A teenager died this Thursday in Germany, in the city of Ofenburg, after a 15-year-old boy opened fire on him inside a school. The incident also resulted in another injured student.

The alleged shooter, a classmate of the deceased, seriously injured the victim, who ended up dying shortly after in the hospital as a result of the severity of his injuries.

The suspect, who was held by a man until officers arrived, entered the Waldbach school classroom, shooting at least once at one of his classmates.. The event has led to a large Police operation in this town in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

According to local media, the Police are investigating the relationship between both young people and the possible trigger for the attack, which could respond to personal reasons.

Although these types of incidents are rare in Germany, a day earlier, two young people threatened a teacher with a firearm inside a school in Hamburg, in the north of the country, although no one was injured.

The Government of Portugal approved this Thursday the increase in the minimum wage to 820 euros and an update of the salaries of civil servants starting in January 2024, in the midst of a political crisis due to the resignation of the socialist António Costa as prime minister.

The measures, which were already known, were approved by decree law in the Council of Ministers, the Executive reported in a statement.

On the one hand, an increase of 60 euros was approved, up to 820, for the national minimum wage as of January 1, 2024, which had been agreed with employers and unions.. The Government highlighted that this is the “largest increase” in the minimum wage to date, which represents an increase of 7.9%.

A decree law was also approved on salary updates for civil servants, which will be 52 euros for gross monthly salaries of up to 1,807 euros, and 3% for higher salaries, and will come into force in 2024.

The Council of Ministers approved these measures in the midst of the political crisis that opened on Tuesday with the resignation of Costa due to the investigation of a case of alleged corruption, prevarication and influence peddling in lithium and hydrogen businesses.

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, plans to announce this Thursday what path he will follow to get out of the crisis, which could involve dissolving Parliament and calling early elections.

Pedro Sánchez will have his investiture, so his wait, long and tedious due to the demands of Junts and Puigdemont, is over. But Nadia Calviño remains immersed in hers, and it seems that the two major objectives she had set are not yet going to be closed: for now neither reform of the fiscal rules nor approval for her position as president of the European Investment Bank. Because? Because the 27 are still in talks and for now have decided to postpone any type of decision until December.. Spain has a lot at stake in both matters.

“These are issues that cannot be closed in a hurry and the debates are complicated, they are important decisions for the EU,” summarize the community sources consulted by 20minutes on a day in which the economy ministers of the 27 have met in Brussels to keep trying these lines. At a global level, in fact, a reform of fiscal rules that for some Member States has already been “urgent for some time” becomes more important, especially in the wake of the Covid pandemic, precisely the point from which debt limits and deficit are on hold.

However, it was in November 2022 when the European Commission presented its proposal for the reform of fiscal rules, almost as a starting signal for the debate.. In this plan, the Community Executive included greater flexibility and rules adapted to the particularities of each Member State, but in exchange it suggests sanctions in case of non-compliance.. These fines, which already exist but are not applied, would be minor but would be applied automatically.

The goal is for each of the 27 to manage the issue based on their particular tax situation.. The Commission would present a reference fiscal adjustment path, covering a period of four years, based on its debt sustainability analysis methodology. “This reference adjustment path should ensure that the debt of Member States with major or medium debt problems is placed on a plausible downward path, and that the deficit is credibly maintained below the 3% reference value of the GDP established in the Treaty,” Brussels explained in its statement.

However, this four-year period can be reduced to three in the case of economies with “moderate” debt, while those countries with a “low” level will not have to make any adjustments.. On the other hand, the Commission makes it clear that contact about the plans is not only between each partner and the Community Executive itself, but they will also have to have the approval of the Council.

“Member States would present plans setting out their medium-term fiscal trajectory, as well as their priority commitments to reform and public investment,” adds the Commission.. Member States could propose a longer adjustment period, extending the fiscal adjustment path up to three years “when the path is supported by a set of reform and investment commitments that support debt sustainability and respond to national priorities and objectives.” of the EU”.

