Theme: Europe

The deputy head of the Bavarian state government, economy minister and leader of the Free Voters, Hubert Aiwanger, 55, was found dead in a hotel in Berlin. The head of the Bavarian government, Markus Söder, wrote on X on Wednesday evening that Aiwanger’s sudden death is an absolute tragedy and that everyone is deeply shocked. The investigation was assigned to a homicide unit of the Berlin Criminal Police Office together with prosecutors. The Bavarian parliament confirmed the death and said the cause had not yet been established.

Several regional facilities of the French Blood Establishment (EFS) were affected on November 2 by a cybersecurity incident that hit cold storage room monitoring and control systems, according to the French Health Ministry. The situation is now under control and the safety of blood supplies was preserved thanks to monitoring and alarm systems — no health impact has been identified and no blood products have been lost, the EFS said, with collection and hospital deliveries continuing normally. Hackers accessed control units for fridges containing blood samples and programmed them to raise temperatures to 110°C, according to local media. The incident followed attacks that forced stores in eight European countries to throw away vast quantities of food after hackers tampered with their fridges on Monday.

The Transnational Legal Coalition (TLC) filed 14 suspected money-laundering complaints on Wednesday against JBS, its financiers and service providers, with notifications sent to regulators in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The complaints rest on research commissioned from AidEnvironment, which linked the company’s direct and indirect supply chain to more than 6.5 million hectares cleared in the Amazon since 1988, and JBS says it cannot comment without access to the study’s methodology.

Hubert Aiwanger, Bavaria’s deputy premier, economy minister and chairman of the right-wing populist Free Voters party, was found dead in a Berlin hotel on Wednesday. He was 55. He had been scheduled to speak at the opening of his party’s Berlin office but canceled because of health reasons, according to the dpa news agency. The body was at the Neuer Fritz hotel on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin-Mitte. Berlin prosecutors confirmed that the body was found in the hotel room; the cause of death was not immediately disclosed. Alexander Hoffmann, who heads the Christian Social Union (CSU) group in the Bundestag, mourned the death and called Aiwanger a “politician through and through” who shaped Bavaria.

Europe’s far-right leaders began to distance themselves from Donald Trump after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, but mostly avoided directly criticizing the president, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Al-Monitor. Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally, said Trump’s second term was less isolationist than his first, from 2017 to 2021, and that “American intervention regarding Iran carries very heavy consequences” for economies around the world, without mentioning Trump as being behind that intervention. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox, made little attempt to temper his move away from Trump, telling reporters he was “in Spain and not in Michigan,” and that he cares “very little about what happens in other places.” Rupert Lowe, leader of the British party Restore Britain, blamed the decision to attack Iran for the Republicans’ defeat, calling it a “catastrophic mistake,” and wrote in his X post: “What has this war achieved? Absolutely nothing of worth.” Lowe did not include in the text the name of the president who launched the war.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the outcome “very good news for American democracy”, saying it is further proof that in a democracy the people write their own history. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said voters had rejected hatred, sexism, climate change denial and privileges for elites, and that the far-right wave “is no longer growing: it is crumbling”. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “must become more European in order to be able to remain transatlantic”, and that Germany is taking on more responsibility and a larger share of the burdens within the alliance. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the world now has an opportunity to unite around the cost of living and expressed hope that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said Austrian and European security and prosperity must not depend on how people in Kansas or Iowa vote.

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Prime Minister Unal Ustel said after meeting UN envoy María Ángela Holguín that the search for an agreement on the basis of a federation came to an end at Crans-Montana in 2017. He said UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ visit to Cyprus on July 27–29, 2026 had demonstrated the absence of common ground for launching formal negotiations, because there are two separate peoples and states on the island, and called on the international community, particularly the United Nations, to acknowledge the reality of two states.

Equinor halted output at its Visund oil and gas platform in the Norwegian North Sea after a fire in an electrical switchboard room; the flames are out, no one was injured and the company reported the incident to authorities. A notice from Norwegian gas system operator Gassco cut the platform's capacity to 2.5 million cubic meters per day on Wednesday and to zero for Thursday's gas day, with the duration listed as uncertain; the field's 13.2 million cubic meters per day of gas export capacity goes off the market from Thursday. Equinor moved between 70 and 80 of the 128 workers on board to nearby installations and said repairs will be needed, with no timeframe for restarting production. Visund has produced since 1999 and sent 5.1 billion cubic meters of gas to market in 2025, shipped through the Kvitebjørn pipeline to the Kollsnes plant and on to Europe.

Some 40,000 students were on strike at 57 schools across Denmark, including 12,000 to 13,000 at the protest in Copenhagen, according to organizers. Under the banner “Enough is Enough,” 11 high school and university student associations marched from Copenhagen’s City Hall Square to parliament over the proposed cuts to free up funds for defense spending. In a draft budget bill, Denmark’s center-left government plans to abolish the student grant (SU) for students who live with their parents and whose parents’ total annual income exceeds 700,000 Danish kroner (US$104,000). According to the Higher Education Ministry, around 14,000 students are expected to lose their grant, and some 8,000 would see it reduced. Student protests that started in France have spread in recent weeks to other European countries.

Hungary released tens of thousands of Communist-era secret police files in an online public database on Wednesday, according to Reuters, in a text republished by WSAU. Prime Minister Peter Magyar said some 60,000 names have now been made public and that additional files will be uploaded by February 2027. “We are implementing now, after 36 years … what was the promise of the change of regime,” he said at a briefing at the archives. The files contain the names of approximately 55,000-60,000 state informants recruited by the state security services between 1945 and 1989, according to Telex. The files are far from complete, as many were destroyed in 1956 during Hungary's anti-Soviet uprising and also in 1988-1989. Until Wednesday, ordinary people had been limited to viewing records about themselves or close relatives.

Hackers raised the temperatures of supermarket refrigeration systems in Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom, bringing to at least 11 the number of European countries affected — following Monday’s disruptions in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden — and the European Union (EU) said these are not isolated incidents, pledging a collective response without naming culprits, while the motive remains unknown and no one has claimed responsibility.

Spain Transport Minister Óscar Puente resigned six days after the high-speed train collision in which at least 69 people were killed and dozens injured. In Congress, he said a transport minister cannot remain in office after two serious accidents in less than a year, in reference to the January crash on the same line that left 46 people dead, and withdrew his name from the lists for the early legislative elections. The crash happened when a train run by state-owned Renfe hit the back of a stationary train run by private operator Iryo, outside the village of Urda, south of Madrid. The failure of an automatic safety system halted all trains on a 39-mile stretch of track, but a control center authorized the Renfe service to resume its journey. Puente announced a 30-million-euro aid package for the families of the dead and the injured.

At least seven passenger flights and an Israel-bound cruise ship were targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday, according to officials. All planes landed safely and searches found no explosives. The airlines affected were Ryanair, Wizz Air, Scandinavian Airlines and Polish carrier LOT, with four Ryanair flights among the targets. Two Italian Eurofighter jets escorted a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Fiumicino Airport in Rome. London police said they had been informed of threats against four aircraft due to depart from or arrive at Heathrow and of a further alert in Manchester. The European Commission said it is monitoring the alerts and that it is too early to establish links between the incidents.

Europe’s six largest oil companies booked US$38 billion in profit in the July-to-September quarter. BP suspended its share buyback program to cut debt faster, reducing the total by as much as US$10 billion, with US$13.9 billion remaining. The majors have shied away from major new spending, a sign they do not see current market conditions as evidence of a lasting improvement in the industry’s outlook.

The Latvian government led by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs resigned on Tuesday but will remain in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed. Under Latvian law, the outgoing government is deemed to have resigned when the newly elected parliament holds its first sitting. The resignation is a planned procedure, because the current government holds a mandate of confidence only from the previous parliament. Kulbergs’ United List alliance won 41 of the 100 seats in the October 3 election, short of the majority needed to govern alone.

Unions and housing-rights associations from seven European countries, meeting in Paris, called for coordinated demonstrations against the cost of living for November 20, 21 and 22. Organizations from France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece and Belgium are taking part, and they hope to bring “millions” of people into the streets. Their demands include guaranteeing public services such as education, healthcare and public housing, defending the “right to work” without “excluding migrants,” “taxing the rich” and an “end to rearmament policies” and to the expansion of “fossil fuels.” In Spain, the death of 87-year-old pensioner Maricarmen Abascal after an eviction in September triggered a wave of protests and led Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call early legislative elections for November 29; the country’s main unions have called a general strike for November 11. In the European Union, housing prices rose more than 60% between 2010 and 2025 and rents by about 29%.

Óscar Puente resigned as Spain’s transport minister six days after the high-speed train collision that killed at least 69 people. He announced the decision in Congress, after giving evidence on the previous Wednesday’s disaster near Urda, south of Madrid, when a train smashed into the back of another that had stopped on the same line. Puente justified his departure by citing two serious accidents in less than a year, and mentioned January’s crash on the same line, which killed 46 people. He also withdrew his name from the candidate lists for the early legislative elections on November 29. According to Puente, the control center run by Adif, Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure manager, allowed the AVE train to keep running even though its LZB automatic safety system had failed, and the train covered about 25 kilometers at more than 160 km/h before the collision. Around 200 people were injured in the crash, in addition to the 69 dead.

Iliana Yotova and her running mate, Kiril Valchev, received 57.58 percent of the vote and defeated former caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov in the second round of Bulgaria’s presidential election, according to official results. Deutsche Welle (DW) reported 57.6 percent to 39.5 percent.

At least seven flights and a cruise ship in Europe received bomb threats on Tuesday, causing disruption at airports, and no devices were discovered. Two flights to Warsaw, two to Sofia, two to Rome and one to Murcia airport in Spain were targeted; an airport in Warsaw was briefly shut and the Italian Air Force accompanied one of the flights to Rome. The UK government described the incidents as “malicious hoax threats,” and authorities from various countries will cooperate to assess whether this was a coordinated action designed to disrupt airspace. The Panama-flagged cruise ship Crown Iris, preparing to depart the Greek port of Syros for Haifa, was searched by a bomb disposal team and had 940 passengers and 597 crew members on board. According to Greek media, the captain received a warning directly by radio saying that an explosive device had been placed on the hull below the waterline; an initial search found no suspicious objects, and a second, more thorough inspection by the Coast Guard’s underwater missions unit was expected.

Europe is entering the winter heating season with its lowest natural gas storage levels in more than a decade, and tight conditions in the global market may extend well into 2027, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In European Union countries, storage sites are entering the 2026-27 season at their lowest levels since 2013. The effective halt of liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows through the Strait of Hormuz reduced loadings from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The IEA projects a 3% fall, or almost 20 billion cubic meters, in global LNG supply in 2026. QatarEnergy extended force majeure on LNG deliveries to most customers to the end of December 2026, according to OilPrice.

Four planes landed safely after bomb threats were made across Europe on Tuesday, among them two Warsaw-bound flights and a Scandinavian Airlines flight that departed from Copenhagen. Polish officials said they had received bomb threats involving two Warsaw-bound flights, but the planes landed safely and no explosives were found. A Ryanair plane from Manchester made an emergency landing at Murcia in southern Spain, with no explosives found; a fourth flight, from Israel, was forced to land in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Scandinavian Airlines plane landed at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, where a security inspection did not turn up any explosive devices, and the airport closed a landing strip but was able to continue operating. The Times of Israel treated the incidents as hoax threats that forced the temporary closure of an airport.

A spate of cyber-attacks hit supermarket chains across at least 10 European countries on Monday, prompting European Union (EU) officials to warn of a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain. Supermarkets reported problems in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Sweden, and the rise in freezer temperatures, reportedly as high as 50°C, forced retailers to discard food. The EU’s food and agriculture commissioner, Christophe Hansen, said the bloc was taking the incidents very seriously and warned of further disruption in the future. In Belgium, dozens of stores reported refrigeration failures and federal prosecutors opened an investigation.

Bulgaria has elected Iliana Iotova as its first female president, official results showed on Monday, in a Reuters text republished by Internazionale. Iotova, 61, won 57.6% of the votes cast in Sunday’s runoff contest, while her rival, former caretaker prime minister Andrey Gyurov, 50, won 39.5%. The presidential vote comes against the backdrop of a series of drone attacks in the past month on merchant ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, which have killed at least 24 seafarers. Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the strikes’ outcome “benefits the Russian Federation.”

US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) hit their second-highest level in history, driven by a rise in European demand ahead of the start of winter, which pushed LNG prices higher. Shipments to Europe rose by 1 million tons last month, to 6.89 million tons, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. European gas prices stood above 100 euros for the first time in four years.

