Category Archives: Europe

Top Russia diplomat warns west not to fight ‘nuclear power’ in UN speech

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Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture

Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.

Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.

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Senior Tories cast doubt over Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘invade the Netherlands’

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Former prime minister’s claims about wanting to seize Covid vaccines being held in the EU ‘may have been a joke’

Senior Tories have cast doubt on Boris Johnson’s claim that he seriously considered invading the Netherlands to seize vaccines during the pandemic, saying the story had obviously been overblown and reheated to boost sales of his memoirs.

The former prime minister says in his new book, Unleashed, that he asked senior members of the armed forces about the possibility of conducting an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in Leiden in March 2021 in order to get hold of 5m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which he believed the EU did not want to be exported to the UK.

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German far-right politician accused of using political prisoners as cheap labour in Belarus

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Reports of dissenters working for £4 a day on onion plantation owned by Saxony state parliament AfD member Jörg Dornau

Midway through Nikolai’s shift sorting onions alongside other political prisoners in a warehouse in western Belarus, a tall and bald foreigner entered the building.

“He arrived in a car with German license plates. Then he came over and greeted us warmly,” Nikolai*, recalled in an interview with the Observer.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskyy condemns Russian attack on hospital as death toll rises – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

Russia has filed “pre-trial claims” against Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland over the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, accusing the West of trying to “sweep the matter under the carpet”, Reuters is reporting.

The multi-billion dollar pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

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Jens Lehmann fined €135,000 for damaging neighbour’s garage with chainsaw

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  • Incident took place in German’s hometown of Starnberg
  • Lehmann also settles unpaid Munich airport parking fees

The former Arsenal and Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann has been fined €135,000 (£113,000) by a court in his hometown of Starnberg for damaging his neighbour’s garage with a chainsaw.

Lehmann, who was accused by the public prosecutor of sawing off a roof beam in the garage, was initially fined €420,000 (£351,000) over the July 2022 incident, which was reduced on appeal.

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‘It’s hugely moving’: sea turtle nests in Greece reach record numbers

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Conservationists celebrate as efforts to save the Caretta caretta sea turtle, which has existed for 100m years, pay off

After nearly a quarter of a century observing one of the world’s most famous sea turtle nesting grounds, Charikleia Minotou is convinced of one thing: nature, she says, has a way of “sending messages”.

Along the sandy shores of Sekania, on the Ionian island of Zakynthos, what she has seen both this year and last, has been beyond her wildest dreams. The beach, long described as the Mediterranean’s greatest “maternity ward” for the Caretta caretta loggerhead sea turtle, has become host to not only record numbers of nests, but record numbers of surviving hatchlings as the species makes an extraordinary resurgence.

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Boris Johnson: we considered ‘aquatic raid’ on Netherlands to seize Covid vaccine

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Former prime minister admits in extract from forthcoming book that he discussed possible military operation at height of pandemic

Boris Johnson considered an “aquatic raid” on a Dutch warehouse to seize Covid vaccines during the height of the pandemic, he has revealed in his memoirs.

The former prime minister discussed plans with senior military officials in March 2021, according to an extract from his forthcoming book, Unleashed, published in the Daily Mail.

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Trump vows to resolve Ukraine-Russia war ‘very quickly’ as he meets Zelenskyy

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Ex-president hails ‘very good relationship’ as Ukrainian leader says pair share ‘common view’ that Putin cannot win

Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in a high-stakes meeting at which the Ukrainian leader hoped to repair ties with the former US president.

The two men met at Trump Tower on Friday amid a growing feud between Zelenskyy and Republicans that Ukraine fears could sabotage further US military aid if Trump wins in November.

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Stock markets hit record highs after news of a fall in US inflation

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S&P 500 index of major US companies registers near 100% gain on year ago amid expectation of interest rate cuts

A fall in US inflation expected to pave the way for further cuts in interest rates pushed stock markets to record highs on Friday.

Ending a week of gains that began when the Chinese authorities approved a huge economic stimulus package, the S&P 500 index of major US companies soared above 5,750 to register a near 100% gain on a year ago.

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New relationship with EU possible but will not be easy, Keir Starmer says

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PM hopes to work more closely on defence, borders and trade with EU as he sets meeting with von der Leyen

Keir Starmer has said a new relationship with the European Union will not be easy “but is possible” before a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen next week, as he set out defence, borders and trade as areas where he hopes for improvement.

The prime minister spoke of his hopes for a reset and did not rule out accepting an EU proposal for greater youth mobility – including easier travel, study and work for under 30s.

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Cinema in mafia boss’s Sicily hometown refuses to show film of his life

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Venue owner says Sicilian Letters, about the Cosa Nostra leader Matteo Messina Denaro, ‘doesn’t interest me’

The owner of the only cinema in Castelvetrano, the Sicilian hometown of the notorious Cosa Nostra mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, has refused to screen a film based on his life.

