Euobserver.com

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have shot and killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him, the German public broadcaster said Thursday. The militants were conducting a house-to-house search for the journalist, who now works in Germany. A second relative was seriously wounded, but others were able to escape, AFP reports. The Taliban had raided the homes of at least three other DW journalists.

Poland's ruling party and the Roman Catholic church have put a Polish region at risk of losing €2.5bn by enforcing its anti-LGBTI "declaration".

UK poultry producers have warned that serious staff shortages caused by Brexit could mean there are not enough turkeys to go round this Christmas, The Guardian reported. The British Poultry Council said its members told them that one in six jobs were unfilled as a result of EU workers leaving the UK after Brexit, meaning the supply of turkeys could decline by 20 percent at Christmas.

The Greek government is seeking help from abroad to replace its ground firefighting teams which are at the brink of exhaustion after three weeks of battling against massive wildfires, Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports. Greek firefighters had been helped by foreign teams. Athens has agreed with Poland to retain the firefighters who arrived in Greece on 9 August, and has been in contact with other countries for additional ground team assistance.

EU strategic autonomy matters to Beijing because in the latter's reading, the US is trying to use the EU to contain China.

An illegal rave in Italy lasted six days and turned into complete chaos, while the police was unable to end the party.

Malta's attorney general has called for a life sentence for businessman Yorgen Fenech for allegedly masterminding the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, which rocked the country four years ago, The Guardian reports. The attorney general, Victoria Buttigieg, laid formal charges against Fenech, who was arrested in November 2019 trying to leave Malta on his yacht, and who is accused of complicity in the murder and related criminal conspiracy.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said Afghanistan will no longer be able to access the lender's resources, the BBC reports. An IMF spokesperson said it was due to "lack of clarity within the international community" over recognising a government in Afghanistan. Resources of over €314m from the IMF had been set to arrive on 23 August. These funds were part of a global IMF response to the economic crisis.

Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi told his Russian and Chinese counterparts that Tehran was ready to cooperate with the two countries to establish "stability and peace" in Afghanistan, AFP writes. "Iran is ready to cooperate with China to establish security, stability, and peace in Afghanistan and strive for its people's development, progress, and prosperity," Raisi told China's president Xi Jinping by phone, giving a similar message to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Nearly 100 highly paid bankers left Britain ahead of its departure from the EU, the bloc's banking watchdog said, Reuters reports. The European Banking Authority (EBA) said in its annual survey of bankers earning €1m euros or more a year that Britain saw a drop of 95 high earners in 2019. The country still accounted for 71 percent of the top-paid bankers across the bloc in 2019.

Migration from Afghanistan is likely to increase under Taliban rule, the European Union said on Wednesday, calling on member states to ramp up admission quotas for Afghans in need of protection, particularly for women and girls, Reuters writes. "The instability in Afghanistan is likely to lead to increased migratory pressure," Commissioner Ylva Johansson, who is responsible for migration and asylum in the EU's executive Commission, said in a statement.

The Taliban will collapse if its hardline ethos is undermined and rival factions start playing ball with other extremist groups.

EU ministers have condemned Belarus' use of refugees to "attack" Europe, as Lithuania called for sanctions against countries and companies helping Minsk to do it.

Counterfeiters face prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to €150,000. Those who use fake health passes could spend three years behind bars.

Some 12 Belarusian officers armed with riot-control gear crossed the border into Lithuania on Tuesday near the Gintaras Žagunis crossing point in order to force 35 irregular migrants into the country, Lithuania said. "We cannot tolerate this bold provocation of ... crossing the border of the Republic of Lithuania today," interior minister Agnė Bilotaitė noted. Belarus has recently pushed thousands of migrants into Lithuania in reaction to EU sanctions.

France registered 111 deaths from Covid-19 in hospitals on Tuesday, the first time since June 1 that the daily toll was more than 100, health ministry data showed, Reuters reports. The new figures took the cumulative death toll from COVID-19 since the start of the epidemic to 112,844. The seven-day moving average of deaths increased to 72, from fewer than 20 per day at the end of July.

Solar power supply in the European Union during June and July rose to a record high in 2021, accounting for 10 percent of total electricity produced in the region, a report by independent climate think-tank Ember said, Reuters writes. "There are exciting green shoots in core solar markets where solar is taking off, but overall it is not growing fast enough," Ember analyst Charles Moore said.

Spain received its first tranche of money amounting to €9bn from the €800bn EU recovery fund meant to help the bloc recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and make its economy greener and more digitalised, Reuters reports. Spain will get a total of €69.5bn in grants from the fund in the coming years. Lithuania received its first tranche of money of €289m from its allocated total of €2.22bn.

Russia's 2021 wildfires are already its largest in the history of satellite observations, burning across 17.08m hectares of land, the Greenpeace Russia environmental group has said, The Moscow Times reports. The new record beats the previous one set in 2012, when fires burned 17 million hectares of land across Russia, and comes with weeks left to go in a devastating wildfire season.

German chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday condemned the way Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko treats refugees, adding that Germany would consult closely with its European partners on a coordinated response, Reuters writes. "President Lukashenko is using refugees, for example from Iraq, in a hybrid way to undermine security, and of course we condemn this in the strongest possible terms," Merkel said at a news conference with the Estonian prime minister.