Europe

Five aides and allies of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy were set to go on trial on Monday for allegedly misusing public money and cronyism, adding to the former head of state’s legal problems. Sarkozy’s former chief of staff Claude Gueant and ex-advisor and consultant Patrick Buisson are among those …

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told fellow European Union leaders in a letter Monday that the EU risked becoming a “centrally managed organism run by institutions deprived of democratic control”. Morawiecki said this was “a dangerous phenomenon that threatens the future of our union”. Poland’s populist right-wing government has been …

Russia said on Monday it would halt the activities of its diplomatic mission to NATO after the Western military alliance expelled eight Russians saying they were spies. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said staff at NATO’s military mission in Moscow would be stripped of their accreditation from Nov. 1, and …

The gas-in procedure for the first string of the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been completed, the operator of the project said. In a statement released on Monday, the Swiss-based operator of the Russia-led project said, “The string is filled with some 177 million m3 of so-called technical gas, reaching a …

Germany’s Green Party on Sunday followed its prospective partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), in clearing the way for official three-way negotiations with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) to form the next government. According to Press TV, delegates at a Green Party conference in Berlin voted in favor of starting …

France confirmed its ambassador to Belarus left the country on Oct 17, adding that the official in question – Nicolas de Lacoste – would now assume the role of special envoy in Belarus as of this Monday onwards. “France will keep on standing by the Belarus people and will look …

Italian police used water cannon and tear gas on Monday to clear a sit-in at the port of Trieste, where opponents of the government’s mandatory COVID-19 health pass have tried to block access. The northeastern port has been the focal point of protest in Italy over the introduction of new …

Human rights activists unfurled a banner reading “No Genocide Games”, waved a Tibetan flag and called for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics during the torch-lighting ceremony on Monday. Two women and a man sneaked past a tight police cordon and entered the archaeological site of the ancient …

Two women attempted to hang a banner from the Acropolis in Athens Sunday morning in protest at the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics and were detained by Greek police. The activists, 18-year-old Tibetan student Tsela Zoksang and 22-year-old exiled Hong Kong activist Joey Siu, both American citizens, are members of the …

One in five people in the EU is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the bloc’s statistical office reported on Friday. “In 2020, there were 75.3 million people at risk of poverty in the EU,” Eurostat said in a press release, adding that “27.6 million were severely materially and …

Tens of thousands of union members and other Italians gathered in Rome to stand up against rising fascism on Saturday, a week after right-wing extremists forced their way into the headquarters of Italy’s most powerful labor confederation while protesting a COVID-19 certification requirement for workplaces. The head of the CGIL …

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday condemned as “inexcusable” a deadly crackdown by Paris police on a 1961 protest by Algerians whose scale was a taboo covered up for decades by French authorities. Macron told relatives and activists on the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed that “crimes” were committed on …

Angela Merkel’s final visit to Turkey as German chancellor on Saturday saw two of Europe’s longest-serving leaders pay tribute to one another as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted her for farewell talks overlooking the Bosporus. Erdogan had been in office for more than two years when Merkel came to …

Police say four Russian tourists were found dead at a beach resort in western Albania. Albanian police issued a statement Saturday saying the four were found asphyxiated in a hotel sauna in the village of Qerret late Friday. Police did not give more details about the circumstances of the deaths, …

French Prime Minister Jean Castex paid tribute on Saturday to history teacher Samuel Paty a year after he was murdered by a radical, saying France would stand up for its values of secularism and freedom. Paty’s attacker, a teenager of Chechen origin, had wanted to avenge the teacher’s use of …

A teenager triggered a large-scale police operation after a restaurant owner mistook a toy gun he was carrying for a real weapon. A witness raised the alarm after seeing the 15-year-old, who was wearing a camouflage outfit and holding what appeared to be a rifle, running up and down the …

Russia’s daily death toll from COVID-19 has exceeded 1,000 for the first time as the country faces a sustained wave of rising infections. The national coronavirus task force on Saturday reported 1,002 deaths in the previous day, up from 999 on Friday, along with 33,208 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, more …

Russian President Vladimir Putin says hundreds of Daesh terrorists are amassing in northern Afghanistan and plan to infiltrate into ex-Soviet Central Asian countries. “According to our intelligence, the number of (Daesh) members alone in northern Afghanistan is about 2,000 people,” Putin said during a video conference meeting with leaders of …

Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Russian warship on Friday prevented a US Navy destroyer from what it described as an attempt to intrude into Russia’s territorial waters in the Sea of Japan. The incident came as Russia and China conducted joint naval drills in the area, and follows other dangerously …

France on Friday stopped offering COVID-19 tests free of charge for everyone, in the government’s latest effort to incite holdouts to get vaccinated against the virus. A recent negative test, proof of recovery, or full vaccination is needed to get a health pass which is required for access to cafes, …