Category Archives: Europe

Cyprus welcomes resignation of UK trade envoy after visit to occupied north

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Afzal Khan had said visit to Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus was in personal capacity but resigned after furore

Cyprus has welcomed the resignation of the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey, Afzal Khan, saying it sends “a resounding message” amid widespread criticism of the Labour MP’s recent visit to the island’s breakaway Turkish-occupied north.

Khan had defended his trip on 8 August in a letter to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, claiming it was conducted “in a personal capacity during the parliamentary recess”.

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Zelenskyy may be asked to cede land to Russia at Trump meeting in Washington

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Ukrainian leader to return to White House after Alaska summit between US president and Vladimir Putin

Ukraine’s president has said he will fly to Washington on Monday to meet Donald Trump after the Alaska summit amid speculation that the US president will ask him to cede territory to end the war.

Next week’s meeting will mark the first return to the White House for Volodymyr Zelenskyy since his infamous row with Trump and the vice-president, JD Vance, in the Oval Office in February.

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‘It’s nearly come full circle’: Charlestown proud of Gallagher connection as Oasis come to Ireland

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Liam and Noel used to be taken for summer holidays with relatives in Mayo and kept returning after finding fame

Emigration ripped the heart out of Charlestown: generations of young people took the boat to England and left behind derelict homes and shuttered shops, a hollowing chronicled in a landmark 1968 book, The Death of an Irish Town.

Some returned to this corner of County Mayo for summer holidays – with children who were growing up with English accents and city ways – before vanishing back across the Irish Sea and leaving Charlestown to its decay.

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Ukraine says it has bombed Russian ship carrying drone parts at Caspian port

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Attack on cargo vessel more than 500 miles from frontline is show of force before Trump-Putin meeting

Ukraine says it has conducted a long-range drone attack on a supply ship that it claims was carrying drone components from Iran, striking it at a port north of the Caspian Sea, in a show of force hours before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet for a summit in Alaska.

Photographs showed a partially sunken cargo vessel at Olya, near Astrakhan, more than 500 miles from the frontline. Ukraine’s military claimed credit for the attack and the overnight bombing of an oil refinery at Samara on the Volga River, deep inside Russia.

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Emmanuel Macron decries ‘antisemitic hatred’ after memorial tree cut down

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French president vows to punish those who felled tree planted in memory of Jewish man tortured to death in 2006

The felling of an olive tree planted in memory of a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 caused outrage in France on Friday, with Emmanuel Macron promising to punish an act of “antisemitic hatred”.

Politicians across the political spectrum condemned the felling as an attack against the memory of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped by a gang of about 20 young people in January 2006 and tortured on a low-income housing estate in the southern Paris suburb of Bagneux.

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USSR sweatshirt and chicken kyiv: Russia dials up trolling before Alaska summit

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Foreign minister’s attire and inflight menu for Russian media are latest in series of provocations towards Ukraine

In a not-so-subtle act of trolling, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Alaska on the eve of the US–Russia summit wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with “USSR”.

Once seen in western capitals as a pragmatic and skilled diplomat, the 75-year-old has in recent years mirrored the Kremlin’s radicalised politics, adopting an increasingly combative tone and resorting to trolling and mockery.

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Putin hails ‘heroic’ North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine in letter to Kim Jong-un

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Letter marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule a sign of increasingly close ties between Russia and North Korea

Russian president Vladimir Putin hailed North Korean troops sent to fight in Ukraine as “heroic” in a letter to Kim Jong-un, North Korean state media reported on Friday.

In a letter marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule, Putin recalled how Soviet Red Army units and North Korean forces fought together to end Japan’s colonial occupation.

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‘What about our lives?’: emotions run high in frontline Ukrainian city over ceding land to Russia

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Trump’s talk of ‘land swaps’ as a simple transaction belies grim reality of what it would mean for people in Zaporizhzhia

The city of Zaporizhzhia, an industrial hub in south-east Ukraine, is as good a place as any to grasp the stakes of freezing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along its current frontlines, or of implementing a “land swap for peace” deal as envisioned by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Since Russian troops began rolling into Ukraine in February 2022, Zaporizhzhia, with its broad avenues and Stalin-era apartment blocks, has been a 30-minute drive from the frontline. It has been under near-constant attack from missiles and drones. On Sunday, a Russian guided air bomb hit a bus station, wounding 24 people – just another day of suffering in a city that has known many of them.

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Dozens injured in Serbia as protesters clash with pro-government supporters

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Second night of street violence in several cities after months of anti-government demonstrations boil over

Clashes between rival groups of protesters in Serbia left dozens injured overnight, police said on Thursday, as months of anti-government demonstrations boiled over into street violence for a second night.

A wave of anti-corruption protests has gripped Serbia since November, when the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station roof killed 16 people, a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption.

