France has denounced an action taken by an Iranian court that sentenced a French national to five years in prison.

Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant who has been held in Iran’s Evin prison for over a year, was tried on national security charges.

The charges handed down by a Revolutionary Court include propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.

His family called the charges “baseless” and said that Arnaud, who they described as a “passionate traveler,” didn’t get involved with political movements while in Iran. The family added that Arnaud has appealed the sentence.

The French foreign ministry immediately condemned the ruling, calling the sentence “unacceptable” and saying that “there is no evidence” to support the ruling as Arnaud has no access to a lawyer.

“We call for his immediate release, as well as that of all French citizens arbitrarily detained in Iran,” the ministry said in a statement.

Iran has not confirmed the sentencing, and Iranian media has not reported on the court ruling.

Three other French citizens are currently held by Iran: teacher Cecile Kohler and her partner, Jacques Paris, and a man identified only by his first name, Olivier. France has described Iran’s keeping of French prisoners as state hostage taking.

Iran released French prisoners Bernard Phelan, who also is an Irish citizen, and Benjamin Briere in May after their health worsened following a hunger strike. French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah was also able to return to France in October after he was held for four and a half years.

Iran has set free several other prisoners, including five Americans in a deal that released billions of dollars of Iranian funds that had been frozen in a South Korean account.

Some information in this report was taken from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Farmers in the U.S. are closely connected to developments in Ukraine and are intently watching for clues about how the war is affecting not only farmers abroad, but also their own operations at home. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Decatur, Illinois.
…

The European Commission said Wednesday it recommended member states open membership talks with Ukraine once the country addresses several outstanding reform issues.

The EU granted Ukraine candidate status last year, four months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

EU leaders are expected to decide during a meeting in mid-December whether to accept the European Commission’s recommendation.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday that Ukraine “belongs to our European family.”

“Today’s decision is a clear recognition of Ukraine’s relentless reform efforts and a strong political will despite the tragic circumstances,” Borrell said.  “It acknowledges the strong resilience and resolve of the Ukrainian society.”

The commission said the membership talks should be launched once Ukraine resolves several remaining issues regarding fighting corruption, adopting a lobbying law that meets EU standards and strengthening national minority safeguards.

The EU’s executive arm also recommended opening membership talks with Ukraine’s neighbor, Moldova, and to extend candidate status to Georgia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday he welcomed what he called a “strong statement by G7 foreign ministers reiterating the unwavering support for Ukraine even amid other global developments.”

Japan holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations, and G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement Wednesday that their support for Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion “will never waver,” following meetings in Tokyo.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

In an olive grove on the outskirts of Athens, grower Konstantinos Markou pushes aside the shoots of new growth to reveal the stump of a tree — a roughly 150-year-old specimen, he said, that was among 15 cut down on his neighbor’s land by thieves eager to turn it into money.

Surging olive oil prices, driven in part by two years of drought in Spain, has meant opportunity for criminals across the Mediterranean. Warehouse break-ins, dilution of premium oil with inferior product, and falsification of shipping data are on the rise in olive-growing heartlands of Greece, Spain and Italy. And perhaps worst of all: Gangs using chainsaws to steal heavily laden branches and even entire trees from unguarded groves.

“The olive robbers can sometimes produce more oil than the owners themselves – seriously,” Markou said, before heading off to patrol his own grove at nightfall.

The crimes mean fewer olives for growers already contending with high production costs and climate change that has brought warmer winters, major flooding and more intense forest fires. In Italy’s southern Puglia region, growers are pleading with police to form an agriculture division.

Greek farmers want to bring back a rural police division that was phased out in 2010. In Spain, a company has developed tracking devices that look like olives to try and catch thieves.

The olive groves outside Athens are part of a tradition that stretches back to antiquity, on plains that now surround the city’s international airport. Some trees are centuries old.

Most of the thefts are branches. When an entire tree is cut down, the thieves typically cut it up and load the pieces into a pickup truck, selling the wood to lumber yards or firewood vendors and taking the olives to an oil mill.

“The (robbers) look for heavily loaded branches and they cut them,” said Neilos Papachristou, who runs an olive mill and nearby grove in a fourth-generation family business. “So, not only do they steal our olives, but they cause the tree serious harm. It takes 4-5 years for it to return to normal.”

The thefts are driving some growers to harvest early, which means accepting lower yields to avoid long-term damage to their trees. That includes Christos Bekas, who was among the farmers at Papachristou’s mill who were dumping their crop into stainless steel loading bins, untying sacks and tipping over tall wicker baskets from the back of their pickup trucks.

Bekas, who owns 5,000 olive trees, suffered repeated raids by thieves before deciding to take an early harvest. That has required more than 2 1/2 times as much olives by weight to produce a kilogram of oil as last year, he said.

“And all this after we’ve been spending nights guarding our fields,” he said. “The situation is appalling.”

After decades of growth, the global olive oil market has been disrupted by a nearly two-year drought in Spain, which typically accounts for about 40% of world supply. It’s expected to shrink global production to 2.5 million metric tons this crop year, down from 3.4 million a year earlier.

Benchmark prices in Spain, Greece and Italy for extra virgin oil reached 9 euros ($4.35 per pound) in September, more than tripling from their level in 2019.

That’s translated to higher prices for consumers.

In Greece, a 1-liter bottle of extra virgin oil jumped from $8 to $9 last year to as much as $15 this year.

Spanish police said in October they had retrieved 91 tons of stolen olives in recent weeks.

In February, six people were arrested in southern Greece for the theft of 8 tons of olive oil in a series of warehouse break-ins over several weeks.

Farmers around Italy’s southwestern port city of Bari say thieves have become increasingly brazen, snatching tractors and expensive equipment along with olives.

The regional agricultural association issued a plea for police assistance following reports that 100 olive trees were destroyed or seriously damaged in a single incident last month. Gennaro Sicolo, the association’s leader, called the economic damage “enormous” and said “farmers must be protected.”

