Boris Johnson allies seize on Tobias Ellwood’s comments to say Brexit would not be safe with rebel Tories
A Tory MP and arch critic of Boris Johnson has sparked a backlash from Brexiters after suggesting Britain rejoin the EU’s single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.
Tobias Ellwood’s comments were seized upon by allies of the prime minister as evidence that deposing Johnson would threaten the country’s more distant relationship with Brussels.
Continue reading...Analysis: the long-delayed US deal offers just four systems that will take weeks to become operational, suggesting concerns about imposing a heavy defeat on Putin
The US decision to supply Ukraine with high-precision multiple launch rocket systems was marked with some fanfare in Washington including a rare newspaper commentary by Joe Biden himself.
The Himars (High mobility artillery rocket system) and the ammunition that Washington is sending with them, will allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets nearly 80km away with high accuracy. That’s twice the range of the US howitzers they have now, and about the same as the most powerful Russian rocket systems. US officials suggested they would help turn the withering artillery duel underway in the Donbas into a fairer fight.
Continue reading...US president claims supply of rockets move will enable Ukraine ‘to more precisely strike key targets’; Ukraine’s president says 500 wounded each day
Away from the war in their homeland, Ukraine’s men’s football team are competing for a place in this year’s Fifa World Cup in Qatar. Nick Ames writes for us:
When Ukraine face Scotland at Hampden Park tonight it will be less a rebirth than a reminder that, much as Russia might wish to erase the country’s cultural identity, its football heritage remains truly alive. The act of playing for a World Cup place on Wednesday night, and over the next five days if all goes well, is both one of defiance and of expectation that, despite everything, good things can lie ahead.
Continue reading...Exit polls show majority of voters in favour of removing opt-out after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Denmark appears poised to join the EU’s common defence policy, becoming the last of the bloc’s members to sign up, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape Europe’s security landscape.
Exit polls published as polling stations closed showed 69% of voters in favour of removing an opt-out to the EU’s common security and defence policy (CSDP). Thirty-one per cent of voters opposed the measure.
Continue reading...Supporters of both teams sing Ukrainian national anthem before Wednesday night’s World Cup qualifier in Glasgow
Standing on the steps of Hampden in the late afternoon sunlight, Jim Struthers is wearing the same Scotland top he wore in 1998 – the last time his team qualified for the World Cup – but his heart is with Ukraine.
“It’s a very poignant evening,” says the Tartan Army stalwart, who has been supporting the Scottish national team for nearly half a century, and has come together with other fans to perform the Ukrainian national anthem – led by the opera singer Vasyl Savenko – on the steps of the Glasgow stadium as the crowds stream in for Wednesday’s qualifier.
Continue reading...European Commission to decide whether Poland has met requirements to reform its legal system
The European Commission has approved a long-delayed Covid recovery plan for Poland, overriding concerns that Warsaw is making cosmetic changes to its heavily criticised legal system to unlock EU cash.
The commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, is expected to sign the agreement in Warsaw on Thursday, although Poland will have to initiate further judicial reforms to access €35.4bn (£30bn) in recovery grants and loans.
Continue reading...Lawyers for bereaved relatives say ‘serious failings’ in rescue operation may have contributed to deaths
The government has agreed to launch a full investigation into the drowning of at least 27 people trying to cross the Channel in a small boat last November.
The decision by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to agree to what is known as an article 2 inquiry – an independent investigation – is revealed in correspondence between his lawyers and eight relatives of 11 of the victims.
Continue reading...Washington says it has assurances as Moscow warns supply risks ‘third country’ being drawn into war
Ukraine has promised Washington it will not use advanced rocket systems supplied by the US to hit targets inside Russian territory, as Moscow warned that the move risked a “third country” being drawn into the war.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that after Joe Biden’s agreement to provide Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems, Ukraine had “given us assurances that they will not use these systems against targets on Russian territory”.
Continue reading...Mayor of besieged Ukrainian city tells residents to stay in cellars as Russian forces advance ‘block by block’
Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.
Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.
Continue reading...Political foe of Russian president Vladimir Putin was already sentenced to nine-year term earlier this year
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is facing new criminal accusations that could extend his current prison term by 15 years.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Navalny said an investigator had visited him in prison to declare that the authorities had opened a new investigation against him on charges of “creating an extremist group to fan hatred against officials and oligarchs” and trying to stage unsanctioned rallies.
