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AMSTERDAM (AP) — Israeli fans were assaulted after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, Dutch authorities said Friday. Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe. Reports of antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise across Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions mounted in the Dutch capital a...
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons. Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the "taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure." Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a shift in his country's nuclear doctrine, in a move aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top U.N. court said Friday that Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is "unlawful" and called on it to end and for settlement construction to stop immediately, issuing an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel's rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly denounced the nonbinding opinion issued by the 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, saying the territories are part of the Jewish people's historic "homeland." Bu...
VIJFHUIZEN, Netherlands (AP) — Grieving families recited the names and ages Wednesday of all 298 passengers and crew killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine 10 years ago, as they marked the anniversary of the tragedy at a solemn ceremony near Amsterdam. The relatives, some weeping or choking back tears, named brothers, sisters, parents, grandchildren, grandparents nieces and nephews in a litany of lost lives that lasted 30 minutes. "It's a black day," said Evert van Zijtveld, who lost his daughter and son, F...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Palestinian officials have applied at the top U.N. court for permission to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. The request published Monday alleges that Israel's ongoing military operation is "part of a systematic effort to wipe Palestinian society and its culture and social institutions from the map." The request to the International Court of Justice was made on behalf of the "State of Palestine" and signed by Palestinian Authority foreign ministry official Ammar Hijazi. South Africa f...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations' top court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Although Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country. Criticism of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly since it turned its focus to Rafah. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a P...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Campus protests by pro-Palestinian activists spread across Europe on Tuesday as some called for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, while schools increasingly faced the question under debate in the U.S.: Allow or intervene? German police broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin's Free University. Protesters occupied a university building in Amsterdam hours after police detained 169 people at a different campus location. Two remained in c...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Israeli officials sound increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court could issue arrest warrants for the country's leaders more than six months into the Israel-Hamas war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote Friday in general terms about ICC action against Israeli troops and officials, and Israel's foreign ministry has said it is also tracking reports of pending action. The ICC was set up more than a decade ago to tackle impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and other grave c...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave. The International Court of Justice issued two new so-called provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its military campaign launched after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel denies it is committing genocide. It says its military c...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations' top court on Friday ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering Jerusalem to end the military offensive that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave. In a ruling that will keep Israel under the legal lens for years to come, the court offered little other comfort to Israeli leaders in a genocide case brought by South Africa that goes to the core of one of the world's most intractable conflicts. The c...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations' top court will issue a decision Friday on South Africa's request for interim orders in a genocide case against Israel, including that Israel halt its offensive in Gaza. The decision is a preliminary stage of a case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel's military action in its war with Hamas in Gaza amounts to genocide. Israel strongly rejects the accusation and has asked the court to throw out the case. The court in The Hague, Netherlands, announced t...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Accused of committing genocide against Palestinians, Israel insisted at the United Nations' highest court Friday that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and said that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide. Israel described the allegations leveled by South Africa as hypocritical and said that one of the biggest cases ever to come before an international court reflected a world turned upside down. Israeli leaders defend their air and ground offensive in Gaza as a legitimate r...
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that were critical in slowing the pandemic — technology that's also being studied to fight cancer and other diseases. Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman were cited for contributing "to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health," according to the panel that awarded the prize in Stockholm. The panel said the pair...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Henk Schiffmaker's needle whirrs as he tattoos the familiar lines of an elephant on Lilian Rachmaran's back. "Highbrow to lowbrow" is how the famous Dutch tattoo artist describes his latest project — inking sketches by Rembrandt van Rijn onto the skin of visitors to the building the Golden Age master once called home. Or call it high art to body art. The Rembrandt House Museum has transformed one of its rooms into a tattoo parlor for a residency it calls "A Poor Man's Rembrandt," featuring Schiffmaker and other top Amsterdam ta...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Authorities in the U.S. and Europe arrested nearly 300 people, confiscated over $53 million, and seized a dark web marketplace as part of an international crack down on drug trafficking that officials say was the largest operation of its kind. The worldwide operation targeting the "Monopoly Market" is the latest major takedown of sales platforms for drugs and other illicit goods on the so-called dark web, a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized a...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Throw another mammoth on the barbie? An Australian company on Tuesday lifted the glass cloche on a meatball made of lab-grown cultured meat using the genetic sequence from the long-extinct pachyderm, saying it was meant to fire up public debate about the hi-tech treat. The launch in an Amsterdam science museum came just days before April 1 so there was an elephant in the room: Is this for real? "This is not an April Fools joke," said Tim Noakesmith, founder of Australian startup Vow. "This is a real innovation." Cultivated m...
