Relatives of Manchester man, 36, receive support as UK and Ukraine officials work on identification
A body has been found in Ukraine in the search for a British man who was reported missing a month ago.
Relatives of Daniel Burke lost contact with him in mid-August while he was on his most recent visit to Ukraine.
Continue reading...Ukraine claimed to have recaptured the devastated eastern village of Andriivka, near Bakhmut.
Here are some of the latest images coming through from photographers in Ukraine:
In case you missed it, Alexander Lukashenko has expressed interest in creating a trilateral partnership with Russia and North Korea amid rumours that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un were negotiating an arms deal to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Small vessel rescued en route to island of Lampedusa, which has received 8,500 people this week
A newborn baby has been found dead on a boat carrying people to the Italian island of Lampedusa during a rescue operation, the Ansa news agency has reported.
The baby was born during the journey and died soon after birth, Ansa reported, adding that about 40 people were onboard.
Continue reading...Ukraine claims to have seized village from Russian forces in Donetsk region; Zelenskiy to meet Biden in Washington next week
Continue reading...Terms ranged up to life in prison and included high-profile culprits Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini
A Belgian court has handed out sentences of up to life in jail to eight men for the 2016 jihadist bombing attacks in Brussels, bringing to an end the country’s largest-ever criminal trial.
The suicide bombings on 22 March 2016 at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system killed 32 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group.
Continue reading...Diplomatic and media blitz for Labour leader will include appearances on Sunday morning political shows
Keir Starmer has arrived in Canada to set out his doctrine for tackling international threats at a gathering of world leaders, the latest step in the Labour leader’s move to flesh out policy in politically turbulent areas such as immigration.
Amid continued efforts by Starmer and his team to push back against the “nonsense” that closer cooperation with the EU would involve the UK having to accept 100,000 asylum-seekers a year, the Labour leader was in Montreal for the Global Progress Action Summit of centre-left politicians.
Continue reading...The annual pilgrimage brings both prayers and partying to Uman. Many have been undeterred by official pleas to stay away this year
Unfazed by the bombs, undeterred by the warnings, and in the face of the raging conflict, more than 35,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews from across the world have journeyed to Uman, Ukraine, to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
“Going to celebrate in a war zone en masse is crazy,” said Azoulay Ruben, a 22-year-old trainee dentist from Paris. “But at the same time, it’s a beautiful thing.”
Continue reading...Alexander Lukashenko put forward axis plan during summit with Vladimir Putin in Sochi as rumours of arms deal persist
Alexander Lukashenko has expressed interest in creating a trilateral partnership with Russia and North Korea amid rumours that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un were negotiating an arms deal to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Belarusian leader made the remarks during a summit with Putin in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where the two held their seventh face-to-face meeting this year.
Continue reading...Belarusian president’s suggestion comes during a meeting with his Russian counterpart. This live blog is closed.
In its daily public intelligence briefing on the war in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence appears convinced of Ukrainian claims to have inflicted significant damage on the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. Citing satellite imagery, it writes:
Despite the Russian ministry of defence downplaying the damage to the vessels, open-source evidence indicates the Minsk [landing ship] has almost certainly been functionally destroyed, while the Rostov [submarine] has likely suffered catastrophic damage.
Any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There is a realistic possibility that the complex task of removing the wreckage from the dry docks will place them out of use for many months. This would present the Black Sea fleet with a significant challenge in sustaining fleet maintenance.
Continue reading...Ukraine claims to have seized the village of Andriivka in Donetsk; Lukashenko says Belarus has been supplying Russia with fuel
Continue reading...Former Spanish football federation president prevented from approaching World Cup-winning player Jenni Hermoso
A Spanish court has imposed a restraining order on the former president of the country’s football federation, forbidding him from communicating with, or coming within 200 metres of, the female player he controversially kissed after Spain’s World Cup victory last month.
Luis Rubiales – whose decision to kiss Jenni Hermoso prompted a national and international debate on sexism and eventually led him to resign five days ago – was handed the order on Friday by a judge at the audiencia nacional, Spain’s highest criminal court.
Continue reading...Jörg Prophet, who wants Germany to abandon its ‘guilt cult’, could become party’s first city mayor
Directors of a memorial at a former Nazi concentration camp have raised alarm about the revisionist views of a far-right politician expected to become its local mayor, saying he will be barred from attending events to commemorate the Holocaust if he is elected.
