Demand at online marketplaces could settle at a new, higher normal, with the crisis leaving consumers ‘scarred’
Car buyers’ interest in electric cars has surged across Europe since the start of the war in Iran, as the rising cost of petrol highlights the cheaper power available from a plug.
Online marketplaces in the UK, Germany, France and Spain reported huge increases in inquiries about electric vehicles since the start of the conflict in February.
Continue reading...Hundreds of officers deployed to regain control of O’Connell Street on sixth day of protests by farmers and hauliers
Police have cleared a blockade of central Dublin by farmers and hauliers who were protesting about fuel prices, signalling a possible end to six days of protests that have rocked Ireland.
Mounted units and hundreds of officers regained control of O’Connell Street in a peaceful operation that emptied the thoroughfare of trucks and tractors on Sunday morning.
Continue reading...Suspect in 40s arrested after man apparently climbed on to USAF C130 Hercules transport plane on remote taxiway in County Clare
A man has been arrested after entering an unauthorised area of an airport in the Republic of Ireland and allegedly causing damage to a US military aircraft, police have said.
The suspect, aged in his 40s, was arrested for alleged criminal damage and remains in custody over the incident on Saturday at Shannon airport in County Clare.
Continue reading...Ukraine reports 469 violations of Putin’s 32-hour ceasefire, hours after deadly drone attacks on Odesa and Kherson
Russia continued to strike Ukrainian positions with drones after a Kremlin-declared Easter ceasefire took effect on Saturday, a Ukrainian military officer said.
“The ceasefire is not being observed by the Russian side,” said Serhii Kolesnychenko, a communications officer for the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade.
Continue reading...Police rescued boy after neighbour reported sounds of a child coming from vehicle in Hagenbach in eastern France
A malnourished nine-year-old boy was rescued after being locked in his father’s van since 2024 in eastern France, a prosecutor said.
A neighbour alerted police to “sounds of a child” coming from a vehicle in the village of Hagenbach, near the borders of Switzerland and Germany.
Continue reading...Former Ukrainian major general says 4kg of material was most likely an attempt to influence Hungary’s election
The amount of explosives discovered in Serbia last week would not have been enough to destroy the Balkan Stream gas pipeline, prompting an expert to conclude it was probably a Russian intelligence plot aimed at influencing Hungary’s impending election.
A former Ukrainian major general and a munitions specialist told the Guardian calculations made by his company showed the 4kg of explosives recovered by Serbia’s military security agency in Kanjiža could not have seriously ruptured the pipe.
Continue reading...Adams was granted citizenship and a passport from Balkan country by a special decree from the republic’s president
Eric Adams has obtained citizenship and a passport from Albania, the Balkan country which received effusive compliments from the former New York City mayor during a visit there relatively recently.
The Albania Daily News first reported on Friday that Adams had requested both and was granted them by a special decree from the republic’s president, Bajram Begaj. A spokesperson for Adams then confirmed that development in a statement distributed to the news media, and it was evidently chronicled in Albania’s official government journal.
Continue reading...Two men and two women were swept away by currents while attempting to board dinghy off French coast
A man has been arrested on suspicion of endangering life after four people died in a small boat Channel crossing on Thursday.
The man, described by prosecutors as a 27-year-old Sudanese national, was arrested by National Crime Agency investigators on Friday.
Continue reading...Vehicle veered into a ravine on island of La Gomera while transporting a tour group for a boat excursion
A man has died and 27 people are in hospital after a bus carrying British passengers crashed in the Canary Islands, local officials have said.
The incident happened at 1.15pm local time on Friday when the vehicle veered into a ravine on the GM-2 highway near the town of San Sebastián de La Gomera.
Continue reading...Summer holidays could be hit unless oil flows through strait of Hormuz recommence within three weeks
Airports have warned that jet fuel could run short within three weeks in Europe if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz, raising concerns over flight cancellations in the UK and EU going into the summer holiday season.
Jet fuel shortages will become so acute without the resumption of supplies from the Middle East that cancellations across Europe will be inevitable, disrupting travel plans for potentially millions of passengers.
Continue reading...Kremlin proposes 32-hour ceasefire starting on Saturday afternoon – with Ukraine expected to agree to plan
Vladimir Putin has declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, after an earlier call from Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause.
The president’s decree, released by the Kremlin on Thursday, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting on 4pm Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday.
Continue reading...Almost 2,000 jobs will be created, with retailer vying to overtake Morrisons as Britain’s fifth largest supermarket
Lidl is to open 50 new UK stores in the year ahead – as well as its first pub – as it aims to overtake Morrisons as the country’s fifth largest supermarket chain.
The German-owned retailer has begun building a pub in east Belfast in response to strict local licensing laws that cap the number of premises that can sell alcohol.
Continue reading...US vice-president said bloc tried to ‘destroy’ country’s economy, despite it being a net recipient of EU funds
During his visit to Budapest, where he heaped praise on the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, days before the country’s decisive election, JD Vance claimed the EU was responsible for “one of the worst examples of election interference” he had ever seen.
