The retired president of a German state court has accused chancellor Merkel of acting unconstitutionally, and of moving to build her own personal power at the expense of German democracy. Judge Michael Bertrams, former president of the constitutional court of North
Nearly one inmate a week on average has been mistakenly released from prison over the last decade, new figures reveal. Just under a quarter of those accidentally let go were serving time for burglary or violent offences. According to data
Prime Minister David Cameron has been told to divert money from the escalating foreign aid budget and instead help British flood victims. This follows the release of new estimates revealing the cost of this month’s disaster in Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire could
Police in Belgium have arrested two people on suspicion of plotting terror attacks in Brussels on New Year’s Eve. Anti-terror raids took place in Brussels, Flemish Brabant and Liege on Sunday and Monday, with police seizing military clothing and computer
British newspapers tend to bury bad news from Brussels on the international pages of their publications. It is as if what happens in Brussels is really not relevant to our lives in the UK. I have railed against this for years, to little
President Andrzej Duda on Monday signed into law a controversial bill reforming Poland’s constitutional court despite widespread domestic opposition and mounting alarm in the international community. Thousands of people have taken to the streets over changes pushed through by the
Civilian casualties of bombing Syria represent at least as great a crime as the Paris attacks, a senior hard left German politician has claimed. The leader of the Left Party in Germany’s Bundestag (Parliament) was comparing the anti-Islamic State coalition bombing Syria
Around 4,000 migrants and refugees were saved from waters between Italy and North Africa over the course of the Christmas weekend, with further rescue operations expected in the final days of an “exceptional” year, officials said Monday. The Italian coastguard
When I was one of those Westminster Tory twats who thought a good night out involved hanging around in the subsidised bars in the Houses of Parliament, I once came across a Labour Party researcher who demanded: “You’re Asian, you
France called Monday on the European Union to do more to detect false Syrian passports, especially in Greece and Italy, after two of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks were found to be carrying such documents. The attacks “unfortunately
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies will support British Prime Minister David Cameron if he wants to address Europe’s weaknesses but do not want a British Europe, an EU conservative leader told a German newspaper. Britain is due to hold
The mosque at the centre of the San Bernardino terrorist attack is back in the spotlight after one of the organisation’s clerics, Roshan Abbassi, was found to have had repeated contact with terrorist Syed Farook in the months before the deadly
A report by the Resolution Foundation, a London-based group that works to “shape the debate on economic and social policy” has called on the government to indulge in positive discrimination towards ethnic minorities to close the so-called ’employment gap’ between migrants
While millions across Europe recover from Christmas and prepare to celebrating new year’s eve at public firework displays, security services are scrambling to prevent terror attacks which will seek to target large gatherings of people enjoying the holiday. Vienna police are working
The number of primary school-aged children, some as young as four, beginning to “transition” their gender is rising rapidly in the UK. The popularity of the fad appears to be clustered, with children copying others in the same schools. Up
A newly released video captured Kurdish freedom fighters blowing up an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) suicide bomber, who was attempting to drive a Ford pickup truck carrying a ton of TNT across the Kurdish frontline near Mosul in northern Iraq.
Northern Britain has spent Christmas being inundated with floods of “biblical proportions”. For green activists like Bill McKibben this is obviously another consequence of man-made climate change. And the politicians agree – not just left wing ones like Hilary Benn but
The government is drawing up plans to pull Britain out of the Convention on European Rights and replace it with a Bill of Rights in a bid to protect British soldiers from being pursued by “ambulance-chasing” human rights lawyers. Over
The eurozone is not expected to welcome any new members in the coming years, as the region’s long crisis seems to have put some countries off, deputy European Commission chief said in a newspaper interview Monday. “No new members are
More than a third of doctors on Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) were born abroad, new figures reveal, raising fears of patient safety as medics struggle to make themselves understood. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Islamist extremists are increasingly using British jails as fertile venues to recruit inmates as potential terrorists, the departing chief inspector of prisons has warned. Nick Hardwick spoke out after the former head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard was appointed to succeed
In the wake of the ongoing migration crisis, Germany’s federal states have hired up to 8,500 new teachers to give special ‘welcome classes’ for child migrants, with at least another 1,500 anticipated. The impact of the influx of migrants on Germany’s infrastructure has
France will throw open access to police and legal archives drawn from one of the country’s darkest hours, when the Vichy regime collaborated with Nazi occupiers during World War II, authorities said Sunday. Starting Monday the archives can be “freely
The mother of one of the Paris attackers has told a local Belgian television station that she had missed the warning signs, and not spotted that her son had been radicalised. Fatima Hadfi, who said she was the mother of
Tensions are rising on the Mediterranean Island of Corsica, a province of France, where authorities have banned all public protest after a series of anti-Muslim demonstrations were triggered by attacks on police and Firemen in a primarily Muslim neighbourhood. The unrest
BERLIN – Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (pictured above) and a senior Bavarian politician criticised Greece on Sunday over the way it is managing its role in Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War Two. Schaeuble, who has clashed repeatedly