Any idea has to be qualified or altered by the 27, and there are still different positions among them. Germany opts for orthodoxy and assures that the rules cannot be changed or relaxed because that would cause “instability”. France, on the other hand, understands that the rules have to be adapted “to the economic reality” of each community partner. Meanwhile, Spain, which still holds the rotating presidency of the Council, is the most insistent voice that the reform has to be profound because the current rules “are out of date.”. This Ecofín meeting seemed to be the final one, but any decision is postponed at least until next month.

At the moment in this Thursday's meeting, important progress was made thanks to some concessions made precisely by Berlin. “It is progress that the idea of safeguards and benchmarks in relation to the debt-to-GDP ratio and annual deficits is recognized, but now what must be considered is the level of ambition, now it is about talking about numbers not only of instruments,” said German Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Given this, Calviño was optimistic about paving the way for a “comprehensive agreement” at the end of this month.

The same thing happens with the presidency of the EIB.. Calviño remains a favorite along with the current European Competition Commissioner, the Danish Margrethe Vestager.. It is precisely Germany and France who have to reveal their positions, and only then will it be known if the position goes to the Spanish, who according to the sources consulted in recent weeks is the favorite.. At this point, the option of Madrid as the headquarters of the new European agency against money laundering also comes into play.. If the EIB has a Spanish signature, the agency will not do it, the bets say. For now, November will not be the month for these white smokes.

The United States has assured that Israel has agreed to allow daily four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in northern Gaza to allow civilians to leave.. These periods, according to White House National Security spokesman John Kirby, begin this Thursday and during them “there will be no military operations.”

Kirby admitted that there remains “concern” about the possibility that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas may try to prevent the departure of civilians. In any case, he called for civilians to try to leave the “active” areas of the conflict, and also considered it “crucial” that humanitarian aid be extended to the areas to which these people are moving.

The White House spokesman recalled that the pauses in southern Gaza have allowed the departure of thousands of people and the entry of humanitarian aid, but this must increase. He thus assessed that 106 trucks have entered southern Gaza through the Rafah crossing in Egypt, but he hopes that this number will rise as soon as possible.. “We need to see more and we need to see more soon,” said Kirby, who considered that 150 trucks of humanitarian aid should enter a day, and although there are days when it is not possible, that should be, at least, the objective.

Kirby stressed that Israel is fighting an enemy – the Hamas militias – that is “embedded in the civilian population, using hospitals and civilian infrastructure in an effort to protect itself” and that puts the “innocent Palestinian people” at greater risk.. But he also insisted that Israel has “the obligation to fully comply with international law,” and considered that these humanitarian pauses are “a step in the right direction because they seek to give civilians “the opportunity to reach safer areas.”

Asked if these pauses were part of a broader agreement that would involve the release of hostages, Kirby said he was not going to “negotiate” in public.. But he did emphasize that the US. continues to work with its allies in the region to try to free the hostages, and considered that these pauses will be “useful” for the “safe” exit of hostages if necessary.

The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, has requested “detailed” information from the acting Government about the amnesty law that the PSOE and Junts are negotiating to enable the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and about which “serious concerns are expressed”. Meanwhile, the pact between both formations could be announced this Thursday.

“I would be grateful if you could provide me with more detailed information, in particular about the personal, material and temporal scope of this planned law,” Reynders wrote in a letter addressed to the acting ministers of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and of Justice, Pilar Llop.

The letter is known just one day after the PP activated the 'European route' considering that the time has come for the European Commission to act against the measure that will benefit the independentists, especially the figure of Carles Puigdemont.

I would be grateful if you could provide me with more detailed information, in particular on the personal, material and temporal scope of this planned law.

“The EU cannot look the other way when principles it claims to defend are violated.”. The acting Government is erasing Justice with a stroke of a pen, amnestying convicted, prosecuted and fugitives,” said the PP spokesperson in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, this past Tuesday in a question sent to the Community Executive.

