Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs, five European countries said Saturday.The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” It is a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America that is not found naturally in Russia, they said.The countries said in a joint statement that “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison.” They said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.They made the announcement as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany, as the second anniversary of Navalny’s death approaches.Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024. He was serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said. “By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.”Navalny’s widow said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before he died. Navalnaya has repeatedly blamed Putin for Navalny’s death, something Russian officials have vehemently denied.Navalnaya said Saturday that she had been “certain from the first day” that her husband had been poisoned, “but now there is proof.”“Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon,” she wrote on social network X, calling Putin “a murderer” who “must be held accountable.”Russian authorities said that the politician became ill after a walk and died from natural causes.Epibatidine is found naturally in dart frogs in the wild, and can also be manufactured in a lab, which European scientists suspect was the case with the substance used on Navalny. It works on the body in a similar way to nerve agents, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, a slowed heart rate and, ultimately, death.Navalny was the target of an earlier poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020 in an attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which always denied involvement. His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.The U.K. has accused Russia of repeatedly flouting international bans on chemical and biological weapons. It has accused the Kremlin of carrying out a 2018 attack in the English city of Salisbury that targeted a former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, with the nerve agent Novichok. A British inquiry concluded that the attack “must have been authorized at the highest level, by President Putin.”The Kremlin has denied involvement.
LONDON —
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs, five European countries said Saturday.
The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” It is a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America that is not found naturally in Russia, they said.
The countries said in a joint statement that “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison.” They said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
They made the announcement as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany, as the second anniversary of Navalny’s death approaches.
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024. He was serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.
“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said. “By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.”
Navalny’s widow said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before he died. Navalnaya has repeatedly blamed Putin for Navalny’s death, something Russian officials have vehemently denied.
Navalnaya said Saturday that she had been “certain from the first day” that her husband had been poisoned, “but now there is proof.”
“Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon,” she wrote on social network X, calling Putin “a murderer” who “must be held accountable.”
Russian authorities said that the politician became ill after a walk and died from natural causes.
Epibatidine is found naturally in dart frogs in the wild, and can also be manufactured in a lab, which European scientists suspect was the case with the substance used on Navalny. It works on the body in a similar way to nerve agents, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, a slowed heart rate and, ultimately, death.
Navalny was the target of an earlier poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020 in an attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which always denied involvement. His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.
The U.K. has accused Russia of repeatedly flouting international bans on chemical and biological weapons. It has accused the Kremlin of carrying out a 2018 attack in the English city of Salisbury that targeted a former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, with the nerve agent Novichok. A British inquiry concluded that the attack “must have been authorized at the highest level, by President Putin.”
The jewels that form part of a royal collection are rarely the result of a purely aesthetic choice. Behind each commission there is usually a political context, a personal motif—an anniversary, a wedding, a birth—and often a very clear desire for permanence. The Mellerio ruby tiara worn today by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands was not created as just another ornamental jewel, but as a piece designed to consolidate image, lineage and continuity within the House of Orange.
Commissioned in the late nineteenth century and used, since then, by all Dutch queens, this tiara has gone through more than a century of history without losing relevance. Its trajectory allows us to understand, in addition to the evolution of taste and protocol, the role that jewelry has played—and continues to play—in the representation of feminine power within European monarchies.
Mellerio dits Meller: the favorite family jeweler of the European court
When King William III entrusted the commission of a large set of rubies to Mellerio, the Parisian firm had been building a solid reputation among European elites for centuries. Founded in 1613, Mellerio dits Meller is one of the oldest active jewelry houses and a rare exception in a sector marked by constant closures, mergers and reinventions. Its uniqueness lies in having maintained uninterrupted family continuity and a recognizable aesthetic identity, even in times of profound historical change.
Long before arriving in the Netherlands, Mellerio had already consolidated its position as a reference jeweler for royalty. One of the most decisive chapters in that history was its relationship with French empress Eugénie de Montijo, who, according to the firm, visited the jeweler’s shop every week.
During the Second Empire, Eugenia made jewelry a central element of her public image and found in Mellerio an ally capable of translating power, sophistication and modernity in pieces of great visual impact. That alliance definitively placed the company on the map of the great European courts, long before the queens of the north became regular customers.
A commission with a legacy vocation
In December 1888, William III commissioned Mellerio to create a set of jewelry for his wife, Queen Emma. The result was a complete set of rubies and diamonds, the centerpiece of which was an elaborately designed and balanced tiara. The use of sapphires was initially considered, but rubies were finally chosen, a choice that provided greater visual strength and a symbolism associated with power, protection and dynastic continuity.
The tiara contains a total of 385 precious stones, including rubies and diamonds, and is part of a larger set that includes earrings, brooch, choker and bracelet. The stones were integrated into a structure of scrolls and clusters that combined movement and symmetry. The design, attributed to the jeweler Oscar Massin, reflected the technical mastery of the house and its ability to create pieces designed not only to impress, but to last.
Jewelry that adapts to royal life
The death of King William III just two years after the commission marked the first major turning point in the history of the tiara. During her period of mourning, Queen Emma adapted the jewel to the strict standards of the time by replacing the rubies with diamonds, a possibility foreseen since the original design. This versatility—unusual in pieces of such caliber—reveals a very modern conception of royal jewelry: not as an untouchable object, but as a living element, capable of accompanying different life stages.
Other pieces of the set were also transformed over time. Elements of the necklace were reused as brooches, and some gems were dismantled to facilitate different uses. Far from detracting from the ensemble, these adaptations reinforced its value, making it a tangible testimony to the personal history of its owners.
