Category Archives: Europe

Spain’s deadly floods and droughts are two faces of the climate crisis coin

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Scientists say violent weather battering Mediterranean is a harbinger of what the rest of Europe can soon expect

Residents of Chiva, a small town on the outskirts of Valencia, can expect a grim future of worsening drought as the planet heats up and the country dries out. But on Tuesday, they also witnessed a year’s worth of rainfall in a matter of hours.

The torrential rains that flooded southern and eastern Spain on Tuesday night, ripping away bridges and tearing through towns, have killed scores of people. Fossil fuel pollution plays a role in warping both extremes of the water cycle: heat evaporates water, leaving people and plants parched, but hot air can hold more moisture, increasing the potential for catastrophic downpours.

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Irish school abuse inquiry should cover ‘leathering’, survivors say

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Former pupils of Catholic schools say corporal punishment was ‘hourly occurence’ in 60s and 70s

The Irish government has been urged to extend the scope of a statutory inquiry into historical child abuse in schools to include corporal punishment, including a practice known as “leathering”.

Survivors of physical assault in Catholic schools have complained they were told there was no scope to include corporal punishment in an investigation into sexual abuse, announced in September.

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Dead bodies found after torrential rain brings flash flooding to Spain

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Unspecified number of bodies found as flood waters push cars through streets, closing roads and cancelling train services in Valencia

Several dead bodies have been recovered by emergency workers after torrential rain caused flash floods in southern and eastern Spain, shutting roads and high-speed train connections.

Raging mud-coloured flood waters swept through the town of Letur in the eastern province of Albacete on Tuesday, pushing cars through the streets, images broadcast on Spanish television showed.

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Berlin summons Iran ambassador over execution of German-Iranian

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Daughter of Jamshid Sharmahd says family let down by US and German governments’ failure to save him

Germany has recalled its ambassador to Tehran and summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in Berlin in protest over the execution of a German-Iranian dual national, Jamshid Sharmahd, accused of terrorism by Iran.

His daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, who had pressed the German and US governments hard to save him, said she and her brother felt let down by the failure of both governments to do more. Sharmahd was executed on Monday.

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EU events on curbing big tech ‘distorted’ by attenders with industry links

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Campaigners say 21% of people at workshops did not disclose on their applications relationships with firms being discussed

More than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate.

Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies’ compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour.

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British girl with peanut allergy dies on holiday in Rome

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Manslaughter inquiry launched after 14-year-old went into anaphylactic shock after dining with her family at pizzeria

Prosecutors in Rome have opened a manslaughter investigation after a British girl with a peanut allergy died during a holiday with her family.

The 14-year-old had dined at a pizzeria in the Gianicolense district and went into anaphylactic shock about 15 minutes later after the family returned to their hotel.

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Colin Farrell’s Dublin marathon run raises €774,000 for charity

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Actor ran last part of course pushing friend Emma Fogarty who has genetic condition known as butterfly skin

Colin Farrell has raised €774,000 (£644,000) for a charity supporting people with a rare skin condition by running the Dublin marathon while pushing one of the oldest survivors of the disease in Ireland around part of the course in her wheelchair.

The actor, who was born in the Irish capital, raised the money for Debra Ireland, an organisation that supports people with the incurable genetic condition epidermolysis bullosa (EB), or “butterfly skin”, which causes people to have very fragile and blistering skin.

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‘Carved on bodies and souls’: survivor tells of Russia’s use of male sexual torture in Ukraine

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Oleksii Sivak has set up a support group for others who have suffered widespread but unspoken abuse

Russian troops tortured Oleksii Sivak for weeks, applying electric shocks to his genitals in a freezing basement in his home city of Kherson in punishment for resisting their rule.

When Ukrainian troops freed the city in the autumn of 2022, Sivak was presented with a long list of medical specialists who could help his recovery and asked to tick the ones he needed.

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Climate crisis caused half of European heat deaths in 2022, says study

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Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants

Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found.

Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year.

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If Trump wins the election, Nato can expect more turbulence ahead

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Past threats former president – and present Russian ones – have spurred Europe to invest in self-defence, but as conflicts rise the alliance still looks vital

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Politeness and convention dictate that European leaders try to sound noncommittal when asked whether a Donald Trump presidency would hurt Nato. But despite the rhetoric about “Trump-proofing”, Nato cohesion will be at risk from a hostile or isolationist Republican president, who has previously threatened to leave the alliance if European defence spending did not increase.

“The truth is that the US is Nato and Nato is the US; the dependence on America is essentially as big as ever,” said Jamie Shea, a former Nato official who teaches at the University of Exeter. “Take the new Nato command centre to coordinate assistance for Ukraine in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is inside a US army barracks, relying on US logistics and software.”