Grocery stores in at least nine European countries suffered refrigeration failures on Monday in a suspected cyberattack, and the EU warned of a deliberate attempt to disrupt the bloc’s food supply chain, according to AFP. Security researchers said the cause was internet-connected refrigerators made by Danish company Danfoss, which was no longer providing security updates.

The European Union (EU) described as a deliberate attempt to disrupt the bloc’s food chain the cyberattack that hit refrigeration settings on supermarket freezers in at least eight countries, including Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Israel’s National Cyber Directorate warned retail chains, food companies and logistics centers because of the wave of attacks, and a retailer reported freezers reaching 50 degrees Celsius.

Britain's governing Labour Party decided to stop cooperating with the Green Party in 11 councils across England after the Greens adopted a policy last month that “Zionism is racism.” Through a vote of party activists at the Green Party's annual conference in October, the Greens became the first major party in the UK to recognize Zionism as a form of racism and to back a single democratic Palestinian state with equal rights for all ethnic and religious groups, rather than a two-state solution.

At least seven migrants have died aboard a boat carrying 139 people bound for the Canary Islands after a storm hit. Rescuers reached the boat early on Monday, about 150 km from Arrecife. Five bodies are missing at sea and two have been recovered.

Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg said the temperatures of their refrigerators and freezers in dozens of stores rose overnight, raising fears of a cyber-attack similar to one that caused millions of euros in food losses in France. In Sweden, the Coop chain told the daily Aftonbladet that six of its stores had been affected, and ICA said a “limited number” of stores had their refrigeration and freezer systems impacted.

Five Britons detained in France on suspicion of harassing migrants were fined, expelled and banned from entering the region for six months on Sunday, November 2, according to French authorities. An aid group had accused them of violence against undocumented migrants, but investigations found no evidence of violent offenses, prosecutor Charlotte Huet said in a statement on Sunday.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever may resign after a meeting with King Philippe on Monday, according to De Standaard newspaper. The reason would be the failure of attempts to agree on the federal budget. The premier meets at the Palace at 9:30 a.m. and is expected to submit the government's resignation after the kern failed to reach a budget deal, according to RTBF.

Serbia’s electoral commission released the final results from 100% of polling stations in the snap parliamentary elections: victory for the Student List movement with 53.01% of the vote. On Monday, the Republic Election Commission (RIK) had released a partial count with 52.54% of the vote for the Student List, based on 8,077 of 8,392 polling stations counted.

Police clashed with protesters in Portugal after thousands demanded that the government scrap a proposed law that they say would deepen the country's housing crisis, Al Jazeera reported.

French prosecutors opened an investigation into attempted murder after Molotov cocktails were thrown at security forces during Saturday’s protests in Paris, according to Al Jazeera. The prosecutor’s office said that “explosive devices were thrown at around 15 gendarmes as well as police officers,” referring to military police officers who are part of the French armed forces, and that no suspects had been arrested at this stage. The gendarmerie said 13 members of the injured officer’s unit were hurt, and the interior ministry counted more than 770 arrests across France.

Bulgaria’s acting president Iliana Iotova won Sunday’s presidential runoff, exit polls showed, with 50.7 percent to 52.5 percent of the vote against 43.4 percent to 44 percent for Andrey Gyurov, according to three different polls, the SCMP reported. Iotova favors dialogue with Moscow and opposes military aid to Ukraine.

Bulgaria votes this Sunday in the presidential runoff, after the tight race between the two leading candidates failed to produce an outright winner in the first round, Reuters reported. The election pits Iliana Iotova against Andrey Gyurov. The Iotova-Valchev ticket, backed by the ruling Progressive Bulgaria party and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, among others, came out on top in the first round on October 25, 2026, with 34.76 percent of the votes, Xinhua reported. Exit polls will be published after voting ends at 8 p.m. local time, with a result likely on Monday as ballots are counted, according to Reuters.

Five Britons arrested on Thursday in Dunkirk on suspicion of violence against migrants were banned from appearing in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments for six months for carrying weapons, Le Monde reported. They drove along the coast in a minibus they had nicknamed “the battle bus” and livestreamed images of intimidation against migrants on a social network, according to the newspaper.

Protests against compulsory military service organized by the group Gen Z regelt, which means “Generation Z takes charge” in German, were scheduled in 34 German cities on Saturday, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, according to Reuters. The group says it opposes compulsory military service and wants greater investment in education. Official figures released on Saturday afternoon fell well below the 182,000 participants the organizers had expected: police in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin registered 6,000 demonstrators, according to Reuters.

France’s Interior Ministry counted 779 arrests on Saturday, “without major incident in the second part of the evening”, according to RFI. Pierre Sourzat, head of the “Lyceens!” student group, said that some high schools will be blockaded from Monday, November 2, 2026, when students return from a two-week holiday, according to The Hindu. The blockade campaign will restart on Monday, he said, adding that the government’s proposals did not go far enough.

Tens of thousands of people protested in more than 50 cities across Italy on Friday, October 30, 2026, against soaring living costs and the poor state of public services such as healthcare and education, CNN reported. The nationwide general strike, called by the anti-capitalist union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), brought together teachers and workers from the agricultural and healthcare sectors, among others, and farmers dumped manure on the streets of Turin. The largest rallies took place in Milan, Turin and Rome, where young and old criticized Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her right-wing government.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters, most of them young, returned to the streets across France on Saturday in a third consecutive weekend of demonstrations over living costs and education, according to the Associated Press (AP). France’s government estimated 320,000 protesters nationwide on Saturday, fewer than in previous protests, and about 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed, with Paris marches rerouted to the edge of the capital.

Rioters looted several shops in Frankfurt late on Saturday and clashes erupted in the city and in other German cities after largely peaceful mass protests over the cost of living. Frankfurt police said windows of several shops were smashed and Molotov cocktails were thrown at emergency services, and there were incidents of violence in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg, with police using water cannon. The demonstrations, organized by the group Gen Z regelt, took place in 34 cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, against compulsory military service and for more investment in education, amid the cost of living. Authorities in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted as many as 18,000 protesters, roughly half of the organizers' estimate. In France, more than 320,000 people demonstrated on Saturday and 565 were arrested across the country, and a police officer was struck by a Molotov cocktail in Paris.

Voting in Serbia’s October 25, 2026, parliamentary elections will be repeated this Sunday, November 1, at 53 polling stations, by decision of the Election Commission (RIK), taken at a session the previous night in Belgrade. A total of 24,438 voters have the right to cast ballots at these stations, and the commission unanimously approved the printing of 24,438 ballots for the repeat vote.

Dozens of officers, some accompanied by police dogs, moved into Rossio Square at about 4:30 a.m. GMT on Sunday to disperse a housing encampment, a day after thousands marched in Lisbon demanding that the government withdraw a rental bill, according to Al Jazeera. Protesters had erected more than 50 tents following Saturday’s march in the capital. The intervention followed operations in the same squares the previous Sunday, when police arrested 25 people in Lisbon and six in Porto.

Germany’s gas storage levels stood at 61.35% as of October 30, well below the 80% target the country has set for November 1, according to the German gas storage association INES, in a Reuters report published by Euronext. The association attributes the low level to the Iran war and its impact on prices, which has made filling the reservoirs over the summer uneconomical.

More than 560 people were arrested across France by Saturday night, according to French authorities cited by the Associated Press (AP), in a third consecutive weekend of protests over living costs and education. In Germany, rioters smashed storefronts in downtown Frankfurt and stole weapons from a gun store, which police later recovered, according to the Korea Herald.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki met on Saturday at the presidential palace with representatives of nationalist, far-right and some governing coalition parties, amid the standoff over the Constitutional Tribunal; Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Coalition stayed away, according to Al Jazeera. In a Saturday evening speech, Tusk accused conservative nationalist opposition leaders of wanting to “destroy democracy and rule of law.” In a televised address, he said he was certain the Constitutional Tribunal “will function as it should,” independently of him and in line with the constitution, according to Reuters.

France’s government estimated 320,000 protesters nationwide on Saturday, with about 70,000 in Paris, in a third consecutive weekend of demonstrations against the cost of living and inequality, according to AFP. The estimate was lower than in previous protests, according to AP. More than 500 people were arrested and police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse rioters on the sidelines of the demonstrations, according to AFP.

Young people in Germany took to the streets in some 34 cities calling for greater political say and a more hopeful future, according to DW. In Frankfurt, masked rioters looted shops on Oct 31 as the demonstrations turned violent, and police fired water cannons at youths hurling Molotov cocktails, according to the Straits Times. A gun store was among the shops looted, with its windows smashed; police said they arrested a suspect and seized two weapons.

Ten crew members were rescued after a Tanzanian-flagged merchant ship sank off the coast of Paphos, Cyprus, on Friday evening, according to the Cyprus Mail.

Russia’s ambassador to Copenhagen, Vladimir Barbin, said in an interview with the TASS news agency that Denmark is mobilizing resources and working to undermine Russia’s positions in the post-Soviet space and in Global South countries.

London police arrested 139 people on Saturday at a protest outside the US Embassy in support of the banned group Palestine Action, up from the 48 detentions announced earlier at the same rally. The majority of those taken into custody had expressed support for a proscribed organization, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement cited by AP News. Al Jazeera reported at least 139 arrests after protesters defied a warning not to attend the rally against the proscription of Palestine Action.

Riot police were deployed outside Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal as the dispute over who should serve on the court escalated into a confrontation between Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government and the nationalist opposition, according to Al Jazeera. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the building in Warsaw on Friday night after judges elected by the current parliamentary majority announced the suspension of the tribunal’s president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and his deputy, Bartlomiej Sochanski. Police secured the Constitutional Tribunal as protests erupted over the court chief’s suspension, according to AP News.

The traditional family photo opening the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting was canceled in the US after countries including Australia and the UK refused to appear beside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to the Guardian. About one-third of the countries signaled they would not appear beside Russian representatives, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled the plug on the photo. “In no case will there be a family photo with European partners and Mr Lavrov together because there is no normality with Russia,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said.

France’s interior ministry estimated that around 320,000 protesters took part in demonstrations across the country on Saturday, while student unions counted nearly half a million, according to France 24.

Organizers of the GenZ regelt! movement expect more than 170,000 participants in more than 30 German cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Cologne, according to G1. The demands include the rising cost of living, deteriorating conditions in schools and budget cuts.

Former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK and other European nations must draw closer together as the US becomes a less reliable partner, in his first significant political intervention since leaving office. According to the Evening Standard, he said the change is permanent and not an aberration of the Trump presidency, and that things will not go back to the way they were before.

France is bracing for a third weekend of protests, with police deploying 70,000 officers to prevent a repeat of the riots and looting that have swept the country in recent weeks, and in Germany protests are scheduled in more than 30 cities on Saturday, the Guardian reported.

France will deploy about 70,000 police officers in Paris and other cities ahead of a new round of nationwide protests on Saturday, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warning of a very high risk of public disorder, France 24 reported. According to Le Monde, Nuñez said demonstrations will be allowed, but not in city centers, where there is a risk of public disorder.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki convened emergency consultations with representatives of parliamentary groups over the conflict surrounding the Constitutional Court, according to the TASS news agency. The head of the presidential office read out a statement in which Nawrocki justified the move by a threat to the country’s internal security and said the consultations aim to stabilize the political situation and restore constitutional order.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki entered the building of the Constitutional Tribunal early on Saturday, accompanied by Zbigniew Kapinski, according to Nawrocki’s chief of staff, Pawel Szefernaker. Police said they had arrested three people who tried to enter the court complex.

London’s Metropolitan Police has warned that anyone attending a demonstration in support of Palestine Action near the US Embassy on Saturday will face arrest, “as part of a robust policing operation.” The force says expressing support for the group is an offense under the Terrorism Act after its proscription in June 2025, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal in June 2026.

More than 160,000 people are expected to join demonstrations across Germany on Saturday, organizers say, in a youth-led movement inspired by protests elsewhere in Europe to demand better education and lower living costs. The rallies, organized by the campaign group Gen Z regelt, are planned in 34 cities including Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. The group says it opposes compulsory military service and wants greater investment in education.