From queen to queen: a carefully protected inheritance
BERLIN/PARIS/, Jan 21 (Reuters) – European far-right and populist parties that once cheered on Donald Trump and gained in standing through his praise are now distancing themselves from the U.S. president over his military incursion into Venezuela and bid for Greenland.
The Trump administration has repeatedly backed far-right European parties that share a similar stance on issues from immigration to climate change, helping legitimize movements that have long faced stigma at home but are now on the rise.
The new U.S. National Security Strategy issued last month said “the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”
But those parties now face a dilemma as disapproval of Trump rises across the continent over his increasingly aggressive foreign policy moves and in particular his efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark.
GERMANY’S AFD BERATES TRUMP
“Donald Trump has violated a fundamental campaign promise — namely, not to interfere in other countries,” Alice Weidel of the far-right Alternative for Germany said, while party co-leader Tino Chrupalla rejected “Wild West methods”.
The AfD has been cultivating ties with Trump’s administration – but polls suggest this may no longer be beneficial. A survey by pollster Forsa released on Tuesday showed 71% of Germans see Trump more as an opponent than an ally.
Wariness of Trump has grown since he vowed on Saturday to slap tariffs on a raft of EU countries including Germany, France, Sweden and Britain, until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland.
Those countries had last week sent military personnel to the vast Arctic island at Denmark’s request.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said on Tuesday Europe must react, referring to “anti-coercion measures” and the suspension of the economic agreement signed last year between the EU and the United States.
British populist party Reform UK, whose leader Nigel Farage has long feted his close ties with Trump, said it was hard to tell if the president was bluffing.
“But to use economic threats against the country that’s been considered to be your closest ally for over a hundred years is not the kind of thing we would expect,” Reform said in a statement published on Jan. 19.
Blunter still was Mattias Karlsson, often cited as chief ideologist of the far-right Sweden Democrats.
“Trump is increasingly resembling a reversed King Midas,” he wrote on X. “Everything he touches turns to shit.”
Political scientist Johannes Hillje said it would always be hard for nationalists to forge a common foreign policy “because the national interests do not always converge.”
Not all European far-right and populist parties have been so critical. Some, like the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom and Spanish Vox, praised Trump for removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yet kept silent on his Greenland threats.
Others, such as Polish President Karol Nawrocki and the nationalist government of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban have called for the issue of Greenland to be settled bilaterally between the United States and Denmark.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis posted a video on social networks on Tuesday in which he brandished a map and a globe to show how big Greenland was and how close it was to Russia if it were to send a missile.
“The U.S. has a long-term interest in Greenland, it is not just an initiative of Donald Trump now,” he said, calling for a diplomatic resolution.
MILD CRITICISM FROM MELONI
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is seen as one of the closest European leaders to Trump, said his decision to slap tariffs on European allies was a “mistake”.
“I spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think,” she said on Sunday, adding that she thought there was “a problem of understanding and communication” between Washington and Europe. She has not said anything since, but Italian media have said she is against slapping tariffs on the U.S. in response and is instead seeking to defuse the crisis with talks.
However, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, blamed the renewed trade tensions on the European nations who dispatched soldiers to Greenland.
“The eagerness to announce the dispatch of troops here and there is now bearing its bitter fruit,” he wrote on X.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Crispian Balmer in Rome, Jesus Calero in Madrid, Bart Meijer in Amsterdam, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Alan Charlish in Warsaw, Jan Lopatka in Prague and Krisztina Than in Budapest, Elizabeth Piper in London and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris)
TURIN, Italy, Jan 19 (Reuters) – When Turin hosted the Winter Olympics 20 years ago, it transformed the city’s image from grey industrial home of the troubled Fiat car-making empire to smart Mecca for food, culture and sport.
But the event – remembered in the north-western Italian metropolis for its “Passion lives here” slogan – left a legacy of large debts and unused infrastructure that offers a cautionary tale for Milano Cortina 2026.
“The 2006 Games were very positive in terms of Turin’s morale and international visibility, but less so in terms of long-term infrastructure legacy,” said renowned Turinese architect Carlo Ratti.
Marco Boglione, founder and chairman of Turin-based Basicnet , which controls apparel and sportswear brands including Kappa and Superga, recalls the 2006 Olympics as a collective civic effort that reawakened his city.
“There was an incredible participation from everyone, public and private bodies, Olympic committee, everyone. That was our secret … Turin was the first Olympic city to do something I’d call popular, collective, and it went very well,” he said.
Milan, Italy’s financial capital, and the Alpine resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo will co-host the 2026 Winter Games from February 6-22.
Turin’s Olympic candidacy was dreamed up in the 1990s as part of efforts to reinvent the city and reduce its dependency on Fiat, the once-mighty Italian auto giant that is now a part of the global Stellantis group.
The late Fiat boss Giovanni Agnelli, a towering business leader of postwar Italy and the grandfather of Stellantis Chairman John Elkann, was one of the main backers of the Olympics idea.
The Games gave Turin new or upgraded sporting venues, its first metro line, pedestrianised squares, better motorway connections to Alpine resorts that hosted part of the Olympics – and a new sense of local self-confidence.
“It put us on the map,” said Marco Gay, head of local business lobby Unione Industriali. “It gave us the impetus to change, not to be a one-company city but a city that knows how to excel and does well in many sectors.”
Boglione, who enlivened the 2006 Olympics with night-time side events, said Turin was the first Winter Games host that embraced the Summer Olympics format, with “a big city, a big event, lots of fun and entertainment for people in town”.
