Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Donald Trump’s contorted spin on the travel restrictions he announced on Wednesday night, including pinning the blame for “a foreign disease” on the European Union, revealed a mind largely driven by politics and not science.
The impression he sought to create was that the EU bureaucracy had let the world down by failing to take necessary steps to slow the spread of coronavirus, but the United Kingdom, legally outside the EU and physically an island, was exonerated.
One-month EU scheme offers more than five times usual sum in bid to ease pressure in camps
Migrants on the Greek islands are to be offered €2,000 (£1,764) per person to go home under a voluntary scheme launched by the European Union in an attempt to ease desperate conditions in camps.
The amount is more than five times the usual sum offered to migrants to help them rebuild their lives in their country of origin, under voluntary returns programmes run by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Evidence obtained by the Guardian exposes a coordinated and unlawful EU assault on the rights of desperate people trying to cross the Mediterranean
As night fell on 26 March 2019, two small boats made their way north across the Mediterranean. The rubber crafts were flimsy; it would be nearly impossible for those onboard to make it to Europe without help. From the north, a twin-propeller aeroplane from the European Union naval force approached. From the south, the coastguard from the country they had just fled, Libya, was coming.
The aircraft arrived first but there would be no rescue from Europe. Instead the flight, callsign Seagull 75, radioed the Libyans telling them where to find the boats. But Libya’s would-be interceptors would need more than just the coordinates. “OK sir, my radar is not good, is not good, if you stay [over the boat] I will follow you,” said the coastguard, according to recordings of VHF marine radio picked up by a nearby ship.
European commission says linear growth model of ‘take, make, use, discard’ has reached limit
Manufacturers of phones, tablets and laptops will face legal obligations to make their products easier to repair and reuse, under a far-reaching recycling plan from the European Union executive.
The European commission wants to drastically increase recycling of electronic goods, which are often difficult to repair, replace batteries or upgrade. Less than 40% of electronic waste in the EU is thought to be recycled.
Here are the main points from the press conference held by Boris Johnson. He was joined by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser.
We are now very close to the time, probably within the next 10 to 14 days, when the modelling would imply we should move to a situation where everybody with even minor respiratory tract infections or a fever should be self-isolating for a period of seven days.
It is absolutely critical in managing the spread of this virus that we take the right decisions at the right time based on the latest and the best evidence, so we mustn’t do things which have no or limited medical benefit, nor things which could turn out actually to be counter-productive.
We were all given an instruction not to shake hands and there’s a good reason for not shaking hands, which is that the behavioural psychologists say that if you don’t shake somebody’s hand then that sends an important message to them about the importance of washing your hands.
So there’s a subliminal cue there to everybody to wash your hands, which is, I think I’m right in saying ... far more important.
What you can’t do is suppress this thing completely, and what you shouldn’t do is suppress it completely because all that happens then is it pops up again later in the year when the NHS is at a more vulnerable stage in the winter and you end up with another problem.
This is what Boris Johnson said at the start of his press conference.
I want to stress the following things. First, we are doing everything we can to combat this outbreak based on the latest scientific and medical advice.
Second, we have a truly brilliant NHS where staff have responded with all the determination, compassion and skill that makes their service so revered across the world and they will continue to have this government’s full support, my support, in tackling this virus on the front line.
Brussels agrees to rehouse up to 1,500 children as conditions in Greek camps deteriorate
EU leaders in Brussels held “frank” talks with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğanon Monday over his decision to open Turkey’s border to migrants travelling to Europe, as deteriorating conditions in Greek camps led to the bloc agreeing to rehouse up to 1,500 child refugees.
The presidents of the European commission and council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, sought a way to save the current migration deal with Turkey during difficult discussions with Erdoğan in Brussels.
Education and business leaders point to lost income for country and opportunities for students
Quitting the EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme would “blow a hole” in the UK’s economy, taking away income of £243m a year and depriving 17,000 British young people of valuable work experience, according to a group of education and business leaders.
The group, including further education colleges and universities, is calling for the British government to make clear that continued Erasmus membership is a high priority in its talks with the EU.
Transport secretary says senior figures will gradually return to UK as regulatory powers revert to CAA
The UK is to withdraw from the European Union aviation safety regulator (EASA) after the Brexit transition period, Grant Shapps has confirmed.
The transport secretary said many of the most senior figures at the organisation headquartered in Cologne, Germany were British and that they would gradually return to the UK throughout this year as regulatory powers reverted to the Civil Aviation Authority.
Environmental groups fear link between huge ships and spikes in dolphin deaths
Brexit offers the perfect opportunity to ban industrial supertrawler fishing boats from UK waters, according to campaigners.
The factory-sized ships can be hundreds of feet long and have been criticised for indiscriminate fishing as they catch hundreds of thousands of fish in relatively short periods. Environmentalists fear their presence correlates with spikes in numbers of dolphins washing up dead.
Teargas fired by both sides amid political standoff over people displaced by war in Syria
The EU has told migrants in Turkey that Europe’s doors are closedas Greek and Turkish police fired teargas at their shared border amid growing tensions over the plight of Syria’s refugees.
In a blunt message, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said: “Don’t go to the border. The border is not open. If someone tells you that you can go because the border is open … that is not true.
Turkey’s decision not to stop migrants crossing its borders will force politicians to reveal what they plan to do with them
“April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks,” runs a diary entry by Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. “One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away […] audience shouting with laughter when he sank.” Orwell is so often reduced to cliche, but this quote has been stuck in my mind since footage was circulated online this week of a Greek coastguard boat apparently trying to capsize a migrant dinghy in the narrow strip of sea between Turkey and Greece’s Aegean islands.
