Police launch new searches in Portugal in Madeleine McCann probe

Euronews

03-06-2025

Sicily's Mount Etna has erupted again with an intensity not seen since February 2021. The eruption has sent a cloud of ash, smoke and lapilli a few kilometres above Europe's largest active volcano.
Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) says the spectacle was caused when part of the southeast crater collapsed, resulting in hot lava flows. It was the 14th eruptive phase in recent months
Volcanic material, according to preliminary observations, have not crossed the the Valley of the Lion, the end point for tourist trips on the approach to the summit. INGV also noted in a social media post that "explosive activity from the Southeast Crater has become a lava fountain."
The volcanic tremor reached very high intensities during the eruptive peak, but according to experts, it has dropped again, signalling that the activity may be diminishing.
The national institute said changes in the volcano's activity were first recorded at 00:39 CET on Monday. The designation later changed to a "Strombolian" eruption.
Strombolian eruptian are usually characterised as discreet moderately explosive bursts which can eject pyroclasts hundreds of meters into the air.
"I am following with the utmost attention, through the head of our Civil Protection, the evolution of the situation on Etna. The partial collapse of the southeast crater is a phenomenon that we are following with extreme caution," said Renato Schifani, President of Sicily.
"At the moment, from the first surveys, the material would not have exceeded the rim of the Valley of the Lion and, as they assure me, there is no danger for the population," he added.
The head of the regional civil protection, Salvo Cocina, has recommended the utmost precaution to hikers in the vicinity of Mount Etna and urged them to avoid the volcano's summit area until further official notice, as risks of further eruptions and activity loom.
Catania airport, despite the Volcano Observatory Notice for Aviation's (VONA) warnings, has remained operational.
Portuguese and German police are carrying out fresh searches for British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal's Algarve region, where she went missing 18 years ago.
The three-year-old disappeared from her bed while on holiday with her family in the Praia da Luz resort, in southern Portugal, on 3 May, 2007. She has not been seen since.
Detectives acting on a request from a German public prosecutor will carry out "a broad range" of searches this week in the Lagos area, a Portuguese police statement said.
German investigators have taken the lead in the case since identifying 48-year-old Christian Brückner as their prime suspect in 2020. Brückner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but has not been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz, around the time of the child's disappearance. Brückner has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are responsible for the investigation, didn't give details of the "judicial measures" taking place in Portugal. They said the measures are being carried out by Portuguese authorities with support from officers from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office.
London's Metropolitan Police said it was "aware of the searches being carried by the BKA (German federal police) in Portugal as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann".
"The Metropolitan Police Service is not present at the search, we will support our international colleagues where necessary," the force added, without giving more details.
According to a report by CNN Portugal, searches could begin on Tuesday and will focus on an area between Praia da Luz and one of the houses where Brückner lived at the time of McCann's disappearance.
The McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia as well as books and television documentaries about her disappearance.
Nearly two decades later, investigators in the UK, Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared. She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins — while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
The last time police resumed searches in the case was in 2023, when detectives from the three countries took part in an operation searching near a dam and a reservoir about 50 kilometres from the Praia da Luz resort.
The victory of conservative Karol Nawrocki's victory in Poland's weekend presidential runoff is likely to cause further division and political instability between the centrist government and the new president, according to analysts and citizens alike.
Nawrocki, who was backed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party at home and endorsed by US President Donald Trump, won 50.89% of votes in Sunday's race against Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%, according to election commission data published on Monday.
The 42-year-old nationalist has pledged to hinder Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist, pro-EU government until its term ends in late 2027, just as the outgoing President, Andrzej Duda, has done during his presidency. Nawrocki is set to take office on 6 August.
Tusk announced on Monday that he will call for a parliamentary vote of confidence in his coalition government.
While his government exists separately from the presidency, the president holds power to veto laws, and Nawrocki's victory will make it extremely difficult for Tusk to press his pro-European agenda and push through key promises including a civil union law for same-sex couples and a less restrictive abortion law. Nawrocki opposes such measures.
Euronews spoke to several residents of Warsaw about whether relations between Tusk's government and the new president-elect would improve compared to the current reality.
"There is no agreement between the government and the president. There are two different worlds," one resident of Warsaw told Euronews.
Another person said: "They are on opposite sides and don't agree. But Nawrocki is a big unknown."
However, another individual said: "I hope, however, that wisdom will win out and somehow these relations will settle down. And this nation will not be as divided as it is at the moment."
Election data results show that he difference between Nawrocki and Trzaskowski was fewer than 370,000 votes, or 1.78 percentage points — the smallest gap in a presidential run-off since 1989.
"Poland remains a deeply divided country," said Jacek Kucharczyk, the president of the Polish Institute of Public Affairs.
"Although the electoral turnout was highest ever in history of presidential elections, Nawrocki's margin of victory is very small, which means that half of Poland will be cheering his presidency, whereas half of Poland, the other half, remains deeply worried or even disturbed," he added.
Nawrocki, a conservative historian and amateur boxer with no prior political experience, had presented the election as a referendum on Tusk's 18-month-old government. In his first public comments since his victory was announced, Nawrocki thanked those who voted for him and said he would work for the causes that are important to them
"We want to live in a safe country with a strong economy, one that cares for the most vulnerable. A country that matters in international, European, and transatlantic relations. A country that cherishes its centuries-old traditions and respects its history," he wrote on social media.
Trzaskowski conceded defeat and congratulated Nawrocki. "I fought for us to build a strong, safe, honest, and empathetic Poland together," he wrote on social media.
Speaking on Monday, President Duda said he hoped the election result would be "an unambiguous signal" to Tusk and the government that the majority of Poles expect to see the "kind of policy ... that Nawrocki proposes and preached during his campaign".
Following the election result, Nawrocki has received congraulations from leaders including Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.