Crimea navy oil depot fire extinguished after reported Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks; Nancy Pelosi speaks about her ‘dangerous’ Kyiv visit
Continue reading...Category Archives: Europe
UK coastguard ‘left Channel migrants adrift’ in lead-up to mass drowning
Investigation reveals that at least 440 people appear to have been abandoned in the weeks before the worst Channel disaster in 30 years
• Read more: ‘Horror beyond words’: how Channel distress calls were ‘ignored’
Hundreds of vulnerable migrants were abandoned to their fates after the UK coastguard “effectively ignored” reports of small boats in distress during the days leading up to the worst Channel disaster in 30 years when at least 27 people died, an Observer investigation suggests.
Around 440 people appear to have been left adrift after the coastguard sent no rescue vessels to 19 reported boats carrying migrants in UK waters, according to an analysis of internal records and marine data seen by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.
Experts said the failure to act appears to breach international law.
Continue reading...‘Horror beyond words’: how Channel distress calls were ‘ignored’ 19 times before 2021 disaster
Investigation reveals that understaffed Dover control room was overwhelmed by calls from people in trouble before 27 died at sea
• Read more: UK coastguard ‘left Channel migrants adrift’
On the afternoon of 3 November 2021, a woman called Hampshire police. Her brother was crossing the Channel in a small boat that day, she said via a translator. But something awful had just happened. Twenty minutes earlier he’d texted to say that smugglers had begun shoving passengers overboard. “Loads had been kicked off and were in the water”, fighting for their lives in the treacherous currents of the world’s busiest shipping lane.
Police passed the details to HM Coastguard and at 4.57pm an operator flagged the incident, according to internal logs obtained by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war live: Crimea navy oil depot fire ‘contained’ – as it happened
Moscow-installed governor in Sevastopol says blaze, attributed to Ukrainian drone strike, now under control
Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia.
In his evening address, AFP reports that Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying:
We need to involve everyone ... to put pressure on the Russian aggressor and the terrorists who kidnapped so many of our children.
The UN, many others want to do something, but so far the results have been poor. So I have appealed to the leader of China.
Now, with regard to the need in general for shells at the front, what we want. Today we are coming to the point where Wagner is ending.
Wagner, in a short period of time, will cease to exist. We will become history, nothing to worry about, things like this happen.
Continue reading...Sculpture of euthanised walrus Freya unveiled in Oslo
Campaigners commemorate mammal who drew large crowds in Norwegian capital last summer before being put down
A bronze sculpture has been unveiled in Norway of the walrus nicknamed Freya, who gained global attention last summer after basking in the Oslo fjord until officials euthanised her.
The lifesize sculpture depicts Freya lying on her side on the rocky shore of Oslo’s Kongen marina, not far from where the real 600kg mammal last summer drew large crowds as she chased ducks and swans, and rested on boats that struggled to support her bulk.
Continue reading...Large blaze at Russian navy depot in Crimea after suspected drone strike
Column of smoke seen rising from burning fuel tanks in port city of Sevastopol
A huge fire was burning in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot.
Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel. Other images showed a huge pall of smoke hanging over the area.
Continue reading...‘I was in tears’: Briton with valid passport barred from flight over Brexit rules
Experts say it is vital to check you meet EU requirements, or you could risk losing your holiday
Travellers who have not used their passport for a while were this week being urged to dig it out and check it conforms to the post-Brexit rules for entering the EU – because if it doesn’t, you will almost certainly be denied boarding this summer.
Despite previous warnings in Guardian Money and some other publicity, UK travellers trying to enter the Schengen zone are being turned away on a daily basis by airline staff at boarding gates – in most cases because their UK passport was issued more than 10 years ago.
Continue reading...Lords committee urges end to Brexit barriers for musicians and young people
Chair says small changes could make big difference to cultural and educational interests on both sides of Channel
An influential House of Lords committee is urging the government to start working with EU capitals to remove Brexit barriers that block musicians, young people and professionals working easily in Europe.
After six months of research and evidence from 40 witnesses the European affairs committee says it has identified 72 areas where small changes could make a huge difference in areas of cultural and educational interests on both sides of the Channel.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 430 of the invasion
Five children among dead as toll from Russian missile attacks across Ukraine rises to 26; five EU countries agree on Ukrainian grain transit deal
Continue reading...More fruit and veg shortages to come as weather in UK and Spain hits crops
Record heat in southern Europe and chilly start to British growing season spell more misery for shoppers
Shoppers have been warned they face more fruit and vegetable shortages, as temperatures in southern Spain soar to unprecedented levels while the UK growing season gets off to a late start because of cold, overcast weather.
Temperatures were expected to reach a new April record of 39C (102F) in parts of Andalucía on Friday amid a long-lasting drought that has affected the production of vegetables in Spain. Córdoba reached a record 38.8C on Thursday.
