How Elon Musk has meddled in European affairs

From bashing Keir Starmer to promoting the AfD, the X owner is not shy about intervening

A limited – at best – understanding of the continent of Europe and its component countries has not prevented the world’s richest man from intervening in the domestic politics of several of them, as well as attacking the EU itself.

Here we take a brief look at some of the occasions on which X owner Elon Musk has used his position as proprietor of one of the world’s largest social media platforms to meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign democratic states outside the US.

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Friend of British hiker missing in Italy voices ‘acceptance’ as search continues

Joe Stone says authorities ‘trying everything’ to find Aziz Ziriat after body of Sam Harris discovered on Wednesday

A close friend of a British hiker who has been missing in the Dolomites since New Year’s Day has said “there is an acceptance that it won’t be good news” as search efforts continued.

Sam Harris, 35, and Aziz Ziriat, 36, from London, last sent messages home on 1 January and the pair did not check in to their flight home on 6 January. Friends and relatives have travelled to Italy.

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Sudan’s army recaptures Wad Madani from rebel Rapid Support Forces

Strategic city fell into control of RSF, which has been accused of genocide by the US, in December 2023

Sudan’s military and its allies have taken back a strategic city from the rebel Rapid Support Forces, officials said.

The recapture of Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira province, took place more than a year after it fell to the RSF. Wad Madani had previously been a haven for displaced families in the early months of the war.

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‘White people shouldn’t mess with it’: Native American church laments psychedelic cactus shortage

Western ‘psychedelic renaissance’ is partly to blame for dwindling supplies of peyote, which produces mescaline

Aldous Huxley wrote about the spiritual visions he had while taking the drug mescaline in The Doors of Perception, while Hunter S Thompson wrote of driving at 100mph while under the influence of it in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But now a growing number of western spiritual seekers dabbling in psychedelics are accused of causing a shortage of the plant that produces mescaline.

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Venezuelan opposition candidate accuses Nicolás Maduro of coup

Edmundo González, widely believed to have won July election, gives address after autocrat sworn in for third term

The man widely believed to be the real victor of last year’s presidential election in Venezuela has accused Nicolás Maduro of staging a coup and “crowning himself dictator” after the South American autocrat claimed another six years in power.

Maduro, a former union leader who has governed since 2013, in increasingly authoritarian fashion, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite claims that he stole the election from the actual winner, the retired diplomat Edmundo González.

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Protesters in Calais condemn UK policies to stop Channel crossings

Alliance of groups from across France call for measures to make crossings safer after 77 deaths recorded in 2024

More than 70 organisations from across France willcome together on Saturday to protest in Calais about UK policies to try to stop people crossing the Channel.

At least 77 people died trying to cross the Channel in 2024, the highest number since crossings began in 2018. Non-governmental organisations that monitor these deaths believe the total figure last year was even higher, with 89 deaths at the UK-French border of people attempting to reach the UK.

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Black boxes on crashed South Korean plane cut out before impact, inquiry finds

Recording of flight data ceased four minutes before Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people, says transport ministry

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders on the Jeju Air plane that crashed in South Korea in December, killing 179 people, stopped recording about four minutes before the airliner hit a concrete structure at Muan airport, the transport ministry said.

Authorities investigating the disaster, the worst plane crash on South Korean soil, plan to analyse what caused the black boxes to stop recording, the ministry said.

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California fires live: progress made against some LA blazes but thickening smoke prompts ‘health emergency’

Palisades and Eaton fires start coming under control as fierce winds ease but forecasters predict another red flag warning for Monday

Here are some of the latest images coming in from Los Angeles via the news wires.

Weather forecasters in Los Angeles are expecting fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel the devastating wildfires.

There are areas where everything is gone. There isn’t even a stick of wood left. It’s just dirt.

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Biden extends temporary protections for more than 800,000 immigrants

US president moves to shield roughly 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans against Trump administration

The Biden administration on Friday extended temporary humanitarian protections for about 230,000 Salvadorans and 600,000 Venezuelans living in the US, in an effort to shield those groups from an incoming Trump administration that has promised to deport them.

The decision in the dying days of Joe Biden’s presidency came after immigrant advocates and lawmakers urged the Department of Homeland Security to extend temporary protected status (TPS), designed to protect immigrants from being deported to countries that are engulfed in disaster or conflict.

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Ukraine’s highest profile combat unit to recruit English-speaking soldiers

Azov, a volunteer brigade, plans to form international battalion to boost numbers as Ukraine heads into fourth year of war

Ukraine’s highest profile combat unit is seeking English-speaking recruits at a time when the impending presidency of Donald Trump means that Kyiv is expected to come under intense pressure on the battlefield.

Azov, a volunteer brigade whose decade-old nationalist origins have made it a target of Russian propaganda, plans to form an international battalion to boost its numbers as Ukraine heads into a fourth year of full-scale war.

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Gaza death toll 40% higher than official number, Lancet study finds

Analysis estimates death toll by end of June was 64,260, with 59% being women, children and people over 65

Research published in the Lancet medical journal estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was about 40% higher than numbers recorded by the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.