EUROVISION, TENNIS AND ABANDONED FACILITIES
Tourism has flourished, thanks to top-notch museums – including the world’s oldest Egyptian museum – and a spruced-up city centre that bears witness to Turin’s past as home to the royal Savoy family and as unified Italy’s first capital.
In recent years Turin, home city of soccer clubs Juventus and Torino, hosted the Eurovision Song Contest and the ATP tennis finals, with both events staged at the Inalpi Arena, a venue originally built for the Olympics.
Another Olympic site, the Oval, is a candidate to host speed skating races for the French Alps 2030 Winter Olympics.
But other facilities have been abandoned, with the most egregious examples in mountain valleys near Turin: the bobsleigh track in Cesana, closed since 2011, and ski jumps in Pragelato, also closed and abandoned.
In Turin itself, one of the Olympic Villages has had a troubled history, with parts vandalised and occupied by migrants and drug addicts, until the area was cleared and turned into student and social housing.
“It took a month just to clear out all the garbage and debris. They did a great job, after the previous administration had literally forgotten about us. Now the neighbourhood is liveable,” said Gilberto, a pensioner who lives in the area.
Another part of the village, the so-called “arcate” (arches) – near Fiat’s historic Lingotto factory, now a shopping mall and museum venue – is abandoned, with draft plans to turn them into a biotech park and a sports centre.
“The area … as it is now is a real waste, a real shame, it would be perfect for cultural initiatives,” said Aurora, a 21-year-old nursery student. “I was born and raised here, it’s my neighbourhood, but there is nothing here”.
Francesco Ramella, a transport policy expert at the University of Turin and a fellow at the free-market Istituto Bruno Leoni think tank, has estimated that the Turin Olympics cost 3.3 billion euros ($3.8 billion).
They brought long-term benefits worth 2.5 billion euros, factoring in additional tourism and upgraded infrastructure, meaning a net economic loss of 1.3 billion euros, the professor said.
Milano Cortina is currently budgeted at 5.2 billion euros, including 3.5 billion euros of public money for infrastructure, and 1.7 billion euros in private funds to organise and hold the Games.
According to a study by Italian lender Banca Ifis, they should generate a 5.3-billion-euro “Olympic windfall”, including 1.2 billion euros in extra tourism revenue and 3 billion euros from upgraded infrastructure.
Turin had offered to host the Games again in 2026, saying it would have been a low-cost alternative, re-using the 2006 infrastructure. Once that was rejected, the city turned down the chance to co-host along with Milan and Cortina.
“We did Turin a favour by not participating in the three-way Olympics,” Antonino Iaria, urban planning councillor in 2019-2021 for the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), told Reuters.
He said the city would have seen little benefit from hosting “just two or three competitions”.
TURIN’S OLYMPIC DEBT HANGOVER
Turin is today one of Italy’s most indebted cities, largely due to the cost of investments made from the 1990s to prepare the city for the Games, even if the financial situation is easing.
Debt fell to 3.3 billion euros at the end of 2025 from 3.5 billion euros in 2024. Nevertheless, debt-servicing costs, standing at nearly 240 million euros, took up nearly a fifth of current cash expenditure.
Architecture Professor Guido Montanari, deputy mayor for the M5S in 2016-2019, said the post-Olympics financial hangover forced the city into harsh budget austerity, with social and welfare spending particularly affected.
Having seen what happened in Turin, he said he was “against any kind of Olympics, I think they are really something that should be avoided”.
Needless to say, Milano Cortina backers are confident theirs will be a different story.
“Every euro (for the Olympics) is a euro well spent,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who hails from Milan, said in November.
(Reporting by Alvise Armellini and Giulio Piovaccari, editing by Keith Weir)
BRUSSELS, Jan 17 (Reuters) – European Union leaders on Saturday warned of a “dangerous downward spiral” over U.S. President Donald Trump’s vow to implement increasing tariffs on European allies until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland.
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Antonio Costa said in posts on X.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said tariffs would hurt prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic, while distracting the EU from its “core task” of ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies,” Kallas said on X.
“Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity. If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO.”
Ambassadors from the European Union’s 27 countries will convene on Sunday for an emergency meeting to discuss their response to the tariff threat.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Phil Blenkinsop, Editing by Mark Potter and Chris Reese)
AMSTERDAM, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Several people were injured after a major blast caused a fire in the center of Utrecht, one of the Netherlands’ largest cities, on Thursday afternoon.
Local authorities told broadcaster NOS at least four people were injured, and that an emergency hospital had been set up in the area.
The fire was still raging around 1630 GMT. It was unclear if there were still people inside the impacted building, as it was not safe for firemen to enter it.
The cause of the explosion was not known, authorities said.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Bart Meijer)
AMSTERDAM, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Snow and ice continued to disrupt traffic in the Netherlands on Tuesday halting all trains and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
Dutch railway company NS said no trains could operate until at least 0900 GMT due to problems caused by snow and subzero temperatures.
At Amsterdam Schiphol airport, airline KLM cancelled at least 300 flights for Tuesday as the winter weather crippled traffic at one of Europe’s main transit hubs for the fifth day in a row.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Michael Perry)
The Dutch are known for their tulips, windmills, cheese and bikes. Their comedy? Not so much. Or so it was thought. After this 60 Minutes report, you may need to rethink that. Sunday.
Margraten, Netherlands — Ever since a U.S. military cemetery in the southern Netherlands removed two displays recognizing Black troops who helped liberate Europe from the Nazis, visitors have filled the guestbook with objections.
The guestbook at the American Cemetery in the village of Margraten, Netherlands, on Dec. 11, 2025, shows a message with an objection to the removal of two displays honoring Black soldiers who helped liberate Europe from the Nazis.