“This is a felony,” Markou, the Greece grower, said of the tree-cutting. “You kill your own history here.”

 
…

When figures in the EU talk about the new members that might join the union by 2030, there is no mention of Turkey. It is a glaring omission noticed by Ankara.

As when the European Union published its annual reports on candidate countries’ progress towards EU norms on Wednesday, all eyes will be on Ukraine and Moldova.

Turkey, a formal candidate for membership since 1999, will barely be discussed – but it wasn’t always the case.

After EU leaders approved the start of accession talks with Turkey in 2004, the then British premier Tony Blair hailed it as a historic event that showed there was no clash of civilizations.

But European leaders at the time found themselves stuck in a tussle with Ankara over the divided island of Cyprus, a crisis that proved to be only a foretaste of the turbulent relationship.

Today, ties are more transactional than a path toward partnership, even if neither side will openly admit this. Experts nevertheless still point to limited areas in which the relationship can improve.

For many EU member states, the long-stalled accession talks are dead in all but name. In September, Austria – long opposed to Turkey’s membership – even called for the process to end.

EU officials privately say this would be more honest, but no one wants to make the first move.

After Turkey’s elections in May, EU leaders revived hopes for improvement. They ordered the EU’s executive arm and its foreign policy chief to prepare a report on how to develop the relationship.

The report is due before December’s next summit gathering of EU leaders, but experts and EU officials warn against expecting any real improvement in ties.

“I’m not expecting any meaningful revitalization of the relationship because there are limited areas where progress can really be made,” said Senem Aydin-Duzgit, an international relations professor at Istanbul’s Sabanci University.

‘Turkey fatigue’

There is “Turkish fatigue” in Europe, as Austria’s comments show, said the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor.

“We are tired of maintaining the accession process alive when apparently there is no real political will from the other side to advance on democratic standards,” the MEP said.

The EU accuses Turkey of backsliding on democracy and the rule of law, particularly after the failed 2016 coup and the subsequent crackdown on its perceived supporters and government opponents.

The relationship’s transactional nature deepened after the two sides agreed a deal in 2016 under which the EU threw billions of euros at Ankara to stop migrants coming to Europe after the 2015 refugee crisis.

“Transactional is not a derogatory term,” Amor said. “Don’t mix the accession process, which has its own rules based on values and principles, with the rest of the relationship.”

The report due later this year will likely recommend updating the customs union, for which Turkey’s trade minister was in Brussels in October to drum up support.

“If the customs union talks could start with this current government, I don’t think they would lead anywhere,” Aydin-Duzgit said, since Ankara would have to make unappealing reforms.

But if Brussels is sending mixed messages about the relationship’s future, so is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He warned in September that Turkey could “part ways with the EU if necessary,” just two months after he said that if Sweden wanted Ankara’s green light to join NATO, the EU should “pave the way to Turkey’s membership.”

Turkey’s ambassador to the EU reaffirmed Turkey’s commitment to accession, but acknowledged it was not going to be easy.

“The Turkish government is committed to EU membership,” said Faruk Kaymakci. “What we expect is equal treatment among candidate countries.”

Calls for clarity

Is it time for Brussels to be honest about Turkey’s accession?

Many observers, and Turks, seek clarity, while others argue the nail was firmly in the coffin when then French president Nicolas Sarkozy and former German chancellor Angela Merkel together came out against Turkey’s membership in 2009.

And, in a set-back for Turkey, its biggest defender, Britain, left the EU.

There is, however, pressure from the United States not to end accession negotiations, an EU official said, with Washington desperate to keep Turkey out of Russia’s arms and closer to the West amid Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.

Brussels now faces a bigger dilemma about Ukraine’s future membership, and the challenges and opportunities its accession would bring.

One that some say blows any chance of Turkey’s membership.

“Ukraine’s membership would change the EU and it could not take on another member like Turkey,” the official told AFP.
…

On Tuesday, Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine for the second day in a row. The truckers say their Ukrainian counterparts have an unfair advantage due to regulations passed during Russia’s war on Ukraine. Lesia Bakalets reports from the Korcheva-Krakovets border crossing. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed Tuesday that his country would become a member of the European Union. His remarks came a day before a report is scheduled to be published Wednesday on the progress of the country’s candidacy to the EU.

The progress of candidate countries Moldova and Georgia will also be addressed in the report by the European Commission.

The EU granted Ukraine candidate status in June 2022 and outlined several conditions for admittance, including addressing widespread corruption and judicial reforms in the country.

Zelenskyy pointed to the strides Ukraine has made and acknowledged that more work was needed for the country to “adapt to EU standards.”

Further diplomacy took place between European nations and Ukraine, as the first of five F-16 fighter jets was sent by the Netherlands to an air base in Romania, where the planes will be used in training for Ukrainian and Romanian pilots, according to the Dutch Defense Ministry.

The move to transfer the planes to Ukraine was approved by the United States in August in an effort to bolster the Ukrainian war effort. These planes, however, “will only fly in NATO air space,” the ministry said in a statement.

The U.S.-based manufacturer of the warplanes, Lockheed Martin, will be responsible for maintaining the aircraft and will also provide the training.

“I am grateful to the Netherlands and Prime Minister Mark Rutte for leading the way in supporting Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday on social media.

The Ukrainian president has turned to his allies to provide additional military materials and has recently asked for long-range missiles and fighter jets to break an impasse on the front line.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it thwarted attacks by Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula.

Russian air defenses destroyed nine of the drones, while eight others were intercepted using electronic means, the ministry said.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russia-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Tuesday on Telegram that falling debris from a downed drone injured one person.

Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly video address that it was “utterly irresponsible” to discuss holding elections in Ukraine during a time of war. He called for unity to avoid pointless political discussions.

“We need to recognize that this is a time for defense, a time for battle, upon which the fate of the state and its people depend,” he said. “I believe that elections are not appropriate at this time.”

