Tag Archives: Europe

Athens police were bombarded with Molotov cocktails and pelted with stones amid major protests against a new government bill limiting public gatherings. Some 10,000 people had assembled to protest across the Greek capital. Shortly after 8.30 pm local time, a group of some 200 protesters was gathered outside the parliament …

The Notre Dame spire in Paris will be rebuilt to its original Gothic design with no modern updates after it was destroyed in a massive fire last April, French President Emmanuel Macron has confirmed. The national heritage and architectural commission in charge of the restoration approved plans to restore it …

The statues that were erected to claim the public spaces around them for white people only are finally coming down. Towards the end of Mozart’s signature opera, Don Giovanni, the eponymous character meets his squire Leporello in a graveyard, next to a statue of “Il Commendatore”. In the very first …

A quirky wooden sculpture of US First Lady Melania Trump is reported to have been set on fire near her hometown in Slovenia, prompting its removal. Brad Downey, the American artist who commissioned the statue, said it was targeted on 4 July, Independence Day in the US. The Berlin-based artist …

To counter a second coronavirus wave, President Aleksandar Vucic announced a new lockdown. Protesters reacted with fury at his inconsistency, amid wider anger over his strongman leadership. Thousands of Serbs demonstrated for a second consecutive night on Wednesday in response to President Aleksandar Vucic’s management of the coronavirus crisis and …

Twenty Assyrian villages in Iraq have been evacuated due to Turkish military operation, and the European Syriac Union (ESU) has issued a statement on this, informed the Assembly of Armenians of Europe. The statement reads as follows: “Expressing its support for the Assyrian people, the Assembly of Armenians of Europe …

Police in the Netherlands arrested six men suspected of preparing to commit kidnappings and hold people, hostage, after discovering an “underworld” prison equipped with a torture chamber made from converted shipping containers in a warehouse. In a statement on Tuesday, the National Prosecutor’s Office said the seven shipping containers were …

Protesters and police clashed violently in Belgrade on Tuesday evening amid anger over the return of strict lockdown measures to tackle coronavirus. Earlier on Tuesday, a weekend curfew was announced after a rise in Covid-19 cases in Serbia and across the western Balkans. A group of protesters stormed the parliament …

The eurozone economy will drop deeper into recession this year and rebound less steeply in 2021 than previously thought, the European Commission forecast on Tuesday, with France, Italy, and Spain struggling the most due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The downbeat assessment of Europe’s economy comes amid concern the U.S. recovery …

The Parliamentary Committee of foreign relations revealed today, Monday, the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi will visit Europe, after a scheduled visit to Washington. Committee member, Amer Al-Fayez, said that, “Al-Kadhimi will head, on a forthcoming visit to the United States of America, a delegation, to complete the strategic dialogue …

Austria is investigating whether the weekend killing of a Chechen dissident was politically motivated, the prosecutors’ office handling the case said on Monday after two suspects were arrested. The 43-year-old, whom police have declined to identify, was shot dead on Saturday near a shopping center on the edge of Vienna. …

The center-right party won the most seats in Sunday’s parliamentary vote, exit polls suggest. The opposition said voters had been endangered by the “rush” to hold early elections amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) is poised for victory in Croatia’s parliamentary election, exit polls indicated on …

Officials in Spain’s north-western region of Galicia have re-imposed restrictions on an area of 70,000 people following a Covid-19 outbreak. Only those traveling for work will be allowed to leave or enter the coastal district of A Marina from midnight on Sunday to Friday. The move comes a day after …

French Islamist Tyler Vilus has been sentenced in Paris to 30 years in prison for crimes committed in Syria. The jihadist was accused, among other things, of having participated in the murder of two prisoners. French ISIS member Tyler Vilus has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for crimes …

For more than 70 years, the transatlantic alliance has served as the unshakable foundation of European stability and underpinned the values of the US-led Western order. In 2020, it appears that the relationship is being rethought on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this week, the European Union declined to …

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and his government resigned on Friday as President Emmanuel Macron acted on a pledge to reinvent his administration and win back disillusioned voters ahead of a possible re-election bid in 2022. Macron’s office said a new prime minister would be named in the next few …

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Thursday said France will return the remains of 24 resistance fighters who were killed during its colonisation of the North African country. “Within a few hours Algerian military planes will fly in from France and land at the Houari Boumediene international airport with the remains …

Up to 60 migrants may have been trapped in a boat that sank in an eastern lake last week, Turkey’s interior minister said Wednesday. Turkey launched a search-and-rescue mission involving helicopters and boats after the boat carrying migrants across Lake Van was reported missing on June 27. So far rescue …

Belgium’s King Philippe expressed deep regret on Tuesday for the “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during its 75-year period under Belgian rule. It is the first such expression of regret for Belgium’s colonial past by a reigning monarch, the royal palace said. It …

The U.N. nuclear agency says slightly elevated levels of radioactivity that have been detected in northern Europe pose no risk to human health or to the environment but it’s still unclear what the cause was. The Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish radiation and nuclear safety watchdogs said last week that they …