Molly Quell / AP
Sometime in the spring, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining memorial sites outside the United States, removed the panels from the visitors center at the American Cemetery in Margraten, the final resting place for roughly 8,300 U.S. soldiers, set in rolling hills near the border with Belgium and Germany.
The move came after President Trump issued a series of executive orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “Our country will be woke no longer,” he said in an address to Congress in March.
The removal, carried out without public explanation, has angered Dutch officials, the families of U.S. soldiers and the local residents who honor the American sacrifice by caring for the graves.
U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo seemed to support the removal of the displays. “The signs at Margraten are not intended to promote an agenda that criticizes America,” he wrote on social media following a visit to the cemetery after the controversy had erupted. Popolo declined a request for comment.
One display told the story of 23-year-old George H. Pruitt, a Black soldier buried at the cemetery, who died attempting to rescue a comrade from drowning in 1945. The other described the U.S. policy of racial segregation in place during World War II.
The sun sets over the graves of more than 8.300 WW II troops at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands, on Dec. 11, 2025, where the American Battle Monuments Commission removed two displays honoring Black liberators from the visitors center.
Peter Dejong / AP
Some 1 million Black soldiers enlisted in the U.S. military during the war, serving in separate units, mostly doing menial tasks but also fighting in some combat missions. An all-Black unit dug the thousands of graves in Margraten during the brutal 1944-45 season of famine in the German-occupied Netherlands known in the Hunger Winter.
Cor Linssen, the 79-year-old son of a Black American soldier and a Dutch mother, is one of those who opposes the removal of the panels.
Linssen grew up some 30 miles (50 kilometers) away from the cemetery and although he didn’t learn who his father was until later in life, he knew he was the son of a Black soldier.
“When I was born, the nurse thought something was wrong with me because I was the wrong color,” he told The Associated Press. “I was the only dark child at school.”
Linssen together with a group of other children of Black soldiers, now all in their 70s and 80s, visited the cemetery in February 2025 to see the panels.
“It’s an important part of history,” Linssen said. “They should put the panels back.”
After months of mystery around the disappearance of the panels, two media organizations – the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and online media Dutch News – this month published emails obtained through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request showing that Trump’s DEI policies directly prompted the commission to take down the panels.
The White House did not respond to queries from AP about the removed panels.
The American Battle Monuments Commission did not respond to queries from AP about the revelations. Earlier, the ABMC told the AP that the panel that discussed segregation “did not fall within (the) commemorative mission.”
It also said that the panel about Pruitt was “rotated” out. The replacement panel features Leslie Loveland, a white soldier killed in Germany in 1945, who is buried at Margraten.
Chair of the Black Liberators foundation and Dutch senator Theo Bovens said his organization, which pushed for the inclusion of the panels at the visitors center, was not informed that they were removed. He told AP it is “strange” that the U.S. commission feels the panels are not in their mission, as they placed them in 2024.
“Something has changed in the United States,” he said.
Bovens, who is from the region around Margraten, is one of thousands of locals who tend to the graves at the cemetery. People who adopt a grave visit it regularly and leave flowers on the fallen soldier’s birthday and other holidays. The responsibility is often passed down through Dutch families, and there is a waiting list to adopt graves of the U.S. soldiers.
Both the city and the province where the cemetery is located have demanded the panels be returned. In November, a Dutch television program recreated the panels and installed them outside the cemetery, where they were quickly removed by police. The show is now seeking a permanent location for them.
The Black Liberators is also looking to find a permanent location for a memorial for the Black soldiers who gave their lives to free the Dutch.
On America Square, in front of the Eijsden-Margraten city hall, there is a small park named for Jefferson Wiggins, a Black solider who, at age 19, dug many of the graves at Margraten when he was stationed in the Netherlands.
In his memoir, published posthumously in 2014, he describes burying the bodies of his white comrades who he was barred from fraternizing with while they were alive.
When Black soldiers came to Europe in the Second World War, ”what they found was people who accepted them, who welcomed them, who treated them as the heroes that they were. And that includes the Netherlands,″ said Linda Hervieux, whose book “Forgotten” chronicles Black soldiers who fought on D-Day and segregation they faced back home.
The removal of the panels, she said, “follows a historical pattern of writing out the stories of men and women of color in the United States.”
WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – The White House has ordered U.S. military forces to focus almost exclusively on enforcing the “quarantine” of Venezuela, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.
“While military options still exist the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking,” the official said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, editing by Michelle Nichols)
The Dutch Gambling Authority (KSA) will undergo a significant internal transformation, reflecting the sharp evolution of the country’s gambling market and its associated risks in recent years. Starting from January 1, 2026, a new, streamlined governance model will centralize the regulator’s management structure, bolstering its focus on player protection, digital oversight, and enforcement.
An Updated Leadership Structure Reflects Shifting Market Trends
The regulator announced that it will maintain continuity, meaning that Michel Groothuizen will remain chairman and the sole full-time member of the Board of Directors. Two additional part-time board members will contribute strategic input rather than overseeing day-to-day operations. Their recruitment is at an advanced stage, and formal announcements are expected in the next few months.
“This change will make the KSA a modern, agile organization that oversees a rapidly changing gambling market.”
KSA statement
The regulator is also consolidating its internal departments into three directorates responsible for day-to-day management. One will concentrate on Player Protection and Management Advice, underscoring the growing political and public emphasis on harm prevention. Another will oversee Licenses and Supervision, maintaining the regulator’s core responsibilities around market access and compliance. The third, Digitalization, Analysis, and Operations, will keep track of technological advancements in the sector.
