Interior minister heads to scene of tragedy near Perpignan as search of gutted buildings continues
At least seven people, including two children, have died after an explosion sent fire raging through a building in southern France.
One of the victims of the blaze that started in a three-story building in the coastal town of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Salanque, north-east of Perpignan, was reported to be a baby.
Continue reading...Bundestag debate on general mandate unlikely before end of March when Covid-19 cases are forecast to fall
Germany’s plans to introduce a general vaccination mandate this spring are faltering, as a growing number of politicians question if it will find a majority in parliament.
The Bundestag was originally due to debate motions in favour and against mandatory vaccinations this week, after the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, indicated he considered such a step necessary to cope with a possible resurgence of the virus in the next few months.
Continue reading...Plan proposes two ‘green freeports’ based around low-emission industries
UK ministers and the Scottish government have reached a deal over proposed freeports in Scotland, after months of disagreement over what No 10 has billed as one of the main economic benefits of Brexit.
The Scottish government had resisted the idea of freeports – specific areas that offer tax breaks and other incentives to investors – which are intended to revitalise deprived areas but have been accused of encouraging tax avoidance and lower regulation.
Continue reading...Les Républicains’ presidential choice promises crackdown after defections to Macron and rise in far-right’s polling
The rightwing French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse vowed to crack down on immigration as she held her first big rally on Sunday amid competition from the growing far right and defections from her party to the centrist leader Emmanuel Macron.
“There is no sovereignty without borders,” Pécresse said on stage in Paris as more than 6,000 people waved French flags in support of the first female presidential candidate for Les Républicains, the traditional rightwing party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz will make economic case for peace to defuse ‘extremely dangerous’ situation in Ukraine
Olaf Scholz will use his trip to Moscow on Tuesday to press home the economic cost of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, German government sources have said in what some European leaders fear could be a last opportunity to defuse the “extremely dangerous” situation on the border between the two eastern countries.
The German chancellor, who has faced criticism at home for cutting a low-key profile in the diplomatic effort around the military buildup on the Ukrainian border until now, first arrives in Kyiv on Monday as US intelligence over the weekend claimed that Russia had accelerated plans for an invasion and could move troops across the border as soon as Wednesday, before the end of the Winter Olympics on 20 February.
Continue reading...‘Risk of something going down like a mid-air collision, or a trigger-happy Russian or American, can really escalate things quickly’
The unprecedented Russian military encirclement of Ukraine has not only brought closer the prospect of a devastating war in that country, it has also raised the risks of triggering an unintended wider conflict.
The US and Nato have been adamant that their troops will not enter Ukraine no matter what happens, and the Pentagon has pulled out the 160 national guard soldiers who were acting as military advisers.
Continue reading...Latest updates: US president said he remained prepared to engage in diplomacy but warned he was prepared for other scenarios
US staff at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organisation, began leaving by car from the rebel-held city of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Sunday, Reuters reports.
The OSCE conducts civilian monitoring operations in the self-proclaimed separatist republics – such as Donetsk and Luhansk – where war since 2014 has killed 14,000 people. The OSCE has not commented on the US staff withdrawals.
Continue reading...The unique Gladys Palmera archive may cross the Atlantic from Madrid to secure a permanent base
On a hillside an hour from Madrid, not far from the sepulchral splendour of the Escorial monastery, with its royal tombs, imperial maps and sacred relics, lies another, rather less austere, treasure house.
The Gladys Palmera collection, kept in a sprawling, tropical-hued complex crammed with 1950s Mexican film posters and prowled by the odd decorative monkey and jaguar, is the largest private archive of Latin American music in the world.
Continue reading...The blockade of Ottawa has sparked copycat action around the globe, and such disparate demonstrations of grievance may prove hard to shut down
It only took six dozen trucks, and a few hundred protesters to bring Canada’s capital to a standstill and close a critical border crossing with the US, throttling the car industry that straddles the line between both countries and relies on a constant flow of trade.
On Saturday, Canadian authorities finally began taking action to clear the Ambassador Bridge into the US, the busiest land crossing in North America, which had been blockaded by just over a dozen trucks and smaller vehicles, and a crowd a few hundred strong.
Continue reading...US president and Russia’s leader make call after Macron tells Putin sincere negotiations are incompatible with an escalation in tensions; UK troops training Ukrainian army to leave this weekend
The Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra has called on Dutch citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible due to the security situation there and issued a notice advising against travelling to the country.
This report is from Reuters.
Continue reading...The massive military buildup could be a bluff, or a political ploy designed for a Russian audience. Either way, the US is digging in
Russian spokespeople daily deny any intention to invade. So, too, did Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, when he met the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, last week, and when he spoke to US president Joe Biden on the phone. There are two problems with this. First, given Putin’s Johnsonian relationship with truth, few western governments believe the denials. Second, Putin has not explained why, if his intentions are peaceful, more than half of Russia’s armed forces, including 130,000 troops, are massed on Ukraine’s borders. It could all be a bluff. But who would bet the house on that?
