Europe

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country’s third deadly hospital fire in less than a year. Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around …

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was handed a one-year prison sentence by a Paris court on Thursday after being found guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid. Sarkozy, 66, is unlikely to go to jail. He decided to appeal the sentence, a move that in effect …

France has accused Britain of playing politics with post-Brexit fishing rights after London and the Channel Island of Jersey refused dozens of French fishing boats a licence to operate in their territorial waters. The disputes between the UK and France over post-Brexit fishing rights in the English Channel have flared …

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended Turkey’s right to strengthen its defense capabilities, saying the decision to purchase the Russian S-400 missile defense systems was worth the tensions with Washington. Erdogan made the remarks in an interview with the New York Times published on Wednesday, reiterating that Turkey has not …

Millions of Germans are casting their ballots in an unpredictable election that will decide a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she prepares to leave office after 16 years in power. According to Press TV, polls opened across the country on Sunday morning and will last until 6 p.m. local …

Serbian troops were on heightened alert Sunday at the border with Kosovo, the defense ministry said, accusing the territory of “provocations” after it deployed special police to the area. The special police units were sent to two border crossings in the north of Kosovo, an area mainly populated by minority …

Three Russian SU-35S fighter jets have escorted a U.S. B-52H strategic bomber which was approaching Russia’s border in the Pacific Ocean, RIA news agency reported on Sunday, citing Moscow’s Defence Ministry. It said the bomber had subsequently moved away from the border, while the Russian jets had returned to their …

Russia has called on the United States to stop imposing its so-called “development model” on other countries, taking a swipe at President Joe Biden for claiming Washington was ending the two-decade war in Afghanistan to “remake” other nations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the call in an address to …

Germans went to the polls on Sunday in a national election too close to call, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) mounting a strong challenge to retiring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives. Merkel has been in power since 2005 but plans to step down after the election, making the vote an …

Hundreds of protesters marched against the introduction of a “corona pass” in the Netherlands on Saturday, as proof of COVID-19 vaccination became compulsory to get into bars, restaurants, theatres, and other venues. The new requirement to show the pass or a recent negative coronavirus test came into force on Saturday, …

Intensifying volcanic explosions on the Spanish island of La Palma forced firefighters to retreat and authorities to evacuate three more towns on Friday, while airlines cancelled flights due to a cloud of gas and ash, the biggest since the volcano erupted. Firefighters pulled out of clean-up work in the town …

France’s foreign minister has warned his Russian counterpart against involving paramilitaries from the controversial Wagner group in Mali’s conflict. “On Mali, the minister alerted his Russian counterpart to the serious consequences of the Wagner group’s involvement in this country,” the French foreign ministry said Friday. Jean-Yves Le Drian met Sergey …

The mobile phones of at least five French ministers and a diplomatic adviser to President Emmanuel Macron were infected by the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, sources told AFP on Friday, confirming a report by the Mediapart investigative website. French security services detected the software while inspecting the phones, with the intrusions …

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday France would continue to support Lebanon, adding the country’s new government needed to take urgent reform measures. “Lebanon can count on France,” Macron said during a news conference held after a meeting with Lebanese new Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

Exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has been arrested in Italy on Thursday, his lawyer and an aide say, four years after fleeing following an independence referendum that Madrid ruled unconstitutional. The European MEP was expected to appear in court on Friday at a hearing that could see him extradited …

Teaching assistant Georgina was settling into a new life in the shipbuilding town of Cherbourg with her Australian husband when Canberra revealed it was scrapping the $40 billion submarine order that he had been sent to France to work on. Ten months after the couple arrived in France, Georgina was …

The European Union must stand with Lithuania against Chinese pressure and not give in to trade threats, Slovenia’s prime minister said in a letter to fellow EU leaders, according to a copy seen by Reuters. China’s decision to withdraw its ambassador to Lithuania over a dispute about Taiwan was “reprehensible” …

Germany warned Mali on Wednesday that a deal with Russian private security group Wagner would “call into question” its deployment in the West African country as part of United Nations and European Union missions. “If Mali’s government makes such a deal with Russia, then it goes against everything that Germany, …

The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that the ISIS network which struck the city was attacking France and that the deaths of 130 people were “nothing personal.” Wearing all black and declining to remove his black mask, Salah Abdeslam was the last of the 14 …

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday vowed to boost humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as she pledged the 27-nation bloc stands “by the Afghan people”. “We must do everything to avert the real risk that is out there of a major famine and humanitarian disaster. And we will do …