Category Archives: Europe

Former Nazi camp secretary goes on trial over murders of 11,000 people

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Irmgard Furchner, who tried to flee last month, is accused of complicity in killings at Stutthof death camp

A 96-year-old former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp has gone on trial in Germany for alleged complicity in the murder of more than 11,000 people imprisoned there, three weeks after she attempted to flee the proceedings.

Irmgard Furchner was pushed into the court in Itzehoe, northern Germany, strapped into a blue ambulance wheelchair and clutching a brown cloth bag. A silk patterned scarf, sunglasses and a medical mask covered her face.

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Czech politics in crisis as police called in over ill president’s aide

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Police investigating possible ‘crimes against republic’ as senate prepares to vote on transferring Miloš Zeman powers

The Czech Republic is facing a full-blown political crisis after the prime minister, Andrej Babiš, demanded the resignation of the chief aide to the country’s gravely ill president and police said they were investigating possible “criminal offences against the republic”.

It came as the senate’s constitutional committee voted on Tuesday unanimously in favour of suspending the powers of the president, Miloš Zeman.

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Polish prime minister escalates war of words with EU over rule of law

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Mateusz Morawiecki says European court’s ‘creeping revolution’ undermines Polish sovereignty

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has clashed with the European Commission president and MEPs after accusing EU institutions of seeking to turn the country into a province, in an escalation of the battle between Warsaw and Brussels over the rule of law.

During a heated debate in the European parliament in Strasbourg, where parallels between the Polish situation and Brexit were raised repeatedly by MEPs, Morawiecki claimed the European court of justice (ECJ) was responsible for a “creeping revolution” undermining Poland’s sovereignty.

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Editor of German tabloid Bild sacked after sexual misconduct claims

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Julian Reichelt departs after reports that he promoted an employee he had an affair with

The editor of Germany’s biggest tabloid has been relieved of his duties as its publisher faced allegations that it tried to cover up the full findings of an investigation into sexual misconduct and bullying within its own offices.

Media giant Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe, recently expanded its global portfolio by acquiring the US political news website Politico for more than $1bn, inviting closer scrutiny of its workplace culture on the other side of the Atlantic.

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Norway attack victims stabbed not shot with arrows, say police

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Attacker was armed with bow and arrows but five people who died had in fact been stabbed, police confirm

Five people killed in Norway last week were all stabbed to death and not shot with arrows as initially suspected, police have announced.

Four women and one man, aged between 52 and 78, were killed on Wednesday in the attack in Kongsberg, a town about 45 miles (70km) west of the capital, Oslo.

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Facebook to create 10,000 jobs in EU to help build ‘metaverse’

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Social network says it wants to ensure virtual world is built responsibly

Facebook is creating 10,000 jobs in the EU as part of its push to build a virtual world for its users.

The company has trumpeted the “metaverse” as the next big phase of growth for large tech companies and recently announced a $50m (£36m) investment programme to ensure that this metaworld is built “responsibly”.

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Pistol linked to killing of Dutch reporter found in alleged getaway car, court told

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Two men appear in court in The Hague accused of murder of crime reporter Peter R de Vries in July

A modified firing pistol believed to have been used to kill the Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries was found in the alleged getaway car of the two men on trial for his murder, a court has heard.

On the opening day of the suspects’ trial in The Hague, held under high security, prosecutors said witnesses, security camera footage and scientific evidence all pointed to Delano G, 21, being the shooter and Kamiel E, 35, acting as the getaway driver.

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CCTV footage appears to challenge singer’s claims in Star of David row

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Police express ‘serious doubts’ after Jewish symbol absent in images of Gil Ofarim published by German media

CCTV footage published in the German media appears not to show the Star of David pendant that a Jewish German singer alleged a Leipzig hotel had told him to “put away” before he would be allowed to check in.

In an emotional Instagram video post on 5 October, Gil Ofarim claimed that an employee at the Westin hotel in Leipzig, in eastern Germany, had asked him to cover up the symbol of Jewish identity.

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‘You reap what you sow’: Russians party despite record Covid figures

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Critics blame Kremlin denial and mixed messaging for pursuit of normality as deaths top 1,000 a day

Moscow’s streets were buzzing with energy on Friday evening. At Simach, a trendy bar and nightclub in the city centre, the small, sweaty dance floor was packed and a long queue of chatty people formed outside.

Looking at the crowd, it is easy to forget that Russia is at the centre of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, recording daily record deaths and infections just as global fatalities from the disease have fallen to their lowest level in a year.

