News Headlines - 25 March 2018

▽Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont held by German police | The Guardian

German police have detained the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont under a European arrest warrant as he crossed from Denmark into Germany.
Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Brussels since October, was travelling in a car on the way from Finland to Belgium on Sunday when he was detained, having visited Finnish lawmakers in Helsinki.
On Friday the Spanish government reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

▽Poland puts Berlin's WWII bill at 440 billion euros | The Times of Israel

Polish victims of World War II should be able to claim 440 billion euros ($543 billion) from Germany in World War II damages, the head of a parliamentary commission said Thursday.

▽Darkness falls on May's Merkel-Macron meeting

The lights went out on Theresa May as the British prime minister hosted her German and French counterparts for a private meeting at a Brussels summit on Thursday... Out of the gloom, came the voice of France’s famously musical leader: “Happy birthday,” he sang. But no cake with candles appeared. Light was restored and media were ushered out.
All three looked grim as they prepared to discuss May’s request for EU support after her accusations that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in England.

▽Portuguese pilot held in Germany after being found drunk in cockpit - The Local

The co-pilot of a Portuguese airline was detained in Stuttgart after being found drunk in the cockpit just before take-off, German police and prosecutors said Saturday.
German police entered the cockpit and found the 40-year-old in a "highly intoxicated condition" on Friday evening, a statement said.

▽Philip Kerr obituary | The Guardian

Berlin held a great fascination for the author Philip Kerr, who has died aged 62 of cancer: it was a place where the impact of evil upon essentially decent people was felt especially keenly. His morally ambiguous fictional private detective Bernie Gunther first appeared in March Violets (1989), set in the city in 1936, after the Nazis’ rise to power, and the first of his Berlin Noir trilogy.