Continue reading...Gazprom raises stakes in sanctions war after EU move to embargo most Russian oil imports and companies miss deadline to pay in roubles
Russia has further cut off gas supplies to Europe, after state energy giant Gazprom turned off the taps to a top Dutch trader and halted flows to some companies in Denmark and Germany.
The intensification of the economic battle on Tuesday over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine follows the EU’s overnight decision to place an embargo on most Russian oil imports as part of its financial sanctions against the Kremlin.
Continue reading...Estonian PM says gas sanctions would be more difficult because it would affect whole of Europe
EU leaders suggested Russian gas was unlikely to be part of the next round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine, hours after agreeing a historic but incomplete oil embargo.
After nearly a month of wrangling, the EU agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of the year, with an exemption for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. These landlocked central European countries, heavily dependent on Russian oil, can continue being supplied via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline for an indeterminate period.
Continue reading...A draft bill also requires companies to use a freephone number available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Exasperated by hanging endlessly on the telephone to speak to a human being at a call centre? Spain aims to end the anguish by requiring companies to respond to customers within three minutes.
The government has approved a draft bill setting the three-minute limit and giving consumers the right to speak to a person, not a chatbot, the consumer rights minister Alberto Garzón said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Officers say 700-year-old artefact worth €650,000 was transported from Stuttgart on behalf of driver’s employer
Swiss customs authorities have discovered an antique Japanese samurai sword made nearly 700 years ago, after it was smuggled into the country.
The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security said the katana sword, dated to 1353 and valued at €650,000 (£550,000), was found in a car with Swiss plates during a routine search near Zurich. Several other objects were also found in the car, including an antique book, a contract and the sales invoice.
Continue reading...German rockers’ most famous song now includes lyrics: ‘Now listen to my heart / It says Ukrainia’
The lead singer of German hard rockers Scorpions has revealed he changed the lyrics of Wind of Change because he no longer wanted to “romanticise Russia” with his chart-topping perestroika power ballad, after Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
“To sing Wind of Changeas we have always sung it, that’s not something I could imagine any more,” Klaus Meine told Die Zeit. “It simply isn’t right to romanticise Russia with lyrics like: ‘I follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park … Let your balalaika sing’”.
Continue reading...Ukraine president calls bombing of major chemical plant ‘madness’; Gazprom halts gas flows to companies in three western European countries
Oleg Kryuchkov, who is an advisor to the Russian-appointed government in annexed Crimea, has told the RIA Novosti news agency that the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have switched to using Russian mobile communications and internet networks. It quotes him saying:
Another terrorist attack in Kyiv brought down communications in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Russia played ahead of the curve. In the liberated territories, it is now exclusively Russian internet and communications. In fact, this is the end of Ukrainian propaganda, Zelenskiy’s towers of lies have fallen.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Lawyers to target assets of Russian state, military contractors and affiliated business figures across globe
A consortium of Ukrainian and international lawyers is preparing to launch a mass civil legal action against the Russian state, as well as private military contractors and businesspeople backing the Russian war effort, in an attempt to gain financial compensation for millions of Ukrainian victims of the war, the Guardian can reveal.
The team, made up of hundreds of lawyers and several major law firms, plans to bring “multiple actions in different jurisdictions against different targets”, including the UK and the US, said Jason McCue, a London-based lawyer who is coordinating the initiative, in an interview in Kyiv.
Continue reading...Landlocked state is pursuing neutrality despite neighbours’ efforts to create triangle of anti-western cooperation
Mongolia, a squeezed outpost of democracy in north-east Asia, is under renewed pressure from its authoritarian neighbours, Russia and China, to shed its independence and form a triangle of anti-western cooperation in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
The country is doggedly pursuing a path of neutrality, coupled with a policy of economic diversification designed to keep its unique culture and still relatively recent independence alive, according Nomin Chinbat, its culture secretary.
Continue reading...Government officials must replace words such as ‘e-sports’ and ‘streaming’ with approved French versions
French officials on Monday continued their centuries-long battle to preserve the purity of the language, overhauling the rules on using English video game jargon.
While some expressions find obvious translations – “pro-gamer” becomes “joueur professionnel” – others seem a more strained, as “streamer” is transformed into “joueur-animateur en direct”.
Continue reading...Some 75% of imports will be banned and Sberbank ejected from Swift but Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia to keep supplies
The European Union has agreed to an embargo on most Russian oil imports after late-night talks at a summit in Brussels.
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, hailed the deal as a “remarkable achievement”, after tweeting on Monday night that sanctions will immediately impact 75% of Russian oil imports, “cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine”.
Continue reading...