Category Archives: Europe

High hopes for Portugal’s optimism-prone Socialist PM after big win

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Analysis: Absolute majority frees António Costa from having to rely on allies as he leads economic recovery

In 2016, Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, issued a lighthearted rebuke to his prime minister: António Costa, the president noted, was prone to “a chronic and slightly irritating optimism”.

Almost six years on, Costa’s optimism appears fairly well founded. On Sunday night the 60-year-old leader of Portugal’s Socialist party (PS) defied the polls, as well as political trends elsewhere in Europe, to secure a surprise outright majority in a snap general election.

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UK woman accused of making up Cyprus gang-rape claims has conviction quashed

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Cypriot supreme court throws out case, acknowledging 21-year-old was not given fair trial two years ago

A British woman accused of fabricating claims of being gang-raped in a holiday resort on Cyprus has had the conviction overturned by the Mediterranean island’s supreme court.

Two years after the then teenager received a suspended four-month sentence for fomenting public mischief, the tribunal threw out the case, acknowledging she had not been given a fair trial.

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Portugal’s PM António Costa wins surprise majority in snap election – video

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Defying all odds, Portugal's centre-left Socialists have won an outright parliamentary majority in the country’s snap general election. The result has secured a strong new mandate for the prime minister, António Costa, a champion of balanced public accounts. The result, boosted by a higher than expected turnout despite the coronavirus pandemic, comes as a surprise after the Socialists had lost most of their advantage in recent opinion polls, and means Portugal will have a stable government to oversee the application of EU pandemic recovery funds

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Omicron: what do we know about ‘stealth’ subvariant BA.2?

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Omicron’s ‘close cousin’ has mutations that could alter how it behaves and has begun to surpass Covid’s most common variety in parts of Europe and Asia

The highly transmissible Omicron variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus – the most common form of which is known as BA.1 – now accounts for nearly all of the coronavirus infections globally.

Though Covid cases have already peaked in some countries, scientists are now tracking a rise in cases caused by a close cousin of Omicron known as BA.2, which is starting to outcompete BA.1 in parts of Europe and Asia. The following is what we know so far about the new subvariant.

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As UK households feel pressure, how are other European countries tackling energy crisis?

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Many European countries are a step ahead of the British government, which has yet to announce plans to help homes facing annual bills of almost £2,000

In the next week Great Britain’s energy regulator will announce the steepest rise ever in its energy price cap, effectively saddling millions of households with an annual energy bill of close to £2,000.

The blow to household finances follows almost six months of record high energy market prices because of the global gas crisis. Despite the deepening gloom facing bill payers, ministers are yet to agree a package of measures to prevent a national energy crisis.

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Portugal general election: Socialists win surprise outright majority

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Prime minister António Costa says parliamentary victory ‘doesn’t mean absolute power’ but he will no longer need to negotiate to form a coalition

Defying all odds, Portugal’s ruling centre-left Socialists won an outright parliamentary majority in Sunday’s snap general election, securing a strong new mandate for the prime minister, Antonio Costa.

The result, boosted by a higher than expected turnout despite the coronavirus pandemic, came as a surprise after the Socialists had lost most of their advantage in recent opinion polls. It means Portugal will have a stable government to oversee the application of EU pandemic recovery funds.

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Boris Johnson to try to regain control with Brexit bill and policy blitz

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PM hopes to move on from parties scandal with plans to make it easier to scrap EU laws and tackle cost of living crisis

Boris Johnson will attempt to seize back control of the government agenda this week with a policy blitz, a Brexit bill and flying visit to Ukraine, as Westminster remains in the grip of paralysis over the Sue Gray and police inquiries into No 10 parties.

Amid frustration in No 10 at the uncertainty surrounding the report on rule-breaking parties in Downing Street, sources said Johnson was determined to deflect public outrage with a schedule of high-profile announcements and photo opportunities that he also hopes will show MPs he remains focused.

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Kyiv urges Russia to pull troops back from Ukraine border

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Call comes after Nato stresses need for EU countries to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas

Kyiv has urged Moscow to pull back its troops from Ukraine’s border and continue dialogue with the west if it is “serious” about de-escalating tensions that have soared amid fears of a Russian invasion.

“If Russian officials are serious when they say they don’t want a new war, Russia must continue diplomatic engagement and pull back military forces it amassed along Ukraine’s borders and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” Kyiv’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted on Sunday.

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Fruit pickers lured to Portugal by the dream of a ‘raspberry passport’

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Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry

Three days after Sagar* arrived as a worker in Portugal from Nepal, he began to worry he had made a terrible mistake. “I had expectations to get good work, good money,” he says. “But the reality was different.”

The only job Sagar, 21, could find was on one of the country’s berry farms in Odemira, a rural region on the south-west coast. Earning less than the legal minimum wage to work 16-hour days in 40C heat, he knows he is being exploited. But quitting could jeopardise his residency application – and that’s a risk he cannot afford to take.

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Portugal’s far right poised to play key role after snap election

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Anti-Roma rhetoric, attacks on benefits recipients and lambasting of corrupt elite strike chord with voters

Portugal is voting in a snap general election that is unlikely to result in a majority government but which could lead to the far-right Chega party becoming the third largest group in parliament.

Sunday’s election was triggered in December after the long-running deal between prime minister António Costa’s minority Socialist government and its allies in the Portuguese Communist party and the Left Bloc broke down during negotiations to pass the 2022 budget.