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Putin ready to make Ukraine deal, Trump says before Alaska summit

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US president’s comment that Russian and Ukrainian leaders may have to ‘divvy’ things up likely to raise alarm

Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv.

The US president, who left the White House on Friday at 7.30am, implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war. “HIGH STAKES!!!” he posted on Truth Social as his motorcade idled outside the White House shortly after sunrise in Washington.

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‘No country is safe’: deadly Nordic heatwave supercharged by climate crisis, scientists say

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Historically cool nations saw hospitals overheating and surge in drownings, wildfires and toxic algal blooms

The prolonged Nordic heatwave in July was supercharged by the climate crisis and shows “no country is safe from climate change”, scientists say.

Norway, Sweden and Finland have historically cool climates but were hit by soaring temperatures, including a record run of 22 days above 30C (86C) in Finland. Sweden endured 10 straight days of “tropical nights”, when temperatures did not fall below 20C (68F).

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France acknowledges role in repression of Cameroon independence movements

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Emmanuel Macron writes to Cameroonian president with findings of joint commission on country’s colonial past

France has acknowledged its role in decades of violent repression of independence movements in Cameroon, the latest stage in a slow process of reckoning with its brutal colonial past.

In a letter to the Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, dated 30 July, Emmanuel Macron said it was “up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events”.

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At least 20 killed after boat capsizes off Italian island of Lampedusa, UN says

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UN refugee agency says more people could still be missing at sea, with between 70 and 80 believed to have survived

At least 20 people have died after a boat capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, a United Nations agency and local media reported on Wednesday.

Rescuers have recovered 20 bodies so far and operations were continuing, according to initial reports by Ansa news agency. Between 70 and 80 people were believed to have survived.

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Tighter US border rules are putting European visitors off, says Tui

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Holiday company boss says tourists are opting instead for destinations such as Canada, Africa and Asia

Tighter border rules are putting European tourists off holidaying in the US, according to Europe’s biggest package trip operator.

Tui’s chief executive, Sebastian Ebel, said there had been a “significant decline” in travel to the US, due to a multitude of factors including “the atmosphere, what you hear from border control”.

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Mould, vermin and ceiling leaks: German police say they work in ‘embarrassing’ conditions

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Union calls for increased spending to revamp vehicles and station houses that it says are an insult to officers’ dignity

Germany’s biggest police union has complained about the dilapidated state of hundreds of police stations across the country and a fleet of aged vehicles, saying conditions are a threat to officers’ health and an insult to their dignity.

“Decades-old toilet bowls, mould in the offices, vermin, broken heating units and holes in the ceiling that let the rain in,” said Hagen Husgen of the GdP union, citing just a few of the complaints his organisation had received from members.

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EU leaders defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide future ahead of Trump-Putin summit

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Statement on Ukrainian sovereignty signed by all EU leaders except for Viktor Orbán before call with Trump

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

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Thousands evacuated in Spain amid deadly wildfires and new heatwave

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Temperatures of 44C predicted as blazes rage across Europe

Almost 6,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in northern, central and southern Spain as wildfires continue to burn amid a heatwave that could bring temperatures of 44C to some parts of the country.

The deadly heat across large parts of Europe has created what scientists have called a “molotov cocktail” of climatic conditions that is fuelling vast wildfires.

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Migrants swim from Morocco to Ceuta as officials say enclave ‘overwhelmed’

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Seven children reach shore as dozens of people intercepted on risky route, which authorities say is now used more often

About 100 people, including several children, risked their lives by trying to swim from Morocco into Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta early on Saturday morning, as the territory’s authorities warned that its overwhelmed reception system was close to collapse.

Recent weeks have seen a rise in the number of people trying to reach Ceuta, with more than 50 children swimming across from Morocco on 26 July alone.

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Finland charges tanker crew members with sabotage of undersea cables

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Captain and first and second officers of Eagle S, understood to be part of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’, charged over incident

Finnish authorities have filed charges against members of the crew of an oil tanker suspected of damaging five undersea cables by dragging its anchor between Finland and Estonia.

Finland’s deputy prosecutor general’s office said on Monday it had filed charges of aggravated sabotage and aggravated interference with telecommunications against the captain and first and second officers of the Eagle S. The Cook Islands-registered tanker is understood to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – comprising vessels that sail under foreign flags to evade sanctions.

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Wind generator Ørsted’s shares sink as it makes $9bn cash call

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Danish company blames Donald Trump for derailing its business model after market value drops by a third

Europe’s largest wind power company has blamed Donald Trump for derailing its business model, after it unveiled a $9bn (£6.7bn) fundraising and its market value plunged by almost a third.

The share price for Denmark’s Ørsted tumbled to an all-time low after it told investors on Monday that the “extraordinary situation” facing the industry meant it would need to tap shareholders to cover the costs of its plans.

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