Category Archives: Europe

Keir Starmer to unveil ambitious new UK climate goal at Cop29

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Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action

Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.

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Italian judges strike another blow against Meloni’s Albania asylum deal

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Far-right government angrily condemns ruling that seven men detained in Albania must be transferred to Italy

Italian judges have ordered seven men detained in a migration hub in Albania to be transferred to Italy, in another blow to a controversial deal between the far-right Rome government and Tirana aimed at curbing the arrival of asylum seekers.

The men arrived at the Albanian port of Shëngjin aboard a military vessel on Friday after being rescued in international waters while trying to make their way to Europe.

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Macron to attend ‘high-risk’ France-Israel football match

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French president offers ‘fraternity and solidarity’ as Israel discourages wearing of ‘Jewish symbols’ abroad

Emmanuel Macron will attend the France-Israel football match at the Stade de France on Thursday in a gesture of “fraternity and solidarity” after attacks on Jewish fans in Amsterdam last week.

Thousands of extra police will be on duty for the game taking place against a backdrop of high tension caused by the conflict in Gaza.

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Huge crime network forging Banksy, Warhol and Picasso uncovered in Italy

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Art police and Pisa prosecutor say 38 people being investigated, with about 2,100 fake artworks seized

Italian police have dismantled a Europe-wide forgery network suspected of producing sophisticated replicas of works by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.

Thirty-eight people had been placed under investigation in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks, Italy’s art police and Pisa’s prosecutor’s office said in a joint statement on Monday.

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German paper industry denies claims paper shortage could hinder election

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Head of electoral commission had said timing of early election could be affected by shortage of paper to print ballots

Paper industry bosses in Germany have hit back at claims by the national electoral commission that a lack of paper might hinder the timing of the country’s early elections.

“We have paper,” the seemingly exasperated head of the trade association for the German paper industry, Alexander von Reibnitz, told the state broadcaster ZDF, adding: “The German paper industry is very productive … we can deliver as long as the order is submitted in a timely manner.”

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Starmer to join Macron on Armistice Day in Paris to show European solidarity

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British and French leaders will discuss Ukraine and defence amid fears for future of Nato after Trump’s re-election

Keir Starmer will join Emmanual Macron in Paris for the French Armistice Day service in a pointed show of European solidarity days after Donald Trump’s re-election, with Ukraine and defence on the agenda for private talks between the two leaders.

The visit will have a symbolic element with Starmer becoming the first UK leader to attend France’s national commemoration event since Winston Churchill in 1944.

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British man killed fighting for Ukraine’s foreign volunteer platoon

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Family of Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, say he died following his ‘heart, soul and morals’ and was ‘as brave as they come’

A British man has been killed while fighting in Ukraine for the country’s foreign volunteer platoon.

Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, had travelled to the country to join the fight against Russia despite his family’s pleas for him not to. His father, Steven Draper, paid tribute to his son, a former NHS worker from Gunnislake in Cornwall, in an interview with BBC News.

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First charges over violence linked to football match in Amsterdam

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City’s police chief says ‘incidents on both sides’ led to violent unrest as ‘around 40’ fined and released

Authorities have released details of the 62 people arrested after violent attacks took place around the football match between Amsterdam’s Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday night.

Violence after the game – described by the Amsterdam mayor, Femke Halsema, as “hit and run attacks” on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters by “boys on scooters” – provoked international horror.

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Moscow targeted as Ukraine and Russia trade large drone attacks

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Ukrainian strike on Moscow is biggest since full-scale invasion while Russia sends wave of record 145 drones

Ukraine has carried out its biggest drone strike on Moscow since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian media said on Sunday, as the Kremlin launched its own record air attack over Ukraine.

Three airports in the Russian capital were temporarily closed and flights were diverted. At least one person was injured. Russia said its air defences shot down 70 drones, nearly half of them in the skies above Moscow and the rest in western Russia.

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Nine boats carrying 572 people intercepted while crossing Channel

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Total number of arrivals by small boats reaches 32,691 this year, up 22% on same time last year but fewer than in 2022

Nine boats carrying 572 people have been intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel, according to the Home Office.

The latest crossings come after Keir Starmer announced plans to tackle what he described as the “national security threat” of people smugglers, pledging an extra £75m and a new team of detectives.

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Labour under fire for failing to name MPs for key EU role

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Calls for UK to work more closely with the EU on everything from defence and trade to immigration grow following Trump’s re-election

Keir Starmer’s government is coming under fire for having failed over more than four months to appoint new MPs and peers to a key EU-UK inter-parliamentary forum, as pressure grows for closer co-operation with the European Union after Donald’s Trump re-election to the White House.