Climate lobbying watchdog claims US oil giant met EC officials in run-up to policy
The US oil firm ExxonMobil met key European commission officials in an attempt to water down the European Green Deal in the weeks before it was agreed, according to a climate lobbying watchdog.
Documents unearthed by InfluenceMap revealed that Exxon lobbyists met Brussels officials in November to urge the EU to extend its carbon-pricing scheme to “stationary” sources, such as power plants, to include tailpipe emissions from vehicles using petrol or diesel.
The EU is mired in a crisis of legitimacy – but municipal movements are rebuilding democracy from below
Conservative politicians have long declared there is no alternative to capitalism. Many of capitalism’s cruelties, from housing crises and crumbling public amenities to increasingly precarious forms of employment, are most visible in towns and cities. But it’s also in these places that new movements are emerging and rebuilding politics from the bottom up. In cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, Berlin and Naples, local activists are defending human rights and public services against a rising tide of anti-immigrant xenophobia and fiscal austerity. We call these urban movements “municipalism”.
By achieving small victories around the world, municipalist movements are proving that there is another way of doing politics – one that begins in the places closest to us. It’s thanks to this movement that someone such as me, a woman from a working-class family who began my political career as a housing activist, can today govern a city such as Barcelona. A tide of municipal movements connects cities across the world, creating networks of alliances and shared objectives. Together, we have put pressure on our national governments and demanded greater powers to fight gentrification, increase the stock of affordable housing, and safeguard our collective right to the city.
Lack of information has left thousands of expats confused about status, study shows
Britons living in Spain are confused and fearful about their post-Brexit futures “to a quite shocking extent”, according to the author of a study, with poor support and communication from British and Spanish authorities mainly to blame.
Despite the withdrawal agreement securing the basic rights of UK citizens legally resident on the continent, Karen O’Reilly, a sociology professor at Loughborough University, said her research revealed “enormous levels of uncertainty and worry”.
EU negotiator sets out main obstacles to deal, including rights convention and fishing
Michel Barnier has spoken of grave differences between the EU and the UK over their future relationship, warning that Boris Johnson’s refusal to formally commit to the European convention on human rights would limit cooperation in fighting crime.
Following the first round of negotiations between the two 100-strong teams, the EU’s chief negotiator said there were many “serious divergences” between the two sides.
Hundreds of refugees and migrants were queuing and camping near the Turkish-Greek border on Thursday. This footage was shot from a Turkish government helicopter while the interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, was inspecting the region. Last week Turkey announced it would no longer abide by a 2016 deal with the EU to reduce illegal migration
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the Commons health committee questioning Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer
Boris Johnson and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England and the UK government’s chief medical adviser have both been speaking about coronavirus this morning. Whitty gave evidence to the Commons health committee for about an hour and a half, and Johnson gave a much shorter interview to ITV’s This Morning. They did not contract each other in any way, but there was a marked difference in tone. Whitty was calm and factual, in no way alarmist, but also very honest about the fact that coronavirus is likely to lead to a significant disruption to normal life, and particularly to the NHS, for a short period later this year. In contrast, Johnson was much keener to gloss over the downsides and assure viewers that the UK was going to get through this “in good shape”.
Perhaps this is a sophisticated “good cop, bad cop” routine. But it is more likely that Johnson is just congenitally programmed for optimism, and resistant to anything that might make him sound like a “gloomster”. People expect their leaders to be positive, and at the moment Johnson is getting mostly plaudits for his handling of this crisis, but there may come a point where he does not seem to be acknowledging the risk.
The most important message at this stage, as we start to see the spread, is number one, wash your hands, but number two, as far as possible, it should be business as usual for the overwhelming majority of people in this country, for the simple reason this is a great country, massively strong economy, the British public I think understands completely the balance of risk involved. The scientists have done a very good job of explaining to us what the risks are, and they are really quite small. They are appreciable, but quite small. And people can see that this country is going to get through this in good shape.
One of the theories is perhaps you could take it in on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease to move through the population without really taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance.
I think it would be better if we take all the measures that we can now just to stop the peak of the disease being as difficult for the NHS as it might. I think there are things we may be able to do.
At the moment what they are telling me is, actually, slightly counter-intuitively, things like closing schools and stopping big gatherings don’t work as well perhaps as people think in stopping the spread.
Let me clear that up immediately because it is very important that we are transparent, people understand that we are transparent.
Public Health England needs to be absolutely sure about the diagnosis of these cases so what they are doing is they are immediately identifying the region where they think there’s an incidence and then within 24 hours confirming the exact location to be sure that we have got the right thing.
The bit of the system which will come under pressure first will be those conditions that require people to have oxygen and particularly to have critical care beds, and that bit, I think, will come under pressure at quite an early stage if we have a high-end-of-the-range epidemic for this.
Q: Will coronavirus affect the talks?
Barnier says there are a lot of people at these meetings. At most there are 200 people at a meeting. But the EU will be taking steps to protect people.
European-listed firms could face fines if fewer than 40% of their non-executive board seats are taken by women
The European Union executive is reviving plans for mandatory quotas of women on company boards, amid slowing progress towards gender equality among top management.
The EU commissioner for equality, Helena Dalli, told journalists that quotas “can be a very ugly word” but were also “a necessary evil, in the sense we have to use quotas because otherwise we will wait another 100 years for things to change by themselves”.