“The acting Government of Spain, after pardoning those convicted, lowering the crime of embezzlement and suppressing sedition as political payment, announces that it will give a massive political amnesty that flagrantly violates the rule of law and will cover 10-year crimes, including the misappropriation of public funds, against independent judicial decisions, in exchange for votes for the investiture,” summarized the MEP, who also reminded the Commission that the measure covers “terrorist organizations” such as, she says, the CDR or Tsunami Democratic.

The MEPs of PP and Ciudadanos, promoters of the initiative in Brussels, rely on articles 2 and 19 of the Treaty of the European Union, “to avoid a fraudulent mutation of the constitutional order and a de facto delegitimization of the judicial power.”

This step by Reynders, which the opposition to Sánchez had been calling for for some time, also comes at a time when negotiations between socialists and independentists are “stalled.”. Both parties are in Brussels waiting to finalize the remaining details of the pact, and are focusing above all precisely on the “legal fit” of the amnesty law.. Negotiating sources assure that they are not talking about names, and allege that it is a “very important” rule, which is why, they say, “they have to do a good job.”

“Many thanks to Commissioner Reynders for this important move. Europe is already asking Sánchez for explanations for the amnesty he intends to grant to Puigdemont and many others responsible for very serious crimes.. Work pays off. We continue working,” the leader of Ciudadanos in the European Parliament, and general secretary of the orange party, Adrián Vázquez, has written on social networks, one of the most active voices – if not the most – in the EU against the measure being prepared. Sánchez to tie the Junts votes for his investiture.

“The EU is on alert for the worrying steps that Sánchez is taking in violating the rule of law with the amnesty,” said Montserrat in response to the letter from the Commissioner of Justice.. “We celebrate that the EU is acting and we thank the European Commission for demanding information from the Government regarding the amnesty after the complaints that we have been making from the European Parliament as well as citizens themselves every day when it comes to expressing their indignation,” he added, before remember that “Sánchez is not trustworthy” and that PP is not going to allow “the false story that the amnesty is for coexistence and harmony to reach Europe.”

On the other hand, one of the keys, clarified by sources consulted by 20minutos, is that “the text” of the law is not yet known, since it has not been registered and is still being negotiated.. For those most critical of the rule, a kind of positioning by Brussels was urgent in the face of what, for example, the PP considers an “attack” on the rule of law.. From Cs it was Maite Pagaza who warned the Community Executive that the situation proposed by the Government goes “against the Treaties.”

At the last minute, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, responded to the European Commissioner's request with another letter in which he stated that the two issues in which he is interested in the communication from Brussels “do not correspond to the scope of decision of the Government of Spain, since both will have to be processed and resolved in the Cortes Generales”.

Specifically, Bolaños explains that “the Government of Spain is in office, which prevents it from sending bills to the Cortes Generales”, so “any law proposal that can be registered in the Congress of Deputies will come from the groups parliamentarians and not the Council of Ministers”. And he concludes by stating that “as always” they will be “delighted” to work together, informing them of “as many issues as they wish to know”, in addition to “providing all the information” they require.. “If a proposed amnesty law is registered, rest assured that we will explain all the details of the law, as well as the Government's position.”

In this context, after days of negotiations and rumors about the date of the investiture that never materialized, everything indicates that the negotiating parties are already very close to finally closing an agreement in Brussels that would allow the socialists to revalidate four more years of government. What they still have to reveal is the political agreement for Sánchez's investiture and what scope the future amnesty law will have.. The pact could be announced this Thursday and thus the deadlines for setting the debate in Congress would be accelerated, which could be next week. The parties “continue negotiating.”

The Spanish Iván Illarramendi and his wife, the Chilean Loren Garcovich, were murdered by Hamas in the attack on October 7 in which more than 1,400 people died.. Their bodies were identified this Tuesday night after being located in their home in the Kissufin kibbutz, where they were burned, as confirmed by Israeli diplomatic sources to 20 minutes.. The condition of the bodies is what has caused it to take a month to identify them.

The couple's remains were identified at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, one of the two forensic centers where the remains of people killed during the attack whose bodies were left unrecognizable have been analyzed for several weeks.

