Category Archives: Europe

Ex-soldiers ‘inspired by psychic to fight in Yemen’ go on trial in Germany

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Achim Allweyer, 52, and Arend-Adolf Gräss, 60, allegedly tried to form paramilitary unit to join civil war

Two former German soldiers have gone on trial accused of attempting to form a paramilitary group to fight in Yemen’s civil war after being inspired by a psychic.

Achim Allweyer, 52, and Arend-Adolf Gräss, 60, took steps to set up what prosecutors say amounted to a “terrorist organisation” after receiving “messages from a fortune teller that they understood as binding instructions for action”, according to the indictment read out at Stuttgart’s higher regional court on Thursday.

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Huge mystery spill detected in Baltic off Swedish coast

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Coastguard checking ships’ routes and says samples being sent for analysis

A massive spill of an unknown substance has been detected in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden, the country’s coastguard said on Thursday.

Covering a surface area of 30 sq miles (77 sq km) in both Swedish and Finnish waters, the spill was detected on Wednesday in the Bothnian Sea.

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Berlin crash driver had history of paranoid schizophrenia, authorities say

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Mayor says incident where teacher died and 14 children were injured was probably deliberate

A 29-year-old man who killed a teacher and injured 14 children after driving his car into a crowd in Berlin on Wednesday had a history of suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was probably intending to kill or injure, German authorities say.

“There are no clues pointing to a terrorist motivation behind this deed, and we can also rule out that it was an accident”, said the spokesperson for the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, Sebastian Büchner. “It was probably a deliberate act.”

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Russia-Ukraine war: Russian bombardment of Sievierodonetsk ‘pushes Ukrainian troops back to city’s outskirts’ – live

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Luhansk governor says Ukraine now only controls the outer parts of the eastern city

With neither side prevailing on the battlefield, there seems little prospect of negotiations.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he “simply cannot see the preconditions for ending the war” in an interview with the Financial Times.

China has always played a constructive role in the assistance to peaceful talks.

It is necessary under the present-day situation to be aware of third parties’ attempts to drag countries of the region into the conflict of world powers and to avoid their threats to take a certain side.

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Ukraine: Captured Britons ‘face 20 years in jail’

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Russian state media shows Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, appearing in court in Donetsk

Russia-Ukraine war: latest developments

Two British men captured by Russian forces while fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers face 20 years in prison, according to a video shared by Russian state media.

Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were serving in the Ukrainian military, were detained in April while fighting in Mariupol.

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Thieves stole Banksy Bataclan door mural with crowbar, French court told

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Seven Frenchmen and Italian on trial for theft of work thought to be a tribute to victims of Paris attacks

Thieves who stole a mural by the street artist Banksy on an emergency exit door of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris used a crowbar and angle grinder to prise it free, in a crime that lasted just minutes, a French court heard.

The work depicting a veiled and mournful figure is thought to have been a tribute to victims of the Islamist militant attacks against the Bataclan and other entertainment venues in Paris in 2015.

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Man detained after driving car into Berlin crowd, killing teacher

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Police say 14 children on school trip injured on road adjacent to 2016 fatal attack

A man has been detained after driving his car into a crowd of people in western Berlin, killing a teacher and injuring 14 children who were on a school trip, police have said.

The man drove into people on a street corner before getting the car back on the road and crashing into a shop window further on.

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MEPs reject key EU climate proposal after aims watered down

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European parliament defeats centre-right lawmakers’ attempts to weaken climate target

The European parliament has voted to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2035, defeating attempts by centre-right lawmakers to weaken the target.

Lawmakers hailed a major victory for the climate after an intense day of votes on a set of laws that make up the EU green deal, the bloc’s main response to the climate crisis.

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Ukraine forces pushed back to outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, say Donbas leaders

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Luhansk governor says most of eastern city now in Russian hands and it is no longer possible to rescue civilians

Ukrainian forces have been pushed back to the outskirts of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk amid heavy fighting in the city and frontline villages to the south as Russia pursues a breakthrough in Donbas, regional leaders have said.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said most of the city was now in Russian hands and that it was no longer possible to rescue civilians stranded there.

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No regrets over handling of Vladimir Putin, says Angela Merkel

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Former German chancellor claims her opposition to Ukraine’s Nato membership helped country

Angela Merkel has said she feels no regrets for her handling of Vladimir Putin during her time in power, arguing that Russia’s president would have perceived a 2008 Nato membership plan for Ukraine that was blocked by her government as a “declaration of war”.

The former German chancellor also claimed that an oligarch-run and democratically immature Ukraine would have been less prepared for an invasion then than it is now.

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EU agrees ‘landmark’ 40% quota for women on corporate boards

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Binding targets for boardroom gender equality come 10 years after proposals first made

The EU has agreed that companies will face mandatory quotas to ensure women have at least 40% of seats on corporate boards.

