Category Archives: Europe

Boris Johnson warned NI protocol ‘rule-breaking’ will repeat mistakes of Partygate

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Tory tensions high over risk of illegality in imminent bill to improve trade between Northern Ireland and rest of UK

Boris Johnson is being warned that he will repeat the mistakes of Partygate by backing “rule-breaking over the rule of law”, when he publishes plans on Monday that are expected to prompt a new Tory rebellion over Brexit.

Frantic legal and political negotiations have been taking place this week among Johnson, his cabinet and MPs in advance of the government’s bill designed to improve trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The legislation will be published on Monday.

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Greek pilot jailed for murdering British wife ‘fears contract killing’

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Babis Anagnostopoulos claims he is living in fear from those he initially blamed for Caroline Crouch’s death

The Greek helicopter pilot given a life sentence for the brutal murder of his British wife in Athens last year claims to be living in fear of those he initially blamed for the crime.

Weeks after being found guilty of suffocating Caroline Crouch, Babis Anagnostopoulos has said his own life is in danger because he has become the target of a “contract killing”.

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EU will likely grant Ukraine candidate status to join bloc, says Ursula von der Leyen

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pushing for rapid admission, and says the decision will determine the future of Europe

The EU executive will next week make a recommendation on whether Ukraine should be given candidate status to join the bloc, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said.

Such a recommendation would be a preliminary step on a long road to full membership, and Ukraine would need the backing of all 27 EU governments before candidate status was given. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been pushing for rapid admission into the EU to provide the country with more security since the Russian invasion.

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Sanctions are hitting hard enough to hurt Russia, if not stop it

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Analysis: the assault in Ukraine continues, but it seems clear that real damage is being done to Putin’s economy

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Sanctions have affected many aspects of life in Russia, but one particular shortage has sent the wealthy elite into a spin: beauty clinics are running out of Botox.

The business daily newspaper Kommersant reported this month that Botox imports saw a threefold drop to 74,500 units in the period between January and March compared with the same time last year, after one western manufacturer stopped exporting to Russia.

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Family of UK man sentenced to death by Russia call for cooperation

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Shaun Pinner’s loved ones ‘devastated’ after he received verdict alongside Aiden Aslin in what UK calls a ‘sham’ sentence

The family of a British man sentenced to death for fighting Russian forces have said they are “devastated” and called for “urgent cooperation” to secure his release.

Shaun Pinner, 48, received the death penalty, along with fellow Briton Aiden Aslin, this week in what the UK government has branded a “sham” sentencing.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Scholz, Macron and Draghi to visit Kyiv; fierce fighting continues in Sievierodonetsk – live

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German, French and Italian leaders to meet with Zelenskiy ahead of G7 summit in June; Ursula von der Leyen says EU decision to come within days

Returning to Kyiv on Saturday for a meeting with Ukrainian president Zelenskiy, she said they will discuss Ukraine’s reconstruction and progress towards European Union membership.

Russian air defence forces have shot down three Ukrainian war planes, according to the country’s defence ministry.

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‘The return of banditry’: Russian car industry buckles under sanctions

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Prices have spiralled out control since invasion of Ukraine as market struggles to adapt

Eldar Gadzhiev’s heart sank when he heard the sputtering from the engine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four cars that he leases as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a terrible and expensive time for a breakdown.

Prices for spare parts, if you even could find them, had spiralled out of control since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two months earlier. “I understood that I was in a bad situation,” he said. “I thought: the repairs are going to cost as much as the car.”

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Report highlights ‘multiple failures’ in handling of Champions League final

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  • French government release 30-page report on systemic failures
  • Liverpool fans were attacked outside Stade de France in May

A French government report into the problems at the Champions League final has highlighted “multiple failures” in the management of the crowd in Paris.

The 30-page report, handed to the prime minister’s office on Friday, focused on systemic failures and “the presence of malevolent individuals” in the vicinity of the stadium. Large numbers of Liverpool fans have reported being attacked and having possessions stolen outside the Stade de France.

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National Museum of Slovenia cancels art exhibition over alleged fakes

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Show claiming to feature works by Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso abruptly cancelled as police launch investigation

An exhibition in Slovenia claiming to feature works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Matisse was abruptly cancelled this week over fears some works were forged, prompting a police probe on Friday.