His death is added to that of Maya Villalobo, who died the same day as the Hamas attack on the festival.. The young woman was performing military service in the Israeli Army, as she had dual nationality, and died on October 11 at the military post where she was, as confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Illarramendi was 46 years old and was a native of the Guipuzcoan town of Zarautz (Basque Country), while Loren, his wife, born in Chile, had Israeli roots, as confirmed by Gabriel Colodro, president of the Chilean Community in Israel.

A month after the Hamas attacks in Israel, hundreds of families still do not know if their relatives are among the more than 1,400 dead. The condition of many bodies has made it impossible to identify them and little by little the identities of many of them are becoming known.. This was the case of the Spanish Iván Illarramendi, 26, and his wife, the Chilean Loren Garcovich, 47, who the Government of Spain believed were among the more than 240 kidnapped.. This Wednesday, that information was denied after it was confirmed that both were murdered and burned in their own home during attacks by the Islamist organization that governs Gaza.

The Chilean Foreign Ministry has also confirmed the death of its citizen. Sources from the Chilean Ministry have acknowledged that they already knew the news, but that they had not made it public because Garcovich's father had requested it.. However, after it was made public by Israel, they have been forced to release a statement. “His murder at the hands of Hamas terrorists deserves our most absolute condemnation,” they have maintained.. Israeli diplomatic sources tell 20minutos that both were murdered and burned in their home and that due to the state of the bodies it has taken so long to identify them.

Initially, the Spanish Government had reported that Illarramendi, a native of Zarautz (Gipuzkoa), who lived in the Kissufim kibbutz, two kilometers from the Gaza Strip, had been kidnapped.. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, had stated this based on the information provided by Israel.. The acting Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, received a delegation of five families of people held in Gaza, including a brother of Illarramendi.. Days after hearing the news, the Guipuzcoan's family asked not to rush, since they had no confirmation of the kidnapping.

The death of Illarramendi brings the number of deceased Spaniards to two. The other victim is the Spanish-Israeli Maya Villalobo Sinvany, 19, who was doing military service with Israel at the Nahal Oz base, near the Gaza border.. Although at first it was also believed that she could have been kidnapped, on October 11, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs recognized that she had died in Hamas attacks.

After hearing the news this Wednesday, the President of the Government has expressed his dismay and has appealed to work for peace in the Middle East. “I want to convey my affection and my most sincere condolences to his family and friends,” wrote Sánchez on his 'X' account (formerly Twitter), who has reiterated the Government's condemnation of the Hamas terrorist attacks and has urged ” work to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.

The evacuation of Spaniards from Gaza is delayed

At the same time that the news of Illaramendi was known, the acting Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured the press that the evacuation of the Spaniards who are still in the Gaza Strip has been delayed.. Robles has expressed his “concern” about the lack of authorizations for the departure of “between 170 and 190 Spaniards”, among them “almost 80 children”, and has assured that the entire evacuation operation is already prepared in Egypt.

“They have left several countries but not from Spain,” said Robles, who days ago assured that between last Thursday and Friday they were going to leave.. Robles has commented that this “is also a problem of the situation itself since there have been different bombings and ambulances have been attacked and at certain times priority is being given to the injured.”. Thus, Robles wanted to remove the blame from Israel and Egypt and points to Hamas as the actor that “has put obstacles in the way of certain actions.”. “They are making a kind of call that could be in alphabetical order of countries,” he points out.

For his part, the acting Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has also pointed out that the operation is “especially complex”. The minister acknowledged this Wednesday from Denmark that this is an operation that takes place in the midst of military movements and many parties need to agree.. However, he recalled the experience of Foreign Affairs in other recent cases such as Afghanistan, Ukraine and Sudan and said that the procedure will be the same.

Albares says he is in direct contact with the foreign ministers of Israel and Egypt. In addition, he claims to have all the nationals “perfectly identified”, as well as their families, so they will leave when their safety can be guaranteed.

