Frank Furedi announces resignation from MCC Brussels after organisation’s staff ‘not paid in July or August’
The head of Viktor Orbán’s favourite Brussels thinktank has quit, citing unpaid wages since the change of government in Hungary.
The sociology professor Frank Furedi said he was resigning as the executive director of MCC Brussels with “immediate effect” on Monday over “persistent failure to provide the contractually agreed funds”.
Continue reading...Berlin expected to outline response to incident this month widely speculated to have been coordinated by Russia
The German government is imminently expected to announce who it believes was behind a suspected drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane earlier this month and to outline its response to the incident in coordination with its European and Nato partners.
The chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told the public broadcaster ARD in an interview on Sunday evening: “We are in the process of concluding the investigations; we have reached a broad agreement within the federal government on how we will respond, and we will make this clear in the coming days. It won’t take much longer.”
Continue reading...Cape Town stunt sparks major debate over safety risks
Airlink insists flyby conducted according to regulations
A pre-game stunt involving two passenger jets flying dramatically low over a stadium in South Africa drew huge cheers from the estimated crowd of 56,000 people, but also sparked a major debate over safety risks. The flyby by two Embraer jets, operated by the local airline Airlink, happened on Saturday before the second rugby union Test between South Africa and New Zealand in Cape Town.
The flight tracking service Flightradar24 estimated that the lead jet passed just 41-46 feet (12-14 metres) above the roof of Cape Town Stadium, with the crowd and the world’s top-ranked rugby teams below. The second jet, which was very close behind, flew through a cloud of pink dust that shot up from the stadium roof as part of the show.
Continue reading...Jasmeet Wadhwa, who fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan, lost his life while trying to reach UK in April
A British family is pleading with French authorities to release the body of a relative that officials have held for five months after he died in the Channel in April.
Jasmeet Wadhwa, 32, died while attempting to reach the UK on a dinghy on 1 April with his mother, Harbans Kaur Wadhwa, after they fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan in January.
Continue reading...Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast is expected to push many Iranians into deeper poverty as food inflation soars
For many Iranians, the new US sanctions campaign, called Operation Economic Outcast, seems superfluous given the grim economic situation in their country.
Iranians are facing runaway food inflation, closed petrol stations and a seemingly never-ending depreciation of the nation’s currency caused by a lack of foreign exchange reserves.
Continue reading...Guidance says states must implement ‘comprehensive measures’ to address legacy of racial discrimination
A UN committee has said countries are legally obliged to consider reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and take other measures to address the enduring legacy of racial discrimination.
Guidance published on Monday by the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (CERD) said the obligations arose from a legally binding 1965 convention on racial discrimination, not from the legal standards that existed when the slave trade took place.
Continue reading...Unions say ban will take time to enact, while president also wants under-15s social media ban as key legacy
French high schools are rushing to put in place a ban on mobile phones this week as Emmanuel Macron pushes for children to spend less time in front of screens.
Education unions warned that banning mobile phone use in lycées – where children are aged 15 to 18 – would be hard to implement quickly.
Continue reading...Pedro Sánchez says two countries cooperating and accuses Israel and Russia of spreading fake news about migration
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said there is no evidence to suggest the Moroccan government was behind last month’s massive border crossing into Ceuta but accused Israel and Russia of spreading disinformation.
As many as 141 people are thought to have died trying to enter the Spanish enclave at the end of July. The influx of about 70,000 men, women and children unleashed a political crisis, a humanitarian emergency and reignited tensions within the EU over immigration.
Continue reading...Organisers say people must revive spiritual relationship with food amid double threat of climate crisis and conflict
Mending the broken food system under the threat of climate-driven weather extremes will require more than economic fixes and intensive agriculture, according to the organisers of a pioneering summit this week, who say the world must revive its spiritual relationship with food.
Delegates from more than 60 countries and the UN will gather for the next five days in Paro in the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan for the world’s first “conscious food summit”, which will bring together governments and farmers, mindfulness experts and yoga therapists.
