Category Archives: Europe

Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul prepare for Mediterranean tsunami

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Risk of significant tsunami within next 30 years is nearly 100%, Unesco says, as it urges coastal cities to become ‘tsunami-ready’

A tsunami could soon hit major cities on or near the Mediterranean Sea including Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul, with a nearly 100% chance of a wave reaching more than a metre high in the next 30 years, according to Unesco.

The risk of a tsunami in Mediterranean coastal communities is predicted to soar as sea levels rise. While communities in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, where most tsunamis occur, were often aware of the dangers, it was underestimated in other coastal regions, including the Mediterranean, Unesco said.

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Vienna reclaims title of the world’s most liveable city

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Annual rankings return Austria’s capital to first place, as former title-holder Auckland tumbles to 34th and Ukraine war sees eastern cities slump

The Austrian capital, Vienna, has made a comeback as the world’s most liveable city, according to an annual report from the Economist.

Vienna snatched the top spot from New Zealand city Auckland, which tumbled down to 34th place due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions, according to the report by the Economist intelligence unit published on Thursday.

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French MP sued for allegedly adopting aristocratic family’s name

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Emmanuel Taché de la Pagerie, a member of Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, faces legal action by descendants of the Tascher de la Pagerie family

A newly elected MP for Marine Le Pen’s resurgent far-right National Rally party has been sued by the descendants of one of France’s oldest aristocratic families who accuse him of adding their name to his own.

Emmanuel Taché de la Pagerie, 47, was one of dozens of National Rally MPs voted into the National Assembly on Sunday, with his official ID verified and approved by the local authorities in the southern city of Marseille.

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British man facing death sentence in Donetsk told: ‘Time is running out’

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Aiden Aslin has been told his execution in Russian-occupied Ukraine will be carried out, his family say

A British man sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court for fighting in Ukraine has been told the execution will be carried out, his family have said.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were sentenced on charges of “terrorism” by a court that is not internationally recognised earlier this month in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

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Finland’s armed forces chief says his country is prepared for a Russian attack and ready to fight – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

One of the leaders of the authorities imposed in occupied Ukraine has described the border between Russia and Ukraine as “worse than the Berlin Wall for the Germans”, according to a report from RIA Novosti.

It quotes Vladimir Rogov saying:

For us, the border with Russia is worse than the Berlin Wall for the Germans. According to various estimates, 60-68 per cent of the inhabitants of East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic [East Germany] had relatives in West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany]. In Ukraine, depending on the region, 73-85 percent residents have relatives in Russia. Accordingly, this border should not exist.

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Russia bears down on Lysychansk, targeting police and judicial buildings

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Moscow’s troops move on to city neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, after capturing all but chemical plant there

Sievierodonetsk and its neighbouring city, Lysychansk, continue to be battered by intense Russian shelling as Moscow edges closer to seizing the last pocket of resistance in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.

Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Wednesday that Russian forces were moving towards Lysychansk, targeting the buildings of police, state security and prosecutors.

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US woman left traumatised after Malta hospital refuses life-saving abortion

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‘Desperate’ tourist who fell foul of country’s total ban fears for her life if complications set in while she waits for transfer to UK

Doctors have denied an American woman on holiday in Malta a potentially life-saving abortion, despite saying her baby had a “zero chance” of survival after she was admitted to hospital with severe bleeding in her 16th week of pregnancy.

Despite an “extreme risk” of haemorrhage and infection, doctors at the Mater Dei hospital in Msida told Andrea Prudente that they would not perform a termination because of the country’s total ban on abortion.

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Drone crashes into Russian oil refinery in possible attack

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Video shared on social media shows an explosion at the Novoshakhtinsk plant

Dramatic footage has emerged from Russia of what appears to be a drone crashing into an oil refinery and setting off a fiery explosion in what could be an attack inside Russia’s borders.

Video shared on social media showed the unmanned aerial vehicle crashing into the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, in Rostov, in what would be an embarrassing penetration of Russia’s air defence systems in its ongoing war in Ukraine.

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EU plan to halve use of pesticides in ‘milestone’ legislation to restore ecosystems

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Proposals – the first in 30 years to tackle catastrophic wildlife loss in Europe – include legally binding targets for land, rivers and sea

For the first time in 30 years, legislation has been put forward to address catastrophic wildlife loss in the EU. Legally binding targets for all member states to restore wildlife on land, rivers and the sea were announced today, alongside a crackdown on chemical pesticides.

In a boost for UN negotiations on halting and reversing biodiversity loss, targets released by the European Commission include reversing the decline of pollinator populations and restoring 20% of land and sea by 2030, with all ecosystems to be under restoration by 2050. The commission also proposed a target to cut the use of chemical pesticides in half by 2030 and eradicate their use near schools, hospitals and playgrounds.

