Norwegian government intervenes in pay row because of ‘great social consequences for whole of Europe’
The Norwegian government has stepped in to end a strike that had threatened supplies of gas to Britain.
The labour dispute had shut down oil and gasfields and was expected to cut Norway’s gas supplies by almost 60% by the weekend.
Continue reading...Complex in Alicante, sanctioned for breaking competition rules, to begin productions later this year
One of Spain’s most notorious and costly white elephants, the Ciudad de la Luz (City of Light) film studios in Alicante, is to get a new lease of life 10 years after it was forced to shut by the EU on grounds of unfair competition.
The Valencian regional government has announced that the studios will reopen, with productions expected to begin later this year. Brussels had banned it from operating until 2027 after production companies, including Pinewood Studios in London, complained that government subsidies broke EU competition rules.
Continue reading...Defence minister announces move as ‘we have no reason to think Russia will change its behaviour’
Latvia is to reinstate compulsory military service amid growing tension with Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The current military system of Latvia has reached its limit. Meanwhile, we have no reason to think that Russia will change its behaviour,” the Latvian defence minister, Artis Pabriks, told reporters on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Sloviansk mayor tells residents to evacuate amid expected increase in Russian bombing
Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhai Haidai, has posted an update to Telegram casting aspersions on the ability of pro-Russian proxies to restore stability in the newly occupied areas of Ukraine. He writes:
In the recently occupied territories, the Russians establish their own rules, talk nonsense about the opening of schools from 1 September, the rapid restoration of communications. This is all a lie, the same thing happened in Mariupol. The only thing the Rashists [a term for Russian fascists] are capable of is terrorising the local population. Orcs [derogatory slang for Russians/pro-Russian forces] are already looking for activists and military families, collaborators are helping with this.
Over these few months, more than 800 saboteurs were detained and handed over to the SBU [Ukrainian security service] for further procedural actions. And often, they are “sold for thirty pieces of silver”: the price for treason to the motherland reaches no more than 300 dollars.
Continue reading...Euro slumps to 20-year low against US dollar as jump in natural gas prices intensifies economic strain
Rising worries about a European recession hit stock markets on Tuesday as the euro slumped to a two-decade low and the pound fell to its lowest since the start of the pandemic.
Shares tumbled in London and across Europe as a jump in natural gas prices intensified the strain on the European economy.
Continue reading...George Degiorgio says he would have asked for bigger payment for murder had he known more about victim
One of the men accused of detonating the car bomb that killed the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has confessed to the crime and said he would have asked for a bigger fee for the murder had he known more about her.
George Degiorgio, who along with his brother Alfred and an associate, Vince Muscat, has been charged with murdering Caruana Galizia in Malta in October 2017, also said he would implicate others in the plot to kill her.
Continue reading...Peak at Sonnblick in Austrian Alps has melted more than a month before previous record time
The snow at the highest observatory in the world to be operated all-year-round is expected to completely melt in the next few days, the earliest time on record.
Scientists at the Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian Central Alps, which is 3,106 metres (10,190ft) above sea level, have been shocked and dismayed to see the snow depleting so quickly.
Continue reading...Belgian justice minister tells MPs if bill not approved threat to Belgian interests will increase
Belgian politicians who support a treaty that would permit the swap of an Iranian diplomat jailed in Belgium for Belgians held prisoner in Tehran have told the treaty’s opponents that “lives are at stake”.
MPs were told during a debate on Tuesday that there were serious risks to Belgians being kept in Iran if they voted against ratifying the treaty, which is set to be a first of its kind among European countries.
Continue reading...Director’s lawyer says prosecutors in Italy are deciding whether to investigate allegation he had sex with a woman without consent
A judge in southern Italy on Monday ordered the film director Paul Haggis released from detention at his hotel while prosecutors decide whether to pursue their investigation of whether he allegedly had sex with a woman without her consent over two days, his lawyer said.
Michele Laforgia told the Associated Press that his client Haggis, who is also a screenwriter and an Academy Award winner, was still in Italy. The ruling was made by Judge Vilma Gilli, based in Puglia, which is the region that forms the “heel” of the Italian peninsula.
Continue reading...Ukraine officials clarify initial confusion as to whether the flag has been raised, saying it is there but will be hoisted only once troops arrive
Ukrainian forces are set to raise the country’s flag on Snake Island, a strategic and symbolic outpost in the Black Sea that Russian troops retreated from last week after months of heavy bombardment.
