City beat 19 others to host 67th contest after Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed staging event in Mariupol was not possible
The Eurovision song contest will be hosted by Liverpool next year after it beat 19 other cites to stage the event on behalf of war-torn Ukraine.
The annual extravaganza will be held in the UK for the first time in 25 years on 13 May as Ukraine is unable to host the event due to the Russian invasion.
Continue reading...Decision described as a compromise by several European countries who wanted a more ambitious target
A United Nations body has agreed to a long-term aspirational goal for aviation of net-zero emissions by 2050, despite challenges from China and Russia, as countries aligned overwhelmingly with airlines amid pressure to curb pollution from flights.
Nevertheless, environmentalists criticised the non-binding nature of the agreement as toothless.
Continue reading...Chris Heaton-Harris also repeated that he would call an election on 28 October if power sharing is not restored
The British government has said it is looking to move on from the row with the EU over Northern Ireland and is aiming to “move quickly” to reach a solution on Brexit arrangements.
After a joint meeting with Irish ministers in London, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said he optimistic for a settlement after the resumption of talks after an eight-month standoff.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest Ukraine stories below:
Reuters has a quick snap that a team of four specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEAE) is expected be arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant later today.
At least five people were killed and as many injured after Ukrainian forces struck a bus while shelling a strategically important bridge in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
Continue reading...French auction house tells of build-up to bidding war that led to an expert losing his job and a seller being left ‘traumatised’
In the 41 years of wielding the gavel at his auction house a stone’s throw from the royal chateau at Fontainebleau, Jean-Pierre Osenat has never seen anything like it.
“This is a crazy story,” he said. “Quite extraordinary.”
Continue reading...Jailed campaigner Ales Bialiatski, Memorial and Center for Civil Liberties win award that will be seen as condemnation of Putin
The jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, in an award the committee said was to honour champions of “peaceful coexistence” during the most tumultuous period in Europe since the second world war.
“The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president makes comments during address to other European leaders
Two people have been killed after an alleged Russian missile attack hit Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said one woman was confirmed to have died in the attack while another person died in an ambulance.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest political coverage here
In his interview with LBC Jake Berry, the Tory chairman, was asked if he was channelling When Harry Met Sally when he described Liz Truss as the “Yes, yes, yes prime minister” in his speech to the conference yesterday. (Robert Hutton is very funny about this, and much else, in his sketch for the Critic.) Berry said he was referring to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister when he delivered that line.
In the same interview, Berry revealed that his joke-making has not improved since yesterday. Talking about the conference in general, Berry said:
I think colleagues saw yesterday that when the going gets tough, the Truss gets going.
I do think my language was a bit clumsy in that regard and I regret it.
The point I was making ... is that the government needs to go for growth to ensure that it can grow the economy and Britain can get a pay rise. You don’t have to tell me how hard people graft in this economy. I know how hard people work.
We’ve got to wait until those figures are available … You simply cannot make a decision on figures you do not currently have.
Continue reading...At least 22 people dead, with many more missing, in two separate incidents hundreds of miles apart
Search and rescue operations are under way in the west and east of Greece after refugees desperate to reach Europe were involved in two separate maritime disasters in less than a day, the country’s coastguard said.
Almost 12 hours after two vessels sank in the Aegean sea, rescue workers hampered by inclement weather were in a race against the clock on Thursday to find survivors as authorities reported that at least 16 women and a boy had died when an overloaded boat capsized east of the island of Lesbos.
Continue reading...Ailing Swiss bank’s share price has collapsed after being hit by series of crises
Credit Suisse, the investment bank whose shares plummeted to record lows this week over fears it could be on the brink of collapse, is selling the five-star Savoy hotel in the centre of Zurich for as much as 400m Swiss francs (£361m).
The bank, whose stock has fallen by more than 40% in the past six months, said on Thursday it had put the 184-year-old hotel on Paradeplatz in the heart of the city’s financial district on the market as part of a regular review of its global real estate assets.
Continue reading...Former judge appointed to investigate claims prominent dance schools have rigged competitions
The ostensibly quaint world of Irish dancing has been rocked by allegations of competition fixing and cheating, with some parents and teachers saying there is a code of omertà akin to The Godfather and The Sopranos.
The Irish Dancing Commission, a governing body known in Irish as An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), has appointed a former judge to investigate claims that prominent dance schools and teachers have rigged competitions, it emerged this week.