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Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

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Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

The US government has warned that Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally axe some of the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements protocol was a matter of continuing concern and “not conducive” to a trade deal.

Senior officials have hit back at suggestions that the lack of public commentary by the Biden administration meant it was not troubled by the move to bring in new laws to ditch part of the Brexit deal signed in 2020.

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Brexit is making cost of living crisis worse, new study claims

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EU withdrawal fuelling higher import costs and costing British workers nearly £500 a year, says Resolution Foundation

Britain’s cost of living crisis is being made worse by Brexit dragging down the country’s growth potential and costing workers hundreds of pounds a year in lost pay, new research claims.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank and academics from the London School of Economics said the average worker in Britain was now on course to suffer more than £470 in lost pay each year by 2030 after rising living costs are taken into account, compared with a remain vote in 2016.

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Europe and UK pour 17,000 tons of cooking oil into vehicles a day

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Analysis finds 58% of rapeseed oil in Europe is burned for fuel despite soaring prices and climate impact

Europe and the UK are pouring 17,000 tons – or about 19 million bottles – of cooking oil into vehicle fuel tanks every day, even though it is up to two-and-a-half times more expensive than before 2021, according to new analysis.

The equivalent of another 14 million bottles a day of palm and soy oil – mostly from Indonesia and South America – is also burned for fuel, the research says.

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Wrist-worn trackers can detect Covid before symptoms, study finds

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Sensor tech can alert wearer to Covid early, helping to prevent onward transmission

Health trackers worn on the wrist could be used to spot Covid-19 days before any symptoms appear, according to researchers.

Growing numbers of people worldwide use the devices to monitor changes in skin temperature, heart and breathing rates. Now a new study shows that this data could be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose Covid-19 even before the first tell-tale signs of the disease appear.

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Italy: foreign minister leaves 5-Star to form new group backing PM

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Luigi Di Maio’s move comes after he accused 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte of undermining government support for Ukraine

Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio has announced that he is leaving the 5-Star Movement to form a new parliamentary group backing the government of prime minister Mario Draghi.

Di Maio’s move comes after he accused 5-Star leader and former prime minister Giuseppe Conte of undermining government efforts to support Ukraine and weakening Rome’s standing within the EU.

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Tokyo mayoral win a ‘huge surprise’ for candidate living in Belgium

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Japanese national Satoko Kishimoto won ward of 500,000 people 5,800 miles away with online campaigning

A Japanese woman living in Belgium has been elected as mayor of a district in Tokyo after coming to prominence through her online campaigning during the Covid pandemic.

Satoko Kishimoto, 47, who has lived in the Belgian city of Leuven with her husband and children for a decade, is now mayor of Suginami city, a ward of 500,000 people, more than 5,800 miles away from her home.

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Covid surges across Europe as experts warn not let guard down

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Calls grow for greater measures against wave of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in countries from Spain to Denmark

Multiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections, as experts warn that with almost all restrictions lifted and booster take-up often low, cases could soar throughout the summer leading to more deaths.

According to the Our World in Data scientific aggregator, the rolling seven-day average of confirmed new cases per million inhabitants is on the rise in countries including Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark.

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Russian forces capture settlements near Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Reuters reports the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, has said at an economic conference in Qatar that his country is committed to joining Nato, but must solve its territorial problems with Russia first.

Georgia is sandwiched between Russia in the north, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to its south. The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are internationally recognised as part of Georgia’s territory, although a handful of states, including Russia, officially recognise them.

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US volunteer fighters captured in Ukraine could face death penalty, says Russia

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Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, from Alabama have been taken into detention in Donetsk

The Kremlin has said that two captured US volunteers are not covered by the Geneva conventions and could face the death penalty.

The remarks were made by Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, following claims in the Russian media that two of three US volunteers missing in Ukraine had been captured and were being held by pro-Russian separatist forces.

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MP whose murder sparked Irish civil war to get Commons plaque

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Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated by IRA gunmen 100 years ago and then all but forgotten

On 22 June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, an army field marshal turned MP, unveiled a plaque to railway employees who had died in the first world war before returning to his stately home in Belgravia, central London.

He was a distinctive figure – tall, in uniform, with a facial scar that had earned him a nickname as the “ugliest man in the British army”.

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‘He’s been betrayed’: sister of Moroccan man captured in Ukraine pleads for help

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Brahim Saadoun’s sister Iman says marine sentenced to death by Russian proxies has been abandoned by his own government

The sister of Brahim Saadoun, the Moroccan man who was captured while serving in the Ukrainian military, has said she feared he has been abandoned by his own government and has called on the international community to “claim my brother”.

“I just want any authority, anybody who is willing to help, to come and help,” Iman Saadoun said in an interview with the Guardian, describing being left in limbo while seeking government support for him.

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