Underwater bike garage solves Amsterdam station’s storage headache

Central station is replacing its messy, overflowing cycle parking facilities with a low-cost area that’s tucked away out of sight

Beneath the clear waters and pleasure boats by Amsterdam central station is a remarkable feat of engineering: an underwater garage for 7,000 bicycles.

The garage, which opens on 26 January, is the result of a four-year, €60m (£53m) project to clear heaps of rusty bikes left by hasty commuters and install rows of clean, safe parking spaces underground, where bikes can be left free for 24 hours and then at a cost of €1.35 per 24 hours.

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World’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, dies at 118

Sister Andrée was born in 1904 and survived an outbreak of Covid-19 in 2021 in her nursing home that killed 10 other residents

The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, a spokesperson has said.

Randon, known as Sister Andrée, was born in southern France on 11 February 1904, when the first world war was still a decade away.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: six children among dead and 19 missing following Dnipro strike

Death toll from Saturday’s Russian missile attack on a residential building in the Dnipro rises to 45

Rescue workers have this morning found the body of a child in the rubble of the high-rise residential building struck by Russia at the weekend, according to Ukrainian officials.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the office of president of Ukraine, posted an update to Telegram to say:

At 09.46am, the body of one dead child was found from under the rubble of a destroyed residential building on the 4th floor. A total of 41 people died (including four children), 79 people were injured (including 16 children), and 39 people were rescued (including six children).

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Captured mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was living in modest apartment

Italian investigators discover designer clothes and expensive shoes inside ‘normal’ two-storey building

The mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals who had spent 30 years on the run, lived in a modest apartment in western Sicily in his final months as a free man, Italian investigators said.

Denaro, 60, who was apprehended as he came out of a well-known private clinic in Palermo, lived in a small apartment inside a two-storey yellow building in the centre of the town of Campobello di Mazara, in the province of Trapani, in the heart of his territory.

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Ryanair enjoys record January with 2m sales in a weekend for the first time

Airline to continue aggressive post-Covid expansion, offering 10% more seats in the UK this summer compared with 2022

Ryanair took record numbers of bookings in January, the budget airline has announced, passing 2m sales in a weekend for the first time.

Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said there was no sign of a slowdown in demand despite the economic uncertainty.

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Three gang members admit roles in €113m Dresden jewel heist

One defendant says he and unnamed accomplice broke into the Green Vault and took valuables in November 2019

Three members of a notorious criminal gang have confessed to stealing priceless 18th-century jewels from a German state museum at their trial in Dresden.

Rabieh Remmo, one of six defendants, told the regional court in the eastern city that he and an unnamed accomplice broke into the Green Vault in a brazen night-time raid in November 2019.

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Ukraine urges world leaders to intensify war efforts on first day at Davos

Kyiv officials ask allies at World Economic Forum to step up military supplies to defeat Russia

Ukraine has urged world leaders to intensify efforts to remove Vladimir Putin’s troops from its soil as the country’s war with Russia dominated the first full day of the gathering of the global elite in Davos.

With the war clouding the outlook for the global economy in 2023, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yuliia Svyrydenko, urged the country’s allies to step up supplies of military hardware so that Russia could be more quickly defeated.

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Germany’s no-nonsense new defence minister faces early test over Ukraine

Boris Pistorius is surprise pick for role as he has a low profile in Germany and is little known internationally

A veteran but low-profile politician is to be appointed as Germany’s new defence minister, the government has announced, filling the role at a crucial time when the country is under acute pressure to increase its commitment to Ukraine, especially by allowing it the use of tanks.

Boris Pistorius, 62, who has been the interior minister of the northern state of Lower Saxony for the past decade, will face his first major task on Friday when western allies meet at the US military’s Ramstein base in south-west Germany to discuss providing Kyiv with more weapons and equipment.

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UK seeks more German support as it confirms Challenger tanks for Ukraine

Ben Wallace wants Berlin to allow its Leopard 2 tanks to be re-exported from Nato countries to join British heavy armour

Britain’s defence secretary has called on Germany to release Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine after he confirmed that the UK would send 14 of its own Challenger 2 tanks, the first time a western nation has given its own heavy armour to Kyiv.

Ben Wallace said the UK would allow Ukrainians to start training with the tanks immediately as part of a fresh package of British military aid, unveiled before a western defence ministers’ conference in Ramstein, Germany, on Friday.

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Climate activists vow to take to streets to stop fossil fuel extraction

‘Cease and desist’ letter signed by over 650,000 people sent to oil and gas CEOs follows removal of Greta Thunberg from coal protest

Hundreds of thousands of young climate activists have said they will continue “protesting in the streets in huge numbers” against fossil fuels, a day after Greta Thunberg was removed by German police from a condemned village atop a massive coal deposit.

In a cease-and-desist letter to the CEOs of fossil fuel companies, youth campaigners accuse them of a “direct violation of our human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, your duties of care, as well as the rights of Indigenous people”.