Zelenskyy said it was crucial to focus on the military challenges Ukraine is facing as it tries to repel Russian forces occupying nearly one-fifth of its territory more than 20 months after launching a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Elections are banned under martial law now in force in Ukraine, but Zelenskyy had been considering whether to invoke special provisions to stage them, including a change in the law and foreign assistance to help pay for the process.

He has said he would like to run for a second term if a vote took place.  

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said over the weekend that Zelenskyy was weighing the pros and cons of a wartime poll.

There have been some calls from abroad, including from Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, for an election to proceed as evidence of reforms of Ukraine’s democratic institutions.

Ukraine is hoping to receive a “positive” European Union appraisal of its progress toward eventual EU membership, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told Reuters on Monday.

Stefanishyna said Kyiv has implemented all the reforms required of it. It is expected that the report coming out Wednesday will signal the beginning of talks on Ukraine’s accession into the EU, starting in December.

“I would say that the assessment would definitely be positive, because we have been in permanent contact with the European Commission, discussing the steps and negotiating the steps we managed to implement,” Stefanishyna said.

EU membership talks take years, as candidates must meet extensive legal and economic criteria before joining. The EU, which now has 27 member states, is also unwilling to take in a country that is at war.

In Poland, an EU country, Polish truckers blocked roads Monday to three border crossings with Ukraine, protesting what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Local authorities said Polish truckers do not like that Ukrainian transport companies are exempt from seeking permits to cross the Polish border since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The truckers’ demands include reimposing restrictions on the number of Ukraine-registered trucks entering Poland and a ban on transport companies with capital from outside the European Union, among others.

“The blocking of the roads to the border crossings between Poland and Ukraine … is a painful stab in the back of Ukraine, which is suffering Russian aggression,” Ukraine’s ambassador in Warsaw, Vasyl Zvarych, wrote on X.

Ukraine’s commander in chief said Monday that his assistant, a major in rank, was killed in an explosion when he opened a booby-trapped birthday present that exploded.

“My assistant and close friend, Major Hennady Chastyakov, was killed in tragic circumstances on his birthday in a family setting,” General Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote on Telegram. “An unknown explosive device went off in one of his presents.”

The Ukrainska Pravda online news outlet said a security source was told by Chastyakov’s wife that the gift was a bottle of liquor in the form of a grenade that he had brought home. It exploded when he opened it.

Chastyakov’s 13-year-old son suffered serious injuries from the explosion.

Ukraine launched a criminal investigation Monday into military officers who organized a troop-honoring ceremony that was hit by a Russian missile, killing 19 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks reported by Ukrainian forces.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
…

As political rhetoric over immigration heats up ahead of next year’s European elections, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz outlined plans Tuesday to toughen migration laws and deport more failed asylum-seekers in a sharp reversal of policies under his predecessor Angela Merkel.

In the first nine months of this year, 230,000 people claimed asylum in Germany, more than the total for 2022. With migrant shelters filling up, regional authorities have complained that the costs are unsustainable.

Migrant deal

Scholz said recently that too many migrants were coming to Germany. After hosting the country’s 16 state governors in Berlin on Monday evening for a meeting lasting several hours, he emerged just before 3 a.m. Tuesday with a deal he claimed would cut migration.

“I believe this is a historic moment as we sit here,” Scholz told reporters. “In light of an unquestionably huge challenge, with very large numbers of migrants and irregular migration, all the levels of the state have managed to cooperate closely, which is necessary. People expect this of us.”

Toughened laws

The agreement will see the federal government pay states and municipalities $8,000 per refugee from next year, instead of the current annual fixed lump sum payment of just under $4 billion. Scholz said this would allow federal payments to rise and fall according to demand.

Benefits for asylum-seekers will be cut, including the doubling of the time migrants must wait to receive financial support. The chancellor also promised to speed up asylum decisions and make it easier to deport those who are refused refugee status.

Temporary checks on the Polish, Czech and Swiss borders will remain, while the government has pledged tougher sentences for human smuggling.

It’s a turnaround from the policies of Scholz’s predecessor. Under Merkel’s chancellorship in 2015, Germany opened its borders to more than 1 million refugees.

The country also has taken in more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who have been given temporary protection following Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Election pressure

Chancellor Scholz has an eye on upcoming European elections, scheduled for June next year, says analyst Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

“I think the timing of all this makes a lot of sense from a political point of view, because we’ve seen that there has been a string of regional elections in Germany and in other parts of Europe, and the mainstream or center-right parties are getting the message that they need to be — or look — tougher on migration, in order to get the votes that are now going to more radical alternatives, like Alternative for Germany.”

The Alternative for Germany party is currently polling second, ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Political rhetoric

Judith Wiebke of the Berlin-based migrant support group Pro Asyl said Scholz’s policies are driven by false political rhetoric.

“There are asylum-seekers in Germany who are obliged to be deported, but there are significantly fewer of them than is often portrayed in the public discussion. And they often have very good reasons why they can ultimately stay in Germany — for example family, humanitarian or medical reasons. You also have to ask, does it really make sense for us to deport people who are in training or work, for example?”

Far-right parties are stoking fears of an influx of refugees from the Middle East following the Israel-Hamas conflict, Mortera-Matinez added.

“I think it is very dangerous to get into this idea that there is going to be a massive wave of refugees,” she said. “This is the kind of discourse that benefits populists and the far-right.”

Italy-Albania deal

Meanwhile, Italy, which receives hundreds of thousands of migrants every year, signed a deal Tuesday to build asylum processing centers in Albania.

Italy’s prime minister says it could be a blueprint for deals between the European Union and nonmember countries, although critics say such plans could breach international law.
…

 As a child growing up in Malta, Paul Caruana Galizia didn’t think much about how his mother regularly checked under the car for bombs.  

Such precautions were just part of being Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son. The investigative journalist was so well known in Malta — beloved and disliked — that everyone just called her Daphne.  

But such precautions were warranted. 

On October 16, 2017, a car bomb killed the journalist near her home in Bidnija. 

