Category Archives: Europe

Hundreds of thousands of people take to French streets amid fears of violence

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Minister says 13,000 police deployed as Macron vows not to waver on unpopular pensions policy

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in street protests and strikes across France amid fears of violent clashes with police, as demonstrations continue over Emmanuel Macron’s use of constitutional executive powers to push through an unpopular raise of the pension age.

The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said 13,000 police had been deployed, 5,500 of them in Paris alone. He said the record number was justified by “a major risk to public order”.

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Norwegian company says TikTok data centre is limiting energy for manufacturing Ukraine ammunition

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Head of Norwegian manufacturer Nammo says plans to increase production at its largest factory are affected by demands of nearby data centre

One of Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturers has said efforts to meet surging demand from the war in Ukraine have been stymied by a new TikTok data centre that is monopolising electricity in the region close to its biggest factory.

The chief executive of Nammo, which is co-owned by the Norwegian government, said a planned expansion of its largest factory in central Norway hit a roadblock due to a lack of surplus energy, with the construction of TikTok’s new data centre using up electricity in the local area.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus ‘irresponsible’ and ‘escalatory’, says Germany

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Berlin says Moscow’s announcement is ‘another attempt at nuclear intimidation’

Russia plans to complete coastal infrastructure needed to host nuclear submarines in the Pacific Ocean, Tass news agency reported on Monday.

The nuclear submarines will be capable of carrying the Poseidon nuclear-capable super torpedos first produced in January, four years after they were announced.

A policy of dramatic fiscal austerity that comes at the expense of the fabric of Ukrainian society and the state will have huge long-run costs. The EU, the United States and other outside supporters can soften this dilemma best a. by providing more generous funding and b. by urging Kyiv towards a strategy of civilian as well as military state-building, not by replacing domestic national institutions with international agencies, but by promoting the mobilization of local institutions and agencies.

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Art, not pornography: Florence museum invites Florida parents to see the David

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Galleria dell’Accademia director issues invitation in wake of incident that forced principal to resign after parents’ complaints

The Florence museum which houses Michelangelo’s David has invited the board of a Florida Christian charter school to visit, after the school’s principal was forced to resign following parent complaints that pupils were shown an image of the nude sculpture in a class.

Hope Carrasquilla resigned as principal of the Tallahassee Classical school last week, after the school board told her to quit or be fired. Carrasquilla’s exit came after three parents complained about a lesson on David, with one parent claiming the 16th century Renaissance masterpiece was pornographic.

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Italian academic cooks up controversy with claim carbonara is US dish

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Alberto Grandi also raises hackles with suggestion Wisconsin has most authentic take on parmesan cheese

An Italian academic has caused more than a stir after saying the recipe for carbonara is American and the only place in the world to find bona fide parmesan cheese nowadays is Wisconsin.

Alberto Grandi, a professor of food history at the University of Parma, made the remarks in an interview with the Financial Times. He also claimed tiramisu and panettone were relatively recent inventions and that most Italians had not even heard of pizza before the 1950s.

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Russian soldiers say commanders used ‘barrier troops’ to stop them retreating

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Assault unit members claim in video that superiors ‘want to execute us’ after ‘huge’ losses in eastern Ukraine

Members of a recently formed Russian assault unit say their commanders deployed troops to stop them from retreating and threatened them with death after they suffered “huge” losses in eastern Ukraine.

In a video addressed to President Vladimir Putin, a group of about two dozen men in military uniform say they are the remnants of Storm, a unit under the defence ministry.

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EU ministers to approve vehicle emissions law after deal with Germany

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Berlin secures concessions over future use of e-fuels after going back on agreement struck last year

EU ministers are expected to approve a draft law on emissions standards for cars on Tuesday, after reaching a deal with Germany over the weekend that ended a damaging row over a key part of Europe’s green deal.

Pascal Canfin, a French centrist MEP who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said an EU law that all cars sold from 2035 must produce zero emissions “will be voted unchanged, including by Germany” on Tuesday.

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Italian authorities detain Banksy-funded migrant rescue boat

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Yacht impounded over alleged breach of far-right government’s new rules for rescue vessels

Italian authorities have detained a migrant rescue boat financed by the British street artist Banksy after it responded to a distress call in the central Mediterranean.

The vessel, painted in bright pink and named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, was impounded in the port of Lampedusa on Sunday in relation to an alleged breach of new Italian rules for rescue boats operated by non-governmental organisations.

