Category Archives: Europe

Macron looks to Sarkozy connection to head off far right in France

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Hiring of figures close to former rightwing leader Nicolas Sarkozy confirms president’s rightward shift

Emmanuel Macron has tilted the French government significantly to the right, bringing in key figures close to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy in an attempt to reinvigorate his second term and limit possible gains by the far right at the European elections.

“I don’t want managers, I want revolutionaries,” Macron told the first cabinet meeting of the new government led by Gabriel Attal, 34, France’s youngest ever prime minister. He called for “quick results”.

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Oil prices hit $80 a barrel as fears grow over Red Sea disruption to trade

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Experts warn of economic impact of sustained shipping attacks and Middle East tensions

Oil prices have hit $80 (£62.83) as fears grew about the economic impact of disruption to international trade through the Red Sea and escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Raising concerns about a possible inflation shock for the world economy, Brent crude prices jumped by about 4% to a high of $80.75 a barrel on Friday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude also increased after US and UK airstrikes against Houthi rebel sites in Yemen.

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Norway to allow mining waste to be dumped in fjords

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Environmental campaigners say move will threaten marine life and put biodiversity at risk

Norway is to allow mining waste to be dumped in its fjords after the government won a court case against environmental organisations trying to block the plan.

After a 15-year dispute, the private company Nordic Mining has been given the go-ahead to dispose of 170m tonnes of mining waste at the bottom of the Førde fjord, which critics say will threaten marine life and put biodiversity at risk.

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Weather tracker: Tornadoes and floods sweep parts of US

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Storm Finn tracks north-east from Texas towards the east coast, while EU report confirms 2023 was warmest year

Increasingly cold conditions have swept western parts of the US this week, while tornadoes and flooding have inundated eastern areas.

An area of low pressure named Storm Finn tracked north-east from Texas towards the east coast early this week. As a result, tornadoes hit south-eastern states, at least 12 of which were in Florida and caused significant damage to many homes.

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Tesla pauses German production after Red Sea shipping attacks

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Delays in delivery of parts result in suspension of manufacturing at factory near Berlin for two weeks

The electric car manufacturer Tesla is to halt most production at its factory near Berlin for two weeks because of delays in deliveries of parts because of attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Shipping delays in the Red Sea, caused by attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi militants, has caused Tesla to suspend most production at its German factory from 29 January to 11 February.

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Rishi Sunak visits Kyiv after announcing rise in UK military aid to Ukraine to £2.5bn

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Friday’s trip comes as PM stresses Britain’s continued backing for Kyiv before meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy

The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is visiting Ukraine on Friday to meet his counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as the UK announced it would provide further military aid to the country over the coming year.

The UK has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s invasion and Sunak said Britain would boost its support in the next financial year to £2.5bn, an increase of £200m on the previous two years.

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Simone Young to be first Australian conductor to perform at Bayreuth festival in 147-year history

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The Australian conductor will also be the first woman to perform the Ring cycle at the annual celebration of Wagner since it began in 1876

Simone Young will become the first woman to conduct Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle in the Bayreuth opera festival’s 147-year history, and the first Australian conductor to perform at Germany’s annual celebration of the composer.

Young, 62, is one of three female conductors who will be taking part in this year’s festival, which has been held in Bavaria since 1876. The Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv became the first woman ever to open the festival in 2021, after 145 years. She will return this year, along with the French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, who was the second female conductor in Bayreuth’s history in 2023.

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Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

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Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

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‘The high life can be low carbon’: the European royals taking on the climate crisis

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Despite leading lavish lifestyles, some monarchs are influencing people to make greener choices

When Prince Frederik takes the throne on Sunday, the Danish crown will pass from his mother, Queen Margrethe II, a monarch who has cast doubt on the fact that human pollution is heating the planet, to one who feels bound by duty to call for stronger action on climate breakdown.

“I think it’s important for me to have a message for other people,” he told the Financial Times in 2010 after a trip to the melting Arctic with the heirs to the Norwegian and Swedish thrones, “to convince the broader population there are changes happening and that we are making the change.”

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Scholz urges unity against far right after mass deportation ‘masterplan’ revealed

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German chancellor condemns ‘fanatics with assimilation fantasies’ after reports about AfD meeting

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged democrats to stand together against “fanatics with assimilation fantasies” after it emerged that politicians from the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party had discussed a “masterplan” for mass deportations in the event of the party coming to power.

