Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
CDU leader Armin Laschet caught laughing on camera as president delivered solemn address
More flash-floods have devastated towns in Austria, Bavaria and eastern Germany, as the frontrunner to replace the chancellor, Angela Merkel, was forced to apologise after seeming to make light of a catastrophic situation that has claimed the lives of more than 150 people.
The Alpine district of Berchtesgadener Land declared a state of emergency on Saturday evening after heavy rainfall led to flooded streets and landslides, leaving at least one person dead.
Varosha, once a chic resort, is being rebuilt in the latest move of Turkey’s power play in the eastern Mediterranean
“Do you want to ride or walk?” asks Seyki Mindik. The municipal employee points under the fierce July sun towards the multicoloured bicycles stacked within view of the police barrier at the entrance to Varosha. “There is so much to see. Tourists love it here.”
Not so long ago the very notion of the eastern Mediterranean’s most famous ghost town being resurrected as a 21st-century theme park would have been unthinkable. For more than four decades there has been almost no movement among ruins of war left to rot with the passage of time.
The Cameroonians, who had ‘no idea’ they had jumped into the demilitarised area, have been trapped for almost two months
A few months after Grace Ngo flew into Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus from her native Cameroon, she decided to head “for the west”. Smugglers pointed the student in the direction of the Venetian walls that cut through the heart of Nicosia, Europe’s last divided capital.
A little before midnight on 24 May,Ngo leapt from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic into what she hoped would be the war-divided island’s internationally recognised Greek south.
Belgian TV station VTM recorded the partial collapse of a house in the town of Pepinster while interviewing its mayor, Philippe Godin, on Thursday. The back wall of the flooded house began to cave in as he spoke, with the situation deteriorating quickly as furniture and other household goods fell through the collapsing floors. Moments later cameras caught two people jumping from the rooftop of the house into a neighbouring building.
Campaigners criticise European Commission strategy that allows continued burning of trees for fuel
The EU executive has been accused of “sacrificing forests” after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel.
The charges of “accelerating climate breakdown” through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.
At least 110 people have died in devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium. Search and rescue operations are continuing with hundreds still unaccounted for
Search for missing continues, with Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg also affected
The death toll from catastrophic floods in western Germany and Belgium has risen to more than 170, as emergency services continued their search for hundreds still missing.
The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said he was “stunned” by the devastation caused by the flooding and pledged support to the families of those killed and to cities and towns facing significant damage. It is Germany’s worst natural disaster in more than half a century.
Drone and helicopter footage shows the extent of flood damage in towns across Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands after heavy rainfall caused water levels to rise in large parts of western Europe. Footage from local Belgian TV station RTL shows cars submerged in water and flooded streets and shops in the small town of Esneux, on the River Ourthe, just south of Liege. In Germany 18 people died and dozens were missing around the wine-growing hub of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said, after the Ahr river that flows into the Rhine rose and brought down half a dozen houses
At least 58 people have died and dozens more were missing in Germany on Thursday as swollen rivers caused by record rainfall across western Europe swept through towns and villages. Many of the victims died around the wine-growing region of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said, and dozens were still unaccounted for, after the Ahr river that flows into the Rhine broke its banks and brought down half a dozen houses
Raging floods caused by heavy rain devastated parts of Germany and Belgium on Thursday, killing more than 40 people, destroying buildings and sweeping away vehicles. The full extent of the damage remains unclear because many villages were cut off by floodwaters and landslides
German-US pair to meet before holding joint press conference
US president hopes to strengthen alliances after Trump’s tenure
The Guardian’s Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh report:
Vladimir Putinpersonally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
In their meeting this afternoon, Joe Biden and Angela Merkel will almost certainly discuss the future of Afghanistan as the US military withdraws from the country.
Biden said last week that the withdrawal from Afghanistan will conclude by August 31, although the Pentagon has said that the operation is already 90% complete.
But even as high-level US diplomats head to the region, they are encountering doubts from Afghanistan’s neighbours about any such security partnerships with the US. This is in contrast to 2001, when Central Asian countries made their territory available for US bases, troops and other access when the US hit back for the 9/11 attacks plotted by al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
There is distrust of the US as a reliable long-term partner, after an only partly successful war in Afghanistan and years of widely fluctuating US engagement regionally and globally, say former American diplomats. Russia also says a permanent US military base in its Central Asia sphere of influence would be ‘unacceptable’.
More missing as buildings give way amid heavy rain and flooding
At least 38 people have died and dozens are missing or awaiting rescue from rooftops after heavy rain and floods caused buildings to collapse in two western German states.
Up to 70 people were reported missing after several houses collapsed overnight in Schuld in the Eifel mountain range in Rhineland-Palatinate state.
Family announces death of 64-year-old just over a week after attack in Amsterdam, reports say
The Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has died just over a week after he was shot in the head in central Amsterdam, local media have reported, citing a statement released by the veteran journalist’s family.
“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” the statement said, according to RTL Nieuws. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’.”
Activists say Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime uses televised confessions ‘under duress’ to hold back women’s rights, despite changes in society
Khalimat Taramova, the 22-year-old daughter of a prominent Chechen businessman, sits demurely on a velvet sofa ornately embellished in gold. She is wearing a modest dress and a headscarf. With her on the sofa are three men dressed in suits. They are appearing on Grozny TV, the state television channel of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Only a couple of weeks before the programme was shown on 14 June, Taramova fled her home, where she said she was subjected to violence after going against her family’s wishes. She sought help from a group of women’s rights activists, the Marem project , who let her stay in a flat owned by one of its members in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan. In a video releasedon social media on 6 June, she pleaded for the Chechen authorities not to come looking for her.
Ruling is part of ongoing fight for rule of law and freedom from discrimination in heart Europe
The EU executive has launched legal action against Hungary and Poland to defend LGBTQ+ rights in the latest battle over values with the two nationalist governments in central Europe.
The announcement that Hungary and Poland’s governments could end up in the EU’s highest court is part of an ongoing existential fight for the rule of law and freedom from discrimination in the heart of Europe.
Within 72 hours of the French learning they would soon need to be vaccinated or tested to go to the cafe, more than 3 million had booked appointments and France had broken its vaccination record, administering 800,000 shots in a single day.
At the same time, daily infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, continued to climb, reaching nearly 9,000 on Wednesday – and on Bastille Day, about 20,000 demonstrators nationwide protested against what some called a “dictatorship”.
Prohibition can only be implemented against all religious symbols as part of a policy of neutrality
Private employers in the EU can ban people from wearing religious symbols, including headscarves, in order to present an image of neutrality, the bloc’s highest court has ruled.
Companies can ban headscarves provided such a prohibition is part of a policy against all religious and political symbols, the court said on Thursday, reaffirming a 2017 ruling. The latest judgment went further by examining the grounds employers can use when making such prohibitions.
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
European court of justice had demanded suspension of Polish reforms that could lift judges’ immunity
Poland’s top court has ruled that measures imposed by the European court of justice against the country’s controversial judicial reforms are unconstitutional, in a decision that could have far-reaching implications for the bloc’s legal order.
Judge Stanislaw Piotrowicz said on Wednesday that Poland’s constitutional court had reached a majority verdict that EU measures regarding the “system, principles and procedures” of Polish courts were “not in line” with the Polish constitution.