Europe

The small French Alps village of Crets en Belledonne is counting sheep, but not to cure insomnia. Instead, they’re enrolling them in school to make up for low attendance. Yes, you read that right: the Jules Ferry elementary school registered some 15 sheep as pupils on Tuesday in order to …

The BBC has fired a British radio presenter who tweeted an image of a chimpanzee dressed in clothes below the caption “Royal Baby leaves the hospital”. Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, gave birth in the early hours of Monday morning to a baby boy, Archie, the first mixed-race child …

Russia has expelled some Swedish diplomats from Moscow as part of a reciprocal move against Stockholm, TASS news agency cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying on Wednesday. Zakharova made the comment when asked at a weekly briefing whether Moscow had expelled two Swedish diplomats. She did not …

Europe has breathed a collective sight of relief after EU officials announced that serious discussion of Brexit would be banned at an upcoming leaders’ summit. Ahead of Thursday’s meeting in the Romanian city of Sibiu, one senior EU official said the summit would be “in principle Brexit-free”. For two years …

  erman Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has condemned Turkey’s decision to re-run the contentious Istanbul mayoral election amid a long-running diplomatic dispute between the two countries. Turkey’s election commission ordered a do-over of the March 31 Istanbul mayoral election in a move which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described as …

Turkish authorities on Monday scrapped the result of a vote for Istanbul mayor lost by President Tayyip Erdogan’s candidate, responding to calls by his AK Party for a re-run, in a move that hit the lira and drew opposition accusations of “dictatorship.” The High Election Board ruled that a fresh …

British Prime Minister Theresa May has carried out “scenario planning” for a second Brexit referendum in case she is forced by parliament to hold one, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Monday. May is hoping to find a way to get parliament to approve a Brexit plan without another public …

Passengers and crew on board a jet that was forced to make an emergency landing at a Moscow airport say it was struck by lightning moments before it crashed. Reports of the strike came as survivors told how they escaped the Aeroflot jet which burst into flames on landing at …

German Health Minister Jens Spahn has drawn up draft legislation to oblige parents to get their children vaccinated against measles or else face fines and their exclusion from daycare. Spahn’s initiative comes amid a highly charged debate in Germany about whether the measles vaccine should be obligatory, and as the …

Mohammed was found to be a popular name in several German states last year and managed 24th in the national rankings. Mohammed was among the most popular baby names for boys born in Berlin in 2018, according to a study commissioned by Germany’s government language society. The Association for the …

This week, fresh statistics from the World Gold Council revealed that net gold purchases by central banks around the world reached their highest levels since 2013, increasing by a whopping 68 percent to 145.5 tonnes over the past year. Estonia’s Central Bank has just one 11 kg gold ingot left …

Europeans are among the most pessimistic in the developed world, a new poll has found, as a large number of participants from several major countries across Europe said they feel gloomy about their national outlook, their youth and the world in general. The global survey, conducted annually by YouGov-Cambridge Globalism …

Turkey will be unable to diversify oil imports quickly after the United States ended waivers on purchases from Iran, the Turkish foreign minister said on Thursday, a day after a U.S.-imposed sanctions deadline passed. Turkey’s statement follows comments by China, which said last month it opposed “long-armed jurisdictions implemented by …

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said that Iraq is working today on the reconstruction of Baghdad as a place of peace in which the various parties meet and that Iraq is a stabilizing factor in the region and the world. This came during a joint press conference held by the …

Turkish police said they detained 137 people in Istanbul on Wednesday for trying to hold illegal demonstrations in various parts of the city to celebrate May Day. Police had cordoned off Istanbul’s central Taksim square, but small groups of demonstrators converged there anyway. “Squares belong to the people, they cannot …

A court in Britain has handed down a 50-week jail sentence to Australian whistleblower and press freedom activist Julian Assange, saying he disrespected the UK judicial system and escaped his bail conditions by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy for almost seven years. The Southwark Crown Court in the UK …

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced Tuesday the signing agreements with a German company to develop the electricity sector. “We have signed four agreements with Siemens with 14 billion dollar to implementing projects in electricity field”, Abdul-Mahdi said during press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. Iraq and German …

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that an F-35 fighter jet project without Turkish participation was bound to collapse and would be an injustice to exclude Ankara over its plans to buy Russian air defense systems. Turkey’s plans to buy the Russian S-400 missile defenses has strained its ties with …

Spain’s governing Socialists have won the country’s third election in four years, but are short of a majority. PM Pedro Sánchez’s party polled 29% and will need the help of either left-wing Podemos and regional parties, or the centre right, to form a government. Far-right party Vox also won seats …

The head of the auction house which is now selling Hitler’s note observed how in the document, the Nazi head tried to “portray himself as a valiant leader of his men until the end”, while in reality, his demise was far less glorious. A telegram sent by Adolf Hitler in …