The directors of these three new directorates, Roos Lawant, Ella Seijsener, and Daniël Palomo van Es, will collectively assume operational control, leaving the board to focus on strategy, governance, and accountability. Vice-chair Bernadette van Buchem will step down at the end of 2025, concluding a four-decade career in public service marked by a strong commitment to gambling regulation.
Illegal Operators Remain a Persistent Issue
The restructuring aligns with a moment of self-reflection for the KSA. In a recent speech, Groothuizen admitted the limitations of the Netherlands’ current regulatory framework. Despite the introduction of a regulated online market, offshore operators continue to thrive due to the country’s reluctance to block websites or impose aggressive internet restrictions.
At the same time, some of the Netherlands’ strict player protection rules have led to unintended consequences. There has been a gradual but steady movement of high-spending players to unlicensed platforms, causing tension in the regulated market and undermining channelization efforts. Groothuizen underlined the growing need for international collaboration by regulators to address the global rise in illegal gambling.
Groothuizen has consistently called for deeper international cooperation, even floating the idea of a Europe-wide body dedicated to combating illegal gambling, akin to Interpol. The KSA’s reorganization signals that gambling oversight is no longer just about issuing licenses and chasing violations. It is about data, digital tools, and strategic coordination — and the regulator wants to remain relevant.
AMSTERDAM, Dec 12 (Reuters) – The United Nations has completed an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, the presidency of the court’s governing body said on Friday.
The findings will remain confidential while an external panel of judicial experts reviews them – a process that is expected to take up to 30 days, the ICC’s governing body said.
Khan, who rejects all allegations of wrongdoing, stepped aside temporarily while the investigation was ongoing.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Bart Meijer; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Ron Curtis, an English professor in Montreal, lived for 40 years with a degenerative spinal disease, in what he called the “black hole” of chronic pain.
On a July day in 2022, Mr. Curtis, 64, ate a last bowl of vegetable soup made by his wife, Lori, and, with the help of a palliative care doctor, died in his bedroom overlooking a lake.
Aron Wade, a successful 54-year-old stage and television actor in Belgium, decided he could no longer tolerate life with the depression that haunted him for three decades.
Last year, after a panel of medical experts found he had “unbearable mental suffering,” a doctor came to his home and gave him medicine to stop his heart, with his partner and two best friends at his side.
Argemiro Ariza was in his early 80s when he began to lose function in his limbs, no longer able to care for his wife, who had dementia, in their home in Bogotá.
Doctors diagnosed A.L.S., and he told his daughter Olga that he wanted to die while he still had dignity. His children threw him a party with a mariachi band and lifted him from his wheelchair to dance. A few days later, he admitted himself to a hospital, and a doctor administered a drug that ended his life.
Until recently, each of these deaths would have been considered a murder. But a monumental change is underway around the world. From liberal European countries to conservative Latin American ones, a new way of thinking about death is starting to take hold.
Stephanie Nolen is exploring access, attitudes and approaches to medically assisted death around the world.
Over the past five years, the practice of allowing a physician to help severely ill patients end their lives with medication has been legalized in nine countries on three continents. Courts or legislatures, or both, are considering legalization in a half-dozen more, including South Korea and South Africa, as well as eight of the 31 American states where it remains prohibited.
It is a last frontier in the expansion of individual autonomy. More people are seeking to define the terms of their deaths in the same way they have other aspects of their lives, such as marriage and childbearing. This is true even in Latin America, where conservative institutions such as the Roman Catholic church are still powerful.
“We believe in the priority of our control over our bodies, and as a heterogeneous culture, we believe in choices: If your choice does not affect me, go ahead,” said Dr. Julieta Moreno Molina, a bioethicist who has advised Colombia’s Ministry of Health on its assisted dying regulations.
Yet, as assisted death gains more acceptance, there are major unresolved questions about who should be eligible. While most countries begin with assisted death for terminal illness, which has the most public support, this is often followed quickly by a push for wider access. With that push comes often bitter public debate.
Should someone with intractable depression be allowed an assisted death?
European countries and Colombia all permit people with irremediable suffering from conditions such as depression or schizophrenia to seek an assisted death. But in Canada, the issue has become contentious. Assisted death for people who do not have a reasonably foreseeable natural death was legalized in 2021, but the government has repeatedly excluded people with mental illness. Two of them are challenging the exclusion in court on the grounds that it violates their constitutional rights.
In public debate, supporters of the right to assisted death for these patients say that people who have lived with severe depression for years, and have tried a variety of therapies and medications, should be allowed to decide when they are no longer willing to keep pursuing treatments. Opponents, concerned that mental illness can involve a pathological wish to die, say it can be difficult to predict the potential effectiveness of treatments. And, they argue, people who struggle to get help from an overburdened public health service may simply give up and choose to die, though their conditions might have been improved.
Should a child with an incurable condition be able to choose assisted death?
The ability to consent is a core consideration in requesting assisted death. Only a handful of countries are willing to extend that right to minors. Even in the places that do, there are just a few assisted deaths for children each year, almost always children with cancer.
In Colombia and the Netherlands, children over 12 can request assisted death on their own. Parents can provide consent for children 11 and younger.
Denise de Ruijter took comfort in her Barbie dolls when she struggled to connect with people. She was diagnosed with autism and had episodes of depression and psychosis. As a teenager in a Dutch town, she craved the life her schoolmates had — nights out, boyfriends — but couldn’t manage it.
