Italian government ordered to compensate UK firm after exploration forbidden within 12 miles of coast
A corporate tribunal has ordered the Italian government to pay more than £210m to the UK oil company Rockhopper as compensation for an offshore oil drilling ban.
Rockhopper’s case was launched after the Italian government banned oil exploration and production within a 12 mile-limit off Italy’s coast in 2015, scotching the company’s planned Ombrina Mare oilfield.
Continue reading...Controversy over her private life goes to the heart of the occasionally divisive leader’s appeal
The controversy embroiling Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin’s partying scandal threatens to derail what has appeared until now to be a charmed political career.
Marin, who when she became prime minister aged 34 was the world’s youngest elected leader, is a career politician whose rise through the ranks of Finland’s centre-left Social Democratic party appeared effortless.
Continue reading...Prime minister says while Britons face higher costs, Ukrainians are ‘paying in their blood’ for Russia’s aggression
Vladimir Putin is to blame for British people being hit by high energy bills while Ukrainian people are “paying in their blood”, Boris Johnson has said as he made a final visit to Kyiv as prime minister.
In his third visit to the country since Russia invaded in the spring, Johnson urged the international community to “stay the course” in its support for Ukraine. The outgoing prime minister also told the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that Ukraine “can and will win the war”.
Continue reading...Abellio UK’s CEO Dominic Booth is understood to be leading buyout and will help fund deal using own money
The Dutch state railway is to pull out of the UK with a management buyout of its subsidiary Abellio, which runs four rail lines and a number of London bus routes.
Abellio, which for 20 years has run East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Merseyrail and West Midlands Railway and employs 15,000 staff, is to be sold by the Netherlands state-run Nederlandse Spoorwegen to its UK management. The business will be operated by a new firm, to be known as Transport UK Group Limited.
Continue reading...Travellers had to leave their vehicles and walk through the emergency tunnel
Eurotunnel passengers were stranded for nearly five hours at subsea level after the train broke down beneath the Channel, leaving hundreds of passengers to be ushered to a service tunnel.
The incident happened late on Tuesday, affecting the 3.50pm Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service from Calais to Folkestone.
Continue reading...The vessel was seized in March under sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine
A £65m superyacht owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch has attracted 63 bids at auction in Gibraltar in the first sale of an oligarch’s assets since Putin invaded Ukraine in February.
The 72.5-metre Axioma, was seized from steel billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky in March following sanctions by the UK, EU and the US.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president defiant as officials report Moscow is preparing strikes on capital and infrastructure
Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that any attacks by Russia on the country’s independence day would be met with a powerful response as Ukraine prepared to mark 31 years since the end of Soviet rule.
The Ukrainian president’s defiant message followed warnings from western and Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing to once again attack the capital, Kyiv, on the date that also marks six months since the 24 February invasion. The US on Tuesday urged all its citizens to leave the country, saying it believed Russia would target civilian and government infrastructure in the next few days.
Continue reading...Marin Eugen Sabau granted right to assisted death due to chronic pain he felt after shootout with police
Spanish prison authorities have euthanised a man who had shot and wounded four people in December and was subsequently wounded in a shootout with the police, rendering him paralysed and begging to be allowed to die while awaiting trial.
Courts allowed the man’s assisted death after rejecting several appeals by his victims, who argued that he should face justice. The case reached the constitutional court, which refused to deliberate on it, saying there had been no violation of fundamental rights.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry says Russia has transferred more than 1,000 children from Mariupol for illegal adoptions in Siberia
Kyiv has accused Moscow of having organised illegal mass adoptions of Ukrainian children after transferring them from occupied territories to Russia.
Since the beginning of the war, Kyiv has been accusing Moscow of “deporting” Ukrainians, saying Ukrainians from occupied territories have been forced to go to Russia rather than other regions of Ukraine.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, please visit here for our latest coverage
Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The duo will engage in talks on the current wartime situation in Ukraine, economic and humanitarian support and bilateral cooperation, according to Duda’s official Twitter channel.
The visit will include a meeting with President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy and talks on military support and defence of Ukraine in the economic, humanitarian and political sense,” Pawel Szrot told reporters.
The presidents will discuss the political support Poland could offer to convince other countries to keep helping Ukraine.
