Viktor Orbán’s political director claims Brussels is ‘using blackmail against Hungary like there’s no tomorrow’ over aid for Ukraine. This live blog is closed
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UK and France’s small boats pact and doubling in drownings ‘directly linked’
Report says greater police presence on French beaches and more attempts to stop dinghies increases risks to refugees
The most recent illegal migration pact between the UK and France is “directly linked” to a doubling of the number of Channel drownings in the last year, a report has found.
The increased police presence on French beaches – along with more dinghies being stopped from reaching the coast – is leading to more dangerous overcrowding and chaotic attempts to board the boats, the paper said.
12 August 2023: six Afghan men drowned in an overloaded dinghy which got intro trouble close to the French shore
26 September 2023: Eritrean woman, 24, died in Blériot-Plage after being asphyxiated in a crush of 80 people trying to board one dinghy
22 November 2023: three people drowned close to Équihen-Plage as the dinghy collapsed close to the shore. Fifty-seven survivors returned to the beach.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen says Africa and Europe’s ‘interests are aligned more than ever before’ – as it happened
European Commission president says this is ‘moment of intense cooperation’ at Italy-Africa summit as Meloni announces plans. This live blog is now closed
Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission, said at the Italy-Africa summit today that partnership is based on liberty and consensus, with no side imposing anything.
Africa engages in partnership based on mutual advantages, he added.
Continue reading...People smugglers recruiting skippers from central Asia on Turkey to Italy route
Boat drivers from former Soviet republics often have very little experience and no idea what they are doing is illegal, say NGOs
People smugglers are increasingly recruiting people from former Soviet republics in central Asia to pilot boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, say NGOs and lawyers.
The migrants are taken by sea from Turkey to Italy, often using sailing boats, as an alternative to the longer overland route through the Balkans where border guards in Croatia and Slovenia have engaged in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers at the EU border.
Continue reading...Meloni to unveil plan to expand Italian influence in Africa
Scheme to help African economies aimed at curbing illegal migration from continent
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is poised to announce her grand plan for Italy in Africa as she strives to position her country at the forefront of European cooperation on the African continent in return for curbing illegal migration.
The so-called Mattei plan, named after Enrico Mattei, the founder of the oil company Eni, will be presented in Rome on Monday to a host of leaders from Africa and Europe, including the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
Continue reading...Centre-right party ahead in Finnish presidential election
Liberal Green party is a close second and goes through to second round, while far-right Finns have been knocked out
Finland’s former prime minister Alexander Stubb and the country’s former foreign minister Pekka Haavisto have progressed through to the second round of the presidential elections, knocking out a rightwing populist candidate.
With all votes counted, Stubb, of the centre-right National Coalition party, had won 27.2% of votes, while the liberal candidate Haavisto, a member of the Green party who is running as an independent, had secured 25.8%, election officials said.
Continue reading...AfD narrowly loses first election since mass deportation meeting revelations
District runoff in Thuringia closely watched to gauge whether huge protests against party have dented support
The far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland party has been narrowly beaten in its first electoral test since revelations came to light of its involvement in a plan for the mass deportation of foreigners that has sparked huge protests across Germany. Its candidate lost against a conservative rival in a district administrative election the importance of which resonated far beyond the local area.
In a tight second-round runoff in the district of Saale-Orla in the south-eastern state of Thuringia, the AfD candidate, Uwe Thrum, had victory snatched from him by his Christian Democrat (CDU) rival Christian Herrgott by 4.6 percentage points.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s security service arrests five people accused of $40m arms fraud
Two ministry of defence officials among those arrested over contract for mortar shells that never arrived
Ukraine’s SBU security service has arrested five people who allegedly tried to steal nearly $40m (£31m) that was supposed to be used to buy shells for the country’s military in its war against Russia.
The SBU said on Saturday it had arrested two senior officials from the ministry of defence. They had allegedly conspired with the chief executive of a little-known arms firm, Lviv Arsenal, over a contract for 100,000 mortar shells. Another employee and an alleged accomplice were also detained.
Continue reading...Protesters throw soup at Mona Lisa in Paris
Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters
Two environmental protesters have hurled soup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged.
Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.
Continue reading...Finland goes to the polls as border tensions with Russia rise
All presidential candidates champion independence and country’s new role in Nato as relations with Moscow deteriorate
Finns headed to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president, an office whose importance has grown as tensions with neighbouring Russia have increased since the invasion of Ukraine.
While the president’s powers are limited, the head of state – who also acts as supreme commander of Finland’s armed forces – helps to direct foreign policy in collaboration with the government, meaning the changing geopolitical landscape in Europe will be the main concern for the winner.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war: attacks on Russian enlistment offices signal dissatisfaction with war, says UK – as it happened
There have been 220 attacks on Russian military enlistment offices since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
Three civilians, including a teenage boy, were wounded in an overnight Russian strike in the Donetsk oblast, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
Russian troops launched a rocket attack on a residential area in the city of Myrnograd at about 1.30am, injuring a 15-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man in their own homes. A 30-year-old resident of a neighbouring house sustained a brain injury.