The National Museum of Slovenia planned to officially open the show on Wednesday this week, entitled “Travels” and featuring 160 paintings owned by the little-known Boljkovac family.

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Prosecutors ask for life sentences for 12 men at Paris attacks trial

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France’s biggest ever criminal trial enters final weeks, with prosecutors expressing regret about unanswered questions

French prosecutors have called for life sentences for 12 of the 20 men suspected of key roles in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks on a stadium, bars and restaurants and a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall.

As the biggest criminal trial ever held in France entered its final weeks, prosecutors summed up the evidence and regretted that there were still key, unanswered questions about the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people and injured more than 490.

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Draft legislation on overriding Northern Ireland protocol to be published next week

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Draft legislation to be issued Monday, as Keir Starmer promises a Labour government would repeal law if it passes

Legislation to disapply parts of the Northern Ireland protocol will be published next week, but senior government sources acknowledge it is going to be a “difficult” process to get it through parliament.

The new laws are aimed at unilaterally changing parts of the protocol to make trade easier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but critics say overriding the post-Brexit treaty could contravene international law.

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Cholera warning from Mariupol mayor – as it happened

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This blog is closed. You can catch up on the week in Ukraine here. Live coverage will resume later.

The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss will raise the case of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, the two British men sentenced to death by a pro-Russian court in occupied Ukraine, when she speaks to Ukraine’s foreign secretary Dmytro Kuleba later today, PA Media reports.

Truss has already called it a “sham judgement” and insisted it has “absolutely no legitimacy”.

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We’re almost out of ammunition and relying on western arms, says Ukraine

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Exclusive: Deputy head of military intelligence says it’s an artillery war now and ‘everything depends on what the west gives us’

Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now almost solely reliant on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay.

“This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”.

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Putin compares himself to Peter the Great in quest to take back Russian lands

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President draws parallel with tsar who waged war on Sweden and says campaign in Ukraine stems from Russia’s ‘basic values’

Russian president Vladimir Putin has paid tribute to tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands.

“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s],” Putin said on Thursday after a visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.

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Russian invasion is ‘Covid-22’ and arms are a vaccine, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy

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Ukrainian president pleads for more outside help in speech at gala to honour Time’s most influential people

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has compared Russia’s invasion to Covid and described weapons and sanctions as a vaccine, as Ukraine’s military position in Donbas worsens.

The Ukrainian president, speaking via video link at a gala to celebrate Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year, lobbied again for more outside help because “the Ukrainian military are dying on the battlefield”.

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Ukrainian troops plead for more artillery to offset Russia’s firepower in 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

Former Danish prime minister and former secretary general of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has been speaking on Sky News in the UK. He is currently running the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, which tomorrow will focus on the situation in Ukraine. He said:

The Ukrainian people are actually fighting on behalf of all of us, and we must stop Putin otherwise he will not stop. He will continue to conquer peaceful neighbours if he isn’t stopped in Ukraine.

Silence in Sievierodonetsk lasts only when guns are reloaded. Street fights continue in the regional centre.

Russians adhere to their primitive tactics: heavy artillery fire, then - attempts to break through. The same thing happened in the already destroyed Rubizhne and Popasna.

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Britons sentenced to death after ‘show trial’ in Russian-occupied Ukraine

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Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner were captured while fighting in Ukrainian army

Pro-Russia officials have sentenced to death two British men and a Moroccan national captured while fighting in the Ukrainian army in Mariupol.

A court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine convicted Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner after a days-long process that observers have called a “disgusting Soviet era show trial” meant to imitate war crimes trials against Russian soldiers in Kyiv.

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Irish exorcist calls for extra help for people oppressed by evil spirits

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Fr Pat Collins says there is urgent need for ‘deliverance ministry’ amid ‘crisis of meaning’ in Ireland

The appeal for help sounds like it was channelled from the TV show Stranger Things. “Exorcist: trained teams needed in parishes to fight evil spirits.”

It is, however, the splash headline in this week’s Irish Catholic, Ireland’s biggest-selling religious newspaper.

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