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US urges UK to rebuild relations with Paris after submarine contract row

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Exclusive: diplomatic effort by US following Australia cancelling $66bn deal with France not matched by London

The US has urged Britain to follow its example and try to repair its relations with Paris in the wake of the row over France’s loss of its submarine contract with Australia.

Australia pulled out of the $66bn (£48bn) contract for 12 diesel electric-powered submarines, signed in 2016, to opt instead for nuclear-powered submarines to be developed with America and the UK. The secretive and sudden cancellation of the contract has created a crisis of trust between Paris on the one hand and London, Canberra and Washington on the other.

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Has Interpol become the long arm of oppressive regimes?

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Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents

Flicking through the news one day in early 2015, Alexey Kharis, a California-based businessman and father of two, came across a startling announcement: Russia would request a global call for his arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.

“Oh, wow,” Kharis thought, shocked. All the 46-year-old knew about Interpol and its pursuit of the world’s most-wanted criminals was from novels and films. He tried to reassure himself that things would be OK and it was just an intimidatory tactic of the Russian authorities. Surely, he reasoned, the world’s largest police organisation had no reason to launch a hunt for him.

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Macron: police violence at 1961 Algerian protest ‘unforgivable’

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French president attends memorial for those killed and lays flowers at bridge over the Seine

Emmanuel Macron has described a bloody police operation against Algerian pro-independence demonstrators 60 years ago that led to many deaths as an “unforgivable” crime.

Attending a memorial for those killed, Macron laid flowers at a bridge over the River Seine which marked a starting point for the protests in October 1961 that led to one of the darkest chapters of French postwar history.

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Gandhi in heels? Maria Callas statue hits the wrong note

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Critics compare figure of famous soprano erected in Greek capital to an Oscar statuette

Drama in life, drama in posterity. For Maria Callas, Greece’s greatest diva, there is, even 44 years after her death, no let up from the artistic wrangling that was her lot.

But this time the uproar is focused on a statue erected at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, opposite the Roman theatre where the world-renowned opera singer made her debut.

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French villagers bid to stop Tory donor Aquind laying cable under Channel

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Energy firm and director Alexander Temerko have given £1.1m between them to Conservatives

French mayors and residents along the Normandy coast are campaigning to block a project for a cross-Channel electricity cable backed by a Ukrainian-born businessman who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative party.

Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s business secretary, is due to decide this week on whether to give the go-ahead to a £1.2bn project for the 148-mile cable between Normandy and Hampshire. The firm says the link, which will run through Portsmouth, could supply up to 5% of Britain’s electricity needs.

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Macron and the ‘French Trump’ trap Gaullism’s heirs in a political vice

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With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate

Six months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.

On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed.

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Female Spanish thriller writer Carmen Mola revealed to be three men

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Trio step out from behind pseudonym marketed as ‘Spain’s Elena Ferrante’ to accept €1m prize

A million euro literary prize has lured three Spanish men out of anonymity, to reveal that they are behind ultra-violent Spanish crime thrillers marketed as the work of “Spain’s Elena Ferrante”

The men had published under the pseudonym Carmen Mola, which roughly translates as “Carmen’s cool”.

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Why are Britons so much more relaxed about Covid than Europeans?

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UK residents abroad are shocked at the lack of mask wearing back home, and point fingers at the government’s blase approach

Compared with some other countries, along with high numbers of Covid cases and deaths, the UK has relatively relaxed Covid restrictions, with no mandatory vaccine passports, no social distancing measures, and no mask mandate in England.

Four people from the UK and in Europe share their views on the country’s approach to Covid restrictions compared with others they are visiting or living in.

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Frost says there is big gap between UK and EU at Northern Ireland Brexit talks

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Brussels has been ‘preparing for worst’, with options ranging from tariffs on UK imports to ditching deal

David Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, has warned there is a big gap between the EU and the UK negotiating positions as he enters talks with the European Commission over changes to the arrangements for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The EU has offered to sweep away most customs and health checks on animal and plant products entering Northern Ireland under a revision of the current system but both sides privately recognise that fundamental differences remain between their visions for the future.

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Poland criticised over stranded migrants after seventh death at border

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Identity documents suggest latest person to die was 24-year-old Syrian who arrived in Belarus last month

Polish police have found another body near the border with Belarus amid fresh allegations that Warsaw is breaking international law in its treatment of migrants stranded in harrowing conditions on the EU’s eastern frontier.

The man’s body was spotted in a field by a helicopter crew, police said, bringing to seven the number of people reported by Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Belarusian authorities to have died trying to cross the border since the summer.

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