The fallout from the targeted killing has reverberated far beyond Malta’s rocky shores, but full justice remains elusive. 

“Everything is still a fight,” Caruana Galizia said.  

Six years after his mother’s death, Caruana Galizia — the youngest of three sons — explores in a new book his mother’s career, her devotion to exposing Maltese corruption, her killing and her legacy.  

Published Tuesday in the United States, A Death in Malta is simultaneously a memoir about a remarkable woman and a denunciation of the system that many say facilitated her death. 

Over a decades-long career as a columnist and blogger, Daphne Caruana Galizia largely focused on corruption in Malta.  

In doing so, she confronted harassment, death threats, lawsuits and arson attacks. After working at various Maltese newspapers, she started the blog Running Commentary, whose online readership rivaled Malta’s established newspapers.  

“She was shaped by Malta as much as she shaped it,” Caruana Galizia said.

Now based in London, Caruana Galizia has followed in his mother’s footsteps, working as a reporter for the news outlet Tortoise. He began work on the book in 2020 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Caruana Galizia said he expected writing about his mother’s killing to be the hardest part of the project, but he found it even harder to write about her life.

“It’s an awkward thing to interview your maternal grandparents about your murdered mother,” he said.  

In the book, Caruana Galizia recounts the first year after the killing, when a whirlwind of advocacy brought him and his brothers around Europe to meet with lawmakers.  

As a result, his mother became an abstraction, and writing the book was an effort to prevent her from remaining one, he told VOA. 

“I wanted readers to know her, to really understand what she was trying to do through her journalism, where she came from, what she was about, and that she wasn’t a tragic figure, just the victim, someone you’re fascinated by for all the wrong reasons,” Caruana Galizia said.  

“The book is an attempt to restore some of her humanity to her,” he added.  

At the time of her death, Daphne Caruana Galizia had been working on the Panama Papers, a leak of millions of records that exposed widespread international corruption.

She concluded her last blog post, published the day before her killing, writing, “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.” 

Six years since her assassination, justice has been slow.  

Three men have been convicted for her murder, and three other suspects — including Yorgen Fenech, one of Malta’s wealthiest businessmen — are awaiting trial. Fenech pleaded not guilty. 

“While the convictions have been positive, the call for full justice will continue to be made until all those responsible are behind bars,” said Jamie Wiseman, Europe advocacy officer at the International Press Institute in Vienna.  

A public inquiry set up to investigate Daphne Caruana Galizia’s death concluded in a 437-page report in 2021 that “the state should shoulder responsibility for the assassination” because it has “created an atmosphere of impunity.”

The shadow of impunity in journalist killings can foster an environment in which more reporters risk deadly violence, press freedom groups say.

And nearly 80% of journalist killings around the world over the past decade remain unsolved, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The public inquiry issued recommendations as to how Malta’s government could improve press freedom, but progress has been minimal, Wiseman said.

Journalists in Malta are still targeted with strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, a form of legal action used to silence journalists in retaliation for their work.

The free expression group Article 19 reported in August that Malta is the country with the highest number of SLAPPs per capita in the European Union.

At the time of her killing, Daphne Caruana Galizia was battling over 40 libel lawsuits. 

Malta’s Washington Embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.  

“We’ve seen very little to no change,” Wiseman said, adding that the government has undertaken just one of many recommendations — by issuing an apology that Wiseman characterized as half-hearted at best. 

Both Caruana Galizia and Wiseman point to the absence of political will to explain why the government has failed to implement the majority of the public inquiry’s recommendations.  

Caruana Galizia also pointed out there has been no successful prosecution of any of the people whose corruption Daphne Caruana Galizia documented.  

Despite the slow progress, Caruana Galizia said he remains optimistic.  

“My brothers and I have always had the view that the moment you start losing faith is the moment it all falls apart,” he said. “You have to believe that a better country is possible. And you have to believe that we will get justice for my mother.”  

 
…

NATO has suspended operations for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, a key Cold War era security pact, in response to Russia pulling out of the agreement.

The CFE includes many of NATO’s 31 member countries and was aimed at limiting the size of Cold War rivals’ forces at or near mutual borders.

Russia formally withdrew from the treaty and blamed the United States, alleging that the U.S. undermined post-Cold War security by expanding the NATO military alliance. 

NATO responded by freezing operations for the agreement on Tuesday, saying it wouldn’t be feasible for the treaty to exist where allied parties abide by it and Russia does not. 

Many NATO allies condemned the action taken by Russia.

“Allies condemn Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and its war of aggression against Ukraine which is contrary to the Treaty’s objectives,” NATO said in a statement.

Russia’s withdrawal from CFE is the latest in a series of Russian termination of several security agreements involving the U.S. and Russia.

The Kremlin has already revoked its participation in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the New START treaty, an arms control pact.

Both the United States and Russia pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, with each country citing violations from the other as grounds for their withdrawal.

Following Russia leaving the CFE, the United States said that it would remain committed to “effective critical arms control” in a statement released by U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan. 

Some information in this report was taken from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

European astronomers on Tuesday released the first images from the newly launched Euclid space telescope, designed to unlock the secrets of dark matter and dark energy — hidden forces thought to make up 95% of the universe.

The European Space Agency, which leads the six-year mission with NASA as a partner, said the images were the sharpest of their kind, showcasing the telescope’s ability to monitor billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away.

The images spanned four areas of the relatively nearby universe, including 1,000 galaxies belonging to the massive Perseus cluster just 240 million light years away, and more than 100,000 galaxies spread out in the background, ESA said.

Scientists believe vast, seemingly organized structures such as Perseus could have formed only if dark matter exists.

“We think we understand only 5% of the universe. That’s the matter that we can see,” ESA’s science director Carole Mundell told Reuters.

“The rest of the universe we call dark because it doesn’t produce light in the normal electromagnetic spectrum,” she said. “But we know its effect because we see the effect on visible matter.”

Tell-tale signs of the hidden force exerted by dark matter include galaxies rotating more quickly than scientists would expect from the amount of visible matter that can be detected.