The Alternative für Deutschland politician Jörg Prophet last Sunday finished almost 20 points clear of the runner-up in municipal elections in Nordhausen, a city of about 42,000 in the eastern state of Thuringia.
Continue reading...Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches
TikTok has been fined €345m (£296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children’s accounts, including failing to shield underage users’ content from public view.
The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules.
Continue reading...Works by painter, whose turbulent life often overshadowed his short career, go on display in Paris
The life of the Russian-born French artist Nicolas de Staël was short, turbulent and ultimately tragic.
Forced into exile by the 1917 revolution, orphaned, a loner who was hopelessly romantic but unlucky in love, De Staël died at the age of 41 after he threw himself out of the window of his Côte d’Azur atelier after the woman with whom he was obsessed rejected him.
Continue reading...Country hit by record rainfall that followed Mediterranean storm with similarities to tropical cyclone
After battering Greece last week, Storm Daniel caused further devastating floods, this time affecting Libya. As the storm moved across the Sahara, it developed into what is informally known as a medicane, a storm in the Mediterranean that develops characteristics similar to those seen in tropical cyclones, notably a central eye. The particularly warm Mediterranean water fuelled by the extreme heat seen over southern Europe this summer, helped strengthen Daniel as it approached Libya.
By Saturday 10 September, Daniel had reached north-eastern Libya, with winds of 70-80mph, according to Libya’s National Meteorological Centre. The devastation then came from extreme rainfall, as 24-hour totals of 150mm-240mm were widely recorded in the region. One station in the city of Al-Bayda recorded a rainfall total of 414.1mm in 24 hours, a new record for the area. These torrential rains caused two dams to collapse, which resulted in devastating flash flooding that has killed thousands of people.
Continue reading...Russian president also gave Kim at meeting the gift of a ‘glove from a space suit that has been to space’ amid warnings from US and South Korea about any weapons deal
Kim Jong-un has visited a factory that builds advanced fighter jets, as his tour of Russia moves into its third day and the Kremlin revealed he and Vladimir Putin had exchanged gifts of rifles during their summit this week.
Two days after meeting Putin at a space base in Russia’s far east, where they discussed satellite technology and – possibly – a deal to provide North Korean arms for the war in Ukraine, Kim’s armoured train arrived in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he visited a factory that makes Russia’s most modern fighter jets, Russian news agencies reported.
Continue reading...Sir Tony Radakin says Kyiv is pushing Russia back” and has rejected claims Ukraine’s counteroffensive is struggling. This live blog is closed
The BBC is reporting this morning that what it calls a “rogue Russian pilot” tried to shoot down an RAF aircraft in 2022. It claims sources have shed new light on an incident that had already caused some controversy.
In October 2022 the then UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, revealed that a Russian fighter jet “released a missile” in the vicinity of a British aircraft in international airspace over the Black Sea because of a technical malfunction.
Three senior western defence sources with knowledge of the incident have told the BBC that Russian communications intercepted by the RAF RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft give a very different account from the official version.
The intercepted communications show that one of the Russian pilots thought he had been given permission to target the British aircraft, following an ambiguous command from a Russian ground station.
Continue reading...Parliament votes to cut mining red tape and diversify its supplies of raw materials such as lithium and silicon
The EU has voted in a plan to secure more of the critical materials needed to make solar panels, electric car batteries and other key elements of its green transition.
The European parliament agreed on Thursday to diversify its supplies of critical raw materials and cut red tape for mining companies. In an attempt to reduce its dependency on China, it plans to ensure that by 2030 it does not rely on a single country for more than 65% of its supply of any strategic raw material.
Continue reading...Tehran in ‘too serious a breach’ of 2015 deal to lift sanctions under clause that would allow ballistic missile trade
The UK, France and Germany will not lift sanctions on Iran in line with the timetable set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the governments have announced in a move that will infuriate Tehran and put the continued viability of the deal at even greater risk.
Under the terms of the original deal, some UN sanctions were due to be lifted on 18 October 2023 as part of a sunset clause that would allow Iran to import and export ballistic missiles, including missiles and drones with a range of 300km (186 miles) or more.
Continue reading...Weak consumer spending as, people – especially in Germany, the EU’s largest economy – put more into savings
Interest rates went up again across the eurozone on Thursday – probably for the last time during this cycle of hikes that has become a familiar story in the single currency bloc, as it has in the UK and US.
The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its main deposit rate by a quarter of one per cent to 4% – the highest level in the euro’s history.
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