Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Sudanese teenager, found near Calais, attempted crossing with another boy in inflatable dinghy
A Sudanese teenager who disappeared at sea has been found dead on a beach near Calais on Wednesday morning, after trying to cross the Channel with another boy in an inflatable dinghy using shovels for oars.
The French citizenship minister, Marlène Schiappa, said the body was found on the beach of Sangatte, near to the former site of the notorious “jungle” refugee camp, and was believed to be that of a 16-year-old boy, although some uncertainty remains over his age while authorities are continuing to investigate the matter.
US calls on military to reject violence and work towards return of constitutional government
Mali’s new military rulers have come under intense pressure to ensure a rapid restoration of democracy following the coup that brought them to power overnight.
There were reports on Wednesday that the officers who led the coup met Mahmoud Dicko, a conservative cleric with a large popular following and de facto leader of the recent protest movement in Mali, during the afternoon, suggesting they may be seeking to work with political actors in the unstable west African country.
In the UK, the government has performed a juddering u-turn to say that this summer’s exam results will be based on teacher assessment rather than a controversial standardisation model that prompted fury from students who found themselves sharply downgraded on the basis of their schools’ previous performance.
My colleagues Richard Adams and Sally Weale have a write-up here...
Earlier we posted a link to an interesting El Pais piece which noted that in recent months the average age of those newly infected with coronavirus had dropped significantly. If you’re interested in this phenomenon and its consequences more broadly, take a look at this piece by our own Jon Henley from last week:
Unlike during the early months of the crisis in March and April, when older people accounted for the biggest share of cases, in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium 20 to 39-year-olds now represent up to 40% of new infections...
The challenge for governments and health agencies, experts say, is to prevent the virus from spreading to more vulnerable populations. “There’s no reason to imagine it can be contained to just one age group, without affecting others, Pascal Crépey, an epidemiologist and public health expert, told Le Parisien.
Asylum seekers give accounts of injuries, as Priti Patel says many refugees feel France is racist
Asylum seekers in the UK and France have described injuries they have received at the hands of French police, as Priti Patel said many were making the perilous journey across the Channel because they believe France is racist.
The home secretary made her comments in a conference call with Conservative MPs concerned about the recent surge in numbers attempting the voyage in small boats.
The UK government has said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Sunday, there were a further 1,040 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Overall, a total of 318,484 cases have been confirmed in the UK.
As of Sunday, 41,366 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. This was up by five from the day before.
Ireland’s health chiefs will meet on Monday to decide if further restrictions are needed to slow a sharp increase in the spread of coronavirus that the government and officials have described as deeply concerning.
Ireland has reopened its economy at a slower pace than most EU countries but that has not prevented a jump in cases over the last two weeks that led to the first localised reimposition of some restrictions last week.
Weary and bedraggled, the first set of quarantiners from France began arriving at Gatwick airport at 10.20am today, missing the UK deadline to get back by a handful of hours. A mix of fury, resignation and confusion descended on the north terminal as five flights from the south of France arrived within an hour.
“How does it make sense?” asked Reda, who had spent two weeks in Bordeaux with his wife Elodie and their five-year-old daughter, Sara. “Either you allow people proper time to stagger getting back or you say quarantine is effective immediately. A 12- or 24-hour deadline just means that 100,000 people rushed back one day earlier than us, they’re more high risk because of that, and we are in quarantine and they’re out in open spaces.”
Travellers left stressed and exhausted as they cut holidays short following new Covid-19 rules
At times on the A1 and A16 motorways in northern France on Friday afternoon, four out of five cars had UK plates: SUVs, estates and vans laden with luggage and children and piled high with surfboards and bikes, Brits barrelling back in a desperate bid to make it home before the 4am quarantine deadline.
France has been added to the UK coronavirus quarantine list meaning that anyone returning to the UK after 4am on Saturday will have to quarantine for 14 days or face a fine. With some travellers desperately trying to return before the deadline, others have decided to stay in France.
More families arrive in Dunkirk each day and they would rather sleep in woods than seek asylum in France
“They are kids, so they are always playing. Like children in the UK play mums and dads or doctors and nurses, our children will re-enact boat crossings, getting patted down by the police, going to food distributions, meeting smugglers. Because one of the way parents safeguard their children is to present attempted border crossings as an adventure.”
In a nature reserve near Dunkirk, Caia Fallowfield runs a play project for migrant children who live among the trees with no running water or toilets. These are the children who vanish overnight off the French coast and reappear on the front pages of British newspapers, being pulled out of dinghies in Dover, often cold, wet and frightened.