Continue reading...Discontent grows over Finland’s visa policy as country becomes key transit route for Russian travellers
Porsches, Bentleys and other luxury cars with Russian licence plates are filling the parking garage at Helsinki airport as Finland becomes an important transit country for Russian tourists flying to Europe.
The EU shut its airspace to Russian planes after Moscow invaded Ukraine, forcing anyone who wants to travel to Europe to drive across the border or take a circuitous route using non-western airlines.
Continue reading...Alert from US embassy comes a day before Ukraine is set to mark 31 years since it became an independent state
The US state department has issued a security alert warning that Russia is “stepping up” efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.
The warning, issued on Tuesday, is the first specific security alert issued by the US embassy in Kyiv in recent months. It does not say what places it believes Russia plans to target, but advised US citizens to leave Ukraine if safe to do so.
Continue reading...Minister fires head of National Meteorological Service after storms it predicted would hit Budapest missed the capital
The Hungarian government fired the head of the national weather service and her deputy, two days after a fireworks display to celebrate a national holiday was delayed for fear of storms.
Technology minister Lazlo Palkovics, under whose remit the National Meteorological Service (NMS) falls, relieved president Kornelia Radics and her deputy Gyula Horvath from their duties on Monday, but did not provide a reason. The ministry did not immediately return AFP’s call for further details.
Continue reading...Pedro I declared independence from Portugal in 1822, and relic is now at the centre of politically charged election year celebrations
Nearly two centuries after it was cut from his corpse and preserved in formaldehyde, the heart of Emperor Pedro I, who declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal, has returned for politically charged commemorations of the South American country’s 200th birthday.
Dom Pedro, a beloved figure in both Brazilian and Portuguese history, has been divided between the two countries in death – his heart enshrined in a church in Porto, Portugal, and the rest of his remains in an independence monument in São Paulo, Brazil.
Continue reading...Editor of state-owned RT network Margarita Simonyan appears to contradict Kremlin position in post about Darya Dugina killing
The influential head of Russia’s RT news network has hinted at Russia’s role in the poisoning of the former spy Sergei Skripal, in a remarkable post that contradicts the Kremlin’s official position on the incident.
In a post on her Telegram channel on Monday, Margarita Simonyan appeared to acknowledge Russia’s part in the Skripal poisoning when she wrote that Russian “professionals who want to admire spires” should travel to Estonia to go after the alleged killer of Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who was killed in a car bomb on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Footage of Marin dancing and drinking with friends has brought 36-year-old leader’s judgment into question
Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, has tested negative in a drugs test she took after a leaked video last week showed her dancing exuberantly and drinking at a party at which unsubstantiated reports claimed drugs may have been circulating.
The test was taken on 19 August and found no narcotics, the government said in a statement on Monday. It provided no details of what kind of test was used or what it screened for, but it said the prime minister would pay for it herself.
Continue reading...FSB claims Ukraine’s special services carried out car bomb attack on daughter of ultra-nationalist
Russia has accused Ukraine’s intelligence services of carrying out the murder of Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue, raising fears of a violent retaliation.
Dugina was killed on Saturday evening when a bomb blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving, Russian investigators said.
Continue reading...Wartime leader survived most serious of many assassination attempts 60 years ago in Paris suburb
On 22 August 1962, France’s wartime leader Charles de Gaulle survived what would be the most serious of 30 attempts on his life. De Gaulle and his wife, Yvonne, were being driven through a Paris suburb for a flight from Villacoublay military airport, eight miles from the Élysée Palace.
The presidential couple were on their way back to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, their country home about halfway between the French capital and Strasbourg in the east. They were travelling in a black Citroën DS, followed by an escort vehicle and two motorcycle police officers on Triumph bikes.
Continue reading...Minister condemns ‘shocking’ games inspired by reality TV show at Fresnes prison, south of Paris
France’s justice ministry is under pressure to explain why it signed off on games inspired by reality TV at the country’s second largest prison.
The political row erupted after a 25-minute video of prisoners at Fresnes jail taking part in go-karting and other challenges in the prison courtyard appeared on YouTube. The prison games were called Kohlantess – a play on Les aventuriers de Koh-Lanta, a French reality TV show based on the Survivor format.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest stories below:
News agency AFP has posted a graphic showing the economic indicators impacted by Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine.
The charts show the soaring cost of natural gas, a forecasted fall in global economic growth, the increased price of commodities and skyrocketing forecasted inflation.
Continue reading...