Its influence is also implicated in pulling together some of the most massive structures in the universe, such as clusters of galaxies, Mundell said.

Dark energy is even more enigmatic.

Its hypothetical existence was established only in the 1990s by studying exploding stars called supernovas, resulting in a 2011 Nobel prize shared between three U.S.-born scientists.

Thanks in part to observations from the earlier Hubble Space Telescope, they concluded that the universe was not only expanding but that the pace of expansion was accelerating — a stunning discovery attributed to the new concept of dark energy.

After initial commissioning and technical teething problems, including stray light and guidance issues, Euclid will now start piecing together a 3D map encompassing about a third of the sky to detect tiny variations attributable to the dark universe.

By gaining new insights into dark energy and matter, scientists hope to better grasp the formation and distribution of galaxies across the so-called cosmic web of the universe.

The release of the images in Darmstadt, Germany, coincided with the second of two days of European space talks in Spain dominated by Europe’s continued dependency on foreign launches.
…

Sweden is poised to become Europe’s first smoke-free country largely thanks to the popularity of snus, a kind of moist snuff which is placed under the upper lip.   

But some are worried the tobacco industry is peddling a “fairytale” that is too good to be true.    

Used by one in seven Swedes, snus has, according to the government, helped slash the number of smokers from 15% of the population in 2005 to 5.2% last year, a record low in Europe.  

A country is considered smoke-free when less than 5% of its population are daily smokers.     

Snus has been banned in the European Union since 1992. But Sweden negotiated an exemption when it joined the bloc three years later.   

At the Swedish Match factory in the western city of Gothenburg, thousands of doses of snus wend their way through a complex web of machinery producing the sachets.   

The company sold 277 million boxes of snus in Sweden and Norway in 2021.   

“We have used it for 200 years in Sweden. [It’s] part of the Swedish culture, just like many other European countries have their wine culture,” Swedish Match spokesman Patrik Hildingsson told AFP.   

Clad in a white lab coat, he described the manufacturing process.   

“Tobacco comes from India or the United States. It goes through this silo and is then packed inside the pouches like tea bags and then into these boxes.”    

There are two types: traditional brown snus, which contains tobacco, and white snus, which is made of synthetic nicotine and often flavored.   

Conquering the young

Traditional snus is mostly sold in Sweden, Norway and the U.S.   

White snus, introduced about 15 years ago, falls into a legal void in the EU since it doesn’t contain tobacco. It was banned this year in both Belgium and the Netherlands.   

But it is hugely popular with young people in Sweden, with its use quadrupling among women aged 16 to 29 in four years.   

Fifteen percent of people in Sweden say they use some form of snus daily, a figure that has risen slightly in recent years.   

At the same time, the country has seen a sharp drop in smokers even though cigarettes are less than half the price they are in Ireland.   

Just 5% of Swedes say they smoke regularly, according to 2022 data from the Public Health Agency, putting Sweden 27 years ahead of the EU’s 2050 smoke-free target.   

“It’s very positive,” Swedish Health Minister Jakob Forssmed told AFP.   

“A very important decision was the smoking ban in restaurants from 2005, and then at outdoor restaurants and public places in 2019,” he said.   

“Many Swedes also say that switching to snus helped them stop smoking.”   

The government has also backed the snus industry, hiking taxes recently on cigarettes by nine percent while cutting those on traditional snus by 20%.  

“With all these regulations it’s almost impossible to smoke. Snus doesn’t smell, and the nicotine rush is much stronger than with a cigarette,” said Thorbjorn Thoors, a 67-year-old window repairman who has used snus since his teens and quit smoking decades ago.   

Linked to cancer?

But the decision to lower taxes on snus does not sit well with Ulrika Arehed Kagstrom, head of the Swedish Cancer Society.   

“It came as a complete surprise and I was really disappointed,” she said.   

“It shows that they really completely bought the fairytale from the tobacco industry, [which is] trying to find a new market for these products and saying that these are harm reduction products.

“We don’t have enough research yet,” she insisted.   

“We know that snus and these kinds of nicotine products cause changes in your blood pressure and there is a risk of long-term cardiovascular disease.”   

Arehed Kagstrom fears that just like with smoking it will take years to show “to what extent these products were harmful.”   

A June 2023 study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health showed that the risk of throat and pancreatic cancer was three and two times greater, respectively, among frequent snus users.  

However, in 2017, a study in the International Journal of Cancer concluded there was no link between cancer and snus. 

 
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November 6 is the International Day for the Prevention of Environmental Exploitation in War and Armed Conflict. According to the Ukrainian prosecutor-general, the environmental damage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine totals roughly $56 billion, with destruction of the Kakhovka Dam as one of the worst disasters. Lesia Bakalets reports on how Ukrainian eco-activists and law enforcement gather information on eco-crimes. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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Two climate change protesters were arrested Monday after they smashed a protective glass panel covering a famous Diego Velazquez oil painting at London’s National Gallery, police said Monday.

The two activists from the group Just Stop Oil targeted Velazquez’s “The Toilet of Venus,” also known as “The Rokeby Venus,” with small hammers. Photos showed the protective glass panel punctured with several holes.

Just Stop Oil, which has previously led similar protests targeting famous artworks and public buildings, said Monday’s action was to demand Britain’s government immediately halt all licensing for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the U.K.

The group said Monday that the two activists chose to target Velazquez’s 17th-century oil painting, one of the Spanish artist’s most celebrated masterpieces, because it was previously slashed as part of the suffragette movement calling for women’s rights in 1914.

Just Stop Oil said the protesters hammered the glass panel, then told people at the gallery: “Women did not get the vote by voting. It is time for deeds, not words.”

“Politics is failing us. It failed women in 1914 and it is failing us now,” they added.

Police said the two were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. The National Gallery said the painting has been removed from display so conservators can examine it.