LONDON (AP) — Thousands of police, hundreds of British troops and an army of officials made final preparations Sunday for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II — a spectacular display of national mourning that will also be the biggest gathering of world leaders for years. U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders have flown into London for the funeral, to which around 500 royals, heads of state and heads of government from around the globe have been invited. As the dignitaries poured in, the clock was ticking down for those see...
LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II's coffin will leave Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it is taken amid somber pageantry on a horse-drawn gun carriage past crowds of mourners to the Houses of Parliament, where the late monarch will lie in state for four days. Crowds began massing early along the flag-lined road outside the palace for the procession from the monarch's official London residence to the historic Westminster Hall at Parliament. King Charles III and other members of the royal family will walk behind the coffin. T...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — From a hastily convened meeting of the United Nations Security Council to capitals around the world, leaders have condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin's recognition of two pro-Russia regions in eastern Ukraine as independent and his order to send troops there. The U.S., European Union and U.K. announced tough economic sanctions, warning more would follow if Putin proceeds further. Governments also warned of a global fallout from the crisis over Ukraine, which was evident Tuesday as oil prices rose, stock m...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — A cold case team that combed through evidence for five years in a bid to unravel one of World War II's enduring mysteries has reached what it calls the "most likely scenario" of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family. Their answer, outlined in a new book called "The Betrayal of Anne Frank A Cold Case Investigation," by Canadian academic and author Rosemary Sullivan, is that it could have been a prominent Jewish notary called Arnold van den Bergh, who disclosed the secret annex hiding place of the Frank fa...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — When the FBI dismantled an encrypted messaging service based in Canada in 2018, agents noticed users moving to other networks. Instead of following their tracks to rivals, investigators decided on a new tactic: creating their own service. ANOM, a secure-messaging service built by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, launched in October 2019 and solidified its following after authorities took down another rival. Popularity spread by word of mouth. When ANOM was taken down Monday, authorities had collected more than 27 m...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The delicacy of one of the first objects in new exhibition at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum belies its brutality. At the end of a thin iron rod are the artistically interwoven letters GWC — used to brand the initials of a Dutch trading company into the skin of enslaved workers. The stark contrast between finery and brutality, wealth and inhumanity is a recurring pattern at the museum's unflinching exhibition titled, simply, "Slavery," that examines the history of Dutch involvement in the international slave trade. Nearby, a huge woo...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — In a ruling hailed as an "immense victory for climate justice," the Netherlands' top court ruled Friday in favor of activists who have for years been seeking legal orders to force the Dutch government into cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Activists in a packed chamber of the Supreme Court in The Hague erupted into applause and cheers as Presiding Judge Kees Streefkerk rejected the government's appeal against earlier rulings ordering the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from b...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch father accused of holding six of his children against their will on an isolated farm for nine years is now also suspected of sexually abusing two of his other children, prosecutors said Thursday. The abuse allegations add a grim new element to a case that is shrouded in mystery and garnered huge attention across the Netherlands. The 67-year-old father and a 58-year-old man, who is reportedly an Austrian national and rented the farm to the family, are suspected of illegal deprivation of liberty and abuse f...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The heat wave that smashed temperature records in Western Europe last month was made more likely and intensified by man-made climate change, according to a study published Friday. The rapid study by a respected team of European scientists should be a warning of things to come, the report's lead author said. "What will be the impacts on agriculture? What will the impacts on water?" said Robert Vautard of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace in France. "This will put really tension in society that we may not be so well equipped t...