Police questioning two people as prosecutor says event at theme park was staged with girl aged about nine and actors
French police were questioning two people on Sunday after Disneyland Paris was hired for an alleged fake marriage ceremony involving a girl aged about nine.
The theme park complex outside Paris had been hired for what was presumed to be a genuine private wedding early on Saturday morning before opening hours.
Continue reading...Vessel to be transported to port where investigators will try to find cause of fatal sinking during storm
Salvage teams in Sicily say they have lifted Mike Lynch’s superyacht “fully and finally out of the water” for the first time since it sank last year during a storm, killing seven people including the tech tycoon and his teenage daughter.
The rusting hulk of the Bayesian, which ran into trouble off the coast of the Italian island in August last year, has been slowly raised from the seabed over the last three days. Covered with algae and mud, it was visible clear of the sea in the holding area of a yellow floating crane barge, a witness told the Associated Press.
Continue reading...Syarhei Tsikhanouski arrested shortly after announcing candidacy in rigged 2020 election won by Lukashenko
One of the leaders of Belarus’s opposition movement, Syarhei Tsikhanouski, has been released from jail after being pardoned after almost five years behind bars.
His wife, the exiled politician Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who took over the opposition cause after his jailing, on Saturday shared a video of him smiling and embracing her after his release.
Continue reading...A deal freezing frontlines would be unacceptable for Serhiy Serdiuk, who was taken to Georgia in handcuffs with his family after refusing to teach the Russian curriculum
Earlier this year, Serhiy Serdiuk was deported from Russia, along with his wife and daughter. He was given a 40-year ban from re-entering the country.
Serdiuk’s home town of Komysh-Zoria, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, was part of the territory occupied in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion in spring 2022. According to Moscow, it is now part of Russia. And because Serdiuk, the headteacher of a local school, refused to work for the new authorities, they decided he had no place living there.
Continue reading...Adult websites back online after court suspended decision requiring platforms based in the EU to verify users’ ages
Major adult websites Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube were back online in France Friday after a court suspended a decision requiring pornographic platforms based in the European Union to verify users’ ages.
The three platforms’ owner, Aylo, based in Cyprus, had made its websites unavailable in France in early June as a protest against the French decree. Failure to comply could have lead to sanctions including fines or the blocking of the websites.
Continue reading...Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says he supports more talks with European counterparts despite lack of progress
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said that his country is ready for more diplomacy with the US only if Israel’s war on his country is brought to an end “and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes he committed”.
After several hours of talks with European foreign ministers in Geneva on Friday, there was no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough – or a resumption of negotiations with the US.
Continue reading...Leaked document marks significant moment in relations with ally but stops short of calling for immediate sanctions
The EU has said “there are indications” that Israel is in breach of human rights obligations over its conduct in Gaza, but stopped short of calling for immediate sanctions.
“There are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under article 2 of the EU-Israel association agreement,” states a leaked document from the EU’s foreign policy service, seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Proposal would cover uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programmes and aim to end terrorist funding
Europe is to make Iran a comprehensive offer to end its war with Israel that would include an Iranian move to zero uranium enrichment, restrictions on its ballistic missile programme and an end to Tehran’s funding of terrorist groups, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The proposals are surprisingly broad, spanning a range of complex issues beyond Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, and are likely to complicate any solution unless an interim agreement can be agreed.
Continue reading...Industry professionals gather at civil and military aircraft event further overshadowed by war between Israel and Iran
Every second summer more than 100,000 aviation industry professionals gather in Paris for an airshow – a flying display crossed with a vast conference. The mood at the latest gathering this week was more subdued than usual, after the deadly crash a week ago of a London-bound Air India flight in Ahmedabad.
Investigators have recovered the black box from the plane to try to work out the cause of the disaster. The aircraft maker Boeing, and GE Aerospace, which made the 787 Dreamliner’s engines, both cancelled many of their media-facing events out of respect for the families of the 241 passengers and crew who died, as well as at least 30 more people on the ground who were killed.
Continue reading...Police found 57 people allegedly held in fetid conditions in case known as ‘grape harvest of shame’
Three employees of a firm that provided workers to pick grapes for champagne has gone on trial for human trafficking, in one of the biggest labour scandals to hit France’s exclusive sparkling wine industry.