“The pair appeared to strike ‘The Toilet of Venus’ (‘The Rokeby Venus’) by Velazquez with what appeared to be emergency rescue hammers. The room was cleared of visitors and police were called,” the museum said in a statement.

The room was reopened shortly afterward with another painting replacing the Velazquez where it was hung, the museum added.

“The Toilet of Venus” depicts a naked Venus, the goddess of love, reclining on a bed with her back facing the viewer, as her son Cupid holds a mirror up to her face.

The painting was targeted in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson to protest the imprisonment of fellow women’s rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst. The painting suffered several slashes at the time but was subsequently repaired.

Police said officers also arrested dozens of other Just Stop Oil protesters Monday who were “slow marching” and obstructing traffic in central London’s Whitehall as part of their civil disobedience strategy.

Last year two activists threw two cans of tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” also at the National Gallery, to protest fossil fuel extraction. They did not damage the painting, which was covered with glass.

Part of a wave of youthful direct-action protest groups around the world, Just Stop Oil is backed by the U.S.-based Climate Emergency Fund, set up to support disruptive environmental protests.

Just Stop Oil activists have repeatedly staged multiple high-profile protests at the busiest highways and roads as well as sports tournaments.

In July, British authorities expanded police power allowing them to target activists who stop traffic and to move static protests. 
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 The conflict in Gaza, rather than the war in Ukraine, dominated a fiery press conference in Pretoria following a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor.

It was Kuleba’s first visit to South Africa, as he tries to shore up support for Kyiv on a continent where Moscow holds considerable influence. Pretoria has officially remained neutral on the Ukraine war, but critics, including U.S. officials, have accused the South African government of essentially siding with Moscow.

South African Foreign Minister Pandor expressed her desire to see a peaceful, negotiated end to the war in Europe.

“We’re deeply concerned, Minister, about the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine, the continuing loss of lives and the very, very worrying humanitarian situation,” she said.

While refraining from condemning Russia, Pandor repeatedly brought up Israel, saying at one point its response in Gaza was “one of collective punishment.”

The South African government position has always been pro-Palestinian, and on Monday an official in the presidency announced Pretoria was recalling its diplomats from Israel.

Pandor also said the government did not appreciate recent comments made by the Israeli ambassador to the country and took a swipe at U.S.

Ambassador Reuben Brigety – who earlier this year accused South Africa of providing arms to Russia, a claim that was never substantiated.

“The ambassador of Israel has been making a number of comments, almost akin to the statements that were made without proof by the United States ambassador a couple of months ago …” she said. “There seems to be a strange practice among some ambassadors in South Africa that they can just say what they like.”

She added that maybe that is because as an African country “they don’t respect us.”

For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba repeatedly used terms Pretoria avoids on the Russian-Ukraine war, referring to the “invasion” and “Russian aggression.”

He noted that as part of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine had supported South Africans’ struggle against apartheid, and stressed that Kyiv is trying to help African countries navigate food insecurity caused by the conflict in Europe.

Kuleba said discussions with Pandor had been positive and “opened a new chapter” in Ukrainian-South African relations.

He also expressed concern over the crisis in the Middle East.

Asked by reporters if the situation in Gaza was drawing the world’s attention away from Ukraine, he cautioned against comparing what is happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the Middle East, saying “people are people everywhere.”

Still, he said it was true that many daily tragedies in Ukraine have become “routine” for media.

“We in Ukraine find it extremely painful to see how the deaths of civilians, the deaths of children, and other mass destruction remains unnoticed,” Kuleba said, “but we understand that this is how the world acts.”

He said while the media’s attention may have shifted, he did not think that Ukraine was receiving less political attention.
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Polish President Andrzej Duda will appoint a new prime minister in a national address on Monday, an aide said.

The announcement will trigger the process of forming a new government after general elections last month in which the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party lost its parliamentary majority to three allied opposition parties but emerged as the single biggest vote-getter. This has fed speculation over Duda’s choice.

“Following consultations and after deep consideration, President Andrzej Duda has taken his decision regarding the so-called first step” [in forming a government], presidential aide Marcin Mastalerek said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said the decision is “final” and not subject to pleas from politicians, whom he advised to “calmly watch the evening address.”

An ally of the current government, Duda has said the two candidates for prime minister are the current conservative premier, Mateusz Morawiecki, and former prime minister and main opposition leader Donald Tusk, an ex-European Union top figure.

Under Poland’s constitution, the president “designates” the prime minister and tasks him with forming a Cabinet, which then needs approval from the parliament. Only then are the prime minister and government formally appointed. If not, the procedure is repeated with another prime minister.

Law and Justice will be far short of a majority in the new parliament and unable to pass its own laws. But its leaders insist it should be given a chance to continue to govern because it was the single biggest vote-getter. It will have 194 votes in the 460-member lower house but has no potential coalition partner.

Tusk represents the aggregated opposition majority that won 248 parliament seats, but he was the target of vicious government attacks in the electoral campaign.

Some commentators say that Duda may opt for a candidate who will offer the possibility of constructive cooperation in the nearly two years he still has left to serve.

Duda will convene the first session of the country’s newly elected parliament on Nov. 13.
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Russia’s war on Ukraine is the driving force behind continued high inflation and a decline in social services in Russa, according to the latest intelligence report from Britain’s ministry of defense. 

Inflation rose to six percent in Russia in September, the ministry said Monday, driven by the rising cost of basic consumer items, like food and fuel. 

The report also found that inflation will likely impact government spending on social services, a move the ministry said “further illustrates the reorientation of Russia’s economy to fuel the war above all else.”

The high inflation rate will also likely influence borrowing costs for Russian consumers and “impact the Russian government’s debt service costs,” according to the ministry. 

On Sunday, the British Defense Ministry said that Russian soldiers in Ukraine are suffering from an “age-old battle against the elements.” 

The Sunday report said that soldiers at a military affairs conference in Moscow complained earlier this month about being “wet from head to toe” for weeks on the front lines and unable to light a fire for “a mug of tea” because that action risked alerting their positions to Ukrainian soldiers. The Russian soldiers also complained about eating monotonous food in pervasive mud. 