Standing alongside Orbán on Tuesday, the US vice-president said: “The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy-independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they’ve done it all because they hate this guy.”
Continue reading...John Healey says warship and aircraft forced Russia to abandon activity in North Sea in month-long operation
A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines trying to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they fled the area, the defence secretary, John Healey, has said.
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.
Continue reading...At least 42 others rescued after incident in strong currents off coast of Boulogne
Two men and two women have died after a small boat sank in the Channel between France and Britain, French local authorities have said.
They died after being swept away by strong currents while trying to board a dinghy, according to François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais. The dinghy was described as a taxi-boat, which travels along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts, picking up refugees and migrants along the shore.
Continue reading...Uncertainty over US-Iran ceasefire pushes price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel
The boss of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company has said the strait of Hormuz is “not open” despite the US-Iran ceasefire agreed earlier this week, as uncertainty over the truce pushed the price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel on Thursday.
Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said passage through the crucial waterway was subject to “permission, conditions and political leverage” by Iran. He said energy security and global economic stability depended on the strait being opened “fully, unconditionally and without restriction”.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president tells podcast he has tried to draw White House’s attention to collaboration between Moscow and Tehran over strikes on US bases
The US has ignored compelling evidence that Russia has been helping Iran to target US bases in the Middle East because it “trusts” Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Speaking in an interview with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics podcast, Zelenskyy said he had tried to draw the White House’s attention to the close collaboration between Moscow and Tehran.
Continue reading...With former ministers and party heavyweights being dragged into court, the country is once again confronting the unresolved legacy of political graft and shady backroom deals
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Easter will not have been a particularly celebratory time for Spain’s two biggest political parties. In a quirk of judicial fate, both the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) and the conservative People’s party (PP) are bracing themselves after two high-profile trials involving former senior figures from each party began in Madrid this week.
Though vastly different, both cases have the potential to seriously dent each party’s claims of having zero-tolerance for corruption as voters in Andalucía, Spain’s most populous autonomous community, prepare for next month’s regional election. That will be followed by a general election next year.
Continue reading...Announcement of deal met with relief and calls for strait of Hormuz to be reopened and permanent end to hostilities
European leaders have welcomed the US-Iran ceasefire deal while calling for the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and a permanent end to hostilities, including in Lebanon.
The US and Iran agreed a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday, including a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz, after last-minute diplomacy from Pakistan. The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was continuing “fighting and ground operations” in its war against the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, despite a statement from Pakistan that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire.
Continue reading...Iran bombed US bases and allies’ facilities soon after Russian satellites mapped them, according to Ukrainian assessment. What we know on day 1,505
Russian satellites made detailed imagery of military facilities and critical sites across the Middle East including US bases and other targets that were attacked by Iran soon afterwards, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment. Reuters reported that the assessment cited at least 24 surveys of areas in 11 Middle Eastern countries from 21-31 March, covering 46 “objects” including US and other military bases and airports and oilfields. Within days of being surveyed, military bases and headquarters were targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, the assessment said.
Russian satellites were actively surveying the strait of Hormuz, according to the Ukrainians. Reuters said a western military source and a separate regional security cited their own intelligence in backing up the claims. Reuters said the Iranian foreign ministry had no immediate comment and the defence ministry in Russia did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters said its regional security source confirmed a specific incident where a Russian satellite imaged Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia days before Iran struck the facility on 27 March, hitting a sophisticated US E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft. The next day a Russian satellite passed over again to assess the damage, the assessment said. The Ukrainian report also alleges Russian and Iranian hackers were collaborating in the cyber domain.
The Ukrainian military said it had struck Russia’s Ust-Luga oil terminal in the Leningrad region on Tuesday. The general staff said on Telegram it had preliminary confirmation of damage to three storage tanks belonging to the Transneft-Baltika company.
Crude oil exports from Russia’s Sheskharis terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk were suspended after a big drone attack and a fire, two sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The terminal, which typically loads 700,000 barrels a day of crude oil, is Russia’s key oil outlet in the Black Sea. Its suspension will add to the strain on Russian infrastructure, which has been repeatedly attacked.
Moscow’s troops targeted two buses in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor, Oleksandr Ganzha, said on Telegram. A drone smashed into a bus approaching a stop in Nikopol’s city centre, he said, and later another bus was hit in a neighbouring community. Four people were killed in Nikopol and at least 16 injured, officials said. In the southern city of Kherson, a Russian attack on a residential area that lasted half an hour killed four elderly people and injured seven more, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. Other deadly Russian strikes took place in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy oblasts, said Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian drone strikes killed five civilians including a 12-year-old boy and his parents in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, Russian officials said on Tuesday. Reuters could not independently verify the officials’ statements, and Ukraine denies deliberately targeting civilians.
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