Europe News Feeds

Barcelona say Lionel Messi will not be staying at the club “because of financial and structural obstacles”.

Eighteen former members of an elite university fraternity are linked to the death of a black student.

Drivers heading through London or Paris will receive a warning about clean-air fees and fines.

Italian MotoGP great Valentino Rossi says this season will be his last.

Krystina Timanovskaya says she fled after being warned it was not safe to fly home from the Olympics.

Mobster Domenico Paviglianiti, known as the “boss of the bosses”, has been arrested in Madrid.

Merve Taskin says she faces obscenity charges in Turkey after posting “joke” photos of sex toys.

The lesbian family suffered homophobic abuse after appearing in a Russian health food ad.

The annual climate change summit is being held in Glasgow – who’s going and what’s at stake?

Not everyone skateboarding at the Olympics is a teenager – meet the two 46-year-olds who flew the flag for the “old dogs”.

Germany and France will begin offering a third COVID-19 vaccine booster shot to the most vulnerable members of their populations starting in September, disregarding a WHO appeal to delay third doses until more people in poorer countries are vaccinated. 

Turkey is battling the worst wildfires in its history, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, as fires spread to a power station in the country’s southwest after reducing swathes of coastal forest to ashes. 

Scuba-diver Ross McLaren has taken thousands of photos of marine life in Scotland’s rivers and sea-lochs.

France has now been taken off the amber-plus list but why was it put on it in the first place?

The UK government said late Wednesday it will ease English entry rules requiring arrivals from France to quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated, following its latest review of travel curbs.

Amid the current heat wave, Italy is struggling to contain the wildfires that are raging around the country. In addition to the scorching heat, there are a variety of reasons why wildfires have become such a problem.

Like the UK, Israel and Germany, France plans to roll out third doses of Covid-19 vaccines to vulnerable people in the autumn to combat the more contagious Delta variant. But the French government is reluctant to extend this booster shot to the whole population.

France’s top administrative court on Wednesday fined the government a record sum for failing to reduce air pollution to acceptable levels. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday ordered his security services to provide extra protection for Belarus exiles in the country after a dissident was found hanged in a Kiev park.

Greek authorities told people in Athens to stay indoors on Wednesday as a wildfire raging uncontrolled north of the city covered the sky in a thick cloud of smoke.

When France first went into lockdown in March 2020, the general mood in the country was one of anxiety. To cheer himself and his neighbours up, Noam Cartozo, an actor living in Paris, decided to bring a lockdown version of one of France’s much-loved quiz shows, “Questions pour un champion”, to life from his balcony. This is the second instalment of a FRANCE 24 series about people who found fame during the pandemic.

Fully vaccinated people in England were one-third as likely to test positive for Covid-19, according to an ongoing survey of the population released on Wednesday.

Gay and transgender athletes in Tokyo have been singled out for abuse on Russian state television.

The expert body, which advises the German government on vaccines, has so far not endorsed inoculating teens with the COVID vaccine. The announcement places it at loggerheads with German politicians.

Premier League referee Anthony Taylor outlines why defibrillators should be available for grassroots football.

For years opponents of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko have been hounded – sometimes fatally.

A sprinter from Belarus who refused her team’s order to fly home early from the Olympics says her actions were not a form of political protest.

Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Tuesday that she would need to wait for the results of an investigation into the death of a Belarusian activist found hanged in Ukraine to say it was a crime. Vitaly Shishov was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv early on Tuesday, and Ukrainian police said they had launched a murder case. FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert tells us more.

A Belarusian activist living in exile in Ukraine was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv early on Tuesday, and Ukrainian police said they had launched a murder case.

Germany will start offering Covid booster shots from September and make it easier for 12-to-17 year olds to get a jab, the health ministry said Monday, amid concerns about the spread of the Delta variant.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that he wanted to get the travel industry moving again with a simple user-friendly system of rules to allow for trips abroad.

Firefighters were battling two large wildfires in Greece on Monday, as the prime minister said the country was suffering its worst heatwave in more than three decades.

With France facing a fourth COVID wave, the government is making it harder for unvaccinated people to access certain public places. Over the weekend, protesters once again came out in force to show their opposition.

Poland on Monday granted a humanitarian visa to Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who says her team’s officials tried to forcibly send her back to her authoritarian homeland from the Olympic Games in Japan.

Female panda Huan Huan gave birth while on loan to France from China. The twins will have to wait 100 days before they get names — and when they do, they’ll be chosen by someone very special.

Footage has emerged showing people fleeing the deadly fires which have engulfed parts of Turkey.

On August 2, 1944, 4,300 Sinti and Roma were killed in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Genocide survivors described the horrors. To this day, many of their descendants are refused compensation.

Some neighbourhoods have been evacuated after gusts of wind spread the flames into residential areas.

Moscow does not financially support any other country as generously as it does Belarus. DW spoke with economic experts to learn about this lopsided relationship, and the strain it places on the Russian budget.

A growing number of African and Middle Eastern migrants have been illegally entering Lithuania from Belarus. The country has said it’s finding it hard to cope. Alexandra von Nahmen reports from the Lithuanian border.

How one school in Croatia is working to improve education opportunities for Roma children like Kristina.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rekindled Britain’s spat with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol. Brussels has rejected all attempts to renegotiate it.

The recent floods claimed many lives in Germany and Belgium but left the Netherlands relatively unscathed. DW’s Bernd Riegert reports on what the country has done to reduce flood risks.

Ukraine and Poland have slammed a deal by Germany and the US to allow the completion of a controversial pipeline to carry Russian gas, saying it poses a major security and military threat.

There is "no alternative" to EU membership for North Macedonia, PM Zoran Zaev tells DW’s Conflict Zone. But after 16 years of waiting and "too much trauma," can Skopje overcome the hurdles it faces to join the bloc?

As Germany reels from catastrophic floods, experts doubt there will be a lasting effect on the upcoming national election. But candidates will have to walk a fine line between showing empathy and exploiting tragedy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her last ever appearance at the summer federal press conference, a tradition organized by a union of Berlin journalists. Many of the questions look back at her 16 years in office.

Polish and Hungarian government politicians have strongly condemned a recent EU assessment excoriating rule of law there. Yet the path forward for both countries, which face increasing gulfs with the EU, remains unclear.

Huge sums of money of illegal origin are channeled into the regular economy every year. The EU has now prepared a comprehensive reform in order to crack down on money laundering. Bernd Riegert reports from Brussels.

Did German authorities do enough to warn locals and move them to safety ahead of last week’s devastating floods? DW speaks to residents in Sinzig, one of the towns hardest-hit by flooding.

In the earth beneath the Czech Republic lies gold worth €20 billion. But unlike the country’s lithium reserves, this gold is not planned to be mined — due to environmental concerns and economic factors.

In a lengthy exposé the Russian strongman has denied Ukrainian sovereignty and threatened consequences if Ukraine continues to dream of NATO, says DW’s Konstantin Eggert.

With more than 25 dead after flooding in eastern Belgium, DW spoke with residents struggling to come to terms with the devastation and move on in the town of Pepinster.

Five years after the failed coup attempt and despite a systematic purge of his rivals, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still fears losing his grip on power, says Banu Güven.