FRANCE
Eiffel Tower evacuated
The Eiffel Tower was evacuated on Saturday night after an anonymous caller called in a bomb threat, police said. Nearly 1,400 people were sent away from the tourist attraction following a request from tower operators after the warning, a Paris police official said. Police then searched the monument with sniffer dogs, and set up a security perimeter. No explosives were found and the site was reopened after about two-and-a-half hours. The government has stepped up counter-terrorism measures in recent weeks amid heightened concern about threats to France over its military campaign against al-Qaeda-linked fighters in Mali that began more than two months ago. The tower is occasionally evacuated because of such warnings — at least once last year and twice in 2011.
ITALY
Shroud of Turin displayed
The Shroud of Turin went on display for a special TV appearance on Saturday amid new research disputing claims it is a medieval fake and purporting to date the linen some say was Jesus’ burial cloth to about the time of his death. Pope Francis sent a special video message to the event in Turin’s cathedral, but made no claim that the image on the shroud of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Christ was really that of Jesus. He called the cloth an “icon,” not a relic — an important distinction. “This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love,” he said. “This disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest ... And yet, at the same time, the face in the Shroud conveys a great peace; this tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty.” Many experts stand by carbon dating that date it to the 13th or 14th century, but some have suggested the dating results might have been skewed by contamination and have called for a larger sample to be analyzed.
FRANCE
Thief takes Sun King tusk
A man broke into the Paris natural history museum early on Saturday and used a chainsaw to hack off the tusk of an elephant that belonged to King Louis XIV, officials said. Police arrested the man in a nearby street as he was making his escape and recovered the 3kg tusk, museum workers said. The elephant whose skeleton is preserved in the popular museum was given as a gift in 1668 by the king of Portugal to Louis XIV, who was also known as the Sun King. The animal’s tusks are not the original ones, but were added to the skeleton in the 19th century. Police made no immediate comment about why the man tried to steal the tusk, but the incident comes amid a series of thefts in recent years of ivory from European museums and zoos.
GERMANY
Bieber’s monkey seized
Canadian teen heartthrob Justin Bieber had his pet monkey Mally confiscated when he arrived with the animal at Munich airport, officials and media reports said on Saturday. Customs officials put the capuchin monkey in quarantine on Thursday because the 19-year-old pop sensation was unable to present the necessary documents for importing a live animal. Officials declined to confirm the monkey owner’s identity, but several media reports said it was the singer, who is on a tour of Germany and Austria.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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