Continue reading...Sotheby’s describes 17th-century Cervantes editions as a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for collectors
One day in the early 1930s, a young Bolivian diplomat named Jorge Ortiz Linares walked into the illustrious Maggs Bros bookshop in London to ask if they might have a particularly fine edition of Don Quixote for sale.
But even for Ortiz Linares – a dedicated bibliophile who also happened to be the son-in-law of Simón Patiño, the Bolivian tin magnate nicknamed the Andean Rockefeller – the answer was a polite no.
Continue reading...Missile strike on Zaporizhzhia residential buildings; Putin appears to admit severe losses in Ukraine; IAEA chief heads to Kyiv
Continue reading...Measures include creation of census and national DNA bank to help locate and identify remains
Five decades after the death of General Franco, and three years after the Spanish dictator’s remains were finally removed from his hulking mausoleum outside Madrid, the country’s senate has approved legislation intended to bring “justice, reparation and dignity” to the victims of the civil war and subsequent dictatorship.
On Wednesday afternoon, the upper house of Spain’s parliament passed the socialist-led government’s Democratic Memory law, with 128 votes in favour, 113 against, and 18 abstentions.
Continue reading...Defendant punched as hearings get under way into Santiago de Compostela derailment that killed 80 people
The trial of two men charged with causing the deaths of 80 people in Spain’s deadliest train crash in decades has begun, with one of the defendants being punched as tensions boiled over outside the courtroom.
Francisco José Garzón, who was driving the high-speed train when it crashed near the north-west Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on 24 July 2013, faces four years in prison if convicted, as does Andrés Cortabitarte, a former safety director at Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure company, Adif.
Continue reading...Ukrainian army making ‘fast and powerful progress’ in south, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has appeared to concede the severity of the Kremlin’s recent military reversals in Ukraine, insisting Russia would “stabilise” the situation in four Ukrainian regions it illegally claimed as its own territory last week.
Russia has suffered significant losses in two of the four regions since Friday, when Putin signed treaties to incorporate them into Russia by force, with Russian officials saying their forces were “regrouping”.
Continue reading...Fendi and her sisters took luxury brand to new creative heights by bringing in Karl Lagerfeld in 1960s
Franca Fendi, one of the five sisters who inherited a small Roman leather goods workshop and together transformed it into a luxury fashion house, has died in Rome on Monday. She was 87.
Born in 1935, she participated from a young age in the management of the company that from the 1960s onwards, under the guidance of the sisters, became a global luxury powerhouse famed for its reimagining of the classic fur coat.
Continue reading...Celebrities including Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard stage protest after death of Mahsa Amini
More than 50 high-profile French women have filmed themselves cutting their hair in support of Iranian women and girls who have been killed in protests at the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by Iranian morality police.
They include some of the best-known names of French cinema; Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Adjani and Isabelle Huppert, as well as the Belgian singer Angèle. The British-born singer Jane Birkin – who is filmed with her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg – and actor Charlotte Rampling, both of whom live in France, and Julie Gayet, wife of former French president François Hollande, were also shown cutting their hair “for freedom”.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more about Russia’s recent defeats here
The UK ministry of defence has published its daily intelligence update on the war, reporting that “Ukraine continues to make progress in offensive operations along both the north-eastern and southern fronts. In the north-east, in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine has now consolidated a substantial area of territory east of the Oskil River.”
The other developments included in the report were:
Ukrainian formations have advanced up to 20km beyond the river into Russia’s defensive zone towards the supply node of the town of Svatove.
It is highly likely that Ukraine can now strike the key Svatove-Kremina road with most of its artillery systems, further straining Russia’s ability to resupply its units in the east.
Politically, Russian leaders will highly likely be concerned that leading Ukrainian units are now approaching the borders of Luhansk Oblast, which Russia claimed to have formally annexed last Friday.
Continue reading...People in Ukrainian city try to pick up pieces amid remains of Russia’s chaotic and bloody withdrawal
In the shattered streets of Lyman, a Ukrainian city that has lived through the Russian invasion, months of occupation and last week’s brutal battle to liberate it, evidence of the chaotic and bloody Russian withdrawal and defeat is everywhere.
Emerging from the dugout of a former Russian checkpoint on the outskirts of the Donbas city, a Ukrainian soldier appears clasping a Russian copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which he places next to a discarded water bottle cut in half and filled with rifle ammunition. He points inside to an Orthodox icon left pinned to a wall.
Continue reading...