Category Archives: Europe

World’s largest food awards move judging panel from UK to Ireland to avoid Brexit red tape

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Due to new import controls, a judging session for the Great Taste awards is being held outside the UK for the first time in 30 years

The Great Taste awards are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history.

On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK.

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Russian strikes on Kharkiv supermarket kill six and injure 40

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Dozens also injured after guided bombs hit residential area, in attack Zelenskiy says is ‘terrorism’

Russian strikes on a crowded DIY hardware store and a residential area in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed at least six people and injured 40 on Saturday, local officials said.

Four people were killed after two guided bombs hit the DIY hypermarket in a residential area of the city, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on national television, while 40 people were injured in the attack and 16 still unaccounted for.

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Nicki Minaj’s Manchester show postponed after Netherlands arrest

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Rapper detained at Schiphol on suspicion of ‘possessing soft drugs’ hours before concert at Co-op Live

Nicki Minaj’s concert at Co-op Live has been postponed after she was arrested at a Netherlands airport hours before.

Fans had been let into the Manchester venue in the evening despite the star’s detention.

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‘History is written at the dining table’: what 4,000 menus tell us about royals, politicians and society

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The bills of fare for dinners with kings, presidents and dictators show how tastes have changed over 150 years

On Friday, 22 May 1896, guests of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle had a lot on their plates. A handwritten menu shows “Her Majesty’s Dinner” offered soup with vermicelli, trout meunière, boudin (black pudding), quails, ducklings and spinach with croutons followed by peaches and cream, then cheese. For those still peckish, hot and cold meats including pork tongue and beef were laid out on a side table.

The finely decorated card is one of 4,600 menus in a unique collection being sold in Paris on Friday, spanning 150 years of high-society dining from the late 19th century.

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Polish foreign minister calls for long-term rearmament of Europe

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Exclusive: Radosław Sikorski also says he favours deepest possible inclusion of UK in EU defence structures

A long-term rearmament of Europe, in which the UK can play the closest possible role, is necessary to defeat Russian imperial ambitions, Poland’s foreign minister has said.

Radosław Sikorski also called for majority voting for EU sanctions and a 5,000-strong EU mechanised brigade, and said Poland was willing to back an EU-wide scheme to incentivise Ukrainian draft dodgers to return to their homeland.

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Italian anti-fascist goes on trial in Hungary accused of attacking neo-Nazis

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Ilaria Salis, 39, says she is being persecuted for her beliefs in case that has led to tensions between two countries

An Italian anti-fascist activist has gone on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis, in a case that has sparked tensions between the two EU allies.

Ilaria Salis, 39, arrived at the Budapest court accompanied by her father, with Italy’s ambassador and a throng of Italian journalists also in attendance. She left to applause after the court heard testimony from one of the victims and two witnesses. None of the three could personally identify Salis, as their attackers were masked.

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Olympic Games’ €1.4bn clean-up aims to get Parisians swimming in the Seine

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Organisers expect 75% of identified bacterial pollution will be gone by the time the starting gun fires for the open water events

Beside a sign saying “No swimming”, Pierre Fuzeau defiantly pulled on his swimming cap, slipped into the green water of the Ourcq canal on Paris’s northern edge, and set off with a strong front-crawl.

The 66-year-old company director regularly joins his open-water swimming group for well-organised illegal dips, including in the River Seine, where swimming has been banned since 1923 largely as a result of the health risk from unclean water and bacteria from human waste.

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Barcelona police criticised for baton charge at protest over fashion show

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Police response to protest over closure of Park Güell for glitzy event was ‘totally out of proportion’, resident says

Catalan police have been criticised for baton-charging people protesting against the closure of Barcelona’s Park Güell for it to host a Louis Vuitton-organised fashion show, as anger grows that the city is being overrun by tourists and glitzy international events to the detriment of local life.

A residents association complained that in the lead-up to the event the whole neighbourhood had been cordoned off. “For days the neighbourhood has been saturated with police and private security companies,” said one resident, Aidà Almirall Serra, adding that armed police had demanded ID cards and searched parents’ bags when they picked up their children from nursery.

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Excess weight may have caused Mallorca building collapse, officials say

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Investigation under way after four people killed and 16 injured in Medusa Beach Club in Palma

Investigators on the Spanish island of Mallorca are looking into whether overloading and structural issues caused the collapse of a beachfront restaurant and club, killing four people and injuring 16 others.

The two-storey Medusa Beach Club in Palma de Mallorca collapsed at about 8.30pm local time (7.30pm BST) on Thursday night. One firefighter told the local newspaper Última Hora he had arrived to find a “nightmarish” scene, with people screaming and crying and rubble piled high on the ground floor.

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More than 200 EU staff sign letter expressing concerns over Gaza crisis

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Exclusive: Signatories cite union’s ‘continued apathy’ to plight of Palestinians and seek official call for ceasefire

More than 200 staff members of EU institutions and agencies have signed a letter expressing “growing concern” over the union’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, arguing that it runs contrary to its core values and aim of promoting peace.