Continue reading...Finland’s ‘DJ’ candidate hopes to become the country’s first Green and gay president
Pekka Haavisto, who is second in the opinion polls, is bolstering his campaign with club nights and music from the 60s and 70s
At a packed, dimly lit music venue in Helsinki, an attentive crowd dressed up for a night out sings sweetly along to musicians on stage in front of a kitsch image of a smiling 65-year-old man.
While the atmosphere would suggest fun club night rather than political campaign event, it is one of the last appearances of Pekka Haavisto, the man to whom the night is dedicated, before he runs in one of Finland’s most high-stakes presidential elections in living memory.
Continue reading...Breslau 1941: clandestine photos tell of the Holocaust’s upheaval and terror
Images taken secretly some 80 years ago are being published for the first time to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day
A remarkable series of photographs of Jewish families being forced to leave their homes in Germany in the middle of the second world war has been published for the first time, following a chance discovery.
The images are a striking new testament to the sudden upheaval and terror of the Holocaust and were taken secretly by an amateur photographer. He is believed to have wanted to pass down the scenes he was witnessing, despite the risk to himself. They show groups of people gathering outside a restaurant near the railway station in the Silesian city of Breslau, now Wrocław in Poland. Jewish men, women and children of all ages were held here for a few days before deportation by train. Almost all are certain to have been killed just a few days later in a documented shooting in Lithuania. Others were killed at a later date in Poland.
Continue reading...Ukraine levels up the fight with drone strikes deep into Russia
Unable to match Putin’s military might, Ukraine is engaging in ‘smart warfare’ to attack the enemy’s oil and gas supply lines
Last week, a motorist driving in Russia’s Leningrad region came across something unusual. Men had blocked off the road. In front, a large olive-green military vehicle with cigar-shaped missiles on the back was reversing and then parked up on a snowy verge. “Fuck! It’s an S-300,” the driver exclaimed, before adding: “So guys, let’s prepare for the worst.”
This surreal roadside encounter took place outside St Petersburg, more than 620 miles (about 1,000km) from the border with Ukraine and Russia’s near two-year all-out war. The Kremlin’s security services were apparently taking no chances. They were deploying the S-300 air defence missile system in order to protect Peter the Great’s imperial capital from small but devastating drones.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war: Ukraine repelling three-pronged attack on Avdiivka, says UK – as it happened
This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
A Russian team shot and killed a brother and sister from the Khotin community of the Sumy oblast this morning, the regional military administration said.
The brother and sister were living in the village of Andriivka, which is located in the 5-km border zone.
Continue reading...‘Respect – and honour’: the fight to save a Spanish civil war mass grave
Remains of 451 people believed to lie on proposed site of Madrid waste plant – including Bloomsbury poet Julian Bell
The children of Montecarmelo are in fine and raucous voice as they pour into the playgrounds that flank the quiet alleys of the Fuencarral municipal cemetery.
Equally voluble, if less joyous, are the banners and posters that hang from the balconies, walls and railings of this north Madrid suburb, bellowing their opposition to the city council’s plans to build a huge waste management plant and vehicle depot next to the cemetery.
Continue reading...‘I knew nothing’: the Warsaw ghetto boy who found his family at 83
A DNA test has helped Shalom Koray find relatives in the US after escaping the Holocaust in a rucksack at the age of two
In 1943, a two-year-old boy found wandering the streets of the Warsaw ghetto at the height of the Jewish uprising was smuggled out in a rucksack, probably by a police officer.
The identity of the child could not be known. There was no one to attest even to a first name. His early life would be spent hidden away in orphanages, still not safe from antisemitic persecution, and without any real understanding of what it was to have a parent.
Continue reading...US planning to station nuclear weapons in UK amid threat from Russia – report
Missiles could be placed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk in case of potential war between Nato and Russia
The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report. Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Telegraph reported.
The US previously placed nuclear missiles at RAF Lakenheath and removed them in 2008 after the cold war threat from Moscow receded. Pentagon documents seen by the newspaper reveal procurement contracts for a new facility at the airbase.
Continue reading...EU president to stay in post amid fears of Viktor Orbán getting role
Charles Michel’s decision comes ahead of EU meeting where Hungary’s PM is expected to block Ukraine support package
The president of the European parliament, Charles Michel, has abandoned plans to quit the position early amid fears it could have led to Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, getting the role.
His decision comes six days before a crunch meeting of EU leaders at which Orbán is expected to once again block a €50bn support package for Ukraine.
Continue reading...French Holocaust denier found in Fife loses extradition fight
Vincent Reynouard discovered living double life in Scottish village where he worked as a tutor, reports say
A Holocaust denier who was arrested in a Scottish fishing village will be extradited back to France after spending two years on the run from the authorities.
Vincent Reynouard lost his extradition battle after his arrest in November 2022. He had been discovered living a double life in Anstruther, Fife, where he worked as a private tutor, according to reports.
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