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Tipoff about medical care led to arrest of mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro

‘Last godfather’ was apprehended as he came out of the private health facility on outskirts of Palermo

An Italian mob boss regarded as the last godfather of the Sicilian mafia was arrested after investigators received a tipoff that one of the world’s most wanted criminals had been receiving medical treatment for a tumour at a well-known clinic in Palermo, police sources have said.

Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, who has been in hiding since 1993, was apprehended as he came out of the private La Maddalena health facility on the outskirts of the Sicilian city, where special forces had been on guard since authorities first learned of his whereabouts three days ago. He was wearing luxury clothes and a €38,000 (£33,700) watch.

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Funeral of Greece’s last king, Constantine II, takes place in Athens

Royal who reigned for barely three years before being exiled is laid to rest six days after death was announced

He was a king without a crown, a monarch without a kingdom, for longer than most can remember. But for a few hours in Athens on Monday, Constantine II, the royal who reigned for barely three years before being forced into exile was king of the Hellenes again – or at least of thousands of his former subjects.

From a little before dawn, six days after his death was announced at the age of 82, Greek monarchists young and old, rich and poor, lined up patiently to pay their last respects.

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Giorgio Armani’s AW23 menswear proves chasing gen Z is not necessary

Despite not doing shock tactics and trends, the designer’s signature is something of a ‘mood’ this season

If the fashion industry sometimes seems obsessed with creating the next sell-out trend, then the men’s autumn collection by Giorgio Armani served a poignant reminder this season that you do not always need to chase the purse strings of generation Z.

Armani, the world’s most successful fashion designer and proprietor of one of its few independent fashion brands, does not do shock tactics and trends. While his contemporaries roll out logo-heavy bags and zeitgeisty moments, the 88-year-old has always been consistent in his polished offering of 1% chic for the best part of five decades. Ironic, then, that it is this very signature that makes him something of “a mood” this season.

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Senior Iranian ex-diplomats expressing open criticism of regime

Former envoys warn against policies including supply of drones to Russia and failure to revive nuclear deal

Senior former Iranian diplomats are expressing open criticism of their government, warning that by failing to revive the nuclear deal and supplying drones to Russia in Ukraine, the country risks becoming isolated, its economy weakened and the protest movement emboldened.

The increasingly stark warnings may reflect the views of a waning old guard of reformist diplomats, but appear to echo a live battle within the government over strategy and policy.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Russia launches overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia, officials say; Belarus begins air force drills with Russia – live

UK defence secretary says west is accelerating efforts to support Ukraine but urges Germany to permit supply of Leopard tanks

Russia launched an attack on Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, wounding civilians and destroying residential infrastructure, according to regional officials.

Oleksandr Starukh, the Zaporizhzhia regional state administration head, said Russia launched a rocket attack on the regional centre in a Telegram post at about 1am local time.

The enemy launched a rocket attack on the regional centre and suburbs. There is destruction of civil, residential and industrial infrastructure. Information was received about several lightly wounded. All relevant services are on site.”

Russians fired at our city again. As a result of the night attack, people were injured. There are damaged houses. Three people were transported to hospitals. Among them are two children aged nine and 15.”

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German defence minister Christine Lambrecht quits after series of blunders

Criticism growing she was not up to job of getting German army into shape against backdrop of Ukraine war

Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, has announced her resignation following a series of blunders and a growing impression that she has struggled to deal with the challenges of overseeing the country’s military since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lambrecht asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz to accept her resignation, she said in a statement on Monday morning, following widespread speculation over recent days that she would stand down.

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Italy’s most-wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrested

Alleged to be a boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, Denaro had been on run for 30 years and was arrested in Palermo

Matteo Messina Denaro, the last “godfather” of the Sicilian mafia and one of the world’s most-wanted criminals, has been arrested in Palermo after 30 years on the run.

Denaro, 60, who has been in hiding since 1993, was apprehended in a private clinic in the Sicilian city.

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German tank manufacturer’s warning puts pressure on Ukraine’s allies

Defence firm dampens Kyiv hopes other European allies will follow UK’s lead in supplying heavy armour

Battle tanks from German industrial reserves wanted by Ukraine will not be ready to be delivered until 2024, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned, increasing pressure on Nato allies to support Ukraine with armoured vehicles in active service instead, ahead of a key meeting this week.

“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: rescue attempts continue for survivors of Russian missile attack on Dnipro apartment block — as it happened

At least 20 dead and fate of 40 remains unknown with scores left homeless says governor

From doctors to cocktail bar staff, in this article by Guardian journalists Emma Graham-Harrison and Artem Mazhulin, the people of the Ukrainian capital speak of their everyday acts of resistance and determination to do much more than simply survive.

Images of the rescue efforts at the destroyed block of flats in Dnipro are filtering through.

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