The Catalonia fight for independence has been an ongoing political issue in Spain for 40 years. Catalonia is a semi-autonomous region in north-east Spain containing 7.5 million people with their own language, parliament, flag and anthem. Additionally Catalonia has an independent police force and administers many of its public services. For many years Catalan nationalists have opposed Madrid’s use of… Read more »
A Spanish Supreme Court judge has issued an international arrest warrant for former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont following the sentencing of 12 of his pro-Catalonia independence colleagues in Spain for their role in a 2017 secession push led by him. Advertising Judge Pablo Llarena issued the request on charges of sedition and misuse of public funds, the same charges for… Read more »
Italy, the top arms exporter to Turkey last year, said it would join a ban on selling weapons and ammunition to Ankara after a weekend decision by France and Germany to suspend sales, and Spain signalled it was ready to do so. With a host of other countries including the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden halting such exports, the EU’s collective… Read more »
France has rejected talks on expanding the EU into the Western Balkans despite the European Commission’s call for the accession process to begin. The decision means dreams of entering the European Union may be fading for Albania and North Macedonia. “I regret very much that member states could not take a decision,” top EU official dealing with the bloc’s neighbourhood,… Read more »
A gunman has killed two people in eastern Germany after attempting to enter a synagogue where dozens were observing a Jewish holiday. The suspect live-streamed the attack on an online video-game platform before being arrested. The video, which has now been removed, showed him making anti-Semitic comments to camera before driving to a synagogue in Halle and shooting into its… Read more »
A day after the recent police strike in protest of the increasing violence towards officers, an employee of the Paris police force killed three police officers and an administrative worker at the police headquarters in Paris. The attacker was a 45-year-old IT specialist who had worked for the Paris police force for 16 years. He was shot dead by an… Read more »
Northern Ireland’s abortion law breaches the UK’s human rights commitments, the High Court ruled. The case was taken in Belfast by Sarah Ewart, who challenged the law after she was denied a termination. The judge said she ruled in Mrs Ewart’s favour as it was not right to ask another woman to relive the trauma that she had already experienced…. Read more »
A knife-wielding employee has killed three officers and one administrative worker at police headquarters in the centre of the French capital, Paris. The attacker, who has not been named, was shot dead by police. Witnesses described scenes of panic, with many people fleeing the building in tears. The area in the île de la Cité was sealed off. The attack… Read more »
Hundreds of Ukrainians have protested after President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had backed an agreement that would bring elections to territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists. He promised no elections would be held “under the barrel of a gun” and they would have to take place according to international standards. The vote is part of a plan for special status in… Read more »
Residents in the French city of Rouen have been protesting against what they say is a cover up following a massive fire at a chemical storage facility. Huge clouds of black smoke spewed into the air across north-western France as more than 5,000 tonnes of chemicals and oil burned at the site last week. Authorities say tests carried out after… Read more »