Europe

Knife attacker wounds three at major Paris train station

By Thomas Gropallo and Alexandre Hielard PARIS, Feb 3, 2024 (AFP) – Three people were injured Saturday in a knife attack at Paris’s Gare de Lyon railway station, a major travel hub, police said, adding that a suspect with psychiatric problems had been arrested. The man, a Malian national living in Italy, went on a stabbing spree at 7:35 am (0635 GMT) at the station, which operates domestic trains as well as those heading to […]

Man dies after reported fall from London’s Tate Modern: police

LONDON, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – A man died on Friday after reports that he fell from London’s Tate Modern gallery, with the death being treated as “unexpected” but “not thought to be suspicious”, UK police said. The incident late on Friday morning comes nearly five years after a British teenager threw a six-year-old French boy from a 10th-floor balcony at the landmark museum, causing life-changing injuries. It is unclear where exactly the man who […]

Russia has created 520,000 new defence jobs, Putin says

MOSCOW, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Russia has created more than half a million new jobs in its defence sector to meet soaring demand on the battlefield, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The Kremlin has thrown massive resources at its full-scale assault on Ukraine, with the defence sector accounting for much of the sanction-hit economy’s growth. “In the last year and a half alone, 520,000 new jobs have been created in defence,” Putin told […]

Finnish strikes over labour reform empty Helsinki

HELSINKI, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Public transport ground to a halt across much of Finland on Friday as part of mass strikes over the government’s proposed labour reforms, leaving Helsinki’s normally-bustling city centre unusually quiet. About 300,000 people in a wide swathe of sectors were estimated to be taking part in the strike action, which began on Wednesday when day care workers walked off the job. Conservative Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has proposed changes […]

France offers cash and support to protesting farmers

By Myriam LEMETAYER, Tom BARFIELD PARIS, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – France’s government offered a slew of new concessions Thursday to farmers, hoping to calm anger behind tractor blockades of major roads nationwide. Farmers have been out in force for more than a week in protests triggered by an agricultural fuel duty hike, complaining their pay is squeezed, taxes are too high and regulations too onerous. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he wanted to “better […]

Catalonia declares drought emergency for Barcelona

By Rosa SULLEIRO BARCELONA, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region declared a drought emergency for Barcelona on Thursday and the surrounding area, which will now face tighter water restrictions following three years without significant rain. The head of the regional government of Catalonia, Pere Aragones, announced the step after reservoirs in the Mediterranean region saw their water levels falling to below 16 percent of full capacity. That is the benchmark set by […]

Attack foiled at Israel’s Sweden embassy: ambassador

STOCKHOLM, Jan 31, 2024 (AFP) – Israel’s embassy in Stockholm was the target of an attempted attack, the ambassador said Wednesday, after a bomb squad destroyed what Swedish police called “a dangerous object”. Police said the “live” device had been found by staff on the premises of the Israeli embassy in the Swedish capital, without specifying what the object was. “We were alerted at 1:08 pm (1208 GMT) by the embassy that they had found […]

Russia and Ukraine exchange hundreds of POWs

By Daria ANDRIIEVSKA KYIV, Ukraine, Jan 31, 2024 (AFP) – Russia and Ukraine traded hundreds of prisoners of war on Wednesday, just a week after Moscow said Kyiv had shot down a plane carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers to an exchange. The crash of a Russian military cargo plane near the border with Ukraine — which Russia said killed 65 Ukrainian POWs — had thrown doubt on future prisoner swaps between the two sides. President Vladimir […]

China says jailed British national in 2022 for spying

BEIJING, Jan 26, 2024 (AFP) – China said Friday it had sentenced a British national in 2022 to five years in jail for spying, in its official confirmation of a case that had gone unreported until this week. The Wall Street Journal first broke news of the case of UK businessman Ian Stones on Thursday, reporting, citing his family and other sources, that he had disappeared in 2018 after decades of work in China. Asked […]

Global turbulence the ‘new normal’: EU’s von der Leyen

BERLIN, Jan 26, 2024 (AFP) – European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned on Friday that global disruptions and volatility are the “new normal”, with more geo-economic tensions on the horizon. “2024 will be a decisive year, with more geo-economic tensions expected — from the Red Sea to the Taiwan Strait — which also means more frequent disruptions to supply chains and greater volatility on the energy markets,” she told a climate conference in […]

Ukraine opens criminal probe into downing of Russian plane

KYIV, Ukraine, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – Ukraine’s SBU security service on Thursday opened a criminal probe into the downing of a Russian military plane that Moscow said killed 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Kyiv has not said whether captured Ukrainian soldiers were killed — or if it was involved — in Wednesday’s shooting down of a military transport plane over Russia’s western Belgorod region, close to the border with Ukraine. “The security service of […]

Orban reaffirms ‘support’ of Sweden’s NATO bid in Stoltenberg call

BUDAPEST, Jan 24, 2024 (AFP) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday said he reaffirmed in a phone call with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg his “support” for Sweden’s membership to the security alliance. Budapest remains the last holdout to ratify Stockholm’s bid to join NATO. “I reaffirmed that the Hungarian government supports the NATO membership of Sweden,” Orban wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I also stressed that we will continue to urge the Hungarian […]