Colleagues come to defence of pair subjected to ‘coordinated attack’ over meeting last month
Hungary’s leading judges have launched a defence of two colleagues who say they have faced a “full-scale smear campaign” by state-supporting media after the pair met the US ambassador.
The US embassy in Budapest has also spoken out against a “coordinated media attack” on the judges that it said was “an effort to instil fear” in anyone wishing to engage with the US government.
Continue reading...Images released by Israeli Holocaust memorial show Hitler’s regime clearly orchestrating 1938 atrocity
Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938’s Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, the organisation said on Wednesday.
One shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed middle-aged German men and women standing casually as a Nazi officer smashes a storefront window. In another, brownshirts carry heaps of Jewish books, presumably for burning. Another image shows a Nazi officer splashing petrol on the pews of a synagogue before it is set alight.
Continue reading...Move will be widely seen as significant blow to Vladimir Putin weeks after he announced the ‘forever’ annexation of Kherson
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, is in Cambodia today, meeting prime minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh. Kuleba wrote on Twitter: “We focused on bilateral cooperation and global food security. I also congratulated prime minister Sen on Happy Cambodian Independence Day.”
Eastern European countries are preparing to reopen reception centres and are restocking food supplies in anticipation of a possible fresh surge in Ukrainian refugees as winter looms and Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid and heating plants.
Continue reading...European Commission wears ‘velvet gloves’ when dealing with spyware used on citizens, says chief of inquiry on hacking software, including Pegasus
The senior MEP leading an inquiry into spyware has accused the EU commission of ignoring the “grave threat to democracy” posed by the use of the technology, and national governments of failing to co-operate with her investigation.
The Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld said there was illegal use of spyware in Poland, Hungary, Greece and Spain and suspicions about Cyprus, while other EU member states made it easy for the “shady” industry to operate.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says Russia’s invasion has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power to alleviate energy costs
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told world leaders they will not be able to tackle the climate crisis unless Russia’s invasion of his country ends.
“There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” he said in a video address at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday. “The Russian war has brought about an energy crisis that has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power generation in order to lower energy prices for their people, to lower prices that are shockingly rising due to deliberate Russian actions.”
Continue reading...Clear wish in Paris to thaw relations that plummeted to their worst state in decades under Boris Johnson
When Emmanuel Macron rushed to hug the new UK prime minister at their first meeting in Egypt this week, some called it a “bromance”.
Even though the French president’s hands-on embrace of world leaders is almost always called a “bromance” – from Justin Trudeau to Mohammed bin Salman and Donald Trump (a relationship which eventually soured), Macron and Rishi Sunak’s grinning and back-slapping stood out as symbolic.
Continue reading...European diplomats say Charles Michel video referring to Russia’s ‘illegal’ and ‘brutal’ invasion was withdrawn from trade fair
Chinese authorities dropped a trade fair speech by the European Council president, Charles Michel, that was critical of Russia’s war in Ukraine, diplomats have said.
The recorded message by Michel was meant to be one of several from world leaders and heads of international bodies played at the opening on Friday last week of China’s International Import Expo in Shanghai. Three European diplomats said Michel’s speech, which was to have been heavily critical of Russia’s “illegal” war in Ukraine, had been removed, according to Reuters, which first reported the incident.
Continue reading...Guardia Civil first to be convicted after alleging video showed a Moroccan migrant raping a woman
A police officer who deliberately posted a misleading video clip of a sexual assault to try to stir up hatred against migrant children has become the first person in Spain to be handed a jail sentence for using social media to publish and spread fake news.
A court in Barcelona on Tuesday convicted the Guardia Civil officer of an offence against fundamental rights and public freedoms and sentenced him to 15 months in prison and a fine of €1,620 (£1,410).
Continue reading...Standoff over rescue ship in Catania is first test of migration policy under Giorgia Meloni
Italy’s new far-right government has enacted its controversial new anti-migration plan, which provides for the pushback of mostly male asylum seekers of adult age rescued in the central Mediterranean whom Rome does not deem qualified for international protection.
The move has sparked a row in the country and has provoked the protests of jurists, lawyers and charities who consider it a breach of international law on rescue at sea.
Continue reading...Doubt cast on official version of events after deadly crush at border fence in which at least 23 died
The Spanish government is facing growing calls to explain how at least 23 people died during a mass storming of the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla almost five months ago.
MPs who visited the border on a fact-finding trip have appeared to corroborate reports – first aired in a BBC Africa Eye investigation broadcast last week – that dead bodies were dragged out of a Spanish-controlled area by Moroccan police.
