Antisemitism, hooliganism and anger over Gaza war all factors in trouble that broke out last week, report says
The violence that erupted in Amsterdam last week was sparked by “a toxic cocktail” of hooliganism and antisemitism, according to a detailed report published by the city’s mayor.
The city remains gripped by high tensions days after violence flared around a football match last Thursday between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Continue reading...King Felipe VI reportedly plans to revisit Valencia amid alerts for heavy rain, high waves and strong winds
People in flood-hit Spain stacked sandbags and braced for new storms on Tuesday as the political repercussions from last month’s deadly climate disaster rumbled on.
Amid fresh weather warnings, local media reported that King Felipe VI would soon return to the site of the flash floods, after he was pelted with mud and eggs on his first visit last week owing to local fury at the poor preparation and response of the authorities.
Continue reading...Twenty-nine-metre tall fir destined to be chopped down and transported to St Peter’s Square in the Vatican
Environmental campaigners in Italy’s northern Trentino province have started a campaign to stop the felling of a 200-year-old fir tree intended to form the centrepiece of the Vatican’s Christmas decorations.
The so-called “Green Giant” is 29 metres tall and is due to be chopped down next week in a forest in the Ledro valley before being transported to the Vatican and positioned in St Peter’s Square, where it will be unveiled on 9 December.
Continue reading...Ukraine-born Nadezhda Buyanova was accused of referring to young patient’s late soldier father as ‘legitimate target’
A Russian court has sentenced an elderly Moscow paediatrician to five and a half years in prison after the mother of one of her patients publicly denounced her for comments she allegedly made about Russian soldiers in Ukraine during a private consultation.
Nadezhda Buyanova, 68, was accused in January by the ex-wife of a soldier killed in Ukraine of referring to her child’s father as a “legitimate target of Ukraine” and saying Russia was “guilty” in the ongoing war.
Continue reading...Janet Savage went into cardiac arrest after injury to abdominal aorta during operation in August last year
A woman died during an operation after travelling to Turkey for slimming surgery, an inquest heard.
Janet Savage, 54, was undergoing a gastric “stomach sleeve” operation but never came around from the procedure.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action
Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.
The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Continue reading...Far-right government angrily condemns ruling that seven men detained in Albania must be transferred to Italy
Italian judges have ordered seven men detained in a migration hub in Albania to be transferred to Italy, in another blow to a controversial deal between the far-right Rome government and Tirana aimed at curbing the arrival of asylum seekers.
The men arrived at the Albanian port of Shëngjin aboard a military vessel on Friday after being rescued in international waters while trying to make their way to Europe.
Continue reading...French president offers ‘fraternity and solidarity’ as Israel discourages wearing of ‘Jewish symbols’ abroad
Emmanuel Macron will attend the France-Israel football match at the Stade de France on Thursday in a gesture of “fraternity and solidarity” after attacks on Jewish fans in Amsterdam last week.
Thousands of extra police will be on duty for the game taking place against a backdrop of high tension caused by the conflict in Gaza.
Continue reading...Art police and Pisa prosecutor say 38 people being investigated, with about 2,100 fake artworks seized
Italian police have dismantled a Europe-wide forgery network suspected of producing sophisticated replicas of works by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.
Thirty-eight people had been placed under investigation in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks, Italy’s art police and Pisa’s prosecutor’s office said in a joint statement on Monday.
Continue reading...Head of electoral commission had said timing of early election could be affected by shortage of paper to print ballots
Paper industry bosses in Germany have hit back at claims by the national electoral commission that a lack of paper might hinder the timing of the country’s early elections.
“We have paper,” the seemingly exasperated head of the trade association for the German paper industry, Alexander von Reibnitz, told the state broadcaster ZDF, adding: “The German paper industry is very productive … we can deliver as long as the order is submitted in a timely manner.”
Continue reading...British and French leaders will discuss Ukraine and defence amid fears for future of Nato after Trump’s re-election
Keir Starmer will join Emmanual Macron in Paris for the French Armistice Day service in a pointed show of European solidarity days after Donald Trump’s re-election, with Ukraine and defence on the agenda for private talks between the two leaders.
