List of All Articles with Tag 'europe'

Norway’s inflation unexpectedly slowed last month, suggesting that Norges Bank is likely to end monetary tightening after an

Oil declined after rallying almost 10% over the past two weeks, with technical indicators suggesting recent gains may

This week in Belfast there'll be a big sales pitch to international firms - what could it achieve?

Ukraine could still achieve a big breakthrough in its counteroffensive before changing weather conditions make it harder to advance, president Volodymyr Zelensky says. Mr Zelensky’s forces have broken through the first of three main Russian defensive lines in Zaporizhzhia and could make more gains in the weeks to come, he said, though a breakthrough will not be “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow”. “If we push them [Russia] from the south, they will run,” he told The Economist in an interview. It comes after US military chief General Mark Milley said Kyiv could have as little as 30 days of fighting left before the onset of Ukraine’s infamously wet autumn weather makes battlefield movement more difficult. General Milley said the rains would make it “very difficult to manoeuvre” for both sides. Mr Zelensky reiterated the assessments of his military and Western intelligence agencies that Ukraine is making clear gains, however modest, in the east and south. “Keeping morale high is crucial. This is why even limited progress on the frontline is essential,” Mr Zelensky said. “Now we have movement. It’s important.” Read More Russia is turning to old ally North Korea to resupply its arsenal for the war in Ukraine Families in Gaza have waited years to move into new homes. Political infighting is keeping them out India avoids condemnation of Russia to produce united G20 declaration

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash within the Conservative Party as his government weighs letting welfare

At least four people have been killed and three injured after they tried to cross a rail track in Barcelona and were struck by a train. Emergency services confirmed the accident happened at 8:22 p.m local time, in Montmelo near the Catalan capital. The group attempted to cross the tracks at an unauthorised point between the stations of Parets del Valles and Granollers on the R3 railway line. Three people were killed at the scene and a fourth person died in hospital after suffering a cardio-respiratory arrest, emergency services confirmed on Sunday. Three others were hospitalised with non-fatal inuries. The Regional Catalonian Police, Los Mossos d’Esquarda, has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash, according to reports in La Vanguardia. The collision happened at a point on the line close to the motorsport track ‘Circuit de Catalunya’ where heavy techno event ‘Duro Festival’ is taking place, the paper reported. Sergio Delgado, deputy director of civil protection said: "We cannot confirm yet that the people who were run over came from that festival, it is being investigated.” "The industrial estate itself, where the concert is located, has a natural pathway under the train track to the station which avoids shortcuts," added Delgado. Raquel Sánchez, the minister of Public Works and Transport of train shared her condolences. She posted on X: “My condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased and my support to the emergency teams and services working in this difficult situation.” All the R3 services between Parets and Granollers-Canovelles remain cancelled. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Spanish prosecutors accuse Rubiales of sexual assault and coercion for kissing a player at World Cup Passengers on extreme diarrhoea flight recall nightmare ordeal Carrasco dismisses criticism of human rights in Saudi Arabia after transfer to Al Shabab Diarrhea that ‘ran all the way through the plane’ forced flight to return Spain's men's coach asks for forgiveness for applauding Rubiales' diatribe against 'false feminists' Nebraska volleyball stadium event draws 92,003 to set women's world attendance record

French President Emmanuel Macron rejected a demand from Niger’s military rulers to withdraw its troops from the country

A beatification Mass is held for the family of nine, who were executed by Nazis for protecting Jews.

Russian drones rained down on Kyiv in an aerial attack that lasted two hours overnight, while two aid workers were killed in a missile attack in Ukraine, authorities have said. Blasts rang out across the capital early on Sunday, with witnesses hearing at least five. Ukrainian officials said debris fell on several of the city’s central districts, as media footage showed a number of cars damaged. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person was injured in the attacks and a fire broke out near one of the city’s parks. “Drones came onto the capital in groups and from different directions,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that drone debris sparked a fire in an apartment. Ukraine’s Land Forces said air defence systems destroyed 25 out of 32 Russia-launched Iran-made Shahed drones on Sunday, as Moscow conducts near-nightly assaults on Ukraine’s territory. Meanwhile, a Spanish aid worker was killed in a missile attack in Ukraine, alongside her Canadian colleague. “Unfortunately, I can confirm a missile hit a vehicle in which this Spanish worker was travelling who was working for a humanitarian NGO in Ukraine. We have verbal confirmation of her death,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters in India, where he attended the G20 meeting, on Sunday. A Canadian aid worker also died in the attack on Saturday in Chasiv Yar, in the region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, authorities said. Read More Russia is turning to old ally North Korea to resupply its arsenal for the war in Ukraine Families in Gaza have waited years to move into new homes. Political infighting is keeping them out India avoids condemnation of Russia to produce united G20 declaration

