Michael Rowell, 34, from Hampshire is thought to have slipped on to rocks in Alps while skiing with friend
An experienced British skier fell to his death while attempting to traverse an off-piste slope with a friend in the French Alps, an inquest heard.
Michael Rowell, 34, from Farnborough, Hampshire, who had skied since he was five, is thought to have slipped and fallen 24 metres (80ft) from an edge on to rocks.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor plans to run for senator with Eurosceptic party ISP, saying she is ‘fed up with quarrelling politicians’
The Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida has said she is running in general elections next month because she is “fed up with quarrelling politicians”.
Lollobrigida, who turned 95 in July, is endeavouring to become a senator with the Sovereign and Popular Italy party (ISP), a new Eurosceptic, anti-Mario-Draghi political alliance that opposes sending arms to Ukraine and “warmongering Atlanticism”.
Continue reading...Experts say drought and extreme high temperatures likely to make it a record year for destruction by fires
Across Europe, an area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium has been ravaged by flames as successive searing heatwaves and a historic drought propel the continent towards what experts say is likely to be a record year for wildfire destruction.
According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), 659,541 hectares (1.6m acres) of land burned across the continent between January and mid-August, the most at this time of year since records began in 2006.
Continue reading...Data shows just 43,000 EU citizens received visas for work, family, study or other purposes in 2021
The number of EU citizens moving to the UK has plunged since Brexit closed the doors to low-paid workers, according to a report.
The dramatic decline in migration from the EU has hit hospitality and support services hard. But the Migration Observatory (MO) at the University of Oxford and ReWage, a group of independent experts, have said that while Brexit “exacerbated” chronic labour shortages in Britain, it was not the only cause.
Continue reading...Young 600kg female had been basking in waters of Norway’s capital and attracting crowds who disturbed her rest
A walrus nicknamed Freya that attracted crowds while basking in the sun in the Oslo fjord has been euthanised.
“The decision to euthanise was taken on the basis of a global evaluation of the persistent threat to human security,” the head of Norway’s fisheries directorate, Frank Bakke-Jensen, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Russian state-owned firm delivering more gas through TurkStream pipeline than ‘contractually obliged’
Gazprom has ramped up flows to Hungary through the TurkStream pipeline that transports gas via Bulgaria and Serbia, a Hungarian foreign ministry official has said.
The Russian state-owned company started delivering more gas than it was contractually obliged to on Friday, Menczer Tamás, an official in Hungary’s ministry of foreign affairs and trade, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Continue reading...Petition accuses Frontex of violating European standards by using contractor that offers low wages
The EU border agency Frontex has been accused of exploiting staff by using a contractor who it is claimed offers interpreters an effective wage of less than €2.50 (£2.11) an hour.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, the EU’s best-funded agency with a budget of €754m, is being petitioned by interpreters who work with vulnerable asylum seekers in places such as Greece, Italy and the Canary Islands.
Continue reading...Ukraine president says soldiers firing from Zaporizhzhia facility will become a ‘special target’; main bridges to Russian-occupied territory in Kherson likely to be unusable, says British military intelligence
People in the eastern Ukrainian town of Rubizhne have started exhuming bodies that were hastily buried in courtyards at the height of battle, anxious to be able to lay them to rest with dignity.
Rubizhne is part of the Luhansk region of Ukraine where Russian forces established full control in early July, more than four months after president Vladimir Putin launched what he called his “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Csaba Vasvári’s claims of ‘overreach’ follow freeze on EU funds over concerns about judicial independence
Viktor Orbán’s government is “constantly overreaching” its authority to sway the courts, a senior judge has said, in an intervention that will deepen alarm about the rule of law in Hungary.
In rare comments that lift the lid on the Hungarian government’s assault on judicial checks and balances, Csaba Vasvári, a senior judge at the Budapest metropolitan court, told the Observer that he and his colleagues on the bench “have been witnessing external and internal influence attempts” for several years. Vasvári, who has worked as a judge for 18 years, is a spokesperson for the National Judicial Council, a self-governing body that has been battling to defend judges’ independence for more than a decade.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy vows troops based at Europe’s largest nuclear plant will become ‘special targets’
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said his forces will target Russian soldiers who shoot at or from Europe’s largest nuclear power station, amid warnings that the Kremlin may falsely claim Kyiv has directly struck the critical site.
