Europe celebrates end of World War II

SOLEMN commemoration services and street parties drew huge crowds yesterday as Europe celebrated the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat and the end of the continent’s most devastating war.

“On this peaceful May morning, we commemorate a great victory for liberty,” US President George W Bush said at Europe’s third-largest cemetery for American soldiers near Margraten in the Netherlands.

From the ceremony, Bush flew to Moscow where he and dozens of other world leaders are continuing the VE Day celebrations at a Red Square military parade that Russian President Vladimir Putin is staging on the day regarded there as a great historical date.