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Russia to deploy 10,000 North Korean troops against Ukraine within ‘weeks’, Pentagon says

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Addition of North Korean soldiers will stoke regional tensions and further stretch Ukraine’s weary army in the almost three-year war

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to train and fight in the Ukraine war within “the next several weeks,” the Pentagon has said, in a move that western leaders say will intensify the almost three-year war and jolt relations in the region.

Some of the North Korean soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Monday, and were believed to be heading for the Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

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Iran executes German-Iranian dissident after years in captivity

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Berlin warns of ‘serious consequences’ for ‘inhumane regime’ after 69-year-old Jamshid Sharmahd put to death

Iran has executed a 69-year-old German-Iranian political scientist after years in captivity, sparking outrage in Germany and beyond.

Berlin warned of “serious consequences” for Iran’s “inhumane regime” after Jamshid Sharmahd was put to death on Monday, while a Norway-based human rights group labelled the execution the “extrajudicial killing of a hostage”.

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‘We acted late’: Spain’s Sumar party apologises amid sexual assault claims

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Leader of coalition Yolanda Díaz defends party but apologises over delay in action over MP Íñigo Errejón

The leader of Spain’s leftwing Sumar alliance, the junior partner in the country’s ruling, socialist-led coalition, has apologised for its delay in dealing with a senior MP whose resignation last week amid allegations of sexual assault has severely damaged the government’s progressive and feminist image.

Yolanda Díaz, who serves as a deputy prime minister and Spain’s labour minister, said she had ordered Íñigo Errejón, Sumar’s parliamentary spokesperson, to stand down as soon as he had acknowledged “sexist and degrading attitudes to women”.

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Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against contested election results

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Mood among protesters is one of deflation as some say Georgian Dream has already won

Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in the capital, Tbilisi, to rally against the results of a contested weekend parliamentary election in which the increasingly anti-western governing party was declared victorious amid reports of irregularities and voter intimidation.

The demonstration outside the parliament in the city centre was organised by the country’s pro-western opposition, which has refused to concede defeat and has accused the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party of election rigging.

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Portuguese far-right leader criticised over police shooting comments

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Complaint filed against André Ventura and two Chega colleagues for statements about fatal shooting of black man

Former politicians, musicians and lawyers from across Portugal have filed a criminal complaint against the leader of the far-right Chega party over “false or biased” statements made after a fatal police shooting of a black man.

For the past week, Portugal has been reeling from the death of Odair Moniz, a 43-year-old chef originally from Cape Verde. An official police statement initially said Moniz had fled, crashed a car and brandished a knife before an officer opened fire.

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Gérard Depardieu sexual assault trial postponed after actor’s no-show

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Paris trial rescheduled for March 2025 after 75-year-old actor fails to appear in court, pleading ill health

The trial of Gérard Depardieu on sexual assault charges was postponed until next year after the actor failed to appear in court on Monday, saying he was unwell.

His lawyer Jérémie Assous had said the 75-year-old was “extremely affected” by ill health and that he had asked for the proceedings to be delayed until he could attend in person.

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Hedgehogs ‘near threatened’ on red list after 30% decline over past decade

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The mammals were once common across Europe but urban development has pushed them towards extinction

Hedgehogs are now listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list after a decline in numbers of at least 30% over the past decade across much of their range.

While hedgehogs were once common across Europe, and were until now listed as of “least concern” on the red list, they are being pushed towards extinction by urban development, intensive farming and roads, which have fragmented their habitat.

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Georgia’s pro-EU opposition calls for protest over ‘rigged’ election result

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Pro-western president Salome Zourabichvili claims country has fallen victim to ‘Russian special operation’

Georgia’s pro-western opposition has called on the country to protest on Monday against the disputed parliamentary victory of the ruling, Russia-aligned Georgian Dream (GD) party.

GD retained power in Saturday’s pivotal election that dealt a significant blow to the country’s long-held aspirations for EU membership, amid allegations of voter intimidation and coercion.

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Remains of man whose death was recorded in 1197 saga uncovered in Norway

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Researchers say skeleton retrieved from well is likely to be that of man ‘cast headfirst’ into it by besiegers of castle

In 1197, an ancient saga relates, a body was flung into a well by the besiegers of Sverresborg castle outside Nidaros, now the central Norwegian city of Trondheim. More than 800 years later, scientists think they may have found him.

“We can never be 100% sure that the remains in the well are those of the man described in the saga,” said Michael Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, a co-author of the study published in the journal iScience.

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Scheme to boost French school trips to Britain ‘at risk’ under new UK entry rules

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Trade body for France’s travel industry reportedly writes to UK home secretary over concerns for programme’s future

A scheme designed to boost the numbers of French children able to travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of an overhaul of entry requirements in the UK.

New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

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