The letter, signed by 211 people in their personal capacity as citizens and addressed to the EU’s top three officials, begins by condemning the 7 October attacks “in the strongest terms”.

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Building collapses at Mallorca beach killing at least four and injuring 21

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Ceiling of Medusa Beach Club on the seafront at Palma de Mallorca gave way, according to reports

At least four people have been killed and about 21 people injured after a building collapsed on a beachfront in Mallorca on Thursday, emergency services said.

Rescue workers were trying to reach several people who were believed to be trapped by the collapse, which happened at about 20.30 local time (19.30 BST) at the two-storey Medusa Beach Club in Palma de Mallorca.

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London-born boy who died aged 15 to become first millennial saint

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Second posthumous miracle attributed to leukaemia victim Carlo Acutis, qualifying him for canonisation

A London-born teenager who died of leukaemia aged 15 is to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint.

Carlo Acutis was a computer prodigy who helped to spread Roman Catholic teaching online before his death in 2006. On Thursday, Pope Francis decreed that a second posthumous miracle has been attributed to Acutis, qualifying the teenager for canonisation.

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Greek police detain nine Egyptians despite dismissal of shipwreck charges

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Lawyer criticises ‘inhumane’ treatment of men who were accused over deadly sinking of vessel crossing from Libya

Greek police have been accused of the “inhumane” treatment of nine Egyptian men after placing them in detention despite a court throwing out charges against them over a deadly shipwreck.

Police said on Thursday they were placing the men in custody as it was thought they could flee the country, two days after a tribunal in the southern city of Kalamata dismissed charges against them due to a lack of jurisdiction.

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Von der Leyen quizzed on whether she would work with far-right in EU election debate – as it happened

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Frontrunner to be European Commission president was questioned over alliances with Meloni and others in face-off with rival candidates

Sandro Gozi, representing Renew Europe Now, has walked on stage.

Walter Baier, representing the Party of the European Left, has entered the stage.

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Left-wing parties rule out alliances with far right ahead of European elections

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Signatories, including MEP Raphaël Glucksmann and Frans Timmermans, promise to ‘combat hatred, racism and xenophobia’

Leading left-wing parties across Europe have ruled out alliances with the far right and pledged to “relentlessly combat hatred, racism and xenophobia” ahead of European parliamentary elections likely to see significant gains by hardline nationalists.

“Turbulent times require a clear course and a firm attitude. They do not tolerate vagueness or cowardice,” said the joint appeal, published on Thursday and shared with the Guardian. “The time has come to become democrats of combat, no longer of habit or comfort.”

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EU’s far-right parties expel Germany’s AfD from their group

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ID group of populist parties cuts off Alternative für Deutschland after its candidate’s comments that SS were ‘not all criminals’

The far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been expelled from its pan-European parliamentary group after a string of recent controversies over its policy choices and the conduct of some of its leaders.

“The bureau of the Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament has decided today to exclude the German delegation, AfD, with immediate effect,” the ID group of populist far-right parties said in a statement on Thursday.

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US challenges British claim China is sending ‘lethal aid’ to Russia

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UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, made claim as Russia begins fresh offensive in north-east of Ukraine with strikes on Kharkiv

Joe Biden’s administration has challenged a claim by the British defence secretary, Grant Shapps, that China is sending “lethal aid” to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.

Speaking on Wednesday, Shapps cited “new intelligence” that suggested Beijing was giving Moscow deadly “combat equipment” for the first time. On Thursday, the Ministry of Defence in London said it would not give further details.

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Children and elderly people tortured at Syria military prison, Paris court told

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Three top officers close to Bashar al-Assad are on trial in absentia over the deaths of a student and his father

Witnesses have told a Paris court how children and elderly people considered enemies of the ruling Syrian regime were tortured in a notorious military prison, at the trial of three high-ranking officers close to the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

The three are being tried in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the deaths of two French-Syrian dual nationals, Patrick Dabbagh, a 20-year-old student, and his father, 48.

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Former Georgian president had fair trial, Strasbourg judges rule

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European court of human rights rejects appeals over Mikheil Saakashvili’s criminal cases heard in Georgian courts

The former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was fairly convicted of abuses of power for ordering the beating of an opposition MP and pardoning four murderers, human rights judges in Strasbourg have ruled.

Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, was said by the European court of human rights on Thursday to have failed to show he had been unfairly treated in his trials in 2018.

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Spanish police recover Francis Bacon painting worth €5m

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Two people arrested over theft of José Capelo portraits in Madrid in 2015 – one of which is still missing

Police in Madrid have recovered a portrait by Francis Bacon, valued at €5m (£4.3m), which was one of five works by the famously thirsty and hell-raising artist that were stolen from the home of the painting’s subject almost a decade ago.

The pictures, whose total value has been put at €25m, disappeared in 2015 after a break-in at the Madrid home of José Capelo, a Spanish banker and close friend of Bacon who sat for the painter.

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