Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
AfD politician quits to set up party that uses symbol of 1930s Austrian Nazis in logo
A German politician has left the far-right Alternative for Germany to set up a new party with a logo that uses a symbol adopted as a secret sign by Austrian Nazis in the 1930s.
André Poggenburg resigned from his post as the AfD’s regional leader in eastern Saxony-Anhalt state last year after labelling Turks as “camel drivers” and immigrants with dual nationality a “homeless mob we no longer want”. He announced his resignation from the party in an email sent to the leadership earlier this week.
Mikołaj Golachowski describes plan as ‘evil’ and warns of environmental consequences
Conservationists have branded plans by the Polish government to cull almost the entire wild boar population of the country as “pointless, counterproductive and evil”.
In a move to tackle an epidemic of African swine fever, the Polish government has ordered a series of hunts, beginning this weekend, with the aim of killing the vast majority of the country’s population of around 200,000 wild boar.
Sixteen-year-old dies after he and his mother were swept away while skiiing at St Anton am Arlberg
A 16-year-old Australian boy has been killed in an avalanche in Austria, local police said.
The boy was skiing with his parents and 14-year-old brother at St Anton am Arlberg, western Austria, on Wednesday, when he and his mother were swept away by the avalanche, local news reports said. His mother was able to escape unhurt, but the boy was buried in 2m of snow.
Italy’s interior minister strives to forge far-right alliances before European elections in May
Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has said that Italy and Poland could trigger a “European spring” that could break the dominant “Germany-France axis” as he strives to forge far-right alliances before the European parliamentary elections in May.
Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, travelled to Poland on Wednesday for strategy meetings with members of the ruling Law and Justice party. The two parties share similar anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and Eurosceptic views.
£8m ransom reportedly asked for release of 68-year-old Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen
The wife of a Norwegian multimillionaire missing for 10 weeks has probably been kidnapped and a ransom has been demanded for her release, police have said.
Married to a real estate and energy magnate, Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen, 68, disappeared on 31 October, police said.
Vox supports regional government after dropping demands including expulsion of migrants
The far-right Spanish political party Vox has agreed to support a new, rightwing Andalucían regional government after dropping its demands for the expulsion of 52,000 “illegal immigrants” and the repeal of laws on domestic violence and gender equality.
Vox, which secured its first parliamentary seats in December’s Andalucían election, had also called for Spain’s autonomous regional governments to surrender the responsibilities for education, health and public order that they were handed after the end of the Franco dictatorship.
The Speaker, John Bercow, has allowed MPs to debate an amendment that could force Theresa May to present a new Brexit plan within three days if her current proposal is voted down, a decision likely to enrage the government.
Bercow has selected an amendment led by the Conservative MP Dominic Grieve to the business motion that sets up the latest five-day debate on the prime minister’s plan, which will culminate in a crunch vote next Tuesday.
Lucia Riina, youngest child of Salvatore ‘Totò’ Riina, names establishment after crime family’s home town
The daughter of a notorious Sicilian mafia boss has opened a restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris called Corleone.
Lucia Riina, a painter and the youngest child of the late “boss of bosses” Salvatore “Totò” Riina, named the establishment after her father’s home town and the crime family in Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning Godfather trilogy of films.
Violence so bad that women wear nappies at night to avoid leaving tents, report says
The EU has been strongly criticised over conditions in Greece’s largest refugee camp, where Oxfam reported women are wearing nappies at night for fear of leaving their tents to go to the toilet.
The British-based NGO described the increasingly dangerous state of the EU-sponsored Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, where a 24-year-old man from Cameroon was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday as temperatures fell below freezing.
A former French boxing champion who was filmed punching police officers during a gilets jaunes protest has said in a video that he had 'boiled over' after being teargassed alongside his wife on his eighth Saturday protest
Trade Optimism Trumped Weak European Economic Sentiment today, says Fiona Cincotta of City Index.
She explains
Global markets bounced higher on Tuesday as optimism grows over a US – Sino trade deal. A strong Asian session spilled into Europe, although markets pared gains as Wall Street opened owing to increasing tech concerns.
US and China extending trade talks for another day has been interpreted as a positive sign by the markets. Whilst no reason was given for the extension, Trump’s tweet that the talks “were going very well” was sufficient to lift sentiment boosting appetite for riskier assets such as stocks, whilst safe haven gold declined.