She attempted suicide several times before applying for an assisted death at 18. Evaluators required her to try three years of additional therapies before agreeing her suffering was unbearable. She died in 2021, with her family and Barbies nearby.
The issue is under renewed scrutiny in the Netherlands, where, over the past decade, a growing number of adolescents have applied for assisted death for relief from irremediable psychiatric suffering from conditions such as eating disorders and anxiety.
Most such applications by teens are either withdrawn by the patient, or rejected by assessors, but public concern over a few high-profile cases of teens who received assisted deaths prompted the country’s regulator to consider a moratorium on approvals for children applying on the basis of psychiatric suffering.
Should someone with dementia be allowed assisted death?
Many people dread the idea of losing their cognitive abilities and their autonomy, and hope to have an assisted death when they reach that point. But this is a more complex situation to regulate than for a person who can still make a clear request.
How can a person who is losing their mental capacity consent to dying? Most governments, and doctors, are too uncomfortable to permit it, even though the idea tends to be popular in countries with aging populations.
In Colombia, Spain, Ecuador and the Canadian province of Quebec, people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or other kinds of cognitive decline can request assessment for an assisted death before they lose mental capacity, sign an advance request — and then have a physician end their life after they have lost the ability to consent themselves.
But that raises a separate, challenging, question: After people lose the capacity to request an assisted death, who should decide it’s time?
Their spouses? Their children? Their doctors? The government? Colombia entrusts families with this role. The Netherlands leaves it up to doctors — but many refuse to do it, unwilling to administer lethal drugs to a patient who can’t clearly articulate a rational wish to die.
Jan Grijpma was always clear with his daughter, Maria: When his mind went, he didn’t want to live any more. Maria worked with his longtime family doctor, in Amsterdam, to identify the point when Mr. Grijpma, 90 and living in a nursing home, was losing his ability to consent himself.
When it seemed close, in 2023, they booked the day, and he updated his day planner: Thursday, visit the vicar; Friday, bicycle with physiotherapy and get a haircut; Sunday, pancakes with Maria; Monday, euthanasia.
All of these questions are becoming part of the discussion as the right to control and plan one’s own death is pushed in front of reluctant legislatures and uneasy medical professionals.
Dr. Madeline Li, a Toronto psychiatrist, was given the task of developing the assisted-dying practice in one of Canada’s largest hospitals when the procedure was first decriminalized in 2015. She began with assessing patients for eligibility and then moved to providing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, as it is called in Canada. For some patients with terminal cancer, it felt like the best form of care she could offer, she said.
But then Canada’s eligibility criteria expanded, and Dr. Li found herself confronting a different kind of patient.
“To provide assisted dying to somebody dying of a condition who is not happy with how they’re going to die, I’m willing to assist them, and hasten that death,” she said. “I struggle more with people who aren’t dying and want MAID — I think then you’re assisting suicide. If you’re not dying — if I didn’t give you MAID, you wouldn’t otherwise die — then you’re a person who’s not unhappy with how you’re going to die. You’re unhappy with how you’re living.”
Who has broken the taboo?
For decades, Switzerland was the only country to permit assisted death; assisted suicide was legalized there in 1942. It took a further half century for a few more countries to loosen their laws. Now decriminalization of some form of assisted death has occurred across Europe.
But there has recently been a wave of legalization in Latin America, where Colombia was long an outlier, having allowed legal assisted dying since 2015.
Paola Roldán Espinosa had a thriving career in business in Ecuador, and a toddler, when she was diagnosed with A.L.S. in 2023. Her health soon deteriorated to the point that she needed a ventilator.
She wanted to die on her terms — and took the case to the country’s highest court. In February 2024, the court responded to her petition by decriminalizing assisted dying. Ms. Roldán, then 42, had the death she sought, with her family around her, a month later.
Ecuador has decriminalized assisted dying through constitutional court cases, and Peru’s Supreme Court has permitted individual exceptions to the law which prohibits the procedure, opening the door to expansion. Cuba’s national assembly legalized assisted dying in 2023, although no regulations on how the procedure will work are yet in place. In October, Uruguay’s parliament passed a long-debated law allowing assisted death for the terminally ill.
The first country in Asia to take steps toward legalization is South Korea, where a bill to decriminalize assisted death has been proposed at the National Assembly several times but has not come to a vote. At the same time, the Constitutional Court, which for years refused to hear cases on the subject, has agreed to adjudicate a petition from a disabled man with severe and chronic pain who seeks an assisted death.
Access in the United States remains limited: 11 jurisdictions (10 states plus the District of Columbia) allow assisted suicide or physician-assisted death, for patients who have a terminal diagnosis, and in some cases, only for patients who are already in hospice care. It will become legal in Delaware on Jan. 1, 2026.
In Slovenia, in 2024, 55 percent of the population who voted in a national referendum were in favor of legalizing assisted death, and parliament duly passed a law in July. But pushback from right-wing politicians then forced a new referendum, and in late November, 54 percent of those who voted rejected the legalization.
And in the United Kingdom, a bill to legalize assisted death for people with terminal illness has made its way slowly through parliament. It has faced fierce opposition from a coalition of more than 60 groups for people with disabilities, who argue they may face subtle coercion to end their lives rather than drain their families or the state of resources for their care.
Why now?
In many countries, decriminalization of assisted dying has followed the expansion of rights for personal choice in other areas, such as the removal of restrictions on same-sex marriage, abortion and sometimes drug use.
“I would expect it to be on the agenda in every liberal democracy,” said Wayne Sumner, a medical ethicist at the University of Toronto who studies the evolution of norms and regulations around assisted dying. “They’ll come to it at their own speed, but it follows with these other policies.”