Dockworkers in 22 countries went on strike on Friday against the war and the use of ports for arms exports, an action organizers say could disrupt more than 40% of Mediterranean cargo and over $2 billion worth of freight, according to Reuters. The strike was originally called by unions in Italy, France, Greece, Spain's Basque Country, Turkey and Morocco and now has the backing of more than 25 unions in 113 ports. Protesters at more than 100 ports in 22 countries called on dock workers to disrupt arms shipments to Israel, according to Middle East Eye.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly students and workers, took to the streets across Italy on Friday to demand higher wages and stronger public services, protest against the rising cost of living and oppose increased military spending, according to Reuters, in an article republished by U.S. News. In Genoa, around 15,000 port workers, students and other demonstrators entered the port, joining similar protests in Europe and elsewhere against the use of ports for arms shipments.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki cut short his flight to Senegal on Friday and announced he was returning to the country after police entered the premises of the Constitutional Tribunal and its president was suspended, according to TRT World. Police said officers entered the tribunal’s premises following incidents outside the court, including the throwing of dangerous objects at police. The tribunal announced on its website that its president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, had been suspended on Friday. The dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal has dragged on and effectively paralyzed the institution: earlier this year, Nawrocki, an ally of the former nationalist government, refused to swear in three of the six judges nominated by parliament.

Shops and other businesses in Paris and other cities boarded up their windows on Friday, as France braced for a third consecutive weekend of protests coinciding with Halloween celebrations, according to Le Monde. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Thursday that demonstrations would be allowed, but “not in city centers, where there is a risk of public disorder.”

Thousands of students and workers took to the streets across Italy on Friday to demand more school funding and relief from the cost of living, with a heavy police presence to avert possible clashes, according to the Times of Israel. Marches were held in dozens of cities, including Bologna, Genoa, Naples and Turin, where a few minor skirmishes between protesters and riot police occurred at the start of the protest.

Serbia’s incoming leadership plans to hold talks with Russia to negotiate a long-term natural gas supply agreement. According to the Russian broadcaster RT, Russia is Serbia’s dominant natural gas supplier, accounting for up to 90% of its imports in 2025.

France imposed new restrictions on Israeli defense companies ahead of the Euronaval maritime defense exhibition, set to open near Paris on Tuesday, November 3, continuing the French policy of the past two years — in October 2024 Israeli companies were initially barred from Euronaval, a decision later overturned by a commercial court in Paris, according to Defense & Tech reporting cited by the Jerusalem Post. At next week's show, Israeli companies may display only air defense and missile interception systems, with official Israeli representatives barred, Ynet reported.

Greece arrested two Greek men and an Albanian national suspected of stealing copper gas pipes from a building, causing a leak that led to a deadly explosion in central Athens last month — six people were killed in the September 25 blast in the tourist district of Plaka, four of them Americans, authorities said, as cited by Reuters in a text republished by Marketscreener.

European storage sites were 74.89% full on October 28, 14.79 percentage points below the five-year average for the date, according to TASS; the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) records that European Union (EU) storage stood at 75% on October 21 (https://acer.europa.eu/news/eu-gas-storage-75-filled).

The problem on the network of France's biggest telecoms provider Orange first hit at 11:37 a.m. on Monday and lasted until 8:30 p.m., with outages of up to nine hours for some customers, Orange France CEO Jérôme Hénique told Le Figaro, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) — at the core of the outage was a software bug in Nokia's code, new to Orange and “extremely complicated to find”.

At least 69 people were killed when two trains collided near Urda, a town close to Toledo in central Spain, according to Al Jazeera — only 10 months after another collision on the same line, in Adamuz near Cordoba, killing 46 people; next month's snap poll “is no longer the contest it was”, as Pedro Sánchez is pressed to defend the government's safety record, according to the Guardian.

An Italian CH-47 Chinook helicopter of the European Union Force (EUFOR) crashed during “routine training” in the Brcko region on Thursday, about 180 km north of Sarajevo, killing four people and leaving 11 injured in stable condition, according to Al Jazeera — everyone on board was Italian, two soldiers and two Red Cross volunteers, according to the Italian defense ministry. EUFOR said it is conducting a full and thorough investigation of the incident and said there was no damage to civilians or civilian infrastructure.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready for a war with Europe but “does not want” a conflict, and that Moscow “supports any steps” toward restoring relations with European countries, according to TASS, in a text republished by RBC Ukraine.

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned of a very high risk of public disorder and announced the deployment of around 70,000 police officers for a new wave of protests this weekend, according to Le Monde. Demonstrations will be allowed, but not in city centers where there is a risk of public disorder, with a pledge of an extremely firm response, also according to Le Monde.

At least 68 people were killed and more than 100 injured when the Renfe train rear-ended a stationary Iryo train near the town of Urda, in Toledo province, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville, CNN reported. Twenty-four people died on the Renfe train and 44 on the Iryo train, both traveling between the two cities. Transportation Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure affected the LZB safety system along 63 kilometers (40 miles) and automatically stopped all trains in the stretch; state rail manager ADIF took manual command and authorized the Renfe train to continue southbound despite the red light and with no speed restrictions, on an erroneous order from a controller. “There was a red signal prohibiting movement, yet the train was authorized to proceed,” Puente said. Audio released by El País shows the controller telling the AVE driver to resume “la marcha normal”, instead of the “marcha a vista” of 40 km/h set out in the protocol.

France's anti-terrorism prosecutor's office confirmed Thursday that Kevin T., 39, had been formally charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, after admitting he targeted people who appeared to be Muslim, African or North African, according to Al Jazeera. Last Friday he fired from his car at people in the towns of Trappes and La Verrière, west of Paris, killing one and wounding seven others, including a child; most of the victims had foreign heritage.

Fifteen people were aboard the Italian CH-47 helicopter of Eufor, the European Union peace force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which crashed Thursday in Brcko, in the country's northeast, during a routine operation, according to Le Monde. Three died at the crash site; twelve injured were taken to Brcko's hospital, and a fourth person died of injuries after being admitted. Eufor said no civilians were hurt and the accident caused no material damage.

President Vladimir Putin said the West failed in its goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow and is unlikely to succeed by 2030, at a press conference following the Russia-Africa Summit, according to the Russian state agency TASS. Putin said that many are only talking about preparing for war by 2030, that Russia is prepared, but that it does not want any kind of war with Europe.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that the European Union and Canada continue to explore Canada becoming the bloc’s first “associate member,” a term so divisive among member countries that it does not appear in the joint declaration, according to Reuters, in a text published by the South China Morning Post. In a speech at a Canada-EU summit in Montreal, von der Leyen said the two sides aim to deepen cooperation on artificial intelligence, climate, energy and security. Deeper ties to Europe are part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s strategy to reduce reliance on the US amid strained relations under Trump, according to the newspaper. The term, which Germany and several other EU countries oppose, has no legal meaning.

The crash of a European Union force helicopter in Bosnia killed all four crew members, according to the hospital that treated the victims, in a report by Le Monde.

The death toll from the train collision in Toledo rose to at least 74, according to Spain’s transport ministry. The independent transport accident investigation authority AITAT published a preliminary report with the same figure, still provisional, and King Felipe VI expressed his sorrow over the “terrible accident” as he and Queen Letizia visited a hospital where injured victims were being treated.

The investigation into the train crash that killed at least 69 people near Toledo on Wednesday morning is examining why controllers told the driver of a Renfe AVE train to restart the journey after a signaling failure, according to The Guardian. Both trains had been halted when the signaling system failed; the driver of the state-owned train was told to restart and crashed into the train in front, run by the private operator Iryo. The instruction to proceed “con marcha normale” — under normal operations rather than at low speed — was described by Transport Minister Óscar Puente as an “inexplicable decision”.

Spain's second rail disaster this year has put the safety of the country's rail network back at the center of the national debate, ahead of a national election, according to AP. In the crash, a high-speed train struck a stationary train from behind, killing at least 68 people and injuring dozens, the agency reported.

The European Central Bank (ECB) kept interest rates unchanged, and the news that President Christine Lagarde will step down early added to concern over energy costs and France, according to AFP.

The Gen Z Regelt collective has called protests in German cities for October 31, with more than 150,000 people reportedly registered, according to TRT World. The group demands more education funding, stronger climate action and a fairer distribution of social costs, and in its demands to Chancellor Merz and his coalition government asks for “money for schools instead of cuts” and “an affordable life.”

Serbia's student movement demanded on Thursday the resignations of top officials in the police, intelligence agencies and the judiciary as it prepares to take power after last weekend's election win against former strongman leader Aleksandar Vucic, according to AP News. The students also urged the country's election authorities to officially declare the final results without delay after a rerun at some 50 polling stations next Sunday.

UN experts said excessive use of force, violence and mass arrests are not appropriate responses to a social protest movement in a State governed by the rule of law, referring to nationwide marches in France. The experts condemned police crackdowns, warning they deter demonstrators from exercising their rights.

Oscar Puente told reporters in Madrid that the red signal was triggered by a computer communications failure, which automatically stopped traffic, and that an erroneous decision was then made to restart the Renfe train. At least 68 people died when a Spanish high-speed express slammed into a stationary train on Wednesday, Spain's second fatal rail crash this year and Europe's deadliest since 2013, according to France 24. Sánchez said the tragedy will be investigated and that the country will strengthen high-speed rail safety if needed to rebuild confidence in the system.

The Dutch TTF contract, Europe's benchmark gas price, broke above €100 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday afternoon, a level last seen in December 2022, at the height of the energy crisis that followed Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The front-month contract traded at €100.37/MWh at 16:00 CET, up over 4% on the day, against around €32 before the Iran war began in late February. The benchmark briefly traded at €100/MWh at around 13:35 GMT, up around 4% from the previous session, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

QatarEnergy has extended to the end of the year the force majeure on deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG), in force since April 2026, leaving Europe and Asia without part of the contracted supply heading into the winter, according to OilPrice. Italian utility Edison confirmed it received the notice from the state firm and said it will stop receiving three cargoes at the Adriatic LNG terminal. The force majeure also covers the markets of Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to the publication.

The provisional toll from the train collision in Urda rose to at least 68 dead, 24 in the AVE train and 44 in the Iryo train, according to Le Monde, citing the announcement by the president of the Castile-La Mancha region, Emiliano García-Page. Spain’s socialist leader decreed three days of national mourning, from Thursday to Saturday.

The failure of the line's main signaling system and the subsequent decision to resume service manually are at the centre of the early findings on the train collision in Toledo, which may have been triggered by human error, according to Spanish government sources, as reported by El País. Eight trains were brought to a halt in the area after the failure; the control center then switched to manual operation and instructed all trains to resume their journeys. Spain's transport minister pointed to an “inexplicable” decision as a possible cause of the collision, according to Xinhua.

The death toll from the train collision in Urda, in the province of Toledo, has risen to 64 dead and 58 injured, according to the local government's update on Wednesday. Forty of the dead were traveling on the Iryo train and 24 on the Renfe AVE, according to the same tally. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, the region where the crash happened, confirmed 64 dead, according to the BBC. Emergency services sources told El País that a Renfe AVE train hit the rear of an Iryo train stopped on the tracks, and two cars fell down an embankment.

A high-speed train slammed into the rear of another train that had stopped, derailing two cars and killing at least 30 people in central Spain, according to local media, NPR reported. Spanish authorities initially reported 10 deaths, and Esther Padilla, spokeswoman for the Castilla-La Mancha region, said “that number will surely rise,” according to NPR. The accident involved a train from state-owned RENFE and one from the private company IRYO.

Serbian police killed an attacker outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade on Wednesday after an officer was targeted in a “terrorist attack”, outgoing Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said, according to Le Monde. Dacic said the terrorism threat level had been raised to its highest, the “red alert”, which means tighter security checks and an increased police presence at sensitive sites, including infrastructure facilities and places where large crowds gather.

At least 10 people are feared dead and many injured after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province in central Spain, according to The Guardian. Services between Madrid and the southern region of Andalusia were suspended following a rear-end collision between two trains on Wednesday morning. A local government spokesperson told TVE that the death toll “will almost certainly rise.”

An assailant attacked a guard with knives outside Israel’s embassy in Belgrade and was killed shortly after midnight, according to Serbian police cited by the Times of Israel. Serbia’s interior minister called the case a “terrorist attack,” raised the terror alert to the highest level and stepped up policing at key sites, while Israel’s Foreign Ministry said no staff members were injured and the embassy was closed during the nighttime hours.

British prosecutors said they had charged two British nationals under the National Security Act over an incident last month at the RAF Fairford airbase, and police say the two are suspected of assisting Iran, according to CNN. The base had been used by US B-1 bombers to carry out strikes on Iran, and the aircraft were withdrawn on security grounds shortly after five men were arrested outside the base in the early hours of September 27.

