Europe

    Denmark will force refugees to hand over their valuables in order to pay for their accommodation while applying for asylum, in a move the UN has warned may fuel fear and xenophobia. The Danish government has secured a parliamentary majority in favour of legislation that will severely curb the rights of refugees, and is expected to pass the legislation in parliament on Wednesday. The bill states that asylum seekers who arrive with more than 10,000 kronas in cash “will have to [use] the surplus above 10,000 kronas to pay for their stay”, Danish government spokesman Marcus Knuth told the Guardian. After criticism of an earlier draft of the law, refugees will no longer have to give up items of sentimental value, such as wedding rings or items deemed as essential, such as watch...

    Police in Antalya have arrested three Russians accused of having connections with the terror group Islamic State. An anti-terror squad conducted the raid a day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people in Istanbul. Russia's Consulate General in Turkey's Mediterranean city, Antalya, confirmed that three of its na-tionals had been detained over suspected connections with the Islamic State (IS). Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said that an anti-terrorism squad conducted the raids on Wednesday. The suspects were allegedly in contact with IS fighters in conflict areas and had provided logistical support to the group, Anadolu said. Moscow says thousands of Russians have left the country to join the IS in Syria. The arrests come in the wake of a terror attack in Istanbul a d...

    President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Monday in an interview with German daily Bild that Western economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis are affecting Russia. "Concerning our possibilities on the international financial markets, the sanctions are severely harming Russia," he said in a long interview, calling the EU sanctions "a theatre of the absurd". Moscow has been hit by US and European sanctions over the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces which has claimed more than 9,000 lives since April 2014. In late December, the EU extended its sanctions by six months, arguing that the Minsk peace agreement signed by Moscow has not been fully implemented. Putin said, however, that "the biggest harm is currently caused by the decline of the prices for ...

    Supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement PEGIDA during a demonstration march, in reaction to mass assaults on women on New Year's Eve, in Cologne, Germany January 9, 2016 BERLIN. A group of Pakistanis and a Syrian were attacked in Cologne amid tensions over New Year's Eve assaults in the city that have been blamed largely on foreigners, police said Monday. Six Pakistani nationals were attacked Sunday by a group of around 20 people and two of them were briefly admitted to a hospital, police said. Also Sunday evening, a Syrian man was attacked by five people. He was injured but didn't need treatment. Police said they received tips Sunday afternoon about groups of people who would "seek provocation," but were still investigating whether the subsequent attacks were r...

    Members from the Civic Unity for the Republic protest outside court. The Infanta Cristina, the sister of the king of Spain, has arrived at a court in Mallorca where she is appearing on charges of tax evasion, the first time a member of the royal family has been arraigned in court. Cristina Federica Victoria Antonia de la Santísima Trinidad de Borbón y de Grecia – her full title – and 17 co-defendants face 89 charges ranging from fraud and money laundering to trafficking of influences. It is alleged that the sixth in line to the Spanish throne was complicit in the illegal business affairs of her husband Iñaki Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball champion. The trial will be presided over by three female judges. Cristina and Urdangarin said nothing as they entered a makeshif...

    A member of the Egyptian security stands guard in front of the entrance to Bella Vista Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, Egypt, January 9, 2016. Three tourists stabbed by suspected Isis terrorists at an Egyptian beach resort are being treated for their injuries after the second attack on hotels in the country in two days. Two Austrians and a Swede were wounded by two men stormed the beachside Bella Vista hotel in Hurghada on Friday night, reportedly raising an Isis flag. Renata and Wilhelm Weisslein, both 72, and Sammie Olovsson, 27, were not seriously wounded and are in a stable condition. Security officials told the Reuters news agency that the assailants were also armed with a gun and explosives belt but were shot by police who repelled the assault. A hotel manag...

    Egyptian authorities are hunting two masked gunmen who opened fire on a tourist bus near the Giza pyramids. Security sources in Cairo said there have been no deaths among the group of holidaymakers, which included two Israelis. An official said there had been some damage to the facade of the Three Pyramids Hotel. The Egyptian government has been battling an insurgency based in northern Sinai, with attacks multiplying after the military overthrew Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The uprising has seen the country's mainland attacked a number of times in recent months. Some extremists in Sinai have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and claimed the downing of a Russian airliner that killed 224 people there last year. Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Christians are ...

    Police officers secure the perimeter near the scene of a fatal shooting which took place at a police station in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2016. French officials say a man armed with a knife was shot to death by officers… PARIS — Officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man with wires protruding from his clothes at a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, French officials said, a year to the day after an attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo launched a bloody year in the French capital. Luc Poignant, a police union official, said the man cried out "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great." Just a few minutes earlier, elsewhere in the city, French President Francois Hollande had finished paying homage to police officers killed in the line of duty, in...

    German authorities said on Tuesday that coordinated attacks in which young women were sexually harassed and robbed by hundreds of young men on New Year’s Eve in the western city of Cologne were unprecedented in scale and nature. The assault, which went largely unreported for days, set off a national outcry after the Cologne police described the attackers as young men “who appeared to have a North African or Arabic” background, based on testimony from victims and witnesses. More than 90 people have filed legal complaints, the police said on Tuesday. Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing Newsletter The police in Hamburg also said that 10 women had reported being sexually assaulted and robbed in a similar fashion on the same night, and they urged witnesses to come forward. G...

    Poland is ready to drop its fierce opposition to David Cameron's welfare plans if he supports a call to permanently base Nato troops in the country. In a potentially significant breakthrough for the British government, Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish foreign minister, said he is "of course" willing to consider a bargain over a proposed ban on European migrants claiming in-work benefits. In exchange, Poland wants Britain to back the permanent basing of Nato troops in the country to deter Russian aggression. The issue will be discussed at a Nato summit in Warsaw in July. "It would be very difficult for us to accept any discrimination," Mr Waszczykowski said. "Unless Britain helped us really effectively with regard to the Polish defense ambitions at the summit in Warsaw." As...