Continue reading...Denys Shmyhal says no reason to evacuate any city not near frontlines; Kyiv refuses to negotiate until Russian troops have left its territory. This live blog is now closed
The state-owned Russian RIA Novosti news agency is reporting that the Russian-installed authorities in occupied Kherson claim to have arrested nine people they claim are Ukrainian special forces (SBU) who were planning sabotage operations.
Russia’s security forces, the FSB, are quoted as saying:
On the territory of the Kherson region, the activities of the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the SBU , whose tasks included the commission of terrorist acts against high-ranking members of the military-civilian administration of the Kherson region, were exposed and suppressed.
As part of operational measures, more than five kilograms of plastic [explosive], electric detonators, actuators, three grenades ready for use by the Ukrainian military, small arms and ammunition, as well as special reconnaissance equipment were seized from the detainees.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London
Continue reading...Officials interested in deal that would allow two countries to bail each other out in event of shortages
Germany is keen to talk to Britain about a solidarity pact that would allow Europe’s largest consumers of natural gas to bail each other out if an extreme cold snap were to create shortages this winter, German officials have said.
Such an agreement could be mutually beneficial for both London and Berlin, the German civil servant in charge of rationing in the case of a supply crisis told the Guardian in an interview.
Continue reading...Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling party, criticised by opposition for ‘nonsense’ comments
Outrage built up in Poland on Monday after the governing party’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, claimed excessive drinking by young women was to blame for the EU country’s low birthrate.
Opposition politicians, female celebrities and others denounced the 73-year-old as out of touch and patriarchal, dismissing his comments as nonsense.
Continue reading...Ricard released a statement confessing to sexually abusing the child during his early days in the Catholic Church
One of France’s highest-ranking prelates of the Catholic Church has admitted abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago and announced his withdrawal from his religious duties.
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard issued a written statement on Monday after a report issued last year revealed a “massive phenomenon” of sexual abusers of children operating for decades within the French Catholic Church.
Continue reading...UK prime minister vows to ‘get a grip’ on small boat crossings but deflects questions on concrete action
Rishi Sunak has renewed a promise to stop people being smuggled across the Channel, despite coming away from his first face-to-face talks with Emmanuel Macron without any firm commitments.
The prime minister vowed to “get a grip of this situation” and promised details about the progress of cross-Channel talks “in the coming weeks”, with No 10 hoping to make a major announcement before Christmas.
Continue reading...Survivor tells of being abandoned to attack near Makiivka, as anger grows in Russia over death toll from war
Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night.
Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit.
Continue reading...Ukraine president claims Russia will use Iranian missiles for attacks; Vitali Klitschko urges Kyiv residents to consider leaving city in event of total blackout
The Kyiv Independent is reporting that “farmers’ warehouses, a cultural site, and private houses” were damaged in Zaporizhzhia region by Russian strikes, and according to local governor Pavlo Kyrylenko Russian forces have killed one civilian in Bakhmut and wounded five civilians elsewhere in the Donetsk region.
The chiefly unrecognised authorities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the occupied east of Ukraine have issued their daily operational briefing. They claim that overnight one civilian has been killed and three injured after Ukrainian forces shelled eight settlements that the DPR occupies. In addition, they claim that 31 housing and five civil infrastructure facilities were damaged. The claims have not been independently verified. The DPR is one of the regions that Russia claims to have annexed.
Continue reading...Above-average temperatures across northern hemisphere come amid an extremely warm year for Britain
The UK and much of Europe experienced well above normal temperatures during the second month of the meteorological autumn, in what was a very warm month for the northern hemisphere as a whole.
Persistent low pressure in the Atlantic and higher pressure across central and southern Europe helped feed mild air from the south/south-west for prolonged periods in October.
Continue reading...Study by anti-poverty NGO shows more than half feel at financial risk and 80% have already made hard spending choices
One in four Europeans describe their financial position as “precarious”, more than half see a serious risk it will become so over the coming months, and 80% have already been forced into hard spending choices, according to a survey.
As the cost of living crisis, driven by high energy prices, rampant inflation and Russia’s war on Ukraine, tightens its grip, the six-country survey for the French anti-poverty NGO Secours Populaire painted an alarming picture of “a continent on the brink”.
Continue reading...Scandal over Malcolm MacArthur killings destabilised a government and spawned an acronym
No single adjective could do justice to the events that rocked Ireland in July and August 1982, so the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey, used four: “Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented”. An acronym was soon born: Gubu.
That summer, Malcolm MacArthur, a socialite with a yen for bow ties and cravats, had bludgeoned a young woman to death, killed a farmer with his own shotgun and attempted to rob a retired US diplomat, sparking a huge manhunt.
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