The Netherlands has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest 2027. Its public broadcaster NPO confirmed the withdrawal from the contest, citing “sensitivities” over Israel’s participation, according to Al Jazeera. Tuesday’s announcement reverses a September decision to return to the show, according to the AP News, in a text republished by U.S. News.

Finland's president and Norway's prime minister on Tuesday held a “frank and substantive” call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about efforts to end the war in Ukraine, according to Le Monde. A statement from the two Nordic leaders said the call was held in consultation with Ukraine and followed an October 20 meeting in Oslo between Støre, Stubb, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and US envoy Steve Witkoff.

European wholesale gas prices hit 97 euros per megawatt-hour on Monday as temperatures across Europe fell and traders priced in stronger demand for heating. The jump comes as fears grow of further supply disruptions in the Middle East. According to RT, European natural gas prices have surged to their highest level in four years amid the war in Iran.

The Student List, which won Sunday's parliamentary election in Serbia with 52.73 percent of the vote in preliminary results, will not impose sanctions on Russia, its representative Jovo Bakic told RT Balkan. According to him, the new government will keep its longstanding ties with Moscow despite EU pressure.

The Iran war is set to make global liquefied natural gas (LNG) importers spend at least 39 billion dollars more in 2026, even as they buy 60.7 million tonnes less, as Qatari and Emirati exports are disrupted through the Strait of Hormuz, Rystad Energy estimates. Europe takes the biggest hit: its LNG bill rises at least 12 billion dollars, or 18%, even with demand falling 24 million tonnes.

Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right candidate to succeed Emmanuel Macron, kicked off her presidential campaign Sunday vowing to “restore the rule of law” if elected next year, according to AFP. At a large rally in Orléans before thousands of supporters, she called for a “rebirth of France” and again promised to restore “rule of law” after another weekend of protests across the country, according to Euronews.

France is working with allies on a forward deterrence plan involving the creation of new infrastructure, communications, early warning, intelligence sharing and deployments of nuclear-capable Rafale jets, which the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have joined to varying degrees since March, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Thousands of people protested in Prague on Sunday against the plan to abolish household licence fees and fund public media through the state budget, after the lower house fast-tracked the bill in a rare overnight vote on Saturday, according to Al Jazeera.

Bulgaria’s presidential election is heading to a run-off after record low turnout, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat to the student-led protest movement in the country’s snap parliamentary election, the BBC reported. Confirmation of the result came from Vučić himself: Russia’s state-run TASS reported the Students’ List victory in the snap election, citing the Serbian leader. Le Monde also reported the concession of defeat.

Storms battered northern Europe on Sunday, cutting power to more than 150,000 homes, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and silencing phone networks, according to AFP. Authorities in the countries said more than 82,000 homes in Britain, nearly 60,000 in France and at least 10,000 in Germany had power cuts inflicted by storms Boelo and Austen within 24 hours of each other. Amsterdam's Schiphol airport cancelled dozens of flights on Sunday; AFP counted some 90 cancelled flights on the airport website, mainly to European cities including Paris, Rome and Dublin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the initial reaction of European leaders to the unrest in Europe was anti-American, with claims that the events resulted from the US administration’s actions and its support for right-wing parties, according to TASS. He said the reaction surprised him, in an interview with Vesti reporter Pavel Zarubin. According to Putin, claims that Russia was inciting mass unrest in Europe did not emerge immediately.

Hundreds of thousands marched across France on Saturday protesting the rising cost of living and a lack of government resources for essential services like schools. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested as fresh clashes erupted during nationwide protests against the rising cost of living and fuel prices, The Hindu reported.

Soldiers guard central Milan as thousands of protesters march in cities across Europe, The Hindu reports. The protests run from Milan to Madrid, with security forces curbing clashes, and include campus, pension, housing and anti-corruption demands, the paper says. In several Italian cities, the demonstrations drew tear gas and water cannon fire, according to TRT World.

Serbia heads to the polls in legislative elections that pit longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic against a student anti-corruption movement, according to Al Jazeera. Polls show Vucic in a tight race against the anticorruption and anti-authoritarian movement, the outlet reports. The vote leaves Vucic facing the threat of electoral defeat, Le Monde writes.

Protests against the war and the rising cost of living returned to major Italian cities on Saturday, a week after unrest erupted across the country, with clashes between demonstrators and police in Turin, Rome and Bologna and largely peaceful rallies in Milan, Reuters reported in a text republished by the Jerusalem Post. Authorities deployed a heavy police presence and many shops closed as a precaution; Reuters witnesses did not observe any shops being looted or property vandalized.

One hundred people were arrested in Barcelona on Saturday evening after hooded demonstrators at an anti-establishment rally looted shops and set fire to street furniture around the city's central Plaza de Catalunya, Reuters reported in a text republished by the Jerusalem Post. The rally was called in social media posts under the slogan “against the system”, using the phrase “Institut Indignats”, a translation of “Lyceés Indignés”, the banner of student protests in France in recent weeks. Núria Parlon, the interior minister for the Spanish region of Catalonia, said more than 30 fires were set and 14 stores were vandalized or looted, adding that around 25% of those arrested were minors.

Nearly 1,000 people were arrested across France on Saturday at the end of another day of protests that drew hundreds of thousands and ended in clashes, according to the BBC. The interior ministry said an estimated 410,000 people protested nationwide, while the unions put the number at about 800,000. After largely peaceful demonstrations, police fired tear gas and water cannon in a number of cities including Paris, and barricades were set alight in Marseille.

The French Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 410,000, including 110,000 in Paris, according to the Associated Press (AP), in a text republished by PBS NewsHour. The Paris prosecutor’s office said 64 people had been arrested in connection with Saturday’s demonstration in the capital and 40 placed in police custody, including six minors. Near the march’s endpoint at Porte de Vincennes, some protesters threw projectiles while police fired volleys of tear gas and used water cannons to disperse people. Authorities had confined the capital’s march to the city’s southeastern edge, keeping protesters away from central neighborhoods.

The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais, which is hosting a major exhibition of works by Paul Cézanne, closed their doors on Saturday, on a new day of protests in France. In Orléans, thousands of people shouted anti-fascist slogans as they marched against Marine Le Pen and against Emmanuel Macron.

Italy has sent 500 additional soldiers to Milan, on top of hundreds already stationed there, to support about 5,000 police and other law enforcement personnel ahead of new protests, according to the Associated Press (AP), in text published by The Times of Israel. Authorities are conducting drone surveillance, checks at railway stations and online monitoring for potential calls to violence. Protests are scheduled on Saturday in many other European cities, from Portugal to Albania, according to the AP.

Police in Lyon fired tear gas to disperse around 150 protesters who briefly blocked a road near the city centre, where demonstrations had been banned, according to TRT World. In Paris, armoured vehicles were stationed near the Élysée Palace, where the security perimeter was expanded beyond its usual size, according to TASS. In Orléans, thousands of people marched against Le Pen and against Macron, yelling anti-fascist slogans.

The government of the United Kingdom has told the public to keep three days' worth of food and water at home to get through a national emergency, according to the BBC. The Be Ready campaign lists bottled water for three days, 3 litres per person per day for drinking, plus non-perishable food, an FM radio, a torch, a power bank, cash and medication.

Austria's foreign ministry said on Friday it was expelling four Vienna-based Russian diplomats over “activities incompatible with their diplomatic status”, a term that, according to the Jerusalem Post, is usually used for spying. Three of them worked at Russia's embassy to Austria and one at the Russian delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on military security and arms control, the ministry said. The move brings to 18 the number of Russian diplomats Austria has expelled since 2020.

The French authorities announced the first ever reported human infection with Shamonda virus (SHAV), a disease that has until now only affected animals, according to a statement from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The case involved “a patient receiving treatment for a serious illness that made them more susceptible to infection and complications than the general population”, according to the ECDC. The man died in early October, and France is investigating “whether the virus caused or contributed to the patient's death and how the infection was acquired”. SHAV was detected in Europe for the first time last summer, in France, and has since been identified on farms in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

France will deploy some 70,000 police officers across the country for this weekend's protests, the government said on Friday, after some of the worst urban violence in years erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations a week ago. In a statement to the Associated Press (AP), the Culture Ministry said the Louvre, the Orsay and Picasso museums, as well as the Grand Palais, would be closed. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said courts have already sent 217 people to prison over the events on Saturday, half of them first-time offenders. President Emmanuel Macron, according to aides, is postponing a visit later this month to Nigeria and Senegal amid the crisis. He held a meeting of his defence council of top ministers and officials and was to meet security forces.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Serbia’s student-led opposition movement gathered in central Belgrade for their final rally ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election, in which they hope to oust the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic. The vote follows nearly two years of student-led protests triggered by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at a newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad that killed 16 people.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was awarded the European Union’s top human rights prize, the Sakharov Prize, on Thursday, while facing United States sanctions, according to Le Monde. The court thanked the European Parliament for the award at a time when “the Court and its officials face unprecedented challenges”, the newspaper reported.

French authorities confirmed that a patient who died at a Lyon hospital earlier in October was infected with the Shamonda virus, the first such report of the virus in a human, according to Al Jazeera. In a statement on Thursday, the French Ministry of Agriculture stressed that there were no identifiable health risks to the general population at this time. France’s Health Ministry said the patient had “severe immunodeficiency” and was receiving treatment for a serious illness at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, TRT World reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that “illegitimate” protests would be banned in the coming days and that he would convene a defence council under his chairmanship on Friday, while protests by organised groups such as unions would be offered alternative routes to protect businesses, according to France 24. Only union-organised protests would be authorised during nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, he said. In Lyon, the Rhône prefect decided to ban by decree all protests in the city this Saturday, October 24, according to The Hindu.

Total fees paid to smugglers on sea routes to Europe reached between US$ 388 million and US$ 509 million in 2025, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated, according to AllAfrica. Around 190,000 to 209,000 people were smuggled along the four main sea routes to Europe in 2025.

Ireland’s lower house of parliament approved by 79 votes to 71 a bill that scraps the requirement for UN approval before Irish troops can be deployed abroad, France 24 reported. Currently, three steps — dubbed a “triple lock” — must be taken before more than 12 members of the Irish defence forces can be sent on any mission: approval from the government, from parliament and from the UN, the last of which is now set to be scrapped. The legislation also raises from 12 to 50 the number of soldiers that could be deployed without parliamentary approval. Opposition parties warned that the move threatens the country’s longstanding military neutrality.

Thousands of people rallied in Lisbon, Porto and other Portuguese cities on Tuesday evening, Deutsche Welle reported. Demonstrators vow to continue their campaign for affordable housing after police cleared tent camps and arrested at least 55 people.

The Russian-Slovak inter-governmental commission for economic, science and technical cooperation will hold a session in Moscow on October 26, the Slovak Foreign Ministry said late on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The restart of consultations follows repeated trips to Moscow by Prime Minister Robert Fico, including in May this year.

Thousands of students and teachers took to the streets across Greece on Wednesday to demand higher state funding for education, better facilities and less-crowded classrooms, according to Reuters. About 10,000 demonstrators, including school and university students, rallied peacefully in central Athens and its suburbs, according to police. G1 also reported protests by students, teachers and public servants in the country.

The yield on France's benchmark 10-year government bond surpassed 5% on Wednesday, its highest level since 2002, as investors demanded a higher return for holding the country's debt amid a budget standoff and violent street protests, according to Le Monde. According to the newspaper, the spread over the German 10-year bond, the eurozone's credit benchmark, surged to nearly 160 basis points.

President Emmanuel Macron criticized world leaders on Wednesday for making stupid comments about the rioting on the sidelines of protests in France and said images generated by artificial intelligence showed scenes that never took place in France, alongside claims that the country had been invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists. According to Le Monde, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that France had been hit by an invasion of extremist Islam, and US President Donald Trump said what is happening in France has to do with immigration.

French security forces arrested a man on Tuesday believed to be linked to ultra-left movements over the burning down of a historic town hall in Limoges, according to The Hindu. The man, 34 according to a source with knowledge of the case, was detained by officers of the RAID unit in the nearby town of Val d’Issoire, the Limoges prosecutor’s office said, and the Counter-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) was called in to investigate the suspected arson of the 1883 building, whose roof and belfry collapsed. In parliament, deputies reached an agreement on Tuesday to create a commission of inquiry into the weekend violence, according to Carta Capital.

