President says Washington’s relationship with Nato is ‘not reciprocal’ and ‘they were not there for us’ in Iran war
Donald Trump has said it is “ridiculous” for the US to continue its “one sided” relationship with Nato, less than a week before a summit of the military alliance in Ankara.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “They were not there for us!!!” and Washington’s relationship with Nato “is not reciprocal”.
Continue reading...Researchers say Stelios Kouloglou’s device was compromised after he joined European parliamentary committee
NSO Group’s hacking software was repeatedly used against a member of the European parliament while he was conducting an investigation of spyware abuses in Europe, according to a new report.
Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they could not attribute the attacks against Stelios Kouloglou to any particular government operator of Pegasus spyware. But their investigation found the attack against the Greek now-former MEP bore the hallmarks of a previous hacking campaign against exiled Russian and Belarusian journalists in Europe.
Continue reading...From Times Square to the Norwegian parliament and even in fighter jet cockpits, the choreographed row is everywhere
The fans have done it, in their thousands, in the stadiums. The players have done it on the pitch. Pretty much anyone who was there did it in New York’s Times Square. Norwegian MPs did it in parliament.
Prince Sverre Magnus, third in line to the Norwegian throne, rowed in an Oslo subway carriage. Care home residents in their 90s rowed in rural Norway and Norwegian Royal Air Force pilots rowed in their F-35 fighter jets.
Continue reading...Yorgen Fenech said to have spent €400,000 on fees for men convicted of car bombing that killed investigative journalist
A businessman accused of commissioning the murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent more than €400,000 (£343,000) on legal fees for the hitmen convicted of her killing, prosecutors claim.
Yorgen Fenech, the 44-year-old heir to one of Malta’s largest fortunes, arrived in court for the second day of his trial on Thursday in an unmarked armoured police vehicle. He is on house arrest having pledged a record bail estimated at €50m.
Continue reading...NCA says offenders arrange to sexually assault and film victims via online networks with crimes often taking place in trusting relationships
Criminal investigators in the UK say they have uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual assault in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.
The National Crime Agency [NCA] has said online networks, “many as yet unidentified by law enforcement”, were allowing offenders to arrange to rape and abuse victims or arrange for sexual assaults to be filmed.
Continue reading...Indictment against alleged leader of gas pipeline attack claims former Ukrainian army officer was directed by state
German prosecutors have accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, a charge likely to ignite tensions between Kyiv and Berlin, its biggest military backer.
The sabotage in the Baltic Sea by a team of assailants almost entirely destroyed the seafloor infrastructure of the key source of Russian gas to Germany.
Continue reading...More than 70 missiles fired at Ukraine capital as Russia faces fuel shortages after strikes against its oil refineries
At least 21 people were killed and dozens injured overnight in Kyiv, local authorities said, in what the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, called the worst Russian attack on the capital during more than four years of air assault on Ukraine.
Russia used nearly 500 drones and more than 70 missiles in the hours-long attack on Kyiv and other parts of the country in the early hours of Thursday. Loud explosions shook the capital for several hours as waves of drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles came towards it and Ukraine’s air defence attempted to shoot them down.
Continue reading...Jury also finds Riad Bouchaker guilty of assaulting two other children and a childcare worker in 2023 stabbings
A man has been found guilty of attempting to murder three children during a stabbing attack in Dublin in 2023, a crime that horrified Ireland and triggered a riot in the capital.
A jury at the central criminal court on Wednesday also found Riad Bouchaker, 52, guilty of assault causing serious harm to a childcare worker, Leanne Flynn, and of assaulting two other children and a teenager.
Continue reading...Proposed development of protected shorelines and wildlife zones violates EU environmental policy, says MEP
MEPs have warned Albania that EU accession talks are at risk if the government does not “change course” over plans for a luxury resort backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Tineke Strik, the Dutch MEP heading a European parliament fact-finding mission to the Balkan nation, said Albania’s leadership was “playing with fire” by pursuing the €1.4bn (£1.2bn) real-estate venture that would, she said, wreak havoc on virgin coastline.
Continue reading...Country is first to join since Australia in 2015 as event director says it ‘continues to welcome the world’
Canada will join the Eurovision song contest in 2027, becoming the first new participant since Australia in 2015, organisers have announced.
