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Europe
French policewoman stabbed by ex-prisoner on potential threat watch list
A radicalised French ex-prisoner on a watch list of potential terrorist threats stabbed a policewoman inside her station and died following a shoot-out with police, a government minister said.
- by Stephane Mahe
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From geek to firebrand: Why Belarus hijacked a plane to capture Raman Pratasevich
Dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich laughed it off when Belarus declared him a terrorist last year. But then the President sent a jet to divert his flight.
- by Michelle Griffin
Flying the unfriendly skies: Russia-EU tensions rise over Belarus airspace
A series of developments showed how the diversion of the flight from Greece to Lithuania and the arrest of Raman Pratasevich were having widening repercussions for travel and commerce.
- by Anton Troianovski
Spain introduces ‘accidentally racist’ skin-tone stamps in anti-racism effort
Letters will require more black stamps than white ones, which will become “a reflection of the inequality created by racism”, Spain’s postal authority announced, a highly criticised statement.
- by Rick Noack
‘Dom’s bombs’: Boris Johnson rejects claims he bungled Britain’s pandemic response
During incendiary parliamentary testimony Johnson’s former top adviser described the government’s response to the pandemic as “lions led by donkeys” and declared Johnson “unfit for the job”.
- by Karla Adam and Jennifer Hassan
Macron appoints first female president of world’s most visited museum
Laurence des Cars will take over the Louvre’s nearly $400-million annual budget and 2000 employees at a challenging time.
- by Elaine Sciolino and Alex Marshall
Chinese foreign minister tells Germans ‘you know what genocide looks like’
During the Munich Security Conference, Wang Yi said sanctions imposed by the European Union over human rights violations in Xinjiang made China feel bullied.
- by Latika Bourke
European influencers offered cash to cast doubts on Pfizer vaccines
A mysterious PR agency with Russian links made French science YouTuber Leo Grasset an offer: we’ll pay you €2,000 to say the Pfizer vaccine is deadly.
- by Liz Alderman
‘Lions led by donkeys’: Johnson damned over COVID as unfit for office
Tens of thousands of people died because of incompetence, indecision and neglect by Boris Johnson and his government, Dominic Cummings says.
- by Bevan Shields
Belarus leader defends plane diversion, accuses West of waging ‘hybrid war’
Belarus’ president has defended the forced diversion of a passenger jet to Minsk and accused the West of waging a hybrid war.
- by Tom Balmforth and Maria Kiselyova
Boris Johnson wanted to be injected with coronavirus on live TV: former adviser
Dominic Cummings also conceded to a parliamentary inquiry the government’s decision to delay lockdown at the start of the pandemic had caused “carnage”.
- by Bevan Shields