Hours after police cleared their camps in Lisbon and Porto and arrested 55 people, thousands of protesters returned to two central squares to demonstrate against an intensifying housing crisis, according to Al Jazeera. Activists have demanded that the centre-right government withdraw a bill that makes evictions easier and ends rent caps on new leases, which passed a first parliamentary reading.

The student movement Student List, which has kept up constant protests in Serbia for two years, is fielding 250 candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary election and, according to the Guardian, poses the most serious challenge Aleksandar Vučić has faced in 12 years in power that the paper describes as increasingly authoritarian. Vučić stepped down as president last month, five months before the end of his second and last term under the constitution, with the aim of extending his hold on power as prime minister at the head of his Serbian Progressive party (SNS).

Italy on Tuesday approved the deployment of 500 troops to Milan after violent clashes as fuel price protests hit pasta production and food deliveries in southern Italy, France 24 reported. The government also announced new security measures aimed at tackling the kind of violent protests that damaged Milan's central shopping district when weekend rioters, many of them minors, looted stores and set fire to property, AP reported. A government decree calls for the deployment of an additional 500 soldiers to Milan through the end of the year, requires parents to pay for damage caused by minors and makes it easier to prosecute minors over 14.

The French government will reinforce police with troops and mount a large security operation for protests planned for Saturday, the government said on Tuesday, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said “the deployment next Saturday will be massive” and that the immediate priority was to restore order after rioting and looting hit Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities on October 17. He also said further curfews will be imposed where necessary, according to NHK World.

The spread between French and German 10-year yields is the highest since the closing levels of January 2012, when the eurozone was in the midst of a credit crisis that required interventions by the European Central Bank, according to Le Monde. The yield on France's 10-year OAT government bond rose to 4.94% on Tuesday, more than 150 basis points above the comparable German government bond, considered the European benchmark of creditworthiness. The Guardian puts the spread at 143.6bps, on track for its highest closing level since early 2012, amid a wave of street protests in France.

Multiple Google Cloud services were experiencing serious network disruptions at its European data centre in London on Tuesday, according to the US technology giant's service health website. British digital bank Revolut said it was facing disruption to multiple services, which a source close to the matter attributed to the Google Cloud outage. Google said the incident began at 06:08 GMT on Tuesday.

Italy’s government will dispatch 500 army troops to “defend Milan” after two days of unrest that saw demonstrators clash with police, loot shops and vandalise property, according to Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini cited by the Guardian on Monday. Saturday’s protest over poor public services and rising costs descended into looting in the city centre, with several hundred hooded protesters setting bins ablaze, and stores including Decathlon, Arc’teryx and Vodafone were ransacked.

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are set to travel to Norway this week for the next round of negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine, according to three people familiar with the matter. The people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the schedule is tentative and could change.

US President Donald Trump blamed immigration for the unrest in France, saying Paris will be a Muslim city very soon: “The whole world was coming in, and as you know, Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn’t the deal,” he said, adding: “We closed our borders. He didn’t.” Vice President JD Vance, a day earlier, wrote on X that “Western liberals imported the third world into France”. The Saturday protests, called over rising fuel prices and falling purchasing power, escalated in several cities, leaving a historic town hall torched and 1,800 arrests, according to The Guardian.

Anti-government demonstrations in Albania continued for a seventh consecutive day as Prime Minister Edi Rama renewed his offer of unconditional dialogue with protesters amid violent clashes with police in the capital, Tirana, local media reported. Riot squads deployed tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds near Rinia Park, and confrontations escalated as demonstrators hurled stones, pyrotechnics and Molotov cocktails at officers stationed near the Interior Ministry.

Paris police announced a curfew in specific areas of the city, from Monday night until Tuesday morning, and banned protests in certain areas overnight, Le Monde reported. “I’m absolutely determined to restore public order,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, adding that the government was ready to impose a state of emergency “if needed”. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign on Monday, after more than 2,500 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured. On Saturday, some half a million people turned out across France to denounce the surging cost of living, a culmination of four weeks of protests that began with high school students.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Monday he does not rule out imposing a state of emergency to restore order, speaking after a crisis meeting, France 24 reported. He said he had asked regional authorities to impose “localised” curfews on Monday evening, notably to protect businesses.

Italian police detained 271 young people in Milan on Sunday during unrest, after a second day of protests over poor public services and rising costs, authorities said, in a report by the Jerusalem Post. Of those taken to police stations, 32 were arrested, including 23 minors and 13 foreign nationals, police said on Monday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed accusations of Russian involvement in unrest in Europe, calling them “absurd” and saying that nobody takes such accusations seriously anymore, “not even in Europe itself,” in remarks to Zvezda News on Monday, TRT World reported.

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama rejected protesters’ demands that he resign on the sixth day of violent anti-government protests; Albanian police fired water cannon and tear gas on Sunday. Le Monde reports the same refusal to resign on the sixth day of violent demonstrations.

Milan saw a second day of clashes between youths and police around Piazza Duomo on Sunday, October 18, with bottles thrown, stores ransacked and property destroyed by mostly black-clad vandals, according to Le Monde. Police arrested about 70 people since Saturday, according to the Ansa news agency, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called a security meeting for Monday. The clashes began on Saturday on the sidelines of a sanctioned demonstration against the high cost of living.

Roughly 1,500 shops and retailers were damaged during the protests that swept France over the weekend, many of them looted, according to the head of the Retail and Trade Federation, cited by France 24.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Europe will not be able to cover its gas deficit without Russian supplies, according to TASS. He attributed the deficit to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the shutdown of the plant in Qatar as a result of attacks in March.

Police in Paris arrested 855 people during Saturday’s protests, a record for a single event, according to The Guardian. The city’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, said whole streets in the capital were devastated. In Limoges, central France, the town hall was largely lost to a fire set by masked protesters, the top regional official told the AFP news agency.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ruling coalition failed to win a single seat in the Senate election. Candidates linked to opposition parties won 22 of the 27 seats up for grabs, keeping control of the 81-seat house, according to AP. Babis called the result “catastrophic.”

The CGT, France’s biggest trade union, said more than 500,000 people have joined Saturday’s nationwide protests over the cost of living, according to France 24. A protester had their hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, a police source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), and masked protesters smashed the glass doors of Lille’s town hall as they forced their way in.

Police in Albania fired what appeared to be rubber bullets at protesters on Saturday, the fifth day of mass student protests demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama step down, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Reuters video footage showed police firing a shotgun toward crowds outside the education ministry during clashes with protesters, and reporters found rubber pellets on the ground; pellets hit two Reuters journalists and several protesters, leaving round marks. Rama rejected calls to resign on Thursday, as thousands of protesters smashed windows and fought running battles with riot police firing water cannon and tear gas in the capital.

Protesters attended a demonstration against the “high cost of living” in Paris, according to an AFP photo dated October 17. French police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Paris who were protesting against rising prices and what they described as the erosion of the country’s social model, according to the Times of India. Clashes were also reported in Marseille, where protesters hurled projectiles at police, who responded by deploying tear gas.

The two-day European Union (EU) summit concluded in Brussels on Friday without a breakthrough on the bloc’s long-term budget, as rising security commitments and soaring energy costs exposed a growing gap between Europe’s ambitions and its ability to deliver, according to CGTN. Leaders ended more than five hours of debate on October 15 without narrowing their differences, according to the Brussels Signal.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama blamed “foreign hands” for the student-led protests calling for his resignation, which have turned increasingly violent, according to Al Jazeera. In a video address on Friday, he said there are “foreign hands that do not wish for Albania to be at peace”. Police said 160 people were detained over alleged acts of violence on Thursday evening, and the protests spread to Elbasan, Shkodra and Korca, where demonstrators broke windows and set fire to rubbish bins, local media reported.

Thousands of students took to the streets on Friday (16) in Rome, Milan, Bologna and Turin to demand structural improvements in public education and protest against the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to Opera Mundi. Student groups denounced the progressive deterioration of school infrastructure and demanded that the 13 billion euros earmarked for military spending be redirected to education. Representatives of Opposizione Studentesca d’Alternativa announced a general strike for October 30, and organisers estimate that 400,000 people took part in protests across Italy. According to the police union Siulp, at least 18 officers were injured during the march outside the Education Ministry.

European leaders expressed support for Volodymyr Zelensky in Brussels on Friday, at a moment of great tension between Kyiv and US President Donald Trump, according to G1. European Council President António Costa said it was not the time to withdraw support for Ukraine or to ease sanctions on Russia. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “Starlink is really needed for Ukraine” and admitted Europe cannot replace the system in the short term.

EU leaders failed to reach agreement on the 2028-2034 multiannual financial framework worth €1.76 trillion ($1.97 trillion), according to TASS, which attributed the deadlock to disagreements between net contributors and beneficiaries. Discussions continue at an extraordinary meeting on November 26. Macron warned that striking the budget deal is urgent before the French pre-campaign, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Demonstrators broke into Albania's Ministry of Education building overnight and set fire to the interior, according to police, who counted 16 arrests. Hundreds of students gathered, threw rocks at the ministry and demanded better university conditions and the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, according to Al Jazeera. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of Tirana on Wednesday, setting fire to a government building and two banks and throwing rocks at police during a protest against rising education costs and corruption, according to Reuters, in a text published by Brasil 247.

The Vatican said Pope Leo XIV, 71, was diagnosed with lung cancer after surgeons removed part of his right lung on Tuesday, according to a medical bulletin. To make the procedure curative, the lower lobe of his right lung was removed using a video-assisted technique. The surgery lasted 90 minutes and had no complications, and the Vatican did not detail the recovery outlook or the course of treatment, according to Al Jazeera.

The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Ken McCallum, said Iran has broadened its targeting in Britain to military sites and that the suspected plot at US-run RAF Fairford was not an isolated incident, according to the Los Angeles Times. McCallum also said British authorities have made more than 50 arrests in “Iran-linked operations” in the past 12 months, according to The Hill.

A cyberattack targeted a Danish software system used in at least 380 supermarkets in France, forcing some stores to throw out frozen produce, according to The New York Times.

More than 160,000 schoolchildren, students and trade unionists marched in cities across France as protests over high school education continued into a third week, according to The Guardian. France’s interior ministry said 161,500 people had turned out across the country on Tuesday, after more than 260,000 last Tuesday and 75,000 on Thursday. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined an early morning protest outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and said: “Young people are not being included in the conversation.” Riot police fired teargas at the end of Tuesday’s marches in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris, and an estimated 90% of France’s universities were disrupted, according to the newspaper.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev summoned the Russian ambassador after two merchant ships were struck by drones off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast and one of them sank, according to the BBC. Eleven sailors from the sunken ship were missing at sea on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The other ship, the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3, sailing under the Maltese flag, was hit 18 nautical miles from the town of Byala, and all 15 crew were rescued, according to the BBC.

The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Ken McCallum, said Russia remained “aggressor number one” and that the agency’s terrorism and state-threats operational missions are now of pretty much equal scale, according to BBC News. He said MI5 had made over 50 arrests in the last year over Iran-linked activities. McCallum also said Iran is trying to hit military sites in the UK and that the suspected plot to attack a US-run military air base in September is “not unique”, according to ABC News, in a story distributed by The Associated Press (AP).

Pope Leo XIV was admitted on Tuesday morning to the Gemelli hospital in Rome for surgery to remove a nodule in his lung, according to G1. The Vatican did not say whether the nodule is malignant or benign, but said it is “well controlled and at an early stage”. Cardinal Piero Parolin said he is “worried” about the surgery “because no one expected something like this”, but that the pontiff is “serene”. The surgery was scheduled for 11 a.m. Brasília time, according to sources at the Holy See.

Nuremberg airport in Germany briefly suspended flights over an “aviation emergency”, according to The New York Times. Fighter jets were scrambled to escort a flight from Corfu, according to the Associated Press (AP).

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia are visiting Ceuta months after more than 70,000 migrants arrived from Morocco, France24 reported. The visit has divided residents and risks reigniting diplomatic tensions with Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla.

Hungary's government submitted to Parliament late on September 14 a bill that would remove anti-LGBTQ+ rules prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality” to under-18s implemented by Viktor Orban's former nationalist government, according to Reuters, in a text published by The Straits Times. Orban's government, which was ousted after 16 years in an election in April, promoted a Christian-conservative agenda and in 2021 banned the “display and promotion of homosexuality” and gender change in media content accessible by under-18s. Hungary's new Justice Minister Marta Gorog said in May that Hungary would need to revise legislation restricting access to LGBTQ+ content after the EU's top court ruled in April that the restrictions breached EU law.

