Tag Archives: Europe

Hungary shut so-called migrant transit zones on its borders on Thursday, freeing some 300 refugees from prison-like conditions while at the same time hardening rules which will effectively bar future asylum applicants. During the peak of Europe’s 2015 migration crisis, Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered Hungary’s southern border to be …

Celtic were crowned champions for a record-equalling ninth consecutive season as the Scottish Premiership campaign was declared over on Monday. Neil Lennon’s men were 13 points clear at the top of the table when the season was stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic in March with eight games remaining for …

Hungary will gradually lift coronavirus restrictions in Budapest from Monday, two weeks after it ended the lockdown in the rest of the country, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday. “It has become clear that we have managed to curb the epidemic in Budapest as well,” Orban said in a …

Spain’s government will seek a fresh extension of its state of emergency that will last “about a month” until the transition out of lockdown is completed, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday. “It should be the last state of emergency (period) and will continue until the end of the …

Italy’s government has signed a decree that will allow travel to and from the country from 3 June, as it moves to ease its coronavirus lockdown measures, the BBC reports. It will also allow travel between the regions – which has so far been tightly restricted – from the same …

Slovenia has become the first European nation to declare an end to its coronavirus epidemic and announced that all indicators point to a slowdown in the spread of COVID-19 throughout the country’s population. Despite the announcement, many measures implemented to slow the virus from spreading will remain. Some of those …

Enormous doses of stimulus spending are offering relief from coronavirus damage but their lifelong legacy of debt could seed future crises by hobbling economic growth and worsening poverty, especially in developing countries. Central banks and governments worldwide have unleashed at least $15 trillion of stimulus via bond-buying and budget spending …

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Russia’s education minister had caught the new coronavirus, making him at least the sixth senior official to be swept up in the pandemic that has officially infected more than 250,000 people nationwide. But Anna Popova, a senior health official, said Russia had managed to …

Switzerland’s borders with France, Germany, and Austria will reopen on 15 June, Swiss Federal Councillor Karin Keller Sutter announced on Wednesday. The councilor made her comments following a Federal Council meeting. The positive development of the coronavirus pandemic makes this possible. This decision was taken jointly with the interior ministers …

Angela Merkel said she had “hard evidence” that Russia was responsible for an “outrageous” cyber attack on the German parliament. Answering questions in the Bundestag on Wednesday, the German chancellor said the hacking attack, which occurred in 2015 and also targeted her own parliamentary email account, “obviously disturbs a trustful …

Russia has confirmed more than 232,000 cases of coronavirus – the second-highest toll in the world. In the last 24 hours the country has reported 10,899 infections, the tenth consecutive day that number has been above 10,000. Among the infected is President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, local media report. …

Four Tajik nationals have been detained in Poland for allegedly recruiting Extremist Muslim converts with the aim of carrying out terrorist activities, according to the spokesman of the minister coordinator for special services. According to the minister’s spokesman, Stanislaw Zaryn, Poland’s Internal Security Agency found evidence showing that the four …

The coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic hardship have left 700,000 children under 15 years of age in Italy without enough food, the country’s biggest farming organization have warned. “The number of children under the age of 15 who need help to get milk or food to eat has risen to …

French prosecutors said Monday they are opening an investigation into ex-president Valery Giscard d’Estaing over allegations by a German journalist that he sexually assaulted her after an interview in 2018. The investigation follows claims by reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke that Giscard d’Estaing, 94, repeatedly touched her behind in his Paris office, …

France is urging its European Union partners to consider threatening Israel with a tough response if it goes ahead with a de facto annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, three EU diplomats said. Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg also want to discuss the possibility of punitive economic measures during …

Coronavirus infections are rising in Germany, official data shows, just days after the country eased its lockdown restrictions. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s reproduction rate – the number of people each confirmed patient infects – is now above 1. This means the number of infections is now …

Ammunition that has remained in the ground in an abandoned military base in Russia’s Udmurt Republic since a fire in 2011 is exploding due to grassfires, a representative of the Russian emergency services said on Saturday. “In the Pugachevo village, there are explosions of the ammunition left in the ground …

The coronavirus pandemic has made an already difficult timeline for a British-European Union trade deal “virtually impossible”, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said, cautioning that he did not wish to raise expectations of London seeking more time. Tortuous Brexit talks, now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021 when …

Police in France has dismantled smuggling networks trying to take advantage of a rush to buy medical supplies –including face masks– to tackle the coronavirus epidemic. By the end of April, police had dismantled a number of such smuggling networks, stopped scams and attempted scams to the value of more …

British coastguards rescued more than 120 migrants trying to cross the English Channel on seven small boats, French maritime authorities said on Friday. The rescue took place in the night from Thursday to Friday, according to a spokesman for the Maritime Prefecture for the Channel and the North Sea. Border …