Europe

BERLIN, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Air traffic has resumed at Germany's Hamburg airport, a spokesperson told Reuters on Monday, after a police operation in response to a threat against a plane from Tehran prompted all landings and take-offs to be halted.

A federal police spokesperson earlier said officers, acting on a threat of an attack sent via email, searched a plane with 198 passengers from Tehran that had landed in the northern German city.

LONDON (AP) — The British government’s contentious policy to stem the flow of migrants faces one of its toughest challenges this week as the U.K. Supreme Court weighs whether it’s lawful to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

The Conservative government is challenging a Court of Appeal ruling in June that said the policy intended to deter immigrants from risking their lives crossing the English Channel in small boats is unlawful because the East African country is not a safe place to send them.

LONDON (AP) — An independent inquiry opened Monday to examine claims that British special forces murdered dozens of Afghan men during counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan a decade ago, as well as allegations that authorities subsequently covered up the alleged illegal activity or failed to investigate it properly.

The inquiry, which opened at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, focuses on alleged unlawful killings that took place during night raids carried out by elite military units in the war-torn nation between 2010 and 2013.

BERLIN, Oct 8 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned on Sunday against violence spreading like wildfire "with incalculable consequences for the whole region" following the biggest attack on Israel in years by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"We warn everyone against fueling and spreading terror in this situation," he said, noting he would hold a discussion with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the topic later on Sunday.

MOSCOW, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Russia expresses its most serious concern at the sharp aggravation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.

"We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to implement an immediate ceasefire, renounce violence, exercise the necessary restraint and establish, with the assistance of the international community, a negotiation process aimed at establishing a comprehensive, lasting and long-awaited peace in the Middle East," she said in a statement.

BARCELONA, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Waving Spanish and Catalan flags, tens of thousands of people marched through Barcelona on Sunday to protest against a potential amnesty deal which Spain's Socialists must strike over Catalonia's 2017 separatist bid if they want to form a government.

The protest, organised by the anti-separatist organisation Societat Civil Catalana, took place five days after Spain's acting Socialist prime minister was nominated to seek backing of other political parties for a new mandate.

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Azerbaijan's president scolded the European Union and warned that France's decision to send military aid to Armenia could trigger a new conflict in the South Caucasus after a lightening Azerbaijani military operation last month.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev last week pulled out of an EU-brokered meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at which Brussels said it was standing by Armenia.

HELSINKI, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The natural gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was temporarily closed Sunday following a suspected leak, the Finnish operator Gasgrid Finland reported.

Gasgrid Finland said the state of the Finnish gas network is stable, and the causes of the leak are being investigated. Finland, during this break, relies on the liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal near Helsinki.

BERLIN (AP) — Two German states hold elections on Sunday at the halfway mark of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular national government, with polls showing the center-right opposition well ahead and Germany’s interior minister facing an uphill struggle in a bid to become governor of her home region.

MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/: Sarmat, the first serial intercontinental ballistic missiles produced by Krasmash, will be deployed to combat duty in the near future, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.

"At the moment, the enterprise is making the first mass-produced missiles, which will be deployed to combat duty in the near future," the ministry said.