With US and China working to resolve their issues, the Fed promising to remain flexible and the US economy firing on all cylinders it is easy to see why sentiment is on the up. Obviously, this is not the end of US – China trade tensions by a long shot, ad there will almost certainly be further bumps and twists along the way but for now the markets are happy with the slow steady progress which it perceives has been achieved.
This comes hot on heels of downbeat German factory orders, which dropped by -4.3% in November. These are the latest signs that the eurozone economy is slowing, as trade tensions sap momentum for the powerhouse of Europe.
Britain’s FTSE 100 index of top shares has closed 50 points higher at 6861 points, a gain of 0.75% today.
Optimism that Beijing and Washington are making progress in their trade negotiations lured investors into buying shares, following the recent sell off.
Man, 20, driven by ‘annoyance’ at statements made by politicians and celebrities
A 20-year-old man has admitted to police that he was behind one of the country’s biggest data breaches, in which the private details of almost 1,000 public figures were leaked.
The man, who lives with his parents in the central German state of Hesse and is still in the education system, told police he had acted alone and was not politically motivated.
Downgrade of diplomatic role seen as a snub reflecting a general antipathy to the EU in the Trump administration
The Trump administration has downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU mission in Washington, without informing the mission or Brussels, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
French politicians express outrage after public fundraiser for Christophe Dettinger
A former French boxing champion who was filmed punching police officers during a gilets jaunes protest has received more than €100,000 in public donations online, angering the government.
The online fundraising platform Leetchi received €114,000 for Christophe Dettinger before the site closed the donation page after politicians expressed outrage on Tuesday. Leetchi said the funds were intended only for legal fees.
Well-meaning Britons are saving abused dogs from hellish public pounds and death by cannibalism. So why are they making some experts anxious?
On a dank, dreary winter afternoon, I have come to a farmyard in Essex, just outside the M25, to meet – among others – Karine, Anna, Tommy Lee and Eskimo Joe. Tommy Lee and Eskimo Joe are from Romania, and are dogs. Rescue animals, hoping (if dogs can hope) to be adopted. Tommy Lee is missing a front leg – most probably from a traffic accident in Brasov, Transylvania – but is cheerful, inquisitive and friendly. Eskimo Joe is older, a little overweight, obstinate, camera-shy, resigned. I worry that potential adopters might not fall in love with Eskimo Joe.
Karine and Anna Hauser are Swiss-Finnish sisters (human) and run the charity Love Underdogs. Animal lovers, they were originally visiting a sanctuary in Romania for abused bears from all over the world. But they couldn’t ignore the dogs, and started to work with a shelter in Brasov, 100 miles north of Bucharest, and to bring to the UK for rehoming some of the most unwanted, abused and neglected ones. Love Underdogs is just one of dozens of charities in Britain importing rescue dogs from abroad – from Greece, Cyprus, Bosnia, and particularly from Romania, which has one of the biggest street-dog problems in Europe.
Shinzō Abe will first visit the Netherlands, where many Japanese firms are relocating ahead of Brexit
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, who is to meet Theresa May in London on Thursday, will underscore the damage Brexit is likely to have on Japanese investment in Britain by first visiting the Netherlands, the country to which many UK-based Japanese firms are redeploying ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU.
The choice of the Netherlands as the other stop on Abe’s mini-European tour is not a coincidence since he will also be given a chance to be briefed on how a no-deal Brexit could clog the flow of trade into Rotterdam, the main gateway for Japanese and British firms into the EU single market.
Foreign minister says there is ‘strong’ evidence Iran directed killings of two Dutch nationals
Iran has been accused by the Dutch government of directing two political assassinations in the Netherlands, triggering EU sanctions against Tehran’s military intelligence service.
The two murders are alleged to have taken place in broad daylight in 2015 in Almere, a city east of Amsterdam, and in 2017 on a street close to the Dutch foreign ministry in The Hague.
More than 300 actors, directors and designers accuse Abbey of wreaking ‘devastation’
The Abbey theatre in Dublin has staged some of Ireland’s greatest plays but it is now at the centre of an unwanted drama after it was accused of wreaking artistic “devastation” on the country’s theatrical community.
In an open letter published on Monday, a roll-call of Irish talent including the actors Aidan Gillen and Ruth Negga said the country’s national theatre had gutted its domestic industry by scaling back in-house productions in order to buy in and co-produce shows.