Continue reading...‘Aunt Annie’ was killed in the Holocaust – but not before marrying her sweetheart in captivity. Now her great-niece has found 260 other couples who did the same
Saskia Aukema knew little about her great-aunt Annie, who was murdered during the Holocaust. All she knew was that Annie had declined to go into hiding like her siblings, and continued working as a hospital nurse, even after the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940.
“That was the family story: this was the woman who didn’t hide and chose to be with her patients. That was all I knew… this line, this one sentence,” she told the Observer.
Continue reading...Ukrainians rallied in Kyiv on Saturday to show unity as international warnings of a Russian invasion sharpened.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told people not to panic, but more than 100,000 Russian troops are positioned near Ukraine and have carried out large-scale exercises, increasing tensions.
The US said on Friday an invasion could start at any moment, but Russia denied having any plans to launch one.
Ruling party may need help from rightwing Vox to hold on to power after snap election in Castilla y León
People in the Spanish region of Castilla y León vote on Sunday in a snap election that represents a massive gamble for the ruling conservative People’s party (PP). It could see a breakthrough by a new political platform campaigning on behalf of depopulated and underdeveloped parts of Spain.
The vote was called in December after the regional president, the PP’s Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, kicked his partners in the centre-right Citizens party out of the coalition government, claiming that he could no longer rely on their loyalty.
Continue reading...A Republican Senate primary candidate in Arizona has been condemned for a “disgusting” campaign ad in which he shoots at lookalike actors portraying Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and incumbent Arizona senator Mark Kelly.
Jim Lamon, an energy executive, shared the ad on Twitter, saying it would be aired at this year’s Super Bowl.
Continue reading...The US has warned of the “very distinct possibility” of a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next few days, potentially involving an overwhelming attack on Kyiv, and told all remaining Americans to leave the country in the next 48 hours.
Joe Biden is due to speak to Vladimir Putin by phone on Saturday. Diplomatic sources said that Biden had told allied leaders in a call that Vladimir Putin had taken a decision to go ahead with an invasion, but Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said: “We have not seen anything come to us that says a final decision has been taken, [that] the go order has been given.”
Continue reading...The Austrian director torments everyone, including the audience, in this grotesque tale set in the Italian resort out of season
Wretchedness, sadness and confrontational grotesquerie once again come together in a movie by Ulrich Seidl, although it’s leavened by something almost – but not quite – like ordinary human compassion. If you’ve seen Seidl’s other movies you’ll know what to expect and you’ll know to steel yourself for horror. Perhaps this one doesn’t take Seidl’s creative career much further down the road to (or away from) perdition, but it is managed with unflinching conviction, a tremendous compositional sense and an amazing flair for discovering extraordinary locations.
The Italian coastal resort of Rimini in winter is an eerie, melancholy place; Seidl shows it in freezing mist and actual snow. Refugees huddle on the street and some groups of German and Austrian tourists take what must be bargain-basement package vacations at off-season rates in the tackiest hotels. It is here that Ritchie Bravo, played by Seidl regular Michael Thomas, plies his dismal trade. He is an ageing lounge singer with a drinking problem, a cheery, bleary style, an Islamophobic attitude, a bleached-blond hairdo of 80s vintage and a spreading paunch. Ritchie makes a living crooning to his adoring senior-female fanbase, who show up in their coach parties to catch his act. (You could compare him to Nick Apollo Forte in Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose or Gerard Dépardieu in Xavier Giannoli’s The Singer – except much, much more horrible.) He also tops up his income by having sex with some of the fans for money – truly gruesome scenes in the starkly unforgiving Seidl style.
Continue reading...A ghost village that has emerged after drought nearly emptied a dam on the Spanish-Portuguese border is drawing crowds of tourists. With the reservoir at 15% capacity, details of a life frozen in 1992, when the Aceredo village in Spain’s north-western Galicia region was flooded to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir, are being revealed once more
Continue reading...Village of Aceredo in Galicia was flooded in 1992 to create Alto Lindoso reservoir
A ghost village that has emerged as drought has nearly emptied a dam on the Spanish-Portuguese border is drawing crowds of tourists with its eerie, grey ruins.
With the reservoir at 15% of its capacity, details of a life frozen in 1992, when the Aceredo village in Spain’s north-western Galicia region was flooded to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir, are being revealed once more.
Continue reading...Despite an order not to enter Paris, motorists protesting against coronavirus restrictions are converging on the capital from cities across France, inspired by the horn-blaring demonstrations taking place in Canada. Whereas in Canada the protests have united truckers angered by a vaccine mandate for crossing borders, in France it is over vaccine pass rules, which require people to show proof of inoculation against Covid to enter bars, restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces
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