The soldiers’ discomfort, according to the report, is likely due to Russia’s inability to enforce basic field administration among its troops. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the U.S. for more funding for to fight off Russian aggression and invited former U.S. President Donald Trump to Kyiv to gauge the scale of the conflict for himself.

Zelenskyy said American soldiers could eventually be pulled into a greater European conflict with Russia if Washington did not increase support.

“If Russia kills all of us, they will attack NATO countries and you will send your sons and daughters [to fight],” Zelenskyy said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press show.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a supplemental spending bill last week providing $14.3 billion in aid to Israel, but adding nothing in aid for Ukraine, a large contrast to President Joe Biden’s $106 billion funding request with the bulk of the money going to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and the remainder split among Israel, the Indo-Pacific and U.S.-Mexico border enforcement. 

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, majority leader of the Democratic-controlled Senate, said he would not bring the House bill to a vote and Biden has vowed to veto it.

In the interview airing Sunday, Zelenskyy invited former U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, to visit Ukraine and experience firsthand the fallout of the conflict initiated by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.

Trump, who is seeking reelection in 2024 and is the leading candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, has been sharply critical of U.S. support for Kyiv and has said he could end the war in 24 hours if he were reelected.

“If he can come here, I will need … 24 minutes to explain to President Trump that he can’t manage this war,” Zelenskyy said. “He can’t bring peace because of Putin.”

Warfront 

Fierce fighting is ravaging east Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where entrenched Ukrainian soldiers told Reuters how Russian artillery has intensified significantly in recent weeks. 

“I don’t know where these shells are coming from, but they are flying in,” the crew’s commander said, he asked to remain anonymous, gesturing in the direction of several recent craters near his position.

Russia’s new strategic nuclear submarine, the Imperator Alexander III, has successfully tested a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, the Russian defense ministry said on Sunday.

The missile, which the Federation of American Scientists says is designed to carry up to six nuclear warheads, was launched from an underwater position in the White Sea off Russia’s northern coast and hit a target thousands of kilometers away on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East, the defense ministry said.

“Firing a ballistic missile is the final element of state tests, after which a decision will be made to accept the cruiser into the navy,” a ministry statement said.

The Imperator Alexander III is a Borei class submarine armed with 16 Bulava missiles. The 12-meter (40-foot) missile has a range of about 8,000 km (5,000 miles).  

Russia aims to build a total of 10 to 12 Borei-class submarines to be divided between the Northern and Pacific fleets, according to the current plans disclosed by Russian media. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Ukraine said Sunday it had opened a criminal investigation after a Russian missile strike killed multiple soldiers during what media reports said was an “award ceremony” near the frontline this week.

At least 20 soldiers were reported to have been killed in the attack, which local media said took place on Friday as a brigade gathered to receive awards in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.

“This is a tragedy that could have been avoided,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an evening address Sunday.

“A criminal investigation has been registered into the tragedy,” he added.

AFP was not able to immediately verify the circumstances of the strike or the number of people killed.

The Ukrainian army confirmed on Saturday that a number of soldiers from its 128th Mountain Assault Brigade had been killed in a missile strike the day before but did not provide casualty figures.

“(Russia) fired an Iskander-M missile at the personnel of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, killing the soldiers and causing injuries of varying severity to local residents,” the army said.

One Ukrainian soldier said on social media that 22 people from the brigade had been killed, criticizing commanders for having held the ceremony.

“Everyone is writing that ‘Heroes died.’ Although it is more appropriate to write ‘Heroes became victims,’ ” soldier Ivan Savytskyy said.

“They became victims of military rudimentary traditionalism in its worst form,” he said.

Russia said in a defense ministry briefing Saturday that it had inflicted a “fire defeat” on a Ukrainian assault unit in Zaporizhzhia and that up to 30 people had been killed.

Ukraine’s western Zakarpattia region, where the assault brigade is based, will observe a three-day mourning period starting Monday, local governor Victor Mykyta said.

“Our heroes are alive as long as the memory of them and their deeds lives on,” he said Sunday.
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A German citizen abducted in Dubai and sentenced to death by Iran is almost unable to walk and talk because of health conditions that prison authorities have failed to properly treat, his daughter told AFP.

Jamshid Sharmahd, who is also a U.S. resident, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and could die because of his deteriorating health, Gazelle Sharmahd told AFP after her father last week made a rare phone call from prison to the family.

Sharmahd, 68, was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates and forcibly transferred to Iran in the summer of 2020, according to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Iran has only said he was detained in a “complex operation.”

He was put on trial in Iran and convicted of “corruption on Earth” and sentenced to death.

In the United States, Sharmahd helped develop a website for an exiled Iranian opposition group and hosted radio broadcasts. The family has denied claims made in Iran against him over a blast in 2008 in the southern city of Shiraz.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, he had been subjected to “enforced disappearance, torture and other ill treatment.”

Gazelle Sharmahd said: “My dad has advanced-stage Parkinson’s and delaying his medication makes it nearly impossible for him to talk, walk, move or even breathe.”

Speaking after he unexpectedly called her mother last week, Gazelle Sharmahd added: “His teeth have been broken under torture or through malnourishment. He cannot enunciate words or chew or eat properly.

“He has been in complete solitary confinement for over 1,185 days. That alone can drive you to insanity and take the last drop of energy out of your body,” Gazelle Sharmahd said. “He has severe chest pains as soon as he tries to walk in his tiny torture chamber. He said his feet are constantly swollen.”

The family doesn’t know where in Iran he is being held.

Cardiac risk

Gazelle Sharmahd, a critical care nurse who specializes in coronary care, warned that her father was in danger of suffering a heart attack.

“His life is at grave risk in the inhumane conditions under which they try to break him and, on top of that, he is still condemned to death after lawless sham trials and can be pulled out of his cell at any minute to be hanged.”