After 10 years of stalemate over the proposals, EU lawmakers hailed a “landmark” deal for gender equality. As well as the legally binding target, companies could also be fined for failing to recruit enough women to their non-executive boards and see board appointments cancelled for non-compliance with the law.

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Children of shot crime reporter confront accused in Dutch court

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Daughter of Peter R de Vries tells his alleged killers ‘I hate you’ and says her father was a hero

The children of a Dutch crime reporter who was fatally shot last year have confronted his alleged killers in court.

Peter R de Vries, 64, was shot in the head outside an Amsterdam television studio in July 2021 in a crime that prosecutors say was linked to his role in the trial of a Dutch drugs mafia kingpin.

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Russian assault on Sievierodonetsk redoubled after counterattack

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Non-stop street fighting and bombardments as Kremlin seeks full control of Luhansk province

Russian forces are bombarding Ukrainian positions in the symbolic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk with intense artillery barrages, airstrikes and non-stop street-by-street fighting, according to the governor of Luhansk province.

After a Ukrainian counterattack over the weekend, Russian soldiers were seeking to regain the initiative. They were trying to move forward to dislodge Ukrainian fighters from their last stronghold in an industrial zone. Between 10,000 and 11,000 civilians remain in the city.

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Zelenskiy says stalemate with Russia is ‘not an option’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

A Fiji court has ruled Russian-owned superyacht Amadea be removed from the Pacific island nation by the United States because it was a waste of money for Fiji to maintain the vessel amid legal wrangling over its seizure. The yacht is linked to sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

The FBI has said the $300m luxury vessel had running costs of more than $25m per year, and the US would pay to maintain the vessel after it was seized. However, the Fiji government has been footing the bill while an appeal by the vessel’s registered owner, Millemarin Investments, worked its way through Fiji’s courts.

Currently, the enemy continues to storm Sievierodonetsk, fighting continues. The Russian assault in the direction of Novookhtyrka and Voronove was also repulsed. In the area of Bilohorivka, the enemy uses sabotage and reconnaissance groups.

During the past day, ten enemy attacks were repulsed, one tank, three artillery systems, two armoured combat vehicles, one car and two ammunition depots were destroyed.

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Rome’s citizens ask Unesco to help save city from ‘mortifying’ mess

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Residents ask world heritage chief to press council into honouring duty to clean up historic centre

Culture sector workers, artists, professors and environmentalists living in Rome’s historic centre have urged Unesco to remind the city’s council of its duty to protect the world heritage site as they decried “mortifying” scenes of rubbish and other signs of decay.

In a letter addressed to Lazare Eloundou Assomo, the chief of Unesco’s world heritage centre, and signed by 150 people, the group said its complaints to authorities in the Italian capital had been ignored.

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Spanish police investigate 20,000 unposted letters from decade ago

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Former Alicante postman arrested after bags of letters dating back to 2012 discovered at sold home

From Monday to Friday, he clocked in dutifully at the central post office in the Spanish city of Alicante, picking up bags and bags of mail to be delivered.

But exactly what the former letter carrier did next is now under investigation after more than 20,000 undelivered letters – dating back to 2012 and 2013 – were found crammed into bin bags in his home.

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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy ‘very happy’ at Boris Johnson confidence vote win

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President says result is ‘great news’, while adviser says ‘the world needs such leaders’

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has declared himself “very happy” at Boris Johnson’s confidence vote win, hours after one of his senior advisers tweeted a picture of the two men and thanked the UK prime minister for helping to protect “the free world from barbaric invasion”.

Zelenskiy described Johnson’s narrow victory on Monday evening as “great news”, in remarks via video link to an event hosted by the Financial Times on Tuesday. “I’m glad we haven’t lost a very important ally. This is great news,” he said.

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Exhausted Russian fighters complain of conditions in eastern Ukraine

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Long deployments and a lack of training, support, food and equipment all affecting morale as war drags on

Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s east has brought it some battlefield success as its military has advanced slowly in fierce fighting in Donbas.

But those gains have come at a high price for the Russian invasion force, with evidence that high-level casualties are growing and that some units may be approaching exhaustion as the war moves past its 100-day mark.

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Ukraine winery in area shelled by Russia wins gold at Decanter wine awards

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Exclusive: Beykush winery struggled to get bottles to judges in UK from its site on edge of Russian-occupied territory

A small Ukrainian winemaker whose vineyards sit on the edge of territory newly occupied by Russia has won gold in the prestigious Decanter World Wines awards.

“I can’t say we were surprised that we won because our wine is really, really good,” said Svitlana Tsybak, the chief executive of Beykush winery and president of the Ukrainian association of craft winemakers.

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