Continue reading...Dutch court orders sperm donor to stop after 550 children
Nation’s guidelines say no donor should father more than 25 children in 12 families
Dutch judges have ordered a man suspected of fathering more than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating, in the latest fertility scandal to shock the Netherlands.
The man, identified in Dutch media only as Jonathan M, 41, was taken to court by a foundation protecting the rights of donor children and by the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm.
Continue reading...Russian navy ship photographed near Nord Stream pipelines before blasts
Submarine rescue vessel SS-750 was photographed in Baltic four days before still-unexplained explosions, says Danish newspaper
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just prior to the mysterious September blasts, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information.
The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage confirmed the existence of the hitherto publicly unknown photographs.
Continue reading...A three-year-old killed and her family ripped apart in Ukraine missile strikes
Young Veronika’s neighbours stunned at brutal arrival of Russia’s invasion in the suburb to where she fled to avoid the missiles
The Russian attack killed Veronika in her bed on Friday morning, but left her childish chalk drawings of a happy family intact on the wall of their home.
Portraits of “Mama”, “Nika” (her nickname), her uncles, grandparents and even the family cat “Kuzia” – the names written in by an adult – stretch all along the front of the house.
Continue reading...Russia-Ukraine war live: death toll rises in Uman and Dnipro after intense Russian strikes – as it happened
More than 20 people confirmed dead in wake of Russian aerial bombing of Ukrainian cities on Friday morning
The Kyiv Independent is now reporting that the air defence systems are at work in Kyiv and that people should remain in shelters.
A missile has reportedly hit a high-rise building in Uman, in the Cherkasy region on central Ukraine. Euromaidan, Kyiv Operativ and Faytuks news have posted videos of the reported attack, which shows a large part of a residential building totally blown apart. It is unknown at this stage how many people were inside.
Continue reading...Russia launches deadly wave of missile attacks on Ukraine cities
Woman and child die in Dnipro, while missile strikes in Uman, south of Kyiv, kill 19
Russian cruise missiles have killed at least 19 people in the central Ukrainian cities of Uman and Dnipro, days after Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, begged his allies for more air defence supplies.
The attacks were part of a wave of Russian missile and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday morning, the most intense aerial bombing of major Ukrainian cities in weeks.
Continue reading...Italian police arrest ’Ndrangheta mafia boss after five years on the run
Pasquale Bonavota featured on police’s list of most dangerous criminals
Italian authorities have announced the arrest of a top boss of the ’Ndrangheta mafia after he spent almost five years on the run.
Pasquale Bonavota, 49, who featured on the police’s list of most dangerous criminals, had been sought since November 2018 after escaping an arrest warrant for homicide and mafia association issued by a magistrate in Calabria, southern Italy.
Continue reading...Meloni praises Sunak’s immigration policies on visit to No 10
Far-right Italian prime minister in London for ‘new beginning’ aiming at deeper and wider alliance between the countries
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has praised the work undertaken by her British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, to fight people traffickers and clandestine immigration networks, as two of the most prominent rightwing leaders in Europe met in Downing Street.
At the start of a two-day visit designed to deepen relations between the two governments, Meloni was greeted outside Downing Street by a small group of demonstrators carrying placards reading “stand up to racism” and “no to fascist Meloni”.
Continue reading...Forced deportation of children from Ukraine by Moscow is genocide, Council of Europe says – as it happened
International human rights body calls for immediate and urgent action to halt movement of children from Ukraine by Russia. This live blog is closed
Reuters has taken a hard look at satellite imagery of Russia’s “vast network of fortifications, sweeping down from western Russia through eastern Ukraine and on to Crimea” and built in readiness for Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive.
The news agency says it has examined thousands of defensive positions, both inside Russia and along Ukrainian front lines, and concluded Russia is most heavily defended in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the gateway to the Crimean Peninsula.
It’s not the numbers for the Ukrainians. It’s can they do this kind of warfare, combined arms operations? The Russians have shown they can’t do it and they’ve gone back to their old Soviet method of attrition.
We’ve cleaned out most of the stocks in the West. It’s going to take some years to rebuild. I think this is Ukraine’s big opportunity to press on.
German police call for crackdown on growing climate protests
Union leader wants more preventive detention of activists across country to stop disruption
Police representatives, members of the judiciary and politicians in Germany are calling for harsher penalties for climate activists, including preventive detention and longer prison terms, in an effort to halt their disruptive protests.
This week has seen the most intense protests yet by the campaign group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), with hundreds of its members blocking scores of roads during rush hour in Berlin.
Continue reading...Finland’s conservatives to open coalition talks with far-right party
Petteri Orpo, likely successor of Sanna Marin as PM, says government should be in place by June
Finland’s conservative National Coalition party has said it will open formal coalition talks with the far-right, anti-immigration Finns party and two smaller groups to form the country’s next government.
Petteri Orpo, who is likely to succeed the Social Democrat Sanna Marin as prime minister after his NCP finished first in the 2 April elections, said negotiations would start on Tuesday and a government should hopefully be in place by June.
Continue reading...