Israel closes siege on Gaza City

Regarding the war situation in the Palestinian enclave, the Israeli Army has assured that it is deepening its land incursion into the Strip.. This Wednesday the Hebrew State confirmed that its troops have exploded tunnels and anti-tank missile launch sites. Since the beginning of the fighting, “130 tunnel shafts have been destroyed,” said an Israeli Army spokesman, who acknowledged that the readiness of Hamas members for a prolonged stay in the tunnels “can be verified based on the reserves of water and oxygen that are found.

While the ground operation is taking place, the bombings continue, leaving more than 10,560 Palestinians dead in the Strip, most of them children, women and the elderly, as well as some 26,500 injured and 2,550 missing, according to Hamas, which governs Gaza.

The Israeli Army has asked civilians to leave the north, where the offensive is concentrated, and to go to the south of the Strip. For this purpose, a humanitarian corridor has been opened, through which more than 50,000 Palestinians have left, according to Israel.. However, the bombings in the south continue to occur and the Gaza Ministry of Health has assured that almost half of the deaths in recent days have occurred in that area.. The situation throughout the Palestinian enclave remains at its limit and international organizations, including the UN, are calling for the Israeli blockade to end and for humanitarian ceasefires to be agreed.

The Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, resigned this Tuesday to everyone's surprise. Surprise at being allegedly involved in a corruption case and surprise at having resigned immediately. The investigation against him and some members of his Cabinet is for alleged corruption, prevarication and influence peddling.

“I was surprised today that a criminal case has already been instituted against me, obviously I am fully available to collaborate with Justice in everything I deem necessary to establish the whole truth, whatever the matter may be,” Costa said before announcing who had submitted his resignation to the President of the Portuguese Republic.

Where the police searched

The prime minister resigned after investigators from the Attorney General's Office (PGR) searched his official residence as part of an investigation into an alleged corruption case.. They also searched 17 other homes and 25 premises, including the office of Costa's chief of staff and two ministries.

The researchers also traveled to the municipal offices of Sines, the port where investments in green hydrogen are focused.. The headquarters of the Lusorecursos company in Braga was also one of the targets of the raids.

How many detainees are there?

Five people were arrested by the police. They are the prime minister's chief of staff, Vítor Escária; a close advisor to Costa and one of his best friends, Diogo Lacerda Machado; the mayor of Sines, the socialist Nuno Mascarenhas and two of the administrators in the Start Campus company.

In addition, other members of the Cabinet would be being investigated as defendants, such as the Minister of the Environment, Duarto Cordeiro, and the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, as well as the former Minister of the Environment João Pedro Matos Fernandes.

Why have they been detained?

Crimes of corruption and prevarication are being investigated for several concessions for lithium exploration and the construction of a hydrogen energy production plant, in addition to the construction of a gigantic digital data storage center in Sines, the Start Campus.

According to the Portuguese authorities, the arrest requests were made because there was, in their opinion, a risk of flight, as well as a risk of continuing criminal activity, disturbing the investigation and disturbing public order and tranquility.

What are the suspicious businesses

Lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado is suspected of having “bought” Costa's chief of staff, Vítor Escária, Publico reports this Wednesday. He would have done it with the aim of obtaining the Government's favor for the Start Campus megaproject in Sines.

The Prosecutor's Office is investigating facts related to lithium exploration concessions in the Romano (Montalegre) and Barroso (Boticas) mines, a hydrogen energy production plant project in Sines and the construction project of a data center developed in the Industrial and Logistics Zone of Sines by the company Start Campus.

The Montalegre mine

In this town located a few kilometers from Spanish soil, the company Lusorecursos plans to exploit a lithium mine. The concession was signed in March 2019 and included a refinery to process raw ore at the Mina do Romano. Lusorecursos Portugal Lithium was established three days before the signing of the contract. It is managed by Ricardo Pinheiro, a person accused of economic crimes in an investigation into fraud with EU funds.

