Europe

A telephone ringing at 4:30 in the morning is rarely good news, so television executive Ted Harbert will never forget the day in 1993 that he was awakened at home in Los Angeles by a call from his boss, ABC Network Television Group President Bob Iger. When Harbert answered the …

Former soldier Miroslav Marcek was on Monday sentenced by a court in Slovakia to 23 years in prison for shooting and killing investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in February 2018. Marcek, 37, who was not present at the sentencing, had admitted guilt in the case, which led to nationwide protests and eventually brought …

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption on Monday and handed a three-year prison sentence after a court in Paris convicted him for trying to illegally influence a judge during his time in office. The sentence includes two years suspended, which means it is unlikely Sarkozy will …

Canada on Wednesday announced a one-month extension of a ban on non-essential international travel into the country, stretching the restrictions until February 21. Travellers allowed into Canada despite the ban, which has been in force since March, must still quarantine for 14 days. Since the beginning of January, they have …

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party picked her ally Armin Laschet as its next leader on Saturday, in a vote for “continuity” as Europe’s biggest economy heads into a key election year with the deadly coronavirus pandemic still raging. In the close race, Laschet, the state premier of Germany’s most …

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was due to address parliament’s lower house on Monday at the start of a make-or-break week in a crisis that could bring down his government. Against the backdrop of a coronavirus pandemic that sparked fresh restrictions at the weekend, Conte will seek a show of …

An academic edition of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is being published in Poland this week for the first time, with its editor responding to critics by calling it “a homage to the victims”. Hitler’s inflammatory tract has rarely been published even after rights to the book, which first came out …

The Bank of France’s governor said Tuesday that Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has driven almost 2,500 jobs and “at least 170 billion euros in assets” to France so far. London remains the foremost financial centre but Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris all scrambled to attract businesses that wanted …

Russian authorities have applied for registration of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the European Union, the country’s sovereign wealth fund financing the jab said Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said the application with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was lodged on Tuesday. “It is …

Forming a part of the International Tech Hub Network, delivered by Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, (DCMS) the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub aims to build high-end digital and entrepreneurial skills, forging partnerships between local tech sectors and international businesses to stimulate digital economies and develop the Nigeria tech ecosystem. …