Government source reportedly says there are concerns extra red tape could fuel further inflation
Brexit checks on fresh farm produce coming to the UK from the EU have been delayed for the fifth time, according to reports.
The decision to suspend plans to enforce the controls, which have been applied in the other direction to British exports to the EU since January 2021, is due to be announced imminently, according to the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Ukrainians in occupied territories who refuse Russian passports face threats, intimidation and possible detention or deportation, Yale study says
Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory are being forced to assume Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including possible deportation or detention, a new US report has said.
Yale University researchers found that residents of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were being targeted by a systematic effort to strip them of Ukrainian identity.
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Reuters has a quick snap that a Russian drone strike caused “serious” damage at Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail.
Ukraine’s emergency services have issued some photographs showing overnight damage to buildings in Kyiv region.
Continue reading...Facebook and Instagram’s parent company will stop harvesting audience data to create profiles for advertisers after regulatory rulings
Facebook and Instagram are to ask EU users for permission to show them personalised adverts, in a concession that challenges the platforms’ core money-making strategy.
The social media networks’ parent company, Meta, announced the change after a series of regulatory rulings struck down the company’s legal justification for harvesting audience data to create user profiles that can be targeted by advertisers.
Continue reading...Confusion over whether Justin Barrett remains leader of National party after his allegations of theft
It has the ingredients of a Frederick Forsyth thriller: stolen gold bullion, political intrigue, betrayal and a sprinkling of Adolf Hitler.
The saga of Ireland’s far-right National party and its vault of gold bars, however, has played out more like an Armando Iannucci farce.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledges ‘inconvenience for visitors’ after 20,000 people were evacuated
Tourists whose holidays on the Greek island of Rhodes were cut short due to intense wildfires are being offered a one-week free stay next year, the Greek prime minister said.
Holidaymakers and local people were forced to flee homes and hotels as the fires burned for days in July, with about 20,000 tourists rescued from danger in the largest evacuation ever undertaken by the country.
Continue reading...Artist forced to cancel summer tour after being ‘charged at’ by woman at the end of concert
The Italian singer Baby K has hit out against the “madness” of selfies and called for greater protection for artists after she was injured by a fan and forced to cancel the rest of her tour.
In a video posted on TikTok, she said she suffered “breast trauma” after being “charged at” by a woman at the end of a concert on Monday in Teramo, Italy, as a crowd of fans surged around her for selfies.
Continue reading...In 2023, an average of 16,000 babies have been born a month, compared to as many as 23,000 babies born monthly before Russia’s invasion
Ukraine’s birthrate has fallen by 28% since the start of the war, according to new data, with 38,324 fewer babies born in the country in the first six months of this year compared with 2021, before Russia invaded.
While birthrates have been declining by 7% per yer since 2015, according to Ukrainian data analytics company OpenDataBot, the drop from 2021 to 2023 is the largest since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. The next steepest drop was in 2015, in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail attacked damaging grain infrastructure; Ukraine claims it shot down 23 drones overnight
Continue reading...Polish military says army helicopters crossed eastern flank, adding to tensions caused by proximity of Wagner fighters
Poland has rushed troops to its eastern border after accusing Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, of violating its airspace with military helicopters.
The Belarusian military denied any such violation and accused Poland, a Nato member and one of Ukraine’s most fervent backers in its conflict with Russia, of inventing the accusation to justify a buildup of its troops.
Continue reading...Airlift follows coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum, as tensions grow between the two countries
France has started evacuating its citizens and other Europeans from Niger, days after a junta toppled the president, Mohamed Bazoum, and seized power in the west African country.
Tensions between Niger and former colonial power France have escalated after the coup on 26 July overthrew one of the last pro-western leaders in Africa’s Sahel region. France’s decision to swiftly evacuate its citizens goes further than its reaction to putsches in recent years in the other former French colonies of Mali and Burkina Faso, where French citizens were not evacuated after military coups.
Continue reading...Investigation under way after theft at Swiss luxury watch shop on Rue de la Paix in high-end Place Vendôme area
Armed robbers have raided a store of the luxury Swiss watch brand Piaget in central Paris, escaping with between €10m to €15m ( £8.5m to 12.8m) worth of jewellery, the Paris prosecutors office said.
The robbery took place around lunchtime on Tuesday at the store on the Rue de la Paix in the high-end Place Vendôme area, home to several jewellers, watchmakers and luxury brands. The area has seen a spate of armed robberies in recent years.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Maurizio Bragagni, who has given over £700k to Tories and £30k to chancellor, attended event
Jeremy Hunt oversaw the signing of a low-tax treaty with San Marino championed by a leading Tory donor, who with his companies has given more than £700,000 to the party and £30,000 to the chancellor.
Maurizio Bragagni, a prominent businessman and diplomat for San Marino, was present in No 11 when a “double taxation” treaty between the UK and San Marino was signed in May.
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Here are some of the latest images that have been released from the site of a Russian strike on Kharkiv.
Reuters has a quick snap that Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed an attempt to cross into the country on its northern border in the Chernihiv region by a Russian saboteur group was foiled.
Continue reading...Russian defence ministry blames Kyiv for attack as Ukrainian presidential adviser says Kremlin should expect ‘more war’
A high-rise building in Moscow housing Russian government ministries has been hit by a drone for the second time in three days, the city’s mayor has said, as a Ukrainian presidential adviser said the Kremlin should expect more drone attacks and “more war”.
The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts near Moscow in a fresh wave of attacks on Tuesday, while it claimed a third was jammed and went “out of control” before it crashed in the Moscow City business district, a cluster of glass skyscrapers that was built to show Russia’s growing integration into world financial markets. The ministry blamed Ukraine for what it called an “attempted terrorist attack”.
Continue reading...Naturalists decry extinction of species as loss of habitat, poaching and illegal hunting take toll
For centuries, wolves have roamed the mountain ranges of Andalucía in southern Spain, but after years of decline the creature has been officially declared extinct in the region.
Since 2003, the regional government has carried out a census of the wolf (Canis lupus signatus) population in an effort to monitor the species and reduce conflict with the local population, farmers in particular.
Continue reading...Government bows to pressure from industry over costs of switching over to British marking
The UK will retain the EU’s product safety mark indefinitely, in the latest climbdown from proposed post-Brexit changes, after the government bowed to pressure from industry and manufacturers.
The CE (Conformité Européenne) mark is used by the bloc to certify that a wide range of items – from electrical goods and construction materials to medical devices and toys – meet safety standards.
Continue reading...Rallies in Sofia and other cities after leniency shown to man whose ex-girlfriend says she was cut hundreds of times by him
Thousands of Bulgarians have taken to the streets to protest against violence against women after a harrowing case of a teen cut hundreds of times shocked the Balkan nation.
Approximately 5,000 people demonstrated in Sofia, while protests also took place in other cities across the country, where rallies over violence against women are rare.
In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza lost his appeal against a 25-year prison term on Monday
The UK government has imposed sanctions on those involved in the “deplorable” sentencing of the dual-national dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza after a Russian court dismissed his appeal against a 25-year sentence.
Six figures – three judges, two prosecutors and an expert witness – will face sanctions for their role in a “politically motivated conviction”.
Continue reading...Ukraine defence minister says Moscow has intensified strikes on military infrastructure; Kremlin says Ukraine counteroffensive ‘not working out as planned’
Alexey Kulemzin, the Russian-imposed mayor of the occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, has reported that “facades, balconies, roofing and glazing” have been damaged in Kuibyshevskyi district in the city by overnight shelling.
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have said in a voice message published on Monday that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future.
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