of-town drivers entering the city in order to tackle climate breakdown and air pollution.
Continue reading...Prime minister says blockades by protesting farmers at Dutch-Belgian border ‘have been stopped’
Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo arrived in Place du Luxembourg just as a bronze statue that was felled in the protests yesterday was being taken away.
The statue, which weighed 200kg, was taken into a van by half a dozen men, as the clean-up in the square continues.
I think, by now, all governments have basically seen them, the Flemish government, the federal government – yesterday also the president of the [European] Commission.
We’ve shown that we’re able to come up with steps in the right direction. For some measures, we need more time to elaborate. And there’s a real willingness to go forward.
Continue reading...Schools closed and bus thrown off road in most powerful storm for decades, while snow ends dry spell in Himalayas
This week brought the strongest storm so far of the 2023-24 European season, as Storm Ingunn slammed into Norway on Wednesday with hurricane-force winds. A deep, multi-centred area of low pressure intensified as it moved eastwards towards Scandinavia, displaying signs of possible sting jet activity as it approached the Norwegian coast. A sting jet is a narrow channel of very strong winds – often more than 100mph (160km/h) – that can form when low pressure systems strengthen rapidly, with these winds descending from upper levels towards the surface.
The storm deepened to a lowest central pressure of 940hPa on Wednesday evening, approaching Norway’s official low pressure record of 938.5hPa, set in 1907. The storm is the most powerful Norway has seen in decades, with sustained winds equivalent to those from a Category 1 hurricane. Gusts of 80-100mph were widespread along the west coast during Wednesday afternoon and overnight, with the Norwegian Meteorological Society announcing on Thursday a strongest confirmed gust of 115mph at Sklinna Lighthouse on the island of Heimøya, north of Trondheim. Some reports from the Faroe Islands suggest that gusts there could have reached up to 155mph, but these numbers were unconfirmed at the time of writing.
Continue reading...A 7.8-magnitude quake hit southern Turkey and northern Syria on 6 February 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and erasing entire cities. Then and now photographs show the scale of devastation and the enormity of the reconstruction
Over 65 nightmarish seconds of the pre-dawn hours of 6 February 2023, the ground swallowed swathes of entire cities across south-east Turkey resulting in more than 50,000 deaths.
Bridges collapsed, roads and airport tarmacs cracked and millions of lives across 11 Turkish provinces were upturned by the time the rest of the country woke up, stunned.
Continue reading...