Continue reading...US attacks Iranian rocket launchers on island in strait of Hormuz and Tehran targets US bases in Jordan and UAE
The US has reverted to military attacks on Iran for the first time in a month, firing missiles and drones at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, prompting the Iranian military to attack US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
US Central Command said it acted late on Sunday after it detected the Iranians planning to fire fresh mines into the strait. Last week Donald Trump claimed the US navy had cleared the strait of mines for the first time since the conflict started on 28 February, a claim the Iranians rejected as lies.
Continue reading...Trump officials shuttering three projects on foodborne parasite, two defunded by Congress, Politico reports
The Trump administration is shuttering two of the three US Department of Agriculture research projects studying cyclospora after the foodborne parasite has sickened tens of thousands of Americans during the summer, Politico reported on Sunday.
The two projects were defunded by Congress earlier in the year, while the third is due to be moved in coming months from Maryland to Iowa as part of a broader USDA reorganization, according to the report.
Continue reading...Tom Homan denies British far-right commentator, who was deported one day after arrest, got preferential treatment
The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that deporting British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amounted to preferential treatment.
Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.
Continue reading...Meanwhile, Trump posts video of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with Lake America sign
Donald Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA.
Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.
Continue reading...Total of 804 confirmed dead and more than 3,000 missing amid threat of fresh inundation
Rescuers in Nepal and Tibet have battled through leg-sucking mud amid the threat of fresh flooding to search for thousands of people still missing after a deadly wall of water swept through the Himalayan border zone, engulfing entire villages.
The latest updates on Sunday put the number of missing at 3,048, including hundreds of foreigners. There was a total of 804 confirmed deaths across Nepal and Tibet, and reports of some bodies swept downstream possibly as far as India.
Continue reading...Total number of missing Britons between Tibet and Nepal at 48 as Beijing mobilises more than 2,100 rescue workers
Fifteen British nationals are reported to be missing in China as the search continues for survivors of the devastating flooding in Nepal and Tibet.
Nepali and Chinese authorities confirmed an updated death toll of at least 810 on Sunday. More than 3,000 people are believed missing after flash floods triggered by a massive glacier collapse in the Himalayas on Wednesday engulfed Gyirong port on the Nepal-China border.
Continue reading...Nathan Cofnas told by Ghent University to work remotely as US ambassador claims credit for lifting of suspension
Prof Jason Arday’s accuser Nathan Cofnas has been barred from teaching on Ghent University campus for three months but has been allowed to continue his research position.
Cofnas, an American academic, was suspended from his postdoctoral research position at the Belgian institution earlier this month pending a “preliminary investigation” launched after Arday’s death.
Continue reading...Deal that will reportedly see US take control of 65bn barrels of Venezuelan oil has provoked outrage in her country
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s highly controversial energy deal with Donald Trump, insisting the South American country will maintain ownership and sovereignty over its massive oil reserves.
Rodríguez, who assumed power in January after Trump ordered the abduction of the president, Nicolás Maduro, took to the airwaves on Saturday to push back against criticism of what the US president has called “the biggest oil deal in world history”.
Continue reading...Manhunt under way after Italian dies from her injuries in the town of Aarau in the early hours of Sunday
A manhunt is under way in Switzerland after a 22-year-old woman was killed and five people were injured, some seriously, in a shooting at a rave in the northern town of Aarau, local police have said.
In the attack in the early hours of Sunday at a techno party at a covered horse-racing track, an Italian woman died from her injuries at the scene, authorities said. All those caught up in the shooting were residents of Switzerland and in their 20s.
Continue reading...Well-funded no camp prevails, winning 52.8% of votes and gaining plaudits from Eurosceptic figures across Europe
Voters in Iceland have rejected a government proposal to reopen accession talks with the EU after a closely fought referendum campaign that divided the country against a backdrop of global volatility.
After a long and anxious night for those on both sides of the debate, the no camp ended up with 52.8% of votes on Sunday morning and the yes camp with 47.2%. Voter turnout was high at 82.5%.
Continue reading...The no campaign was well-funded and accused of scaremongering, but the wording of the question may also have made a difference
It was always going to be a close contest. But on the night, the figures showed just how divided Iceland was on the issue of whether or not to restart negotiations with the European Union.
After a nail-biting overnight count, the well-funded no campaign rejoiced on Sunday morning as the broadcaster RUV declared it the winner with about 52.8% of the vote. Given the size of Iceland’s population – barely 400,000 – the margins were tiny.
Continue reading...