The peer-reviewed statistical analysis was conducted by academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions, using a statistical method called capture-recapture analysis.

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2024 was hottest year on record for world’s land and oceans, US scientists confirm

Noaa says last year was the warmest since records began in 1850 and Nasa concurs: ‘The long-term trends are very clear’

It was the hottest year ever recorded for the world’s lands and oceans in 2024, US government scientists have confirmed, providing yet another measure of how the climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have previously never experienced.

Last year was the hottest in global temperature records stretching back to 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa_ announced, with the worldwide average 1.46C (2.6F) warmer than the era prior to humans burning huge volumes of planet-heating fossil fuels.

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Family of former Leicester City owner killed in helicopter crash sue makers for £2.15bn

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s relatives demand compensation from Italian firm Leonardo six years after his death

The family of Leicester City’s former owner, who was killed in a helicopter crash outside the club’s stadium in 2018, have launched a lawsuit against the company which made the aircraft.

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s family are suing the Italian aerospace and defence company Leonardo SpA for £2.15bn – the largest fatal accident claim in English history, according to the family’s lawyers.

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Gay men can train as priests but must be celibate, say Italian bishops

Move marks shift in views but sexually active gay men will not be admitted to Roman Catholic seminaries

Gay men will be allowed to train as priests in Roman Catholic seminaries, so long as they observe celibacy, according to new guidelines announced by the Italian Bishops Conference (CIE).

The decision marks a shift from the view previously held by Pope Francis that gay men should not be admitted to seminaries owing to the risk of them leading a double life.

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Venezuela’s Maduro sworn in amid outrage over alleged fraudulent election

US announces $65m bounty for arrest of president, who has led country since 2013 and failed to prove he won recent vote

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has been​ accused of a shameless and fraudulent power-grab after swearing himself in for a third term, despite domestic outrage and a chorus of international condemnation at his alleged theft of last year’s election.

“This is a great victory for Venezuelan democracy,” the 62-year-old autocrat boasted during a sparsely attended oath-taking ceremony in Caracas that was boycotted by the leaders of democratic nations.

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‘It was extraordinary’: Spanish captain recalls rescue of woman who gave birth in dinghy

Mother and newborn saved from inflatable boat off Canary Islands, on a route on which thousands have died

The call that would lead to one of the most poignant images of the humanitarian emergency in the deadly waters off the Canary Islands came at 4am.

In the early hours of Monday, the Las Palmas command centre of Spain’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Marítimo, told Domingo Trujillo, the captain of the search-and-rescue vessel Talía, that a small inflatable boat, packed with people, was adrift 97 nautical miles (180km) off the coast of Lanzarote. Among those onboard, they added, was a woman who was due to give birth at any moment.

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South Africa police find 26 naked Ethiopians held by suspected traffickers

Three people arrested after group escapes Johannesburg house by breaking a window and burglar bar

South African police have rescued 26 Ethiopians from a suspected human trafficking ring in Johannesburg after the group broke a window and burglar bar to escape from a house where they were being held naked.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of people trafficking and possessing an illegal firearm on Thursday night after neighbours in the Sandringham suburb heard the commotion and tipped off the police, the Hawks serious crime unit said in a statement. Police urged the public to report any other escaped naked people in the area.

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Kenya court rules that criminalising attempted suicide is unconstitutional

The judgment has been welcomed as an important shift in perceptions by human rights and mental health groups

A Kenyan judge has declared as unconstitutional sections of the country’s laws that criminalise attempted suicide. In a landmark ruling on Thursday, Judge Lawrence Mugambi of the country’s high court stated that section 226 of the penal code contradicts the constitution by punishing those with mental health issues over which they may have little or no control.

While the constitution says in article 43 that a person has the right to the “highest attainable standard of health”, criminal law states that “any person who attempts to kill himself is guilty of a misdemeanour and is subject to imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both”, with the minimum age of prosecution for the offence set at eight years old.

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Lisa Nandy rejects calls for England to boycott Afghanistan cricket match

Culture secretary says it should go ahead despite pressure for it to be cancelled over Taliban’s treatment of women

England should be allowed to play next month’s cricket match against Afghanistan, the culture and sport secretary has said, despite calls for a boycott over the Taliban government’s treatment of women.

Lisa Nandy backed a decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to allow the game to go ahead, saying on Friday that cancelling it would “deny sports fans the opportunity that they love”.

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Visa-waiver system could overwhelm UK immigration services, law firm warns

There are also fears electronic travel authorisation will threaten post-peace tourism sector in Northern Ireland

The UK Home Office’s already burdened immigration services could be overwhelmed this summer when a new visa-waiver system comes into force for European business travellers and tourists in April, a leading law firm has said.

There have also been fresh warnings that the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) requirements could threaten the post-peace tourism sector in Northern Ireland, with Americans and Europeans travelling to Dublin and beyond deciding not to bother crossing the border because of the red tape.

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