The employees of the firm supplying grape pickers for the champagne harvest in 2023 were charged with human trafficking and exploiting seasonal workers, submitting vulnerable people to undignified housing conditions, and employing foreign nationals without authorisation. The firm itself was also on trial for moral responsibility in the case.
Continue reading...PM Pedro Sánchez says he wants a ‘more flexible formula’ that would make target optional or allow Madrid to opt out
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has rejected Nato’s proposal for member states to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP, saying the idea would “not only be unreasonable but also counterproductive”.
Sánchez said that he was not seeking to complicate next week’s Nato summit in The Hague, but he wanted there to be a “more flexible formula” that would either make the target optional or allow Spain to opt out.
Continue reading...US-made unmanned vessels will monitor maritime activity as part of trial, amid criticism over closer ties with America
Denmark is deploying floating drones on the Baltic Sea to protect undersea infrastructure and bolster maritime surveillance amid the growing threat of hybrid attacks from Russia.
The arrival of Saildrone, a California-based company, has prompted criticism in Denmark over forging tighter bonds with the US in such a sensitive area as digital security.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more of our European news coverage here
Earlier today, I cheekily suggested that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is probably wondering how to persuade US president Donald Trump to stay at the Nato summit in The Hague next week long enough to get to discussions on Ukraine and Russia – and not leave early, as he did at the G7 summit.
Well, looks like this issue may have actually influenced the planning.
“Budapest city hall will organise the Budapest Pride march on 28 June as a city event. Period.”
Continue reading...Government issued permit to shoot young female who entered Vilnius, despite only small number left in Baltic country
A young female bear caused a stir after wandering out of the forest and into the leafy suburbs of the Lithuanian capital.
For two days, the brown bear ambled through the neighbourhoods of Vilnius, trotted across highways and explored backyards – all while being chased by onlookers with smartphones and, eventually, drones.
Continue reading...As many as 70 said to be planning to show solidarity at LGBTQ+ march after Hungary’s PM tried to ban it
Dozens of MEPs are expected to attend the Pride march in Budapest this month, in defiance of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has tried to ban the event.
In a debate in the European parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs from liberal, left and green groups pledged to be in Budapest on 28 June for the parade to show solidarity with gay Hungarians.
Continue reading...While some in Moscow have tried to put positive spin on Israel’s assault, Kremlin risks losing key strategic partner
When a group of Russian and Iranian foreign policy officials arranged to meet in Moscow for a conference titled “Russian-Iranian cooperation in a changing world”, they probably did not anticipate just how timely that phrase would turn out to be.
Seated around a table on Wednesday at the President hotel near the Kremlin, officials from both sides were forced to confront a stark new reality: Iran’s regime – a key ally of Moscow – is facing its most serious threat in decades.
Continue reading...Labour MPs fighting Reform want action and a European renegotiation looks unappealing. How would the PM sell a third way?
Can a lefty human rights lawyer be the one to take on Britain’s uneasy relationship with the European convention on human rights (ECHR)?
It is the most unlikely of causes for Keir Starmer. But there is a growing feeling in government that he should seize the initiative.
Continue reading...Body unveils plans to ban all gas imports from Russia by January 2028 – but faces backlash from Hungary, Slovakia and Austria
The European Commission has insisted there will be no return to Russian gas, as it published plans to phase out fossil fuel imports from its eastern neighbour by 2028.
The EU energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, said a proposed ban on Russian gas imports would remain, irrespective of whether there was peace in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Police say the man tested negative for alcohol but did not divulge whether or not he had been using a satnav
An 80-year-old man drove a car down the Spanish Steps in Rome early on Tuesday before getting stuck part way, municipal police said in a statement.
The man tested negative for alcohol, police said. They did not identify the driver or say if the car, a Mercedes-Benz, was his. Nor did they say whether or not he had been using a satnav.
Continue reading...System failure caused by network’s inability to control grid voltage said to be behind outage in Spain and Portugal
The unprecedented blackout that brought the Iberian peninsula to a standstill at the end of April was caused by surging voltages triggering “a chain reaction of disconnections” that shut down the power network, an expert report commissioned by the Spanish government has found.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, the country’s environment minister, Sara Aagesen, ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause of the outage on 28 April, saying it had been down to a “multifactorial” system failure caused by the network’s inability to control grid voltage.
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