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Putin’s timeline for storing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is hard to believe

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Although Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to host nuclear bases little construction work seems to have started

Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia would start storing its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears.

In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian plans for nuclear weapons in Belarus ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ – as it happened

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Senior US administration official says there are no signs Moscow intends to use its nuclear weapons

Ukrainian refugees are increasingly being targeted for sexual exploitation with an increase in interest in pornography claiming to feature refugees from the war-torn country, according to research.

Thomson Reuters has conducted the research, which has found that Ukrainian refugees may be victims of both traffickers on the ground and cyber-voyeurs.

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US indicts alleged Russian spy who tried to infiltrate ICC in The Hague

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Sergey Cherkasov studied in US under false identity and is accused of working for Russian intelligence

US authorities have released new details about an alleged Russian spy who attempted to penetrate the international criminal court in The Hague, using a false identity developed over a decade.

An indictment made public on Saturday accuses Sergey Cherkasov, who US intelligence believes is an elite “illegal” operative of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. Cherkasov posed as Brazilian citizen Victor Muller Ferreira over many years.

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Refugees trying to reach Italy die after boats sink off coast of Tunisia

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Latest tragedy comes as authorities in north African country crack down on undocumented people

At least 29 people from sub-Saharan Africa have died while trying to reach Italy after two boats carrying them across the Mediterranean sank off the coast of Tunisia.

The deaths, which occurred early on Sunday, are the latest tragedies involving people departing from the north African country, where the authorities have launched a crackdown on undocumented people from sub-Saharan Africa.

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Russia accused of taking Belarus ‘nuclear hostage’ with deal to station missiles there

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Ukraine says Putin’s deal to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus destabilises neighbour

Ukraine has accused Russia of destabilising Belarus and making its smaller neighbour into “a nuclear hostage”, after Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The country’s opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the move “grossly contradicts the will of the Belarusian people” and reflected the further subjugation of Belarus under Russian control.

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Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus

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Deal with allied neighbour will not violate non-proliferation agreements, Putin says

Russia has reached an agreement with Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its smaller neighbour’s territory, so bringing some of its arsenal closer to the rest of Europe, Vladimir Putin has said.

The Russian president made the announcement on state television, arguing that it would not breach non-proliferation agreements and that it would match similar arrangements that the US has with several of its European allies.

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Moscow ‘has deal with Belarus to station nuclear weapons’, says Putin – as it happened

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Russia’s president says deal struck to station weapons on ally’s territory, according to Tass news agency

More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday.

The Wagner group, originally staffed by battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, took on a much more prominent role in the Ukraine war after the Russian army suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year, Reuters reported.

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France: several police and protesters injured in clash over planned reservoir

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Sixteen police and two protesters seriously hurt in western rural district of Sainte-Soline

Several people have been injured after clashes between French police and protesters opposed to a large water reservoir for farm irrigation, despite a ban on gatherings in the area.

Police fired teargas to repel some protesters who threw fireworks and other projectiles as they crossed fields to approach the construction area in the western rural district of Sainte-Soline. At least three police vehicles were set alight, television footage showed.

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Early wildfire in Spain’s Valencia region forces 1,500 villagers to evacuate

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Emergency services say they have contained spread of blaze that has scorched more than 4,000 hectares

Spain’s first big wildfire of the year has scorched more than 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) of forest and forced 1,500 people to leave their homes in the Valencia region.

Residents recounted fleeing their houses and leaving animals behind. “Bad – how am I supposed to feel? Your town is burning, your life is burning, Our animals were there and no one can tell us anything,” said Antonio Zarzoso, 24, who had to leave the village of Puebla de Arenoso.

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‘Like a vacuum cleaner running all day’: noisy nightlife making Spanish streets ‘uninhabitable’

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Tensions between residents and revellers have reached boiling point after loosening of serving restrictions during Covid

The sun has barely set when the music starts thumping on Madrid’s Calle Ponzano. As queues start to form outside the already heaving bars, the party spills out on to the pavement, leaving customers jostling for space with an ever-growing cacophony of smokers and passersby.

Lost in the fray is the brightly lettered message – pleading with punters to keep the noise down – from banners that flap from balconies above. It is a last ditch effort by those who have found themselves living on the frontline of a battle playing out across Spain as exhausted neighbours face off against raucous drinkers.

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