A cyberattack raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of supermarkets in France to as high as 50°C, causing fires and spoiling food, according to The Hindu. The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday (October 12, 2026) that a “large-scale” attack was affecting connected refrigerators at several major food retailers across the country, leading to food losses and fires. According to Al Jazeera, shelves were left empty across France, as hackers remotely raised temperatures and forced hundreds of stores to discard food.

Russia said it had sold more than $320 billion worth of hydrocarbons to European countries since 2022, despite sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine, according to France24. Russian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of energy Alexander Novak put the volume of energy resource deliveries to European Union (EU) countries from 2022 to today at $320.7 billion. According to Novak, European countries bought $21.3 billion worth of Russian hydrocarbons in the first nine months of 2026 alone.

France readied on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) for fresh nationwide demonstrations in support of students who have been protesting poor classroom conditions for weeks, with authorities and participants wary of further violence, according to The Hindu. Demonstrations on Thursday (October 8, 2026) saw more than 70,000 people take to the streets across the country, with about 500 people arrested. On Monday (October 12, 2026), only 130 of France’s 3,700 lycees were closed, according to the education ministry, which stated that “the number of school closures is falling... the violence is intensifying”.

Poland says two Turkish citizens were arrested in Germany on suspicion of setting fire to a Starlink station in Poland. According to DW, the two Turks were detained by German police at the request of Polish services, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the fire an act of “hybrid warfare.” Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said Poland had “absolutely no doubt” that Russian services were behind the fire last month at the station in Wola Krobowska, and the pair await transfer to Poland under a European Arrest Warrant.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Moroccan navy vessels entered Spanish waters off Ceuta without permission after late July’s mass migrant crossing, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Straits Times. Sánchez played down the incidents, calling them isolated.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Monday that the country faces a “shadow war” more far-reaching than the Cold War, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Straits Times. The shadow war’s objective extends far beyond anything seen during the Cold War, he said. The president of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV), Sinan Selen, said Russia employs virtually every tool in its hybrid operations, from disinformation campaigns and information manipulation to sabotage and assassination plots prepared in Germany.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, said at the Warsaw Security Forum that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would destroy “anything and everything” if someone was “foolish enough” to attack the alliance, that it would block the initial attack, blunt a persistent offensive and, if required, break the enemy’s forces and war-fighting system, without mentioning Russia by name, according to Al Jazeera.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Russia did interfere with the Brexit referendum and warned that similar activities were taking place in France and Germany. Burnham said he had received the clear answer that there was. He did not provide further details about the type or extent of Moscow’s activity during the referendum. It is the first time a UK prime minister has said Russia sought to sway the 2016 Brexit poll.

The EU approved the 22nd package of anti-Russian sanctions and blacklisted about 1,600 companies and individuals linked to the defense sector, according to the bloc’s diplomacy chief, Kaja Kallas, in a post on X. The designations list expanded from 3,100 to 4,700 entries, with sanctions on 826 companies and 743 individuals, according to the Council resolution published in the Official Journal of the EU. EU foreign ministers formally adopted the bloc’s largest-ever expansion of its Russia sanctions blacklist, targeting nearly 1,600 people and companies linked to the country’s military-industrial complex, according to The Moscow Times.

The EU will limit the number of hybrid vehicles imported from China to 350,000 a year, the European Commission has confirmed. Brussels used World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to impose the 350,000 vehicle-a-year quota quickly, which will halve Chinese market share to 3%. The safeguard measure is expected to take effect as soon as December, according to Bloomberg.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford, “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, according to the official announcement. The laureates’ models, used by central banks and governments, allow well-timed fiscal and monetary policy measures to reduce the economy’s peaks and troughs.

Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus Grynkewich said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is deliberately ambiguous about what would trigger Article 5, in an interview with Poland’s TVP World, according to TASS. According to him, the alliance could also invoke “other articles” if needed, including Article 4, which calls for consultations within the NATO Council if a member state believes its security is under threat.

Poland detained on Sunday a man accused of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, after an emergency meeting of the security services about a potential attack against both men, according to DW, with Tusk confirming the detention and praising the police’s “swift and decisive action”. Le Monde blames the far right for the attempt in the headline of its October 12 story.

Two German opposition parties, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the BSW (Bündnis Soziale Gerechtigkeit und Wirtschaftliche Vernunft), called for restoring economic ties with Russia, following the example of US President Donald Trump’s diesel deal with Moscow, challenging Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s sanctions policy, according to RT. The joint resolution is scheduled for a vote in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament in Magdeburg on October 14. The AfD and the BSW hold a combined majority following September’s regional elections, although the state legislature has no authority to lift federal or EU sanctions against Russia.

Raphaël Glucksmann won the French centre-left primary with 66.13% of the vote and will be the centre-left candidate in France’s 2027 presidential election. Glucksmann, 46, who leads the Place Publique movement, won in the first round with an outright majority. More than 120,000 people voted, far fewer than the 2.8 million who took part in the Socialists’ 2011 primary.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it is clear that Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum. According to him, when he arrived at 10 Downing Street, he asked whether Moscow interfered in the 2016 vote on leaving the European Union (EU) and was given the clear answer that yes, there was.

European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius called for no longer expecting any US help in settling the Ukrainian crisis, according to TASS. He argued that the European Union (EU) and Ukraine should draw up and implement an independent peace strategy.

The European Parliament approved resolution P10_TA(2026)0342, calling for the Muslim Brotherhood's inclusion in the EU list of terrorist organizations on Thursday, with 381 votes in favor, 167 against and 15 abstentions. The text also calls on the Council to include entities and individuals linked to the Muslim Brotherhood on the EU list of terrorist organizations.

Poland's police said on Sunday they had received information about a possible plot to attack Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, according to the Associated Press. Security services, police and representatives of the Interior Ministry had an emergency meeting scheduled to start at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Sunday.

Thousands of people marched across Europe to demand an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the speaker post in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament, the first far-right party to take the role since World War II, according to AFP. The party took nearly 44 percent of the vote in the state last month, and its candidate, Tobias Rausch, won 48 votes, with 29 against and five abstentions.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a comprehensive government response at the end of October and rejected accusations of a police crackdown, as students press for more resources, building repairs and additional teachers. More than 6,000 people have been taken into police custody in recent weeks and hundreds of schools have closed, most of them minors with no previous criminal records. The Ministry of National Education said that 224 schools were completely closed and 151 were partially reopening, based on projected figures.

European states, Canada, Japan and the United Nations (UN) came out in defence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against United States (US) sanctions, after Washington sanctioned the court itself on Friday. The ICC said the move was an “assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order” and called on its 125 member states to defend the institution. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington would ban transactions with the “rogue court”, cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate.

Montenegro detained and ordered the expulsion of five Russian citizens, including Rybar network founder Mikhail Zvinchuk, citing threats to national and internal security, according to OCCRP. The Associated Press reported that Zvinchuk worked in the Russian Defence Ministry’s press office and founded Rybar, a Telegram channel with more than 1.5 million followers. The United States has offered up to $10 million for information on him and other Rybar figures over attempts to interfere in the 2024 elections.

NATO will host its annual nuclear deterrence exercise Steadfast Noon beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2026, in Italy, with 17 nations and no live weapons, according to the alliance itself. The drills run from October 13 to 23, with 17 member states, according to RT.

Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali won the by-election in Holborn and St Pancras with 12,292 votes against 8,928 for Zack Polanski of the Greens, for Keir Starmer’s seat, with Starmer replaced as prime minister in July and stood down as a lawmaker in September, according to The Hindu. NYT World notes that Labour held off the Greens in the race for Starmer’s former London seat.

The French police have made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when students, most of them under 18, began protesting to demand more education funding, according to the Interior Ministry. On Thursday, students barricaded the Lycée Hélène Boucher in northeastern Paris with garbage bins before police moved in with tear gas, according to the Associated Press. The Education Ministry said 375 schools were fully or partially closed on Thursday. Al Jazeera recorded the use of tear gas and water cannons against students in Paris.

Thousands of people marched in Madrid in homage to Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who became a symbol of the struggle against evictions, in a march from Sol to her former home, according to laSexta. The Government Delegation put the number of participants in the housing protest at 20,000. The three-kilometer route featured banners such as “el rentismo mata” and the chant “no son muertes, son asesinatos”, with events also in Valencia, Seville and Santander.

The homemade bomb left outside Bank of America’s Paris branch, in the city’s 8th arrondissement, on the night of March 27, was an operation orchestrated by pro-Iran groups, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded in a letter rogatory dated July 29 sent to French justice, according to Le Monde. According to the FBI’s investigations, an Iraqi identified as Mohammad A.-S., arrested in Turkey, is suspected of having orchestrated 18 attacks or planned attacks in Europe between March and May against American interests or targets linked to the Jewish community, in response to the military offensive the US and Israel launched against Iran in February.

High school students across France were preparing for a fresh day of protests on Thursday, with entrances blocked at hundreds of schools since late September, according to AFP, in a text published by Pakistan TV. The protests, on a second day of mass mobilization in the week, denounce missing teachers, overloaded timetables and dilapidated classrooms. More than 6,500 people, mostly minors, have been arrested since the mobilization began, according to AFP, in a text republished by The Standard.

A Russian overnight missile and drone attack hit Ukrainian cities on October 7 and killed at least 26 people, according to the Kyiv Independent. In Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region, a Russian cruise missile hit a residential building, killing at least 20 people, including five children, and wounding at least 55, according to the Kyiv Independent. The Kyiv Post later reported a toll of 18 dead in Pryluky and 24 overall, citing updated figures from the Ukrainian emergency service, as rescue operations continued in the rubble of a five-story building.

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday that the agency does not yet have the full picture of this event and is not able to conduct a full risk assessment. The WHO asked for timely, complete and transparent information sharing from Russia to clarify conflicting reports. Darya Shipilova, 28, an employee at the anti-plague research institute in the eastern city of Irkutsk, died two days after falling ill with cold-like symptoms. The Russian authorities deny a connection with the institute and say she died from “pneumonia of an unknown aetiology”.

Madrid’s tenants union announced the death of Maricarmen Abascal, 87, whose eviction sparked nationwide protests over Spain’s housing crisis and a political row that triggered early elections. Abascal was forcibly removed on a stretcher from her apartment of more than 70 years in September after she was unable to afford rent increases. The apartment had been purchased by an investment firm that sought to hike her rent by 230%, according to The Guardian. The wave of outrage led Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call a snap general election after rightwing and far-right parties voted down two emergency decrees.

France’s interior minister suspended on Wednesday the use of stun grenades by police at student-led demonstrations, as allegations of police brutality mounted after days of sometimes violent demonstrations across the country.

As of October 5, Europe’s underground gas storage facilities were 72.83% full, 15.13 percentage points below the five-year average for that date and compared with 82.9% a year earlier, according to TASS. EU storage facilities contain around 79.8 billion cubic metres of gas, 11.7 billion less than a year ago and the lowest level since 2013.

Marco Rubio will speak on Wednesday near the Acropolis and call for a renewal of the Western spirit, an inheritance stretching from Athens and Rome to the founding of the American Republic, according to the Associated Press (AP), in a text republished by The Hindu. In Athens to discuss economic, energy and security cooperation with Greece.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called an early general election on Monday, bringing forward a vote scheduled for 2027, according to Deutsche Welle (DW). The vote was set for 29 November, in an announcement made on Monday, 5 October 2026, according to Vocemundi, in an agencies compilation.

About 250 thousand demonstrators took to the streets across France on Tuesday, with unions and teachers joining high school students demanding better learning conditions, according to France 24. Protests with student walkouts spread across the country and closed schools amid public discontent, according to The Washington Post. A French policeman was charged with violence after firing a tear gas grenade at close range at a 14-year-old student during last week’s protests, according to France 24.

Germany received 12,102 applications for conscientious objection to military service between January and the end of August 2026, more than triple the 3,879 applications filed throughout 2025, according to the Funke and RND media groups. In July and August alone, more than 6,200 applications arrived, above the 5,862 filed in the first half of the year, the Berliner Morgenpost reported.

Iranian men accused of spying went on trial at Woolwich Crown Court on charges of engaging in conduct likely to assist Iran’s foreign intelligence service between August 2024 and March 2025, according to the Washington Post. The men targeted journalists for “serious violence”, BBC News reported.

Police fired tear gas at protesters blockading French high schools on October 6, according to Al Jazeera. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said there can be no tolerance for violence in the student protests, G1 Mundo reported. At least 715 police officers and 215 adolescents were injured in the clashes, according to Lecornu’s office. The Interior Ministry has arrested 6,100 people since the start of the protests, the majority of them minors, according to Al Jazeera.