The family had already expressed dismay that Sharmahd, a U.S. resident, was not included in a September deal that saw five American citizens released from prison in Iran.

Another U.S. resident, Shahab Dalili, arrested in 2016 in Iran, is in a similar situation and remains behind bars.

Sharmahd, while born in Tehran, does not hold an Iranian passport; he is a German citizen and a California resident, according to his family.

Their families say that U.S. residents detained abroad such as Dalili and Sharmahd should be considered U.S. nationals under the 2020 Levinson Act, named after former FBI Agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 and whom the United States believes died in Iranian custody.  

Activists believe that even after the U.S. deal, around a dozen foreign nationals are still being held by Iran and have accused the Islamic republic of a deliberate strategy of hostage taking to extract concessions from the West.

Among those held is Swedish national Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges — which his family vehemently rejects. 
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Nearly 32,000 migrants have reached Spain’s Canary Islands on fragile boats from West Africa this year, passing a previous record posted in 2006, regional authorities said Sunday. 

So far this year, 31,933 people have reached the islands, compared with the 2006 small boats crisis when 31,678 people made it to the Canary Islands, regional authorities told Reuters. 

Since Friday, 739 people have been rescued in the Atlantic Ocean off El Hierro, the smallest and most westerly island in the archipelago, the Spanish coast guard said. 

Two people were found dead in four boats and two other people died later in a hospital, said the Spanish Civil Guard on Saturday, which also took part in the rescue in which women and children were among those saved. 

Fernando Clavijo, the Canary Islands regional chief, said the figures showed the scale of the humanitarian crisis faced by the islands and called for more help from the Spanish government and the European Union. 

“The 2006 data have been surpassed but the response of the state and EU is not the same. Migration management on the southern border must be a priority on the Spanish and European agenda,” he posted on the X social media site Saturday. 

The number of arrivals has recently jumped as milder weather and calmer seas since September have made it more feasible to attempt the still-perilous crossing from Africa. 

The archipelago lies around 100 km off Africa’s west coast. Its seven islands have become the main destination for migrants from Senegal and other African countries trying to reach Spain, fleeing conflict or seeking a better life. 

The Spanish government said it would create additional emergency accommodation for some 3,000 migrants in military barracks, hotels and hostels.
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The Russian military reported Sunday a successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads from a new nuclear submarine. 

The report comes as tensions are soaring between Russia and the West over the fighting in Ukraine. Adding to those tensions, President Vladimir Putin last week signed a bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban in a move that Moscow said was needed to establish parity with the United States. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Imperator Alexander III strategic missile cruiser fired the Bulava missile from an underwater position in Russia’s northern White Sea and hit a target in the far-eastern region of Kamchatka. It wasn’t immediately clear from the statement when the test launch occurred. 

The Imperator Alexander III is one of the new Borei-class nuclear submarines that carry 16 Bulava missiles each and are intended to serve as the core naval component of the nation’s nuclear forces in the coming decades. According to the Defense Ministry, launching a ballistic missile is the final test for the vessel, after which a decision should be made on its induction into the fleet. 

The Russian navy has three Borei-class submarines in service, one more is currently finishing tests and three others are under construction, the Defense Ministry said. 
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Turkish police used tear gas and water cannon as hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian rally Sunday tried to storm an air base that houses U.S. troops, hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due in Ankara for talks on Gaza.

Turkey, which has stepped up its criticism of Israel as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened, supports a two-state solution while hosting members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Since the Israel-Hamas war started, protests have erupted across the country.

Earlier this week, the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an Islamist Turkish aid agency, organized a convoy to travel to the Incirlik air base in the Adana province in southern Turkey to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza and U.S. support for Israel.

Incirlik, which has been used to support the international coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, also houses U.S. troops. IHH’s protest called for Incirlik to be closed.

Footage from the protests showed police firing tear gas and using water cannons to disperse crowds waving Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanting slogans. Protesters toppled barricades and clashed with police in riot gear.

Protesters were also seen hurling plastic chairs, rocks, and other items at police, who fired smoke bombs at crowds. Scuffles broke out between the crowds and security forces.

IHH President Bulent Yildirim addressed the crowds in Adana and urged them to refrain from attacking police.

“Friends, it is wrong to throw rocks or do similar things because both the police and soldiers would want to go to Gaza and fight and they will go when the time comes,” he said.

“Our rage is huge. We cannot hold it in. But Turkey is doing what it can,” he added. IHH ended its rally earlier than planned due to the clashes with police.

The rally comes hours before Blinken is expected to arrive in Ankara Monday for talks on Gaza with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, and after repeated criticism by Ankara toward the West over support for Israel.
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The hostage situation at Hamburg Airport ended Sunday afternoon, around 18 hours after a man drove his vehicle through the gates of the airport with his 4-year-old daughter inside, authorities said. The man was arrested and the girl appears to be unharmed.

Hamburg police tweeted that “the hostage situation is over. The suspect has left the car with his daughter. … The child appears to be unharmed.” 

Police also said that “the man was arrested by the emergency services without resistance.” 

The airport in the northern German city had been closed to passengers and flights canceled since Saturday night when the man, who was armed, broke through an airport gate with his vehicle and fired twice into the air with a weapon, according to German news agency dpa. The man drove the vehicle just outside a terminal building and parked it under a plane. 

Authorities said the man’s wife had previously contacted them about a child abduction. 

Police said that the 35-year-old man had his 4-year-old daughter inside the car whom he had reportedly taken by force from the mother in a possible custody battle. 

A psychologist has been negotiating with the man for 18 hours. Nobody was injured during the standoff since all passengers had evacuated the airport, police said. 

The mother of the abducted girl also arrived at the airport on Sunday morning and was getting psychological support, German news agency dpa reported. 

A pediatrician also arrived at the airport to look after the girl once the hostage-taking is over, dpa reported. 

More than 100 flights were canceled and several planes were rerouted. Thousands of travelers have been affected by the standoff and hundreds were put up at hotels close by.
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