The change is also being driven by a convergence of political, demographic and cultural trends.
As populations age, and access to health care improves, more people are living longer. Older populations mean more chronic disease, and more people living with compromised health. And they are thinking about death, and what they will — and won’t — be willing to tolerate in the last years of their lives.
At the same time, there is diminishing tolerance for suffering that is perceived as unnecessary.
“Until very recently, we were a society where few people lived past 60 — and now suddenly we live much longer,” said Lina Paola Lara Negrette, a psychologist who until October was the director of the Dying With Dignity Foundation in Colombia. “Now people here need to think about the system, and the services that are available, and what they will want.”
Changes in family structures and communities, particularly in rapidly urbanizing middle-income countries, mean that traditional networks of care are less strong, which shifts how people can imagine living in older age or with chronic illness, she added.
“When you had many siblings and a lot of generations under one roof, the question of care was a family thing,” she said. “That has changed. And it shapes how we think about living, and dying.”
How does assisted dying work?
Beyond the ethical dilemmas, actually carrying out legalized assisted deaths involves countless choices for countries. Spain requires a waiting period of at least 15 days between a patient’s assessments (but the average wait in practice is 75 days). In most other places, the prescribed wait is less than two weeks for patients with terminal conditions, but often longer in practice, said Katrine Del Villar, a professor of constitutional law at the Queensland University of Technology who tracks trends in assisted dying
Most countries allow patients to choose between administering the drugs themselves or having a health care provider do it. When both options are available, the overwhelming majority of people choose to have a health care provider end their life with an injection that stops their heart.
In many countries only a doctor can administer the drugs, but Canada and New Zealand permit nurse practitioners to provide medically assisted deaths too.
One Australian state prohibits medical professionals from raising the topic of assisted death. A patient must ask about it first.
Who determines eligibility is another issue. In the Netherlands, two physicians assess a patient; in Colombia, it’s a panel consisting of a medical specialist, a psychologist and a lawyer. The draft legislation in Britain would require both a panel and two independent physicians.
Switzerland and the states of Oregon and Vermont are the only jurisdictions in the world that explicitly allow people who are not residents access to assisted deaths.
Most countries permit medical professionals to conscientiously object to providing assisted deaths and allow faith-based medical institutions to refuse to participate. In Canada, individual professionals have the right to refuse, but a court challenge is underway seeking to end the ability of hospitals that are controlled by faith-based organizations and that operate with public funds to refuse to allow assisted deaths on their premises.
“Even when assisted dying has been legal and available somewhere for a long time, there can be a gap between what is legal and what is acceptable — what most physicians and patients and families feel comfortable with,” said Dr. Sisco van Veen, an ethicist and psychiatrist at Amsterdam Medical University. “And this isn’t static. It evolves over time.”
Jin Yu Young in Seoul, José Bautista in Madrid, José María León Cabrera in Quito, Veerle Schyns in Amsterdam and Koba Ryckewaert in Brussels contributed reporting.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, will remain in detention in The Hague, appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled on Friday, dismissing defence arguments the 80-year-old should be released due to his advanced age and alleged declining health.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Bart Meijer)
The Dutch government handed back control of semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia to its Chinese owner, moving toward resolving a spat that had blocked vital chip supply to the auto industry.
Dutch economic-affairs minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday that the decision had been made in consultation with the Netherlands’ European and international partners and followed recent meetings with Chinese authorities.
France denounced the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats as a violation of international law. Canada and the Netherlands have stressed they aren’t involved. Colombia has vowed to cut off intelligence cooperation with Washington. Mexico summoned the U.S. ambassador to complain.
Two months into the Trump administration’s military campaign against low-level smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the coalition of partners that has long underpinned U.S. antidrug operations in the region is fraying.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -The United Nations war crimes tribunal on Friday ruled that a geriatric Rwandan genocide suspect, who has been found unfit to stand trial, is also not fit to travel to Rwanda and will need to remain in a U.N. detention unit as no states will accept him.
In their ruling, U.N. judges called on European states to take in nonagenarian Felicien Kabuga who is now wheelchair-bound and largely confined to the detention centre’s hospital unit.
In 2023, the U.N. court said that Kabuga would not have to stand trial on genocide charges due to his dementia. Kabuga is in his early nineties, though his precise date of birth is disputed. He was arrested in France in 2020 after more than 20 years on the run.
The former businessman and radio station owner was one of the last suspects sought by the tribunal prosecuting crimes committed in the 1994 genocide, when ruling Hutu majority extremists killed more than 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates in 100 days.
Prosecutors say Kabuga promoted hate speech through his broadcaster, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), and armed ethnic Hutu militias.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -For years, it was a common occurrence: Dutch bandits would drive to Germany and in the dead of night blow up ATMs, grab cash and speed back home on the Autobahn.
Now, a crackdown is bearing fruit.
ATM attacks have dropped to 115 so far this year, less than a quarter of their peak of more than one a day – 496 – in 2022, according to German police data provided to Reuters.
The spree of explosions has terrorized residents throughout Germany, where – in contrast to other countries – cash remains popular and ATMs are often built directly beneath apartments and in pedestrian zones. The damage has amounted to more than 400 million euros ($466.48 million) since 2020.
“The threat level in Germany remains high, particularly in light of the use … of extremely unstable explosives,” according to a September report by Germany’s top crime-fighters at the federal criminal police, or BKA.
Now the gangs are driving a bit further to Austria, where using cash is still widespread. Attacks in Austria have doubled this year in what the BKA told Reuters was likely “a squeezing-out effect from Germany”. Dutch police have suspected hundreds of men are responsible, working in ever-evolving groups as new recruits replace those caught.