The visit will have a symbolic element with Starmer becoming the first UK leader to attend France’s national commemoration event since Winston Churchill in 1944.
Continue reading...Family of Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, say he died following his ‘heart, soul and morals’ and was ‘as brave as they come’
A British man has been killed while fighting in Ukraine for the country’s foreign volunteer platoon.
Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, had travelled to the country to join the fight against Russia despite his family’s pleas for him not to. His father, Steven Draper, paid tribute to his son, a former NHS worker from Gunnislake in Cornwall, in an interview with BBC News.
Continue reading...City’s police chief says ‘incidents on both sides’ led to violent unrest as ‘around 40’ fined and released
Authorities have released details of the 62 people arrested after violent attacks took place around the football match between Amsterdam’s Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday night.
Violence after the game – described by the Amsterdam mayor, Femke Halsema, as “hit and run attacks” on Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters by “boys on scooters” – provoked international horror.
Continue reading...Ukrainian strike on Moscow is biggest since full-scale invasion while Russia sends wave of record 145 drones
Ukraine has carried out its biggest drone strike on Moscow since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian media said on Sunday, as the Kremlin launched its own record air attack over Ukraine.
Three airports in the Russian capital were temporarily closed and flights were diverted. At least one person was injured. Russia said its air defences shot down 70 drones, nearly half of them in the skies above Moscow and the rest in western Russia.
Continue reading...Total number of arrivals by small boats reaches 32,691 this year, up 22% on same time last year but fewer than in 2022
Nine boats carrying 572 people have been intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel, according to the Home Office.
The latest crossings come after Keir Starmer announced plans to tackle what he described as the “national security threat” of people smugglers, pledging an extra £75m and a new team of detectives.
Continue reading...Calls for UK to work more closely with the EU on everything from defence and trade to immigration grow following Trump’s re-election
Keir Starmer’s government is coming under fire for having failed over more than four months to appoint new MPs and peers to a key EU-UK inter-parliamentary forum, as pressure grows for closer co-operation with the European Union after Donald’s Trump re-election to the White House.
Today in an article for the Observer online the MEP and former Italian government minister Sandro Gozi, recently elected as the new chair of the 70-strong UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly (PPA), and the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe Stella Creasy MP say failure to reconstitute the PPA since the July general election is an issue that “urgently” needs to be addressed.
Continue reading...The region’s president responds to criticisms that he was slow to act by attacking the prime minister
The sun still hadn’t risen on Tuesday 29 October when the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldón, took another look at the warnings from Spain’s state meteorological office and ordered all the schools in the small Valencian town to close.
“The warning early that morning – at 5am or 6am – was orange,” he said. “That’s when I was weighing up whether to close the schools here. In the end, I ordered them to close at six or seven that morning. Soon after, the alert went red.”
Continue reading...Expected departure of at least five deputies means party set to be replaced as main opposition
Syriza, the once radical leftwing force that set Europe alight with its anti-austerity rhetoric at the height of Greece’s debt crisis, is on the verge of being replaced as the country’s main opposition party after the removal of its leader Stefanos Kasselakis and his decision to start a new political movement.
At least five Syriza deputies are expected to officially inform parliament on Monday of their decision to leave the party, a move that will result in the group’s parliamentary presence being reduced to 30 lawmakers – one fewer than the centre-left Pasok.
Continue reading...About 130,000 Spaniards protest against perceived failings by Carlos Mazón’s regional government
Spaniards have taken to the streets of Valencia to demand the resignation of the regional president who led the emergency response to the recent catastrophic floods that killed more than 200 people.
Floods that began on the night of 29 October have left 220 dead and nearly 80 people still missing.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for Trump’s presidential transition effort said Bryan Lanza had not been speaking on behalf of president-elect
A senior adviser to Donald Trump said that the incoming US administration’s priority for Ukraine will be achieving peace rather than helping it regain territory captured by Russia in the almost three years of the war.
In an interview with the BBC, broadcast on Saturday, Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser to Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, began to elaborate on the strong signals the now president-elect had been sending to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the campaign trail.
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