That same year, faced with a lawsuit filed against the Ministry of the Environment in order to annul the contract, the then Secretary of State for Energy, João Galamba, defended the green light given to the exploitation.. After the failure of Lusorecursos' first environmental impact study, presented in 2021, there was a second attempt. In September 2023, the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) made a favorable statement: “The assessment carried out took into account the strategic interest of lithium to achieve the objectives of carbon neutrality and energy transition.”

The Boticas mine

The concession for the exploitation of lithium in the Barroso mine, in Boticas, is owned by Savannah Resources Plc, a company based in London.. The region, where the largest lithium reserves in Europe are located, has received the World Agricultural Heritage seal from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The project was met with strong local opposition, as the Savannah project wants to explore for lithium just a few hundred meters from the village of Covas do Barroso.. The first environmental impact study was rejected by the APA in June 2022, but finally in May 2023 it gave the green light to the expansion of the Barroso mine. The president of the APA acknowledged in a recent interview that lithium extraction could jeopardize the FAO label.

Sines' green hydrogen

H2Sines, the project to create a national consortium for the production of green hydrogen, has been one of the catalysts for the research, but it never materialized.. It began as an agreement between several companies, such as EDP, Galp, REN, Martifer and Vestas, to evaluate large-scale production of green hydrogen in Sines.

The objective was to develop a hydrogen production capacity of one gigawatt through the electrolysis of water using solar energy.. The company, Publico points out, turned out to be too ambitious and economically unviable.. The companies did not make progress in their realization. EDP withdrew in June 2021 and then Galp announced other priorities.

Mega data center in Sines

The so-called Sines 4.0 project involved an investment of up to 3.5 billion euros in a Hyperscaler data center campus, with a capacity of up to 450 megawatts. According to the development company, it would create “up to 1,200 highly qualified direct jobs and could generate 8,000 new indirect jobs until 2025”. In April 2021, with the presence of António Costa, the megaproject developed by the company Start Campus was presented.

Two of the five arrested are executives of this company. They are Afonso Salema and Rui Oliveira Neves, a lawyer who for years was responsible for regulation at Galp. At the end of this September, the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba and the mayor of Sines, Nuno Mascarenhas, visited the company on the occasion of the start of its activity.

The Spanish Iván Illarramendi and his wife, the Chilean Loren Garcovich, were murdered by Hamas during the attack on October 7, so at no time were they kidnapped, as confirmed by Israeli diplomatic sources.. Their bodies were identified on Tuesday night after being located in Kibbutz Kissufin, two kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

The remains of the couple were identified this Tuesday at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine, in Tel Aviv, one of the two forensic centers where the remains of people killed during the attack whose bodies were left have been analyzed for several weeks. unrecognizable.

His death is added to that of Maya Villalobo, who died the same day as the Hamas attack on the festival.. The young woman was performing military service in the Israeli Army, as she had dual nationality, and died on October 11 at the military post where she was, as confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Illarramendi was 46 years old and was a native of the Guipuzcoan town of Zarautz (Basque Country), while Loren, his wife, born in Chile, had Israeli roots, as confirmed by Gabriel Colodro, president of the Chilean Community in Israel.. Both were allegedly kidnapped by Hamas when they were inside their house, in a kibbutz, where another 300 people dedicated to agricultural activity resided.

No signs of violence

When the couple realized what was happening, they quickly contacted their family to inform them of the situation, although it was too late.. When the Israeli Army showed up at his house, they found it empty, with no signs of violence.. As a consequence, the first hypotheses suggested that they had been kidnapped.

After hearing the news, the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, was “dismayed”. “I want to convey my affection and sincere condolences to his family and friends.. The Government of Spain reiterates its condemnation of the terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7,” he wrote in X, formerly Twitter. .

In the same context, the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has regretted the “murder” of the Spaniard and his wife at the hands of Hamas and has defended the unity of democrats against terrorism.

The general secretary of the PP and spokesperson for the Popular Group, Cuca Gamarra, has also regretted the death of the Spaniard and has asked to condemn “this and all attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas.” “It is necessary to demand the release of all the hostages and continue condemning this and all the attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas,” he said in a message on his official account on the social network friends.