GERMANS STILL LOVE TO USE CASH
Underscoring the shift to Austria, prosecutors said a Dutchman who stole 220,000 euros from cash machines near Frankfurt in 2023 blew up ATMs in Vienna earlier this year, getting away with 89,000 euros in booty and causing 1.5 million euros in damage.
The person was taken into custody on a European arrest warrant and is awaiting trial.
Over the years, this modern twist on the old-fashioned bank heist arose out of two distinctly German factors, investigators say.
First, Germany is a wealthy nation whose residents love to use cash for purchases, meaning ATMs are aplenty. And second, Germany’s famous highway network makes for a quick getaway.
German banks have also invested more than 300 million euros in security in recent years, according to the most recent figures from Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft, an umbrella group for financial institutions, a drop in the ocean for a sector where profits collectively top 50 billion euros annually.
The measures include mechanisms that blow a thick fog when machines are tampered with or emit dyes that render bills unusable. Many banks now lock lobbies around ATMs at night.
The thefts are less sophisticated than many online scams, where law enforcement in Germany and across the globe are battling a surge.
Last week, Germany announced arrests after a years-long probe of fraudsters who – with the help of German payment providers, sham websites and fictitious companies – stole more than 300 million euros from people in 193 countries.
CASES FALL IN GERMANY, RISE IN AUSTRIA
Cases fell this year in all but three of Germany’s 16 states, according to police statistics.
The state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands, was one of the hardest hit in 2022 with 182 attacks. So far this year, they are down to just 25.
Despite the decline, collateral damage is still significant, police there pointed out, with one attack in January near Cologne causing 1.8 million euros in damage.
Police credit cooperation with Dutch investigators to locate and nab suspects. The majority of culprits have been Dutch, but some are German, French and Moldovan. Dutch police did not respond to questions from Reuters but in the past have acknowledged the trend.
Police in the state of Hesse, home to Germany’s banking capital Frankfurt, created a tool that generates a probability forecast of an ATM getting hit, based on make, location and other variables.
Last week, Germany’s parliament voted to increase prison sentences for such attacks.
In Austria, cases have risen to 29 so far this year, up from 13 in 2024, according to figures from the interior ministry, which said they first detected the Dutch gangs in 2023.
Austrians have the highest preference for paying in cash in the euro zone, a 2024 European Central Bank study found, meaning plenty of ATMs.
Police there said they are cooperating closely with the police in Germany and the Netherlands.
(Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Andrew Cawthorne)
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -A Dutch appeals court on Thursday confirmed a decision to throw out a case brought by pro-Palestinian groups to stop the Netherlands exporting weapons to Israel and trading with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
The court said it was up to the state to decide what actions to take and not judges.
In a written ruling, the court said it could not order a blanket ban because the pro-Palestinian groups had not shown that the government was routinely failing to consider whether exported arms or dual-use goods would be used to violate rights.
The court in The Hague added that the Dutch government already did enough to discourage companies from working in the occupied territories.
The plaintiffs, citing high civilian casualties in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, had argued that the Dutch state, as a signatory to the 1948 Genocide Convention, has a duty to take all reasonable measures at its disposal to prevent genocide.
Israel has repeatedly dismissed accusations of genocide and said its Gaza campaign was focused solely on fighting Hamas.
The court said the Netherlands did have that obligation under the Genocide Convention and that there was “a grave risk” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
But it backed a decision by a lower court in December last year. In that case, the judges sided with the Dutch state which had said it continually assesses the risk around exported arms, and that it has refused some exports.
The pro-Palestinian NGOs had said the Netherlands had exported radar systems, parts for F-16 fighter jets and warships, police dogs and cameras and software for surveillance systems.
The Dutch government says that it has halted most arms exports to Israel and only allows parts for defence systems such as the Iron Dome.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
After a speeding train collided with a semi-truck carrying pears in the Netherlands, authorities have released video of the incident to “raise awareness and improve behavior.”Jeremy Roth for CNN’s “Take a Look at This (TALAT)” reports that authorities are using the truck driver’s ill-timed hesitation as a cautionary tale about safety at railroad crossings.The train’s collision with the truck’s cargo trailer sent thousands of pears flying across the scene.See the TALAT video in the player above, and learn what happened when a bear got trapped in an SUV in ColoradoVideo released by Pro Rail shows the truck approaching the crossing, pausing, and then reversing as safety arms closed around it.The driver appeared unsure of what to do and attempted to move just as the commuter train bore down. Pro Rail reported minor injuries and shared the video on social media. They advised drivers to move through lowered safety arms if they become stuck.
(Video: CNN, PRO RAIL, TMX, LARIMER COUNTY SD, Pro Rail/TMX via CNN Newsource) —
After a speeding train collided with a semi-truck carrying pears in the Netherlands, authorities have released video of the incident to “raise awareness and improve behavior.”
Jeremy Roth for CNN’s “Take a Look at This (TALAT)” reports that authorities are using the truck driver’s ill-timed hesitation as a cautionary tale about safety at railroad crossings.
The train’s collision with the truck’s cargo trailer sent thousands of pears flying across the scene.
See the TALAT video in the player above, and learn what happened when a bear got trapped in an SUV in Colorado
Video released by Pro Rail shows the truck approaching the crossing, pausing, and then reversing as safety arms closed around it.
The driver appeared unsure of what to do and attempted to move just as the commuter train bore down.
Pro Rail reported minor injuries and shared the video on social media. They advised drivers to move through lowered safety arms if they become stuck.
