Europe

Finland extends Russian border closure indefinitely

HELSINKI, April 4, 2024 (AFP) – Finland on Thursday said it would extend its border closure with Russia “until further notice”, after it was shut in response to a surge in migrant crossings. Finland, which joined the NATO military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says the surge in asylum seekers has been orchestrated by Russia, a charge that Moscow has denied. The two neighbours share a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border. The Nordic country closed the […]

22 arrests, Italian villas seized in vast EU fraud swoop

BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 4, 2024 (AFP) – A coordinated police swoop across Europe on Thursday netted 22 arrests and saw villas and luxury cars seized in Italy, in a probe into an alleged 600-million-euro ($650 million) fraud of EU Covid funds, officials said. Dozens of raids took place in Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia as authorities moved in against a suspected criminal network that carried out the alleged fraud between 2021 and 2023, the European […]

12-year-old killed, two seriously injured in Finland school shooting

HELSINKI, April 2, 2024 (AFP) – Finnish police said a 12-year-old child died and two others seriously wounded after a peer opened fire Tuesday at a school just north of the capital Helsinki. “Today, after 9:00 am, a shooting incident took place at a school … in which a sixth grader, a student of the school, died,” Ilkka Koskimaki, police chief of Eastern Uusimaa police department, told a press conference, adding two others were “seriously […]

Ukraine shelling kills woman in Russian border village

MOSCOW, March 31, 2024 (AFP) – Ukrainian shelling killed a woman in the Russian border village of Dunayka on Sunday, the latest in a series of deadly cross-border attacks by Kyiv, the local governor said. Since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine two years ago, Russia’s Belgorod region on the frontier has been repeatedly targeted by what authorities say is indiscriminate Ukrainian bombardment, which has increased in recent months. “The village of Dunayka, in the […]

France police find ‘bones’ of toddler missing in the Alps: prosecutor

  MARSEILLE, March 31, 2024 (AFP) – French investigators have found and identified the “bones” of a toddler whose disappearance last summer in a tiny village in the French Alps shocked the nation, a prosecutor said Sunday. Emile, two-and-a-half years old, was staying with his grandparents for the first day of the summer holidays when he vanished on July 8 last year. Two neighbours last saw him in the late afternoon walking alone on a […]

Russia arrests gay bar owner amid ongoing crackdown

MOSCOW, March 31, 2024 (AFP) – The owner of a popular gay bar in the Russian city of Orenburg has been arrested for “extremism”, rights groups said Sunday, as authorities crack down on the LGBTQ community. Police and local nationalists raided the Pose bar in Orenburg earlier this month during a drag show, later arresting its administrator and artistic director in the first criminal case of its kind. The bar’s owner was detained three days […]

Dutch hostage drama over, armed suspect arrested

By Nick Gammon EDE, Netherlands, March 30, 2024 (AFP) – A hostage drama in the Netherlands that lasted several hours ended without bloodshed on Saturday as all four hostages were freed and police took the suspect into custody. Authorities said there was no reason to suspect a “terrorist motive” for the ordeal, which took place at a night spot popular with young people in the central Dutch town of Ede. Police said they received reports […]

DEVELOPING STORY: Three released in Dutch hostage drama, situation ongoing

By Richard CARTER THE HAGUE, March 30, 2024 (AFP) – Three of the hostages being held in a cafe in central Netherlands Saturday have been released, police said, but did not yet sound the all-clear. Authorities have evacuated the centre of the town of Ede since early morning, after several people were held at the Cafe Petticoat. “Three hostages have just been released. The situation is not over yet,” police said in a statement on […]

Several people taken hostage in Dutch town: police

THE HAGUE, March 30, 2024 (AFP) – Several people have been taken hostage in a town in central Netherlands Saturday, according to police, with houses evacuated and the town centre closed down. Police said there was currently no reason to suspect a “terrorist motive” for the incident in Ede. “A hostage situation involving several people is underway in a building in the centre” of the town of Ede, police said in a statement on X, […]

Polish PM Tusk warns Europe has entered ‘pre-war era’

WARSAW, March 30, 2024 (AFP) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned of the “real” threat of conflict in Europe, saying that for the first time since the end of World War II the continent has entered a “pre-war era”. “War is no longer a concept from the past. It is real, and it started over two years ago. The most worrying thing at the moment is that literally any scenario is possible. We […]

UK investigates stabbing of Iranian journalist

  LONDON, March 29, 2024 (AFP) – Counter-terrorism officers are investigating the stabbing Friday of a journalist working for UK-based independent Iranian media, following previous hostile threats by Iran against perceived opponents in Britain, London police said. Officers found the victim — a man in his 30s — at an address in Wimbledon, in the southwest of the British capital, with injuries to his leg from an attack, the Metropolitan Police said. He was taken […]

Russia says attack foiled in south of country

MOSCOW, March 29, 2024 (AFP) – Russian officials said Friday they had arrested three people plotting an attack in the country’s south, a week after the assault on a Moscow concert hall killed at least 144 people. The FSB security agency said it had “put an end to the terrorist activities of three nationals from a Central Asian country”, Russian news agencies reported. The three suspects had been “planning to commit a terrorist act by […]