Zelenskiy said anyone giving orders for attacks on the site or nearby towns and cities should face trial by an international court, as concern about the safety of the nuclear site remained high.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy warns Russian troops against shooting from nuclear plant; blasts heard in Melitopol; Ukraine claims to have shot down Russian fighter jet
Ukraine says it will target Russian soldiers who shoot at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant or use it as a base to shoot from, as both sides again accused the other of shelling the facility. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian soldiers who shot at the plant or used it as cover would become a “special target”, Reuters reported. He repeated accusations that Moscow was using the plant – Europe’s largest – as nuclear blackmail. The exiled mayor of the town where the plant is located in south-eastern Ukraine said it had come under fresh shelling.
An explosion was heard in the north-eastern part of Melitopol, the mayor of the city, Ivan Fedorov, Melitopol, posted on Telegram. “We’re waiting for good news about Russian losses,” he added. The city, which is east of the Dnipro river and north-east of the Crimean peninsula, has been occupied since March.
The two primary road bridges giving access to the pocket of Russian-occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro in Ukraine’s Kherson region are now probably out of use for the purposes of substantial Russian military resupply, British military intelligence said on Saturday, which the UK’s defence ministry has described as a key vulnerability.
The number of fatalities after a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, has grown to three, the Kyiv Post reports. It cites a report by Ukrinform giving the Kramatorsk mayor, Oleksandr Honcharenko, as the source.
The US has said it is concerned by reports of British, Swedish and Croatian nationals being charged by “illegitimate authorities” in eastern Ukraine. “Russia and its proxies have an obligation to respect international humanitarian law, including the right and protections afforded to prisoners of war,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said.
Russia has warned the US that potentially placing Russia on the US State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism could be a diplomatic “point of no return”, and trigger a total breakdown of relations between the two countries.
The Ukrainian military has reportedly shot down a Russian fighter jet, as well as four Russian drones, over the past day, according to Ukrainian media.
Two Russian missiles hit Kharkiv overnight on Saturday, the region’s governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on national television. He said there were no casualties but one missile damaged a technical college while the other landed in a residential area, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Saturday the war could only end with the return of the Crimea peninsula and the punishment of the Russian leaders who ordered the military invasion.
Russian forces have taken full control of Pisky, a village on the outskirts in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Interfax cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Saturday. Ukraine’s military command said later that “fierce fighting” continued in the village.
Ukraine’s health minister has accused Russian authorities of committing a crime against humanity by blocking access to affordable medicines and hospitals in occupied areas.
The Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has again complained that the lack of comprehensive Schengen zone travel restrictions for Russians puts an “unfair” burden on countries neighbouring Russia, reiterating calls on the European Union to introduce visa bans for Russian nationals.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry warns US not to place Russia on its list of state sponsors of terrorism
Ukrainian president Zelenskiy’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Saturday the war could only end with the return of the Crimea peninsula and the punishment of the Russian leaders who ordered the military invasion, saying on Twitter:
The Kyiv Independent reports that the Ukrainian military has shot down a Russian fighter jet, as well as four Russian drones.
Continue reading...Transferring critically endangered species within Europe to broaden the gene pool is more difficult with Britain outside the EU
Breeding programmes designed to save critically endangered species are being jeopardised by Brexit, with zoos warning they are being prevented from transferring animals such as rhinos and giraffes by red tape created by the UK’s departure from the EU.
The animal health regulation was passed in 2016 before the EU referendum, but came into force in April 2021. There have been no reports that the UK dissented from the regulation.
Continue reading...Crops, power plants, barge traffic, industry and fish populations devastated by parched waterways
In places, the Loire can now be crossed on foot; France’s longest river has never flowed so slowly. The Rhine is fast becoming impassable to barge traffic. In Italy, the Po is 2 metres lower than normal, crippling crops. Serbia is dredging the Danube.
Across Europe, drought is reducing once-mighty rivers to trickles, with potentially dramatic consequences for industry, freight, energy and food production – just as supply shortages and price rises due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine bite.
Continue reading...Strong gusts hit the Medusa electronic music festival in Cullera south of Valencia in the early hours of Saturday
One person was killed and dozens were injured when high winds caused part of a stage to collapse at a dance music festival near the Spanish city of Valencia in the early hours of Saturday, regional emergency services said.
Other infrastructure was also damaged when gusts battered the Medusa festival, a huge electronic music festival held over six days in the east coast town of Cullera, south of Valencia.
Continue reading...Farmers in Auvergne despair as cows cannot be fed on grass left parched by hot summer
Traditional cheese has become the latest casualty of France’s summer drought, as production of the salers variety in the central Auvergne region was halted due to a lack of grass for cows.
Salers is an unpasteurised cow’s cheese that has been made for centuries in central France. It carries France’s appellation d’origine protégée (AOP) stamp of approval, meaning it is unique to the small area where it is produced.
