Europe

16 Apr 2019; AFP: Billionaires and local governments pledged nearly 500 million euros (565 million dollars) on Tuesday to help restore Notre-Dame cathedral, with foundations and crowd-sourcing sites also launching fund-raising drives.

President Emmanuel Macron has vowed the emblematic monument will be rebuilt after its spire and roof collapsed Monday night in a blaze thought to be linked to extensive renovation work.

16 Apr 2019; DW: Over 100 people were arrested during ongoing climate change protests in London that brought parts of the British capital to a standstill, police said Tuesday.

Demonstrators had started by blocking off a bridge and major central road junctions on Monday at the start of a civil disobedience campaign that also saw action in other parts of Europe.

16 Apr 2019; DW: Russian Duma deputies on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported a bill allowing Russia to create its own autonomous internet. The law will create an independent infrastructure for the Russian internet, or "Runet," which will essentially allow Russia to pull up its virtual drawbridges in case of attack. 

MOSCOW, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Moscow City Court sentenced Frode Berg, a retired Norwegian border guard, to 14 years in a high security prison for spying, his lawyer said Tuesday.

"Berg said he would not appeal the verdict. We see no use in appealing it. Berg announced his intention to ask for presidential pardon after the verdict comes into force," Berg's lawyer Ilya Novikov said in a live broadcast by the TASS news agency.

MOSCOW, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese engineers and workers are busy tunneling in southwest Moscow using domestic equipment and technology for a new metro line of the city.

This is the first time for the Chinese to build a subway in Europe.

The first tunnel was holed through in early April and the remaining eight tunnels are expected to be drilled through by the end of this year, said Xue Liqiang, a manager of the project with China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC).

BELGRADE, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's global cooperation project has emerged as a major factor in the infrastructural and economic development of Serbia and the Western Balkans, fostering regional partnership and mutual benefits, said keynote speakers of an international scientific conference dedicated to the sixth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) here on Monday.

The international conference "Belt and Road Initiative: Six Years After" opened on Monday with the participation of academics from both Serbia and China.

PARIS (AP) — A massive fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris’ soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below.

14 Apr 2019; AA: Turkey's Atakan Yuksel won a gold medal in the 2019 European Wrestling Championships in Romania on Sunday. 

Competing in the men's 67-kg Greco-Roman category, Yuksel beat Polish competitor Gevorg Sahakyan 5-1 to claim the medal in the tournament in Bucharest.

So far, Turkey has won two golds, one silver and two bronze medals in the Greco-Roman category at the tournament.

15 Apr 2019; DW: The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Monday reported a 20 percent jump over the past year in people from countries outside the EU coming to work in Germany.  

The group makes up a relatively small portion of the country's 10.9 million foreigners.

What Destatis found:

15 Apr 2019; DW: Public prosecutors in the German city of Braunschweig have brought charges against former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn over his role in the Dieselgate scandal, they said on Monday. Four other managers were also charged, they said.

Winterkorn stepped down as Volkswagen CEO in 2015 after revelations that the carmaker had programmed computers in its vehicles to detect when they were being tested and alter the running of diesel engines to conceal the true level of emissions.