The far-right meeting, involving members of the AfD, the head of the Identitarian Movement and neo-Nazi activists, took place last November at a countryside hotel on the outskirts of Potsdam.

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Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

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Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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Greek PM faces fierce opposition over pledge to legalise gay marriage

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MPs in his own cabinet are against move, while powerful Orthodox church fears it could lead to dismantling society

The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, appears to be facing one of his most daunting challenges yet after a pledge to legalise same-sex marriage ignited fierce debate in the Orthodox Christian country.

Throwing his weight behind an issue still prone to provoke extraordinary emotion, not least among his own MPs, Mitsotakis acknowledged he would have to use his skills of persuasion to push through the reform as opposition mounted within his centre-right New Democracy party.

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Neo-Nazis in the US no longer see backing Ukraine as a worthy cause

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Like mainstream Republicans blocking military aid, American rightwing extremists are disavowing a war they once admired

Two years into the war in Ukraine, once a destination for American extremists, many within the underground far-right movement in the US are avidly disavowing it and advising followers to stay away. Extremists now see the upcoming election year as tailor-made for activism on the home front.

At the outset of the war, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an intelligence bulletin that far-right American extremists were heading to the conflict and could use it to hone terrorist skills to bring back stateside.

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Sven-Göran Eriksson reveals he has cancer and ‘at best’ about a year to live

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  • Former England manager will ‘fight it as long as possible’
  • He says he is determined to ‘see the positive sides of things’

The former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson has revealed he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and in a “best-case” scenario has about a year left to live.

Eriksson, who managed England for five years before leaving after the 2006 World Cup, stood down from his most recent role as the sporting director at the Swedish club Karlstad 11 months ago due to health issues.

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Serbian opposition leader left partly paralysed by attack, say family

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Secret service agents allegedly beat up Nikola Sandulović after he apologised for crimes against ethnic Albanians

The family of a Serbian opposition leader who was allegedly beaten up while in detention by the country’s secret service say he has been left partly paralysed by the attack.

In an assault that has fuelled fears about the future of democracy in the country, Nikola Sandulović’s family say he was taken from his home on 3 January after making an apology for crimes committed by Serbs against ethnic Albanians during the Kosovan war of independence in 1998 and 1999.

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Poland’s president says he will not rest until ex-interior minister and deputy freed from prison

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Andrzej Duda’s remarks escalate battle for rule of law with new government and come as politicians convicted of abuse of power begin hunger strike

Poland’s president has said he will not rest until two politicians from the opposition nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party – both on hunger strike – are freed from prison, in a further dramatic escalation in the new government’s battle to restore the rule of law.

“I will not rest in the fight for a fair and just Polish state,” the president, Andrzej Duda, who is closely aligned with PiS, declared on Wednesday. “I won’t be scared. I will act legally, in accordance with the constitution and the law – as before.”

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Trump told European leaders that US ‘will never come to help you’

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Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that ‘Nato is dead’ and the US would never defend Europe if it were attacked

Donald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.

Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence.

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New French PM seeks to send strong message on law and order

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Gabriel Attal attempts to set tone as Macron government tries to counter rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right

The new French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has sent a strong message on law and order on his first full day in office, visiting a police station and promising to deliver security to “responsible working French people”, who he said wanted calm.

“There is no security without our police,” said Attal on Wednesday outside a police station in Ermont in the Val-d’Oise, setting the tone for his attempts to counter the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right.

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Alexei Navalny jokes about ‘nearly naked’ Moscow party from Arctic prison

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Jailed Russian opposition leader ridiculed backlash to controversial event in first public appearance since disappearance

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has ridiculed the backlash to a “nearly naked party” in Moscow during his first appearance since being banished to an Arctic prison, as authorities temporarily shut the nightclub where the party happened.

“Did you have a party?” Navalny asked the representative of the prison authorities during a video conference court appearance from the IK-3 penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets region. “You probably had a naked party like [Nastya] Ivleeva?”

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French post office opens changing room for online shoppers

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Customers can collect their parcels and try on items in one trip during trial at La Poste branches

It is an increasingly common irritant of modern life. You order an item of clothing online; you wait with anticipation for it to arrive, and five minutes after it has arrived you’re packaging it up because it doesn’t fit.

For shoppers in France, however, the national post office may have the answer – or at least a way of making the process less logistically challenging. It is experimenting with in-store changing rooms to cater to people who want to quickly return purchases they do not want.

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