Participation is not limited to countries in geographic Europe and instead is open to all members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which Canada joined last week. Australia is an associate member.
Continue reading...Airlines and airports say passengers are struggling in queues of up to five hours for biometric checks
Airlines and airports have called for the new EU biometric border check system to be suspended during the peak summer holiday period,saying some flights are leaving half full and passengers are struggling in queues of up to five hours.
In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, airlines and airports asked for an option to suspend checks under the system over fears the situation will get much worse during the busy summer season.
Continue reading...European powers resist Trump administration’s pick for high representative after incumbent pushed out
Diplomats from the US and Europe have been unable to resolve their differences and agree on a new top international envoy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a standoff which has become a transatlantic test of wills over influence in the Balkans.
A meeting in Sarajevo to select a new high representative, a post with far-reaching powers, ended without a compromise, in a spat that has undermined western cohesion in the region in the Trump era.
Continue reading...Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificant
On first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”
Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollution. In 2019, Scott Morrison, Australia’s then prime minister, used his country’s 1.3% of global emissions to reject any suggestion Australia was not “doing our bit” on climate breakdown. In July, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pointed to his country’s 2% share of global emissions while supporting loopholes in European climate targets. A few months later the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, followed suit, flagging the EU’s 6% share.
Continue reading...Questions remain as to why somebody would want to kill Vadym Iermolaiev, who has a personal fortune of $225m
Nobody paid much attention to the man with the backpack, as he approached the entrance to a beige-coloured Monaco apartment building. It was 9pm, Monday. The street – rue Révérend-Père-Louis-Frolla – is located in a quiet hillside part of the wealthy principality, close to the border with France.
The man left his bag on the front steps. Soon afterwards, the Ukrainian-born oligarch Vadym Iermolaiev emerged, together with his wife and their 13-year-old child. There was an explosion and CCTV captured an image of the suspect, wearing a black jacket and a bucket hat, running from the scene towards the neighbouring French town of Beausoleil.
Continue reading...Normally safe principality left reeling from apartment blast that also injured Vadym Iermolaiev’s wife and child
An international search is under way for a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian tycoon and his family were injured in an explosion in Monaco in an unprecedented attack that has shaken the normally ultra-safe principality.
Stéphane Thibault, Monaco’s public prosecutor, told reporters that a man entered an apartment block on Monday evening, left a package in the lobby and walked away. Moments later, as three occupants of a ground-floor flat approached the entrance, the package exploded, he said.
Continue reading...Four women among the dead and two people arrested after incident in city west of Hamburg
Four women and two men have been killed in a shooting at a youth welfare facility in northern Germany, police said. Two people including the suspected shooter were arrested.
The incident took place in Stade, a city close to the port city of Hamburg, on Monday afternoon. Police said the victims, employees of the shelter, were all shot inside the building. Five died at the scene and the sixth died in hospital. Police said the death toll could rise.
Continue reading...Teresa Ribera blames ‘ideologically driven’ falsehoods, driven by those with vested interests in fossil fuels, for attacks on green policy
The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says.
Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens.
Continue reading...Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary reached record temperatures of more than 40C on Sunday
Good morning, or dzień dobry, from Warsaw, Poland as the heatwave that affected much of the continent last week continues to impact central and eastern Europe.
It’s 9am local time and already 32C. I have seen two people cycling home with large fans, trying to get back before the heat hits the fan again. None of this is normal.
Show at Martin Gropius Bau gallery in Berlin is biggest ever celebration of an East German female artist in a state museum
Gabriele Stötzer remembers the days when she had to decide: “Am I buying a sausage, or film for my Super 8 camera?”
Stötzer was one of the most radical artists in communist East Germany, and her desire to create was born in defiance of and in spite of the material conditions and oppressive restrictions of the GDR regime.
Continue reading...Russia’s president says Ukraine’s attacks on infrastructure are causing ‘obvious’ but not critical problems
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that the country was suffering from “a certain shortage” of fuel in an interview published by the Kremlin on Sunday, after repeated Ukrainian strikes in their four-year war.
Kyiv calls the attacks fair retribution for Russia’s near-daily barrages on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure since its February 2022 offensive.
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