“The military operation has been concluded, and … the territory, Snake Island, has been returned to the jurisdiction of Ukraine,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, told reporters.
This article and its headline were amended on Tuesday 5 July 2022 to take in the update of when the flag would be raised on Snake Island.
This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Ukrainian media reports an ammunition depot was destroyed in occupied Snizhne in the eastern Donetsk region. Nexta TV has this unverified footage of what it claims to be the incident.
Russian forces hit a secondary school in the Kharkiv district at 4am this morning, according to a report from Oleh Synyehubov, governor of the region. There were no reported casualties.
Continue reading...Labour leader says he will rebuild trust with EU and get ‘a better deal for the British people’
Keir Starmer has thrown Labour back into the Brexit debate by ruling out any return to the single market or customs union, but arguing he could remove trade and travel barriers as prime minister because the EU would trust him.
In a speech on Monday evening that ended Labour’s habitual silence on the subject since the referendum, Starmer pledged to tackle what he called a “fatberg of red tape and bureaucracy” caused by Johnson’s Brexit deal.
Continue reading...Visiting scene, Italian PM says country must take measures to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again
Thunderstorms have hampered the search for more than a dozen hikers who remain unaccounted for a day after a huge chunk of an Alpine glacier in Italy broke off, sending an avalanche of ice, snow and rocks down the slope.
The Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, pledged on Monday night that his government would work to avoid a repeat of the tragedy in which at least seven people were killed.
Continue reading...Region’s governor says loss was painful and he expects Sloviansk and Bakhmut now to face heavy attack
Vladimir Putin has declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and told Russian troops to rest and “increase their combat capabilities”, a day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining stronghold in the province.
Ukraine’s military command confirmed on Sunday evening that its troops had been forced to pull back from the city of Lysychansk in Luhansk, and the regional governor has warned that Russian forces are trying to seize the entire Donetsk region, which, with Luhansk, makes up the industrial heartland of Donbas.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy says process of recovery will allow his country to deepen its links with Europe
The eventual restoration of Ukraine through a $750bn (£620bn) recovery plan is the common task of the entire democratic world, the Ukrainian president said on Monday at the first detailed event to map out a physical future for the country in the event it survives as a western-facing nation after the Russian invasion.
Speaking by video link to a high-level conference in Lugano, Switzerland, attended by many senior Ukrainian politicians, Volodymyr Zelenskiy admitted the task ahead was colossal, claiming the war was a battle of outlooks in which Russia was determined to destroy his country’s physical and moral fabric.
Continue reading...Gunman acted alone and appears to have selected his victims at random, officials in Denmark say
A shooting at a Copenhagen shopping centre in which three people were killed and four others seriously wounded was not terror-related, Danish police have said.
Søren Thomassen, Copenhagen’s chief police inspector, said the gunman, a 22-year-old Danish man who confessed to the shooting on Sunday night, had apparently picked his victims at random when he opened fire at the Field’s shopping centre on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...22-year-old Danish man in custody as police chief says terrorism cannot be ruled out as a motive
Danish police say several people were shot dead and one suspect has been arrested after gunfire rang out at a busy Copenhagen shopping centre, with emergency services rushing to the scene on Sunday evening.
The number or condition of all the people struck by shots was not immediately available amid confusion over what had occurred at one of Scandinavia’s biggest malls.
Continue reading...Ukrainian military command confirms withdrawal of troops from city of Lysychansk to avoid ‘fatal consequences’
Russia has said it is in control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region after taking over Lysychansk, the last Ukrainian-controlled city in the region.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Vladimir Putin on Sunday that their forces had established “full control” over Lysychansk and several nearby settlements, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Continue reading...Authorities say another eight hikers injured following fall of ice, snow and rock on popular trail in Dolomites
At least six people have died after a large chunk of Alpine glacier broke loose and slid down a mountainside in Italy.
The collapse on Sunday afternoon sent ice, snow and rock slamming into hikers on a popular trail on the Marmolada peak, killing at least six and injuring eight, authorities said.
Continue reading...EU approval of slogan deepens rift between rival Nato members as Greeks claim their culture is being usurped
A Turkish effort to lure tourists with a “TurkAegean” promotional campaign – against a backdrop of historic Greek sites and the sound of the bouzouki – has elicited anger and embarrassment in Athens.
With its western shores that straddle the Aegean, Turkey says the time has come to stop associating the region exclusively with Greece. Last December, it lodged a request with the EU’s intellectual property office to trademark the term TurkAegean.
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