Author: DW

French police killed an armed in individual who intended to set a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen ablaze, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Friday. “National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Darmanin said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. What do we know about the attack on the synagogue? The Franceinfo broadcaster reported police were called to the scene early on Friday because smoke was billowing form the synagogue. Local authorities that the man approached police armed with a knife and a…

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is “under missile attack”, its mayor has said.Ihor Terekhov made his comment not long after regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said at least five Russian drones had struck the northeastern city late on Thursday. Mr Terekhov said the city’s Osnovyanskyi district had been hit, triggering a fire.It is unclear whether there have been casualties.Fabrice Deprez, a journalist reporting from Ukraine, said on X he had “lost count of the number of explosions shaking Kharkiv right now – a dozen or more in the past hour”. An air raid alert lasted more than 16-and-a-half hours, public broadcaster Suspilne…

A female brown bear, known as JJ4 or Gaia, that killed  a man jogging on a popular mountain path in the northern Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige in April 2023 will be relocated to a bear park in the eastern German state of Thuringia, Italian officials say. The incident shocked Italy and led to heated debate in the country over the animal’s future. What has been decided? The bear is to be taken to the Worbis Alternative Bear Park by fall, Italian officials said. The councillor for tourism in the province of Trento, Roberto Failoni, told the daily Corriere del Trentino that…

Starving children and adults in Gaza are dying after being reduced to the “size of a skeleton”, according to the World Food Programme boss.Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN agency, said her staff describe it as “a complete disaster” and there are serious problems getting trucks in safely and in sufficient numbers.Israel’s offensive following the Hamas attack on 7 October has displaced much of Gaza’s population, many of whom are fleeing again as Israel escalates attacks in the southern city of Rafah.Hundreds of thousands are starving and desperate, and Mrs McCain told Sky News the reality is devastating. Image:…

Far-right Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders on Wednesday announced that he and the leaders of three right-wing parties have finally come to agreement over the formation of a coalition government. Speaking in The Hague, Wilders, who will not serve as prime minister, said, “We have a negotiators’ agreement and we will return to the position of prime minister at a later moment.” It is widely thought that such a candidate will be a technocrat from outside the political system.  Wilders had long desired the job but was seen as too risky to be a national leader, hence he has put his…

Israel’s relentless war against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, is leading to increasingly strained ties with Egypt. Relations between the two states have taken a turn for the worse since Israeli troops seized control of the Hamas-controlled side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 6.  In photos that have since gone viral, Israeli soldiers can be seen raising the Israeli flag near the border crossing. Since then, Egypt has kept its side of the border shut and has said it will remain closed as long as Israeli troops are on the Gaza side. It…

South Africa has told a UN court the situation in Gaza is at a “new and horrific stage” – as it tries to convince it to order a ceasefire and stop Israel’s operation in Rafah.It was the third time the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has held hearings on Gaza since December, when South Africa first accused Israel of genocide.”Seven months ago South Africa could not have imagined that Gaza would be largely wiped off the map,” the country’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, told judges.Israel denies allegations of genocide and says it takes great care to avoid civilian…

05/16/2024May 16, 2024Ukraine accuses Russian troops of war crimes in Kharkiv regionUkraine has accused Russian troops of kidnapping civilians and killing a non-combatant in the city of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, which has again become a key front in the war. “The first shootings of civilians by the Russian military have become known,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on his Telegram channel. According to Klymenko, a resident who tried to flee and defied Russian orders was killed. Other residents of the embattled city were prevented from leaving, “kidnapped and driven into cellars,” he wrote. Meanwhile, the head of…

Activists in Pakistan-administered Kashmir say the recent protests over soaring food and energy costs reflect larger problems involving the semi-autonomous region’s local government and the central government in Islamabad. On Monday evening, four people, including one police officer, were killed after paramilitary forces, called rangers, responded to protests in the regional capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. An estimated 100 people were injured. Authorities also shut off internet services and closed schools in response to the unrest.  Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved $82 million (€75 million) worth of subsidies on Tuesday in a bid to defuse the situation by partly…

Spanish police say they have dismantled a drug distribution network run by a major South American cartel after seizing 1.8 tonnes of methamphetamine.The Sinaloa cartel was using vehicles with false bottoms to send illegal drugs on to other European countries, Spain’s National Police said. Officers, who had doubted the cartel was established in Spain, made five arrests after raiding six properties in the Valencia region.Those detained included a Mexican national thought to be the group’s leader, as well as three Spanish people and one Romanian, police said. Follow Sky News on WhatsApp Keep up with all the latest news from…