List of All Articles with Tag 'europe'

Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund said more companies are honing emissions targets in response to tighter reporting

A terror suspectin Brussels has died after being shot by police in a cafe on Tuesday. The 45-year-old Tunisian man, identified as Abdesalem Lassoued, was shot in the chest and died in hospital from his wounds, local media said. Two Swedish nationals were killed in Brussels after a gunman opened fire in the city centre on Monday night ahead of a qualifier game for the UEFA Euros between Sweden and Belgium at the Heysel Stadium, some three miles away. The second half of the match was later called off. Footage shared online showed a man dressed in an orange jacket unloading several shots, using a large weapon. The bearded man was reportedly seen leaving the crime scene on a scooter. After the shooting Abdesalem Lassoued posted a video on Facebook about the killings, claiming he was a member of Islamic State (IS) and had killed “three Swedes so far”. Authorities searched for the man overnight, before finding him inside a café in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek at 8am and ‘opened fire’. Here’s everything we know about the terror suspect: Who is the terror suspect? The gunman was named on Monday night by local media as 45-year-old Abdesalem Lassoued from Tunisia. He was reportedly a failed asylum seeker living illegally in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels, which is about a ten-minute drive from the scene of the shooting. Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborn said Lassoued was convicted in Tunisia ‘for common law offences’, but was not reported for a terrorist risk. Why did he carry out the attack? After the shooting, Lassoued posted a video to Facebook, using the name Slayem Slouma, speaking in Arabic: “Islamic greeting Allahu Akbar. My name is Abdesalem Al Guilani and I am a fighter for Allah. I am from the Islamic State. We love who loves us and we hate who hates us. We live for our religion and we die for our religion.” He added that he had “killed three Swedes so far” and also claimed he had carried out the attack in “revenge in the name of Muslims”. A Belgian federal prosecutor said there was no evidence that the attacker had any link to the renewed conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants. What happened after the shooting? Police in Belgium searched overnight to find the suspect who opened fire in the Brussels city centre. Footage shared online showed a man dressed in an orange jacket unloading several shots using a large weapon, before leaving the crime scene on a scooter. Police raided a building in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek overnight where the man was thought to be staying but did not find him. Authorities eventually found a suspect inside a café in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek at 8am. He was shot in the chest before dying in hospital from his wounds, local media reported. Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden posted on X: “The perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Brussels has been identified and died.” The European Commission, which is based in Brussels, has urged staff to work from home and some schools were closed in the wake of the attack. Read More Brussels shooting live: Terror suspect killed by police after Swedish nationals murdered in Belgium Belgium shooting: Video shows moment gunman opened fire, killing two people in Brussels Sweden players take overnight flight home, start returning to clubs after shooting in Belgium How Quran burnings in Sweden have increased threats from Islamic militants Amazon, Tripadvisor and other companies team up to battle fake reviews while FTC seeks to ban them Video shows moments before gunman opened fire in Brussels, killing two people

Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan told the company’s staff that he “believes in urgent climate action,”

Hundreds of protesters are causing havoc outside a London hotel, blocking several top oil executives from entering to

A deal between the European Union’s two biggest countries will lay the foundations for updated fiscal rules, French

Four children from Ukraine are to be to be returned to their families from Russia in a deal brokered by Qatar. The youngest is two years old, while the oldest is 17. A seven-year-old boy returned to Ukraine on Monday via Estonia after he was reunited with his grandmother in Qatar's Moscow embassy last week, the official said. The two-year-old boy was handed over to Qatari diplomats in Moscow on Monday, and a nine-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl are due to be handed over this week, the official said. The Ukrainian Presidential Office said the children would all be home soon. "We are bringing home four Ukrainian children illegally deported to the Russian Federation," Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office, said on X, formerly known as Twitter. He gave no further details. Kyiv says about 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia or Russian-held territory without the consent of family or guardians. It calls this a war crime that meets the UN treaty definition of genocide. Moscow, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, denies committing the accusation and says it has protected vulnerable children from the war zone. The return of the first four children tests a system the Gulf Arab state established after months of secret talks with Moscow and Kyiv, the Qatari official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the process. Qatar's minister of state for international cooperation, Lolwah Al Khater, confirmed the mediation in a statement and described this week's repatriations as "only a first step". Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, shared a short initial list of Ukrainian children to be returned with a team of Qatari diplomats who verified each child's identity, the official said. It was not clear how many additional children Russia would authorise to return to Ukraine via the Qatari mechanism, the Qatari official said. About 400 children have been returned to Ukraine since Moscow's invasion, but the United Nations human rights agency raised concerns last week that there was no system to facilitate such returns. Qatari diplomats will accompany the children over the border with Estonia, Latvia or Belarus or to Qatar by chartered jet before returning them to Ukraine, the Qatari official said. "Both Ukrainian and Russian officials have been cooperative," the Qatari official said, adding that Ukraine approached Doha to mediate with Russia over the children. The seven-year-old boy reunited with his grandmother on Friday had been in Russia at a children's home "as a result of being separated from his mother who was in Russia when the war broke out", a Qatari official told Reuters. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova, accusing them of the war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine. Both deny the allegations against them. Reuters reporting contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Russia is sending more forces to an eastern Ukraine city after its assault slows, analysts say Poland's ruling conservatives lose majority in parliament to centrist coalition, final count shows Trump scheduled to be questioned in lawsuits from ex-FBI employees who sent negative texts about him

