Browsing: European News

Pope Francis has called for a rethink in the way the Catholic Church deals with the children of gay couples and divorced parents, warning against “administering a vaccine against faith”. “On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today…

A blast that killed the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic this week “was not an accident,” despite an official theory to the contrary, the envoy’s daughter said Saturday. “What is certain is that it was not an accident,” Rana al-Jamal, who…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday reversed a blanket ban on protests at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, bowing to pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Russia had initially banned any political protests in the Russian Black…

A group of nuns in Spain got a New Year surprise when they checked their answerphone machine to discover they had missed a call from the Pope, who left a message asking why they didn’t pick up. “What can the nuns be doing that stops them answering the…

BRUSSELS, Belgium — After five years of economic headlines dominating Europe, politics could be back in 2014. The states of southern Europe will be hoping their fragile signs of recovery after years of recession will firm up in 2014, but no one’…

A high profile French comic, who could be slapped with a rare ban from the national stage, ironically began his career fighting racism before falling from grace as a “trader of hate”. Dieudonne, the burly and bearded comedian known by one name, is no…

The Foreign Office in London confirmed on Friday that a British national had died in tragic circumstances in Libya. Libyan troops on Thursday found the bodies of a British man and a New Zealand woman shot dead southwest of Tripoli, a security source…

Pope Francis on Wednesday called for greater solidarity in the world in his first New Year blessing as pontiff in front of crowds of pilgrims on St Peter’s Square. “We all have a responsibility to act so that the world may be a community of brothers…

Thousands of revellers got to taste the New Year celebrations in London when edible peach snow and strawberry mist descended on partygoers watching the midnight pyrotechnics. Around 50,000 people took part in what was dubbed the “world’s first multi…

Talks led by former US diplomat Richard Haass aimed at ending disputes on flashpoint issues hampering peace in Northern Ireland broke up Tuesday without agreement. Haass was called on in September to help the main political parties end arguments over…

30 December 2013 – Members of the United Nations Security Council said they are “outraged” by today’s terrorist attack targeting…

At least 14 people were killed Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a packed trolleybus in Volgograd, raising new concerns about security at the Sochi Olympics a day after a deadly attack on the southern Russian city’s train station. President…

Prosecutors in Paris on Monday launched a probe into whether a French comedian was guilty of inciting racial hatred by joking about “gas chambers” while talking about a Jewish journalist. Dieudonne, who has drawn controversy over an increasingly copied…

Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva on Monday said she was devastated and shocked by two deadly attacks that have rocked her hometown of Volgograd in southern Russia. “It is hard for me to talk now,” Isinbayeva told the ITAR-TASS news…

The eurozone is finally set to return to growth in 2014 but the single currency bloc may not have put its crisis behind it as efforts to shore up its banks could boomerang. After beating back market panic that the eurozone was set to break up, eurozone…

At least 10 people were killed on Monday in a bombing that destroyed a packed trolleybus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, a day after 17 people died in a suicide strike on the city’s main train station. The new attack will further heighten…

A female suicide bomber killed 14 people Sunday when she blew herself up at the main train station in the southern city of Volgograd, raising concerns about security in Russia just six weeks before the Sochi Olympic Games. The unidentified woman set…

Shareholders of Italy’s troubled Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena — the world’s oldest bank — on Saturday voted to postpone until mid-2014 a giant capital increase needed to stave off nationalisation. Management had wanted the 3.0-billion-euro ($4.…

Russia was Friday to bury Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle that was the favoured weapon of guerrillas worldwide, at a newly-opened cemetery for national heroes. Kalashnikov, who died on Monday at the age of 94, was…

The two freed members of anti-Kremlin Russian punk group Pussy Riot arrived back in Moscow on Friday after reuniting in Siberia, ahead of holding their first news conference since their release earlier this week. Maria Alyokhina, 25, had already passed…