Continue reading...Ukraine claims strike on Russian depot near key southern bridge; UN urges demilitarised zone around Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant amid more shelling
Ukraine’s military said its artillery hit a Russian ammunition depot near a key bridge in the south and added it now had the ability to strike nearly all of Moscow’s supply lines in the occupied region. Reuters reported there was no immediate comment from Russian authorities on the report of the attack in Kherson province, or the purported reach of Ukraine’s firepower.
The UN has urged a demilitarised zone around Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as Russia and Ukraine trade accusations over more shelling. Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said the facility in the country’s south-east had been shelled five times by Russian forces on Thursday, resulting in staff being unable to change shifts. Valentyn Reznichenko, the Dnipropetrovsk region’s governor, reportedly said three civilians – including a boy – were wounded in overnight shelling on Friday in Marhanets, a town opposite the plant.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told government officials to stop talking to reporters about Kyiv’s military tactics against Russia, saying such remarks are “frankly irresponsible”. In the wake of major blasts that wrecked a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday, the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers cited unidentified officials as saying Ukrainian forces were responsible. The government in Kyiv, on the other hand, declined to say whether it had been behind the explosions.
The UK Ministry of Defence has said the explosions at the Russian-operated Saky military airfield in western Crimea earlier in the week were “almost certainly” from the detonation of up to four uncovered munition storage areas, though what set them off remained unclear. At least five Su-24 Fencer fighter-bombers and three Su-30 Flanker H multi-role jets were almost certainly destroyed or seriously damaged in the blasts, according to British intelligence.
The devastation at the Russian air base in Crimea suggests Kyiv may have obtained new long-range strike capability with potential to change the course of the war. The base is well beyond the range of advanced rockets that western countries acknowledge sending to Ukraine so far, with some western military experts saying the scale of the damage and the apparent precision of the strike suggested a powerful new capability with potentially important implications.
Ukraine’s security agencies issued a joint statement calling for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to send representatives to locations where Russia is holding Ukrainian prisoners of war. The request on Friday follows earlier allegations by Kyiv that Moscow’s forces have tortured and executed prisoners, including by staging an explosion in a Ukrainian PoW camp in Olenivka.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that he spoke with Pope Francis on Friday. “Informed about the aggression that the Russian Federation is carrying out against Ukraine, about the terrible crimes of Russia,” the president wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said a shipment of M20 MLRS tanks has arrived in Ukraine. In a tweet, he thanked the UK’s defence minister, Ben Wallace, and British people for the donation, which had been pledged earlier. “Your support is amazing and so important for Ukraine.”
Jose Andres, whose World Central Kitchen group has served more than 130m meals in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February, called for better coordination of food relief efforts ahead of what promises to be a brutal winter. Donations were easing as the war dragged on, he warned, which meant that WCK, which provides short-term emergency relief, must start winding down operations just as cold weather is likely to exacerbate problems facing millions of displaced Ukrainians.
India said on Friday there was no pressure on it from western countries or anywhere else over its energy purchases from Russia, as Indian firms step up imports of oil and coal from the country shunned by others for its invasion of Ukraine. India, the world’s third-biggest crude importer, overtook China to become the biggest buyer of Russian oil in July based on sea-borne volumes, having bought very little from Russia before the start of the war in Ukraine in February.
Continue reading...Man opens fire at random in city of Cetinje, reportedly after a family dispute
Twelve people including the gunman have been killed in a mass shooting in Montenegro, after a man opened fire at random in the city of Cetinje, reportedly after a family dispute.
State television said the 34-year-old gunman had also wounded six people, including a police officer, during the shooting in the Medovina neighbourhood.
Continue reading...Water levels fall to below 40cm on parts of key route for transporting fuel, wheat and other commodities
The levels of the Rhine River fell to a new low on Friday due to the ongoing drought in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, further restricting the distribution of coal, petrol, wheat and other commodities amid a looming energy crisis.
The water level at Kaub near Frankfurt – a key waypoint where the fairway is shallower than elsewhere on the river – was forecast to fall below 40cm on Friday afternoon, the level at which it is no longer economical for many barges to transit the river.
Continue reading...Jaak Daemen helped liberate the Netherlands and capture the German admiral who succeeded Hitler
The last veteran of the Belgian SAS has died aged 97, marking the loss of another living link with the second world war in Europe.
Jaak Daemen, a founder member of the Belgian SAS, which was created in 1944 to carry out sabotage and intelligence gathering behind enemy lines, died earlier this month.
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