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Liz Truss says UK will introduce tougher sanctions on Russia this week

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Foreign secretary announces legislation in bid to dissuade Putin from launching Ukraine invasion

Legislation to allow Britain to hit banks, energy companies and “oligarchs close to the Kremlin” with economic sanctions will be introduced by the government this week, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

The scheme is the latest attempt by the UK to dissuade the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, from launching an invasion of Ukraine, and was announced hours after Britain said it was willing to deploy more forces to Estonia and other Nato allies in eastern Europe.

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Sergio Mattarella reelected Italy’s president amid deep divisions

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80-year-old did not want a new term but was persuaded to stay on after failure to find successor

Sergio Mattarella has been reelected as Italy’s president, ending days of a farcical parliamentary voting process that has exposed deep divisions within the country’s governing coalition.

Mattarella won a second seven-year mandate with 759 votes, far exceeding the threshold of 505, after being persuaded to stay on in the role after ruling party leaders failed to reach an agreement on a candidate who could secure broad support from the 1,009 parliamentarians and regional representatives electing the president.

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Ukraine urges west to be ‘vigilant and firm’ in Russia talks

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US president announces small troop deployment to eastern Europe amid fears of invasion

Kyiv has urged the west to remain “vigilant and firm” in its talks with Russia, as Joe Biden announced a small troop deployment to eastern Europe amid fears Moscow could invade Ukraine.

Washington’s top defence officials warned on Friday that the Kremlin had massed enough troops and hardware at the border to threaten the whole of Ukraine, but called for further diplomatic efforts to avert a “horrific” conflict.

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Splits in left are set to boost far-right TV pundit in Portugal’s snap election

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As support grows for André Ventura, Socialist party has lost ground to centre-right PSD after row over budget with its allies

Between greeting regulars at the busy Lisbon bakery where she has worked for two decades – and reaching instinctively for their orders as soon as they cross the threshold – Susana Santos offers her thoughts on an imminent, and altogether less welcome, encounter.

Like many of her compatriots, she does not relish the idea of Sunday’s snap general election, which arrives amid a stubbornly lingering pandemic and during a time of economic upheaval and political uncertainty.

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‘The day I left was the saddest of my life’: EU nationals on the pain of leaving UK

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They miss the trees, the curry, the friends … but most of all, they miss feeling the UK was somewhere they could call home

Everyone misses something. For some, it’s quite specific: PG Tips, Branston pickle, proper curry. For many, it’s more intangible: the atmosphere of an English pub; that greenness, everywhere; tolerance; and British openness.

Then they pause. Actually, many formerly British-resident EU nationals say, what they miss is an idea. Or, to be precise, the idea of Britain they had before 24 June 2016: all of them remember, in painful, pin-sharp detail, how they felt, and what they did, the morning after.

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‘This is just hysteria’: Russians unmoved by threat of Ukraine conflict

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As Russia approaches war, in Moscow it feels as if the public has barely taken note

Choral music wafted through the nave of the Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces as Alexei Rozhkov, a visiting priest, considered the question: was Russia standing on the precipice of a new great conflict in Ukraine?

“There won’t be a war – there can’t,” he said quickly, glancing up at the skylights of stained glass depicting Soviet medals and religious symbols on the ceiling.

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US to heighten troop presence in eastern Europe, says Biden

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The Pentagon has already placed 8,500 troops on stand-by in response to Russia’s build-up near Ukraine’s border

Joe Biden said on Friday that he will be moving US troops to eastern European and Nato countries “in the near term” as tensions rise over Russia’s military buildup on the borders of Ukraine.

The Pentagon has already placed about 8,500 US troops on stand-by for possible deployment to Europe amid Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine’s border.

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Covid live: UK reports 89,176 new cases and 277 deaths; Hong Kong offers hamster reparations after ordering cull

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UK cases and deaths fall day-on-day; Honk Kong government to compensate pet shops affected by culling of hamsters for Covid reasons

Nightclubs will be allowed to reopen in Wales from today as Covid restrictions are eased further and “alert level zero” came into effect from 6am this morning.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said in a statement overnight:

We have passed the peak of this omicron wave and there are encouraging signs that cases of coronavirus may be starting to stabilise. But we all need to continue taking steps to stay safe – unfortunately the pandemic is not over yet.

We are moving to alert level zero and we will retain some important protections, such as face coverings in most indoor public places and risk assessments.

For the events the Met is investigating, we asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report.

The Met did not ask for any limitations on other events in the report, or for the report to be delayed, but we have had ongoing contact with the Cabinet Office, including on the content of the report, to avoid any prejudice to our investigation.

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Trial opens of six men accused of daring £95m Dresden jewellery heist

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Suspects in carefully choreographed 2019 raid on city’s Green Vault appear in court amid tight security

The trial of six men accused of stealing 18th-century jewels from a German museum has begun in Dresden amid tight security and questions over whether the treasures will ever be recovered.

The defendants, who are brothers and cousins aged between 23 and 28, appeared in court in handcuffs and holding large folders in front of their faces. They had slung jackets over their heads to avoid being photographed.

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Outrage as Bolsonaro confirms Russia trip despite Ukraine crisis

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Isolated Brazilian president accused of ‘utterly reckless’ plan to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow

Jair Bolsonaro has sparked disbelief and outrage by insisting he will go ahead with a trip to meet Vladimir Putin in Russia despite the escalating military crisis along the Ukrainian border.

Foreign policy experts and rivals questioned the Brazilian presidents’s planned visit after he told supporters he would fly to Moscow in late February to improve trade ties.

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