Today in an article for the Observer online the MEP and former Italian government minister Sandro Gozi, recently elected as the new chair of the 70-strong UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly (PPA), and the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe Stella Creasy MP say failure to reconstitute the PPA since the July general election is an issue that “urgently” needs to be addressed.

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Deleted tweets, missed warnings and calls for the ‘hangman’: the bitter political fallout from Spain’s floods

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The region’s president responds to criticisms that he was slow to act by attacking the prime minister

The sun still hadn’t risen on Tuesday 29 October when the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, took another look at the warnings from Spain’s state meteorological office and ordered all the schools in the small Valencian town to close.

“The warning early that morning – at 5am or 6am – was orange,” he said. “That’s when I was weighing up whether to close the schools here. In the end, I ordered them to close at six or seven that morning. Soon after, the alert went red.”

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Greece’s Syriza faces defections as ex-leader launches new movement

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Expected departure of at least five deputies means party set to be replaced as main opposition

Syriza, the once radical leftwing force that set Europe alight with its anti-austerity rhetoric at the height of Greece’s debt crisis, is on the verge of being replaced as the country’s main opposition party after the removal of its leader Stefanos Kasselakis and his decision to start a new political movement.

At least five Syriza deputies are expected to officially inform parliament on Monday of their decision to leave the party, a move that will result in the group’s parliamentary presence being reduced to 30 lawmakers – one fewer than the centre-left Pasok.

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Thousands call for Valencia’s leader to resign over deadly floods response

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About 130,000 Spaniards protest against perceived failings by Carlos Mazón’s regional government

Spaniards have taken to the streets of Valencia to demand the resignation of the regional president who led the emergency response to the recent catastrophic floods that killed more than 200 people.

Floods that began on the night of 29 October have left 220 dead and nearly 80 people still missing.

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Trump ally: Ukraine focus is to achieve ‘peace and stop the killing’

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Spokesperson for Trump’s presidential transition effort said Bryan Lanza had not been speaking on behalf of president-elect

A senior adviser to Donald Trump said that the incoming US administration’s priority for Ukraine will be achieving peace rather than helping it regain territory captured by Russia in the almost three years of the war.

In an interview with the BBC, broadcast on Saturday, Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser to Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, began to elaborate on the strong signals the now president-elect had been sending to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the campaign trail.

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US tourist killed while on vacation in Hungary as suspect taken into custody

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Mackenzie Michalski, 31, from Portland, Oregon, met 37-year-old man from Ireland at nightclub in Budapest

Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist who was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital mourned their loss while a 37-year-old suspect was in custody Saturday.

The victim, Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on 5 November after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest. Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs, where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.

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More arrests expected in Amsterdam over violence on Israeli football fans

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Four suspects still held on suspicion of violent acts and 50 people fined after attacks on football fans

Amsterdam police expect to make more arrests after what authorities called “hateful antisemitic violence” against Israeli football fans, prosecutors said on Saturday.

Four suspects remained detained on Saturday on suspicion of violent acts, including two minors, and 40 people had been fined for public disturbance and 10 for offences including vandalism, prosecutors said.

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Pompeii limits visitors to protect ancient city from overtourism

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Tickets to visit ruins buried by Mount Vesuvius, seen by 4 million this summer, to be capped at 20,000 a day

Pompeii plans to limit visitor numbers to 20,000 a day and introduce personalised tickets from next week in an effort to cope with overtourism and protect the world heritage site, officials said.

This summer, a record 4 million people visited the remains of the ancient Roman city, buried under ash and rock after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

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Boost UK defence spending to win Trump’s support, former navy chief urges Starmer

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Lord West says Republican victory is chance to show Britain is willing to prioritise military by allocating 3% of GDP

Keir Starmer is being urged to consider an emergency cash injection into defence and to accelerate Britain’s planned review of its military capabilities before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Senior defence figures are now assessing how Trump’s victory will shape a strategic defence review (SDR) that was already under way in Whitehall, whose findings are due to be reported in the spring. The SDR comes alongside a crucial review of public spending.

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UK momentum on Ukraine has dropped under Labour, Ben Wallace says

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Former Tory defence minister says leadership of Sunak era is lacking and bureaucracy is holding up equipment

Momentum on Ukraine has “dropped back” since Labour took office, according to the ex-Tory defence minister and former army officer Sir Ben Wallace.

Responding to recent comments by Kyiv officials that Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since Keir Starmer was elected prime minister, Wallace said that was because “the leadership that Britain showed right from the start has started to drop back into the pack”.

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