Anti fossil-fuel protesters led by Greta Thunberg are blocking oil executives from entering the annual Energy Intelligence Forum

Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday it expects earnings for companies in the pan-European STOXX 600 index to grow

Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a rare trip abroad to join ally China in marking the 10th anniversary of an international cooperation forum. The two-day visit is only his second known trip abroad since the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader in March over Ukraine war crime allegations. The Russian president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are holding talks to bolster their shared trade and security amid Western sanctions against Moscow over Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Several other world leaders also arrived in Beijing for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum championed by Mr Xi, including Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong, but Mr Putin is being heralded as the talks’ chief guest. The Russian presidential entourage was greeted by Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao after Mr Putin’s plane touched down at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday. Beijing has supported Russia in rejecting resolutions on Ukraine in the United Nations Security Council, part of Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war. China has rejected Western criticism of its close partnership with Russia in spite of the war in Ukraine, which entered its 600th day on Monday. Mr Putin is expected to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia and Laos on Tuesday and attend the forum’s official opening reception hosted by Mr Xi, Tass news agency reported. On Wednesday, he will address the forum after Mr Xi as the chief guest and will meet the Chinese president for talks after. Before embarking on the trip, Mr Putin said in an interview with CCTV that he had met with Xi more than 40 times so far and the two have “many fond memories”. He praised China’s ambitious BRI project and said contrary to the West’s perception, Beijing was seeking cooperation and not to “put someone under its thumb”. China launched its signature BRI project in 2013 and funded $900bn in infrastructure and other projects to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes. The project has since faced many challenges, including concerns about debt sustainability and the impact of China’s economic slowdown. Mr Putin said his meeting with Mr Xi would encompass talks on Belt and Road-related projects, which he said Moscow wanted to link with efforts by an economic alliance of ex-Soviet Union nations mostly located in Central Asia to “achieve common development goal”. This is his second visit outside Russia after his visit to Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, earlier this month. The ICC accused Mr Putin of committing a war crime by “illegally deporting children from Ukraine”. The ICC obliges the court’s 123 member states to arrest Mr Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory. The Kremlin leader last visited China for the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022 when Mr Xi declared a “no-limits" partnership with Russia. Mr Xi met Mr Putin in March during a three-day trip to Moscow amid the Pentagon’s fears of Beijing’s potential military cooperation between the two countries for supplying weapons to be used in Ukraine. They greeted one another as “dear friend” when they met in the Kremlin, and held informal talks for over four hours. Read More Russia mounts ‘intensive’ offensive to break ‘powerful’ Ukrainian defences in Kupiansk-Lyman Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin suffers serious losses in largest offensive in months Viral hate and misinformation amid Israel-Hamas crisis renew fears of real-world violence

South Africa may be able to raise as much as 1.13 trillion rand ($60 billion) over the next

David Solomon has decided to no longer DJ at high-profile events, an early retirement for a highly visible

Russia has lost 127 tanks, 239 armoured personnel vehicles (APVs) and 161 artillery systems in a week, Kyiv has said as Vladimir Putin launches a sustained assault in the east of Ukraine. Moscow’s forces lost eight tanks, 25 APVs and 33 artillery systems in the past day, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Sunday. The Independent cannot independently confirm Kyiv’s numbers which come after Putin claimed Ukraine‘s counteroffensive “completely failed”. “As for the counteroffensive, which is allegedly stalling, it has failed completely,” Putin said in video remarks posted to social media by a Kremlin journalist Pavel Zarubin. Russia currently controls about 17.5% of Ukrainian territory and a four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive this year has resulted in almost no net territorial gains. Read More Russian attacks kill six in Ukraine as Kyiv ramps up drone counter strikes Russian governor reported to police for speaking out over Putin’s ‘unnecessary’ war against Ukraine Ukrainian forces release video of downed Russian Mi-8 helicopter: ‘It burns beautifully’