Lithuania's parliament voted Tuesday, in a first reading, to advance a constitutional amendment that would remove the ban on weapons of mass destruction from the constitution, LRT reported. The vote passed with 106 lawmakers in favour, 18 against and six abstaining. A final vote cannot be held until at least three months later. TASS described the vote as a removal of the ban on nuclear weapons deployment.

Germany's federal prosecutor's office said that former BND president August Hanning was arrested on Tuesday on espionage allegations, according to The Guardian. Hanning served as president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from December 1998 to November 2005. A former aide, identified only as Manfred D., was also arrested the same day. According to Deutsche Welle, current findings suggest that Manfred D. provided Hanning with approximately 2,000 documents, many of them containing classified information.

France is set for nationwide strikes as school protests escalate, according to The New York Times. Between 400 and 500 French secondary schools had lessons suspended on October 5, after almost three weeks of pupil blockades, according to Brussels Signal.

State lawmakers in Saxony-Anhalt are voting to elect Germany’s first far-right statehouse speaker since 1945, according to The New York Times. The 83-seat legislature elects the speaker, a post that traditionally goes to the largest party, and the AfD won its best regional result and is in a strong position to form Germany’s first far-right regional government since World War II, according to The Hindu.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap election for 29 November after a parliamentary defeat, according to the BBC. The conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox voted against the government’s housing measures, which sought to prevent the eviction of tenants. Sánchez called for voters to mobilise for a much bigger progressive majority to defeat the elites and conquer social rights.

US President Donald Trump said the United States moved its bombers out of RAF Fairford because of “some threats” to the base, according to the BBC. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US still has full confidence in the security of all its bases and that British authorities have been cooperative since the incident.

Police clashed with demonstrators outside Kosovo’s parliament, who demanded the passage of a bill to curb the war crimes court, according to France24. The court is a hybrid tribunal: although it is part of Kosovo’s judiciary, it is staffed with international judges and based in The Hague, according to Balkan Insight.

A 15-year-old student had his hand blown off during a protest in Lens, northern France, after picking up a sting-ball grenade fired by riot police, authorities said. A police union source said he appeared to have picked it up to throw it back when it exploded in his hand. By late morning, 413 schools were subject to actions or disruptions, according to the education ministry.

Milorad Dodik, banned from public office for six years, declared his party's victory in Bosnia's election and said it would hold a “vast majority”, according to Euronews. With 95% of ballots counted, his candidate, Zeljka Cvijanovic, was on track to retain her seat in the tripartite presidency, according to Euronews. The vote was shaped by economic pressures, the prospect of joining the EU and ethnic tensions, according to the Associated Press, in a text republished by ABC News.

Hungary is expected to lift its veto on the technical phase of Ukraine's EU accession talks, with letters on internal market and competition chapters, according to the Financial Times, in a text cited by TASS. Full political support would hinge on Ukraine's parliament passing a bill on minority educational rights on October 12, according to the Financial Times, in a text cited by TASS.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap general election in a televised address on Monday morning, three days after right-wing parties torpedoed emergency housing legislation, according to The Guardian. The announcement followed Parliament's rejection of housing relief measures, according to Al Jazeera.

Bosnia-Herzegovina's three-member presidency is set to be dominated by nationalists from the three major ethnic groups, with counting nearly concluded. Announced as the winners were Serb nationalist Zeljka Cvijanovic, backed by disqualified Serb secessionist leader Milorad Dodik, Bosniak moderate leftist Denis Becirovic and Croat nationalist Darijana Filipovic, according to DW.

Polls closed in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday evening, with about 3.4 million voters eligible to take part in the country’s general election, according to DW. Milorad Dodik, leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats in Republika Srpska, announced the victory of his political force at all levels and thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his support ahead of the vote. The Central Election Commission said the party’s candidates, Savo Minic and Zeljka Cvijanovic, were winning the races for Republika Srpska’s president and the entity’s Serb member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency, respectively.

Lessons will be totally or partly suspended in 400 to 500 schools in France on Monday because security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, the education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Sunday, according to The Guardian. The minister said 24 schools have been burnt or ransacked and 78 education staff members injured since student unrest began last week.

The United List, the centrist, pro-Ukraine party of Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs, won the country's parliamentary election by a wide margin, Al Jazeera reported. According to Reuters, the governing party secured the biggest parliamentary election victory since Latvia regained independence in 1991 and was set to retain power and form a pro-Ukraine coalition.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, October 4, for talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Kyiv Post. Merz said he traveled to Ukraine because the country needs support and that, if Russia is not stopped, its war machine will sooner or later turn against the West. He was joined by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and executives from the defense and energy sectors, France 24 reported.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged member states to blame Russia for any incident they consider suspicious, even without irrefutable evidence of involvement, according to RT. Rutte praised Estonia's recent accusation against Russia and called on other nations to follow suit.

Bosnia and Herzegovina holds general elections, with more than 3.4 million registered voters electing the tripartite Presidency, members of the House of Representatives (the lower house of parliament) and the legislative bodies of the entities, according to the Mehr News Agency. Polling stations open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 7:00 p.m. local time, according to the same agency.

Aleksandar Vucic, who resigned as Serbia’s president on September 27, said at a pre-election rally that the country will continue to defend its national interests and will not relinquish its traditional friendly ties with Russia, according to TASS. Snap parliamentary elections will be held on October 25, and Vucic will lead the ruling Serbian Progressive Party’s list and become its candidate for prime minister.

A survey by the INSA institute for the Bild newspaper put Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) at 18 percent, its worst postwar result in Germany, according to RT. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) stood at 30 percent, its best result since the party’s founding in 2013, in the same poll of 1,202 eligible voters conducted between September 28 and October 2.

Exit polls published by Latvian public broadcaster LSM put Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs’s centre-right United List in the lead with 35.6 percent in Saturday’s parliamentary election. Coalition partner the Union of Greens and Farmers appeared with 3.7 percent, below the five-percent threshold to enter parliament.

Portugal’s public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into whether the government acted within the law when it authorised the use of the Lajes Base in the Azores by the United States during the conflict with Iran, according to Reuters, in a text republished by G1. Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said, on the other hand, that Portugal was not involved in the conflict and that the use of the base respected international law.

On German Unity Day, thousands of people took part in demonstrations in Berlin and Stuttgart against the potential return of military conscription and Germany’s rearmament, according to TASS. Police estimated around 5,800 people in the German capital, while organisers say more than 20,000 took part in Berlin and about 15,000 in Stuttgart, according to the Berliner Zeitung. Participants called for the lifting of all sanctions and a halt to arms shipments, including to Ukraine, according to TASS.

French police arrested around 5,000 people since Monday, most of them teenagers, and about 400 high schools — roughly one in 10 — were closed on Friday due to the unrest, according to Reuters. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed nearly 5,000 arrests by early October, with 1,949 people detained on Thursday alone and another 1,747 on Friday, according to the Tehran Times.

Fresh protests over housing flared in Madrid and other Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after parliament narrowly rejected the government’s proposed relief measures for tenants, France24 reported. The government introduced the measures after nationwide protests following the eviction, on a stretcher, of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from a Madrid apartment she had occupied for around seven decades.

A sixth man arrested in connection with the suspected terrorist plot at Fairford, a Royal Air Force (RAF) base, has been released on bail, the Guardian reported. The 25-year-old, a dual UK-Iranian national, was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts under section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006. Counter-terrorism police said a quantity of petrol, but no explosive devices, was found in the vans that sparked the alert near the airbase.

Two Iranian men accused of preparing a homemade bomb attack on Manchester’s Jewish community identified potential targets including the city’s Jewish museum and Heaton Park synagogue, the Guardian reported. Rahman Salehi, 34, from Salford, and Salam Ahmadyan, 36, from Liverpool were charged on Friday with preparing to commit an act of terrorism or assisting another to commit an act of terrorism. According to the prosecution, the pair were in contact with a third party, also assessed to be an Iranian national, who directed and coordinated the plot and sent instructions on how to assemble a homemade explosive device.

Polls opened in Latvia for an election taking place against the backdrop of perceived security threats from Russia and a cost-of-living squeeze, according to Al Jazeera. About 1.5 million people are eligible to vote in the country’s 11th parliamentary election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Two Iranian men have been charged in relation to an alleged terror plot targeting Manchester's Jewish community, according to The Guardian. The men, both in their 30s, were arrested on 20 September, on the eve of Yom Kippur.

The man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe has been charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism, including against Nigel Farage, police have said. The charge, according to counter-terrorism police, relates to activity alleged to have taken place between 31 May 2024 and 8 July this year.

Riot police clashed with students as education protests rage in France, according to the BBC. Student protests involve blockades and tear gas, according to The New York Times.

The United Kingdom relies on the United States for about 30% of its diesel and holds reserve supplies for 42 days, and transport minister Keir Mather said on Friday that the country has a wide range of fuel sources and is in talks with other European countries, according to The Guardian. Europe is weighing the release of new diesel stocks under pressure from the United States, according to sources cited by Reuters.

About 400 schools in France remained closed on Friday (October 2) amid student protests, and the toll includes about 100 schools severely damaged and 40 headteachers injured, according to The Guardian. Nearly 3,000 high school students, aged 15 to 18, have been detained since the start of the protests, according to the Interior Ministry.

European Union interior ministers met in Luxembourg on Thursday to discuss ways to strengthen border controls and curb undocumented migration into the 27-member bloc, according to Deutsche Welle.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the country had used its FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Straits Times. In a Telegram message, Zelensky wrote that it was the missile’s “first combat use”. He did not say where the missile had been used or against what target.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the student protests, according to The Guardian. Police counted about 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents outside high schools across the country, with more than 160 shut down. Since the start of the protests, hundreds of high school students aged 15 to 18 have been detained, including 625 on Wednesday alone, according to the Interior Ministry, and more than 80 police officers and firefighters and 120 pupils and teachers have been injured.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would consider using all weapons at the country's disposal in the event of a direct attack on Russia, including Kaliningrad, according to Bloomberg. The Hindustan Times also reported the warning about using all types of weapons if Kaliningrad is attacked.

British counter-terrorism police arrested a 27-year-old man in Westminster on Thursday on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts under section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006, according to The Guardian. The detainee is a UK-Iranian dual national and the arrest was made in connection with the incident at RAF Fairford, according to Counter Terrorism Policing, quoted by the BBC. A second man, 26, a UK national, was questioned under caution.

About 30 universities joined on Thursday (October 1) the high-school blockade movement spreading across France, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). High-school students are demanding mainly the replacement of absent teachers and more resources for education. On Tuesday, teenagers set fire to rubbish bins and threw projectiles at police, who responded with batons and tear gas, according to France24.

The average price of diesel in Europe hit an all-time high of 2.24 euros ($2.53) per litre, according to European Commission data cited by Mehr News. Since the US-Israeli war on Iran, gasoline and diesel prices have rocketed due to decreases in supply and pauses in refining.

A year-old deal between France and Britain to return migrants crossing the Channel illegally on small boats has come to an end, the UK interior ministry said on Wednesday. The deal was agreed last year under Keir Starmer, then UK prime minister, as part of a post-Brexit reset and to ease tension between the neighbours. According to UK figures, some 1,500 people had been returned to France and just under the same number had in turn been accepted by Britain, RFI reported, citing AFP.

The US 10-year Treasury yield breached a level last seen in April 2002, rising 4 basis points to 5.3338%, according to LSEG data. In Europe, the French 10-year yield rose 11 basis points to 4.9501%, Italy’s was up 10 basis points to 4.7171%, and the UK 10-year yield rose 5 basis points to 5.483%.

The Trump administration has told Germany and France to draw down emergency diesel inventories to help ease global fuel prices or face a potential US diesel export ban, according to Reuters. The request was reported by three people close to the discussions.

French security forces detained more than 600 people on Wednesday, while dozens of police officers and gendarmes were wounded in the escalation of protests, which included high school blockades, according to the interior minister, in an AFP text republished by the Hindustan Times. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 625 people were detained in the blockades, pointed to an “expansion of the movement” and condemned an “escalation of violence” outside certain schools.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the United Kingdom could eventually rejoin the European Union, as his government considers options for reshaping relations with the bloc a decade after the Brexit referendum, according to RT. In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, he said Brexit had done “more harm than good” and that the current arrangement was holding back economic growth.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Danish Ambassador Rolf Holmboe and lodged a strong protest on September 30, according to TASS. Moscow accuses a Danish Air Force Fennec helicopter of “unprofessional and provocative actions” involving the Baltic Fleet corvette Soobrazitelny, which occurred on September 14 in international waters in the southwestern Baltic Sea, according to the same agency.