Denaro died of cancer in September last year, nine months after he was arrested following 30 years on the run.

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‘Absolute chaos’: counting the cost of a deadly wildfire in northern Portugal

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Residents of Albergaria-a-Velha tell of the fear and losses brought by a blaze that evoked memories of 2017 disaster

The fires are out in Albergaria-a-Velha now, their embers washed away by the heavy rain. But their reek still carries on the damp air, rising from the sooty earth, the scorched tree trunks, the burnt-out cars and houses, and the puddles of black and acrid water.

If the numbers offer a glimpse of the toll that last week’s wildfires took on this northern Portuguese municipality – four people dead, at least seven injured, 25,269 hectares burned and 81 homes damaged – they cannot convey the sense of fear and loss that the 26-metre-high flames brought with them.

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Anti-immigration mood sweeping EU threatens its new asylum strategy

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The bloc’s migration pact, finally agreed after a decade of talks, is already in peril as states outdo each other in efforts to get tough

In 2015, when more than 1.3 million people headed to Europe, mostly fleeing a brutal war in Syria, the response of Germany’s then chancellor, Angela Merkel, was to say “Wir schaffen das” (“We can manage this”), and open the country’s borders.

Less than a decade later, and faced with a flow of irregular arrivals less than 10% of what it was at the peak of the bloc’s migration crisis, EU capitals are increasingly saying, “No, we can’t”. Or, perhaps more accurately, “We won’t”.

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Weather tracker: Flooding in Mexico and India as Europe prepares for cold spell

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Hurricane John is moving along Mexico’s north-east coast, while India experiences monsoon levels of rainfall

On Monday, Hurricane John hit the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, having intensified from a tropical storm to a category 3 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

John made landfall with sustained winds of 120mph, causing destructive storm surges. However, it quickly weakened back to a tropical storm, with sustained winds falling to 50mph by Tuesday morning. John moved relatively slowly, leading to more than 400mm of rainfall in a few days. This rain brought widespread flooding, leading to mudslides in which two people are reported to have died.

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Harris decries Trump’s ‘proposals of surrender’ as Zelenskyy visits White House

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Democratic nominee calls Republican plan to end war between Ukraine and Russia ‘dangerous and unacceptable’

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has indirectly denounced the Trump campaign’s policy on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin.

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Norwegian police seek missing man over pagers in Hezbollah blasts

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International warrant issued for Rinson Jose, who disappeared during work trip to US last week

Police in Norway have put out an international search warrant for a Norwegian Indian man in connection with the sale of pagers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that exploded last week, killing dozens of people.

Rinson Jose, 39, the founder of a Bulgarian company that is alleged to be part of the pager supply chain, went missing during a work trip to the US last week.

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Southern Water considers shipping supplies from Norwegian fjords to UK

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Contingency plan using sea tankers to deal with future shortages would be paid for from customers’ bills

Southern Water, one of Britain’s biggest water companies, is drawing up contingency plans to tanker water from Norway to deal with future supply shortages and drought.

Southern, which has 2.7 million customers for drinking water supply in the south-east of England, could import water from Norwegian fjords to provide up to 45m litres a day, and would pay for it from customers’ bills.

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Italy revives policy of failing badly behaved pupils to ‘bring back respect’

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‘Grades for conduct’, similar to a law introduced by Mussolini, aims to tackle rising aggression towards teachers

Italy has reinstated a measure to fail badly behaved pupils as concerns grow over aggression directed at teachers.

The “grades for conduct” policy, similar to a measure first introduced by Benito Mussolini’s fascist government in 1924, is part of an education bill that was approved in parliament on Wednesday, and gives schools the power to fail students based purely on their behaviour.

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‘This is the normalisation of racism’: apprehension at prospect of election success for Austria’s far right

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Anti-migrant, anti-Islam FPÖ could emerge as most voted for party in Sunday’s parliamentary poll

After winning the EU elections in June, Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) seized the moment, calling for the appointment of a EU “remigration” commissioner to be tasked with the forced return of migrants and citizens with a migration background to their countries of origin.

The muted reaction that followed was a sharp contrast to Germany, where months earlier, allegations that members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) had attended a meeting at which they discussed remigration dominated headlines and prompted tens of thousands to take to the streets in protest.

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White House pledges further $8bn in aid as Zelenskyy visits – as it happened

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Ukraine’s foreign minister has discussed ways to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine with his Chinese counterpart at the UN general assembly, Kyiv said on Thursday.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who had earlier met Russia’s top diplomat, told a security council session this week that diplomacy was the only solution to the war in Ukraine.

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