“If you’re a journalist and the government wants to kill you – you’re doing it right”. Those are the chilling words of broadcaster Irina Babloyan, who until Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine hosted Russia’s most popular morning radio show. But stalked by the FSB and taken off the air within days of the war starting, the journalist felt compelled to leave Moscow for her own safety. Little did she realise, like so many of Putin’s critics, she would also suffer symptoms of suspected poisoning that left her skin “burning all the time”. Established prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s sole major independent radio station Echo of Moscow was taken off air in March 2022, during the Kremlin’s clampdown on information, and then shut down completely. Events soon took an even darker turn. Late one evening, near her home, Ms Babloyan was out walking with her close friend, opposition politician Ilya Yashin, when he was arrested. He was later sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, over a YouTube livestream about Russian atrocities in Bucha. From that moment, she says Russian police and FSB agents followed her everywhere – even some 350 miles south to Belgorod – and openly sat outside her home, threatening her that “it’s probably better for you to leave”. It was as she began to investigate early reports of Ukrainian children being forcibly taken to Russia that the personal danger to Ms Babloyan intensified. She approached Russian government officials, who told her they were aware of the situation and that the children would remain in the country until the war was over. While she was initially aware of just one “school” housing Ukrainian children in Russia, the findings soon snowballed until she learned from a fellow journalist of dozens more facilities, holding thousands more. Ukraine’s current figures suggest at least 19,000 children have been taken. “I was really shocked and I understood: okay, probably it’s time for me to leave,” Ms Babloyan said, adding: “I was so tired and felt I couldn’t change the situation.” She returned to her home country of Georgia in October, amid another Russian exodus sparked by Putin’s mobilisation order. With Echo of Moscow set to resume programming via its app from Berlin, the journalist planned to move to there – in a journey requiring her to drive to Armenia, before flying from Yerevan to Moldova, and then on to the German capital. On the eve of the long trip, she suddenly “felt something strange going on”. “In a second”, she began to feel nauseous and tired. “I had dinner with friends – I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to drink, I ordered salad and wine, and didn’t [touch] it at all. I decided to go to bed, went to my hotel and fell asleep.” It was the last time she would sleep for three days. She awoke feeling “much worse”, recalling: “I couldn’t move normally – every single movement was very hard.” She felt a metallic taste in her mouth, with “crazy” pain in her head and “in a strange place” in her stomach, while her hands and feet had turned “wine red”. “I couldn’t move my fingers normally, and I felt like [I was] touching fire in [my] hands and feet,” Ms Boloyan said. Blaming hitherto dormant allergies, she bought some antihistamines, packed a bag and embarked on a four-hour taxi journey to Yerevan. Save for the border crossing, she lay on the back seat for the entire journey, unable to move. “Every single piece of my body was burning. I couldn’t think normally, couldn’t concentrate on anything.” At the airport after a sleepless night in a hotel, filled with anxiety, she arranged a phone appointment with a Russian doctor, who told her the symptoms were probably caused by stress. “I was sitting waiting my flight crying all the time I was talking because they didn’t understand what was going on,” she said. Ms Babloyan spent another sleepless night in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, before flying to Germany, where finally on the third day, she found she could walk, talk and eat again. “It was not all gone, but it was much better,” she said. Without health insurance, it was December by the time she saw a doctor, who prescribed her antidepressants and told her allergy tests would cost €6,000. Soon after, Ms Babloyan was forced to stop doing her radio show, as “something strange started happening with my skin”, which broke out in hive-like red spots, “burning all the time”. She took the tests for all known allergens, which came back negative. At this point, a Russian friend recommended another doctor, who upon seeing her skin immediately told her she needed toxicology tests for heavy metals – and said she knew of two other Russians, a journalist and activist, who had recently fallen ill in Europe with similar symptoms. The two other cases – Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Kostyuchenko, in Berlin, and US-based Free Russia Foundation president Natalia Arno, in Prague – were being looked into by Riga-based investigative outlet The Insider. Doctors and poison specialists have since told the outlet that poisoning is the only explanation for Ms Kostyuchenko’s symptoms, and is the most likely reason for Babloyan and Arno’s symptoms. She was tested at the Charité Hospital, where the now-jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was diagnosed in 2020. But she was later told that her toxicology tests had been “lost”, and although doctors also took a sample of her hair, she has still not been told the results. Ms Kostyuchenko is also still in the dark, despite claims by a source to The Insider that law enforcement carried out their own secret analysis of her blood. Having announced an investigation last month into Ms Kostyuchenko’s case, German prosecutors are now treating it as attempted murder. However, Georgia is yet to announce its own probe into Ms Babloyan’s case, and she is currently unable to return to Tblisi and formally trigger an investigation herself. For Ms Babloyan, it was while interviewing Ms Kosyuchenko on her radio show in mid-August that the stark reality truly began to set in. “When you are looking into the face and eyes of a person who felt the same [symptoms] and you understand it was real, it feels scary – very,” she said, adding that she is still “just trying to understand how to live when you know that someone wanted to kill you, and probably will do it again.” The journalist – who still has problems with her skin, and suffers pain in her fingers after opening a bottle or even a door – remains even more determined to offer an objective narrative on Russia’s affairs. “Work is like therapy for me,” she said. “I can’t stop working”, and noted that, as a journalist, if the government “wants to kill you, it means that, what you’re doing – you’re doing it right”. Asked whether she believed she had been targeted for her enquries into potential Russian war crimes, Ms Babloyan replied: “I just think that all Russian journalists and activists are a target for the Russian government. “But it’s hard to understand who’s going to be next because if you are trying to find logic, you can’t find it, and everyone can be a target.” Read More Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska’s interview with Bel Trew | An Independent TV Original Dodging a constant assault of Russian missiles – the war-weary keep fighting in Ukraine’s blood-soaked east Putin’s hit list: from poisoned tea to mysterious falls, the grisly fate of the Kremlin’s enemies Russia shuts down human rights group that preserved the legacy of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov

Xi Jinping’s decision to stay away from this weekend’s Group of 20 summit may have been intended to

Giorgia Meloni privately signaled to Chinese Premier Li Qiang that Italy is planning to exit from an investment