Russia views European factories producing arms for Kiev as military targets, according to a diplomat cited by the state-run TASS.

The United States (US) formally notified on Monday its withdrawal from the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body, according to The Guardian. The State Department confirmed the move and said that US participation, which requires an annual monetary contribution, “does not provide tangible benefits to US national security”, according to the Associated Press. [Only Russia and Belarus had left GRECO before], according to the Associated Press. The State Department also said that “the era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over”.

The Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, plans to allocate nearly €3.4 billion for the purchase of American Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC) systems equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 1,600 km, according to RT. At the beginning of September, the German Navy conducted its first test launches of Israeli LORA (Long Range Attack) ballistic missiles from an F125-class frigate, according to the same report.

More than 400 people, mostly minors, were detained on Tuesday over student protests at high schools across France, the French interior minister said, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). At least 400 schools were affected, with blockades driven by overcrowded classes and teacher shortages. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez spoke of 440 people detained, with two thirds taken into police custody.

British counter-terrorism police confirmed that no improvised explosive devices were found in the three vans searched near RAF Fairford and that a quantity of petrol was recovered from the vehicles. The five men released on police bail remain under investigation and must adhere to strict conditions.

Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said Estonia's accusations that Russia is allegedly behind the arson of a military plant in Tallinn are baseless, ill-considered and cannot be taken seriously, according to TASS. Peskov reiterated that Russia will continue its “special military operation” to fully ensure its national interests.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said an investigation by the Estonian Internal Security Service (KAPO) concluded that a fire at Estonian defense company Milrem Robotics was an arson attack commissioned by Russian security services, according to G1. The Kremlin denied involvement and called the Estonian accusation unfounded, the same outlet reported. According to ERR, Michal said he could state with full confidence that the attack on Milrem on the night of August 15 was an act of sabotage commissioned by Russian special services.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that a foreign actor was involved in the suspected bomb plot at the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Fairford in the United Kingdom, hours after the five suspects arrested close to the airbase were released on bail, but provided no evidence for his claims, according to The Guardian. After the suspects' release, it emerged that no explosive material had been found.

Hungary’s Parliament voted on Monday to lift the parliamentary immunity of three lawmakers, including Prime Minister Péter Magyar, according to The Associated Press (AP). Magyar is under investigation on suspicion of misdemeanor theft after he allegedly took a man’s mobile phone during a nightclub altercation and threw it into the Danube River in June 2024, according to AP. Lawmakers also lifted the immunity of two former ministers in Orbán’s government suspected of mismanagement of 17.3 billion forints in public funds and bribes of more than 12 billion forints, also according to AP.

Estonian security services launched a reconnaissance drone over the Baltic Sea, including over neutral waters within the airspace control sector, according to TASS. The drone took off from the island of Saaremaa and is flying at just over 1.5 km altitude, outside routes designated for civilian aviation, according to the agency.

Pope Leo XIV urged Russia and Ukraine to sit at the negotiating table to resolve the conflict, according to TASS. According to the agency, the pope said the Church has a responsibility to continually invite leaders, such as those of Russia and Ukraine, to dialogue. Reuters reported that the appeal was made on Monday and that the pontiff urged the two countries to discuss how to end their four-year war.

British police said the five men detained near the Fairford air base are UK nationals from London, and all of them were released on bail without immediate charge, according to The Guardian. For the newspaper, the absence of an immediate charge suggests they are not deemed to pose a serious and violent threat. Iran has said that bases used by the US to attack it, including Fairford, were “legitimate targets”. According to The Guardian, the question of whether Iran had a hand in the alleged plot remains open.

The Russian embassy in Belgium warned NATO that the alliance’s policy on Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad heightens the risk of a direct military confrontation. The diplomats said Russia has the means to repel potential aggression and stands ready to deploy its entire available arsenal of weapons, according to TASS.

An Italian court convicted three Egyptian security officials over the kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, according to Al Jazeera. On Monday, the three were sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping and a fourth defendant was acquitted. A judge said Major Magdi Sharif, from Egypt's General Intelligence, police Colonel Hisham Helmy and Colonel Ather Kamal were guilty of the aggravated kidnapping of Regeni, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Internazionale.

Five men arrested near the RAF Fairford base in the United Kingdom will be released on bail but remain under investigation, British police said, in an Associated Press (AP) report republished by The Boston Globe. All five are British nationals from London in their 20s, counter-terrorism police said. The head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing said the five were being released on bail “following extensive interviews and inquiries” and remain subject to strict conditions, according to Al Jazeera. Iran’s embassy in London condemned the “fabricated speculations” linking Tehran to the incident, in a statement cited by Al Jazeera.

The European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on 10 Russian judges, prosecutors and officials for preventing the Yabloko party from taking part in the State Duma elections, according to the Council of the EU, in a statement reported by TASS. The sanctions include a ban on entry into the EU. According to the Council, Yabloko was the only political party that openly opposed Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

Hungary’s parliament suspended Magyar’s immunity, with 139 lawmakers voting in favor and none against or abstaining, according to TASS. Magyar faces the accusation of taking a man’s mobile phone during a nightclub altercation in June 2024 and throwing it into the Danube River. He himself asked for his immunity to be suspended, saying he is ready to cooperate with investigators and has nothing to fear.

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, resigned on Sunday to pursue the prime minister’s post in an upcoming early parliamentary election, according to the AP. The election, the outlet said, will test his firm rule in the Balkan country after nearly two years of protests. The snap election is set for October 25, and a student-led movement is mounting the most serious challenge to his rule in more than a decade, according to Al Jazeera.

France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies secured a record 14 seats in the Senate, effectively quadrupling its number in the 348-seat chamber just months before a presidential election, according to The Guardian. It was the first time the party had cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a Senate caucus. The party entered the Senate for the first time with two seats in 2014, when it was known as the National Front, and won three seats in 2023.

Sweden’s Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson said on Monday, September 28, that she had failed to form a government with the three other parties in the left-wing bloc after the country’s September 13 general election. “Based on the discussions I have had, I can conclude overall that there is currently no possibility for me to form a government,” she told reporters. The speaker of parliament is expected to task another party leader, likely outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who currently leads a caretaker government, with trying to form a new government. Kristersson’s right-wing bloc, which includes the far-right Sweden Democrats party, narrowly lost the election, by 176 seats to 173, and will struggle to find a majority in parliament, according to Le Monde.

Five men were arrested on suspicion of preparing a “terrorist act” and explosive-related offenses in the Whelford area, next to Fairford base, according to DW. British counter-terrorism police are investigating whether Iran was behind a suspected bomb plot targeting RAF Fairford, a British air base used by US forces in operations against Iran, according to The Jerusalem Post, and US President Donald Trump praised the arrests, calling it an “amazing job”.

The EU began drawing up staged accession plans for Albania, Moldova, Ukraine and Montenegro, according to TASS, citing Politico. The new plans could for the first time provide clear guarantees and deadlines for completing accession talks, still according to TASS, citing Politico.

85 households in Whelford, about 1.6 km from RAF Fairford, were evacuated in the early hours of Sunday after authorities were alerted to suspicious vehicles, according to AFP. Police arrested five men on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act near the base, without confirming the nature or source of the threat, according to AFP. In March, the United Kingdom authorized the US to use Fairford for specific defensive operations against Iran, and since then US bombers have used the runway, according to AFP.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the UN amid worsening ties and fresh security tensions, according to DW. Lavrov made clear that Russia will veto any attempt by Germany and Japan to obtain permanent seats on the Security Council, according to AP.

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, resigned to pursue an attempt to become prime minister in an upcoming early parliamentary election, according to The Guardian. Serbia’s constitution bans him from seeking a third term, and he said he was leaving the presidency to lead his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the 25 October ballot. Vučić signed the resignation letter in an address to the nation and will head the SNS list as its candidate for prime minister, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and its allies won 14 of the French Senate’s 348 seats and formed a parliamentary group in the upper house for the first time in the party’s history, according to France 24. It is the first time the party has cleared the 10-seat threshold for a Senate parliamentary group. Nine party senators were elected on Sunday, on top of the three who won seats in 2023 — the other two of the 14 seats won by RN and its allies went to allies.

More than 5,000 people took part in Amsterdam in a nationwide demonstration against the Dutch authorities’ push toward militarization, according to the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, which cited the organizers, in a report by the Russian state news agency TASS. After a rally in Dam Square, demonstrators marched through central Amsterdam to Museumplein.

Rescue teams have recovered the bodies of six people killed in a building collapse following a blast in the historic centre of Athens, according to local authorities. Documents and belongings found with four of the victims – two men and two women – on Saturday indicated they were United States citizens, according to the Greek state broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and other local media. The two-storey building in the tourist district of Plaka collapsed on Friday, and the blast was attributed to a major gas leak by Athens Mayor Haris Doukas.

London's Metropolitan Police confirmed it is leading the investigation into an incident overnight near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, with five men arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, according to Le Monde. The five were initially arrested on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act near an air base in southwestern England used by the US Air Force. RAF Fairford is also being used by the US for strikes on Iranian missile sites targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz, according to France 24.

About 71 percent of voters voted against an initiative to tighten the constitutional rules of neutrality, in a referendum on Sunday, September 27, 2026, according to a projection by the polling institute GFS Bern for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG). In the preliminary count by the Federal Statistical Office, reported by the TASS news agency, the result was 68.6 percent opposed, 31.4 percent in favour and a turnout of 46.36 percent. The initiative sought to define Swiss neutrality as “perpetual and armed”.

Swiss voters are deciding on Sunday whether to approve a more restrictive form of neutrality that would block the country from imposing economic sanctions or cooperating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), according to Reuters. The proposal wants the constitution to stipulate that Switzerland cannot join or cooperate with any military or defence alliance unless attacked, and that it refrain from joining any sanctions unless approved by the United Nations. According to the Associated Press, the initiative is backed by a right-wing populist party that insists the Swiss government has gravitated too close to the European Union and NATO, notably over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Opinion polls suggest rejection: one of the latest surveys shows 68% against with 31% in favour, according to Reuters.

Rescue teams have recovered the bodies of six people killed in a building collapse following a blast in the historic centre of Athens, according to local authorities. Documents and belongings found on Saturday with four of the victims — two men and two women — indicated they were United States citizens, according to Greek state broadcaster ERT and other local media. Athens Mayor Haris Doukas said the blast that brought down the building in the tourist district of Plaka on Friday was believed to have been caused by a major gas leak.

The European Union (EU) announced on Saturday a 710 million euro package for people hit by crises, natural disasters or conflict, most of it for Africa, according to Le Monde. Of the total, 380 million euros go to sub-Saharan Africa for protecting vulnerable migrants, supporting voluntary return and reintegration, strengthening migration governance and responding to forced displacement. Another 252 million euros come from the emergency aid reserve for conflict, forced displacement, epidemics and natural catastrophes, including people in sub-Saharan Africa, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Ukraine to prepare for the coming winter.

Tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid on Saturday to protest the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman, calling for greater protection for tenants, according to AFP, in a text republished by RFI. Government authorities put the turnout at around 25,000, while the Madrid Tenants’ Union, which organised the protest, said over 300,000 had taken part; at the end, activists set up a camp in Puerta del Sol. According to the union, Abascal left the apartment where she had lived for 70 years after a real estate firm acquired the building and raised the rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros.

Tens of thousands of people protested in Madrid on Saturday over the government’s handling of the Ceuta migrant crisis, in a rally organised by Sociedad Civil Española and backed by the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox, according to Al Jazeera. The government put attendance at 20,000, while organisers said 180,000; demonstrators called for an early election. At the end of July, more than 70,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco, and most were later returned.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused European countries of making every effort to hamper a peace settlement and disrupt the negotiations sought by Donald Trump’s administration, in a speech at the UN General Assembly. Russia, together with other responsible states, he said, stands ready to contribute to stabilizing Hormuz and the Gulf, which he called a strategically important region.

More than 40,000 students took to the streets of Berlin against Germany’s proposed military service plans, some of them shredding call-up questionnaires. In more than 100 cities, the protests drew more than 45,000 students, after early call-ups for mandatory medical examinations. According to Germany’s Defence Ministry, about 1,000 young men who said they had no interest in serving have already completed the mandatory examinations since July.