Transport secretary causes confusion on Thursday night when he gives the wrong date for the start of Covid-19 quarantine measures for arrivals from France. During a TV interview Shapps initially, and correctly, says people will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 4am on Saturday, then later incorrectly says the restrictions come in from Sunday
Natacha Bouchart tells PM sending Navy ships into French waters is ‘a declaration of maritime war’
The mayor of the French port city of Calais has told Boris Johnson to “calm down” and change strategy in dealing with migrants crossing from France.
“I consider Boris Johnson’s pronouncements to be a provocation,” said Natacha Bouchart, mayor of the town that is a main embarkation point for the small, overcrowded migrant boats seeking to cross the Channel this summer.
New daily coronavirus infections in the Netherlands are back to roughly half their level at the peak of the pandemic, while France’s prime minister has said it is crucial for his country to avoid a new lockdown amid a “worrying increase” in cases.
Jaap van Dissel, the Netherlands’ chief epidemiologist, told the Dutch parliament on Tuesday that 4,036 new Covid-19 cases had been reported in the past week, an increase of 55% on the previous seven days. The figure translated to a daily average of more than 500, compared with nearly 1,200 at the peak of pandemic.
Face masks have become compulsory in more than 100 Paris streets and tourist areas, Greece is “formally” in a second wave and new outbreaks are causing alarm in Italy and Spain as coronavirus infections continue to pick up again across Europe.
The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control called on member states that are seeing an increase in cases to reinstate control measures, warning of a “true resurgence” in several countries and a “risk of further escalation” across the continent.
Gruesome find halts work on restoring newly purchased complex in prestigious area
Work on restoring an abandoned €35m (£27m) mansion in one of the most prestigious areas of Paris has been suspended after the discovery of a corpse that had been decomposing in the basement for 30 years, local media have reported.
Minutes from Les Invalides and the French prime minister’s official residence, and backing onto the former home of Yves Saint Laurent, the vast but crumbling complex at 12 rue Oudinot in the heart of Paris had been empty for more than 30 years.
PM hints at law change to make it easier to deport people who make dangerous voyage
Boris Johnson has branded attempts by people to cross the Channel in small boats as a “very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do” and hinted at changing the law to make it easier to deport such arrivals.
Meanwhile, a French politician has warned that the UK’s decision to send in the Royal Navy “won’t change anything”, and a former Home Office official has said he was sceptical of the plans.
Emmanuel Macron’s office confirms six French volunteers with ACTED relief organisation died in attack on Sunday
Gunmen on motorcycles killed six French aid workers, a Nigerien guide and a driver in a wildlife park in Niger on Sunday, officials said.
The group were attacked in a giraffe reserve 65km (40 miles) from the west African country’s capital, Niamey, the governor of Tillaberi region, Tidjani Ibrahim Katiella, told Reuters. “They were intercepted and killed,” he said.
French and British ministers prepare to meet after 151 more people came ashore on Saturday
Tensions are mounting between the UK and France over migrant crossings in the Channel after the number of people who have reached UK shores in small boats this year surpassed 4,000.
Families with young children were among hundreds of people who came ashore near Dover this weekend, including 151 on Saturday, the Home Office confirmed.
In a normal August, the much-loved miniature tourist train in the French port city of Sète would be full of tourists from Britain and elsewhere, enjoying the ride.
Optimistically, the manager, Romiy Priore, took steps to make his attraction safe for Covid times. “With the virus, we decided to order disposable earphones for the start of the season on 23 June – 100 of them,” he says, huddling behind a Perspex screen in a cool cabin on the quayside. “It’s August, and I still have 70 left. That tells you how many foreign tourists we currently have.”
Home Office asked for patrols after saying migrants should face ‘real consequences’
Alarm is growing over UK proposals to introduce hardline measures to discourage refugees and illegal migrants from seeking sanctuary after the Ministry of Defence confirmed it was considering a Home Office request to deploy navy vessels in the Dover Straits.
It comes after the immigration minister, Chris Philp, called for migrants caught crossing the Channel to be fingerprinted and face “real consequences”, before a meeting next week with his French counterparts.
During the initial peak of Spain’s Covid-19 pandemic in the spring, the virus displayed an unexpected mercy. In its spread, ferocity and awful novelty, it left health workers too tired and overwhelmed to look beyond the next few hours.
“There’s no time to get angry or to wonder why things have been organised the way they have been,” Sara Gayoso, an A&E doctor at El Escorial hospital near Madrid, told the Guardian at the end of March.