Category Archives: Europe

Romanian minister resigns over claims he faked education credentials

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Florin Roman, the minister for innovation and digitalization, resigned after being on his post for less than a month

Romania’s minister of innovation and digitalization has resigned after an investigation by journalists who reported they found significant irregularities on his resume and evidence he plagiarized from an academic paper.

Florin Roman, who had served in Romania’s new coalition government for less than a month, quit his post after Romania’s Libertatea newspaper published a third article calling his claimed educational credentials into question.

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Operator seeks changes to Irish lottery after no jackpot win since June

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Controversy leads to parliamentary inquiry, calls for ‘must-be-won’ draw similar to UK’s – and Shergar jokes

It has been said that even the dead racehorse Shergar has a better chance of winning Ireland’s national lottery than a member of the public.

For six months the jackpot has yet to be won, prompting calls for an investigation, a reduction in the number of balls to increase the chances of a win and on Wednesday, a parliamentary inquiry.

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Berlin expels Russian diplomats after court rules Moscow ordered dissident’s murder

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Decision follows court ruling that Russia was behind 2019 murder of Chechen dissident in German capital

Germany has expelled two Russian diplomats and accused the Kremlin of infringing on its sovereignty after a German court ruled on Wednesday that the 2019 murder of a Chechen dissident in Berlin took place at the behest of the Russian authorities.

Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, 40, a Georgian citizen who fought against Russia during the second Chechen war in the early 2000s, was shot twice in the head at close range in the Kleiner Tiergarten, a park in central Berlin, in August 2019.

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EU to warn Vladimir Putin of ‘massive consequences’ of invading Ukraine

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European leaders to tell Kremlin further aggression will carry ‘severe cost’, leak reveals

EU leaders will unite in warning Vladimir Putin that there will be “massive consequences and severe cost” if Russia invades Ukraine, a leaked draft has revealed.

The message will be sent to the Kremlin via a post-summit communique on Thursday, although EU officials decline to flesh out what measures could be taken.

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Omicron likely to accelerate death rate in Europe, says health agency

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EU risk assessment advises against Christmas mixing owing to new Covid variant’s high transmissibility

Christmas get-togethers may need to be downsized as Omicron is now “very likely” to increase the death toll in Europe even if it proves to be less severe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said.

The new Covid variant’s high transmissibility means that more people are forecast by the EU agency to be admitted to hospital or killed this winter than previously projected.

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Gas crisis fuels call for UK to update energy security policy

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As rising tensions with Russia over Ukraine drive prices to record highs, experts warn of lack of strategy for gas supply

Ministers are relying on an outdated energy security policy, leading academics have warned, as escalating tensions between Russia and western leaders propelled the gas market to record price highs.

UK gas reached a record closing price of 322.5 pence per therm on Tuesday, according to data from market price experts at ICIS, vaulting ahead of the previous high of just over 298p/therm set in early October this year.

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US condemns suspension of prominent Romanian judge for TikTok posts

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Cluj-based judge Cristi Danileţ has been suspended over two videos he posted on platform last year

A prominent judge in Romania has been suspended from his position for posting videos on TikTok in a move that has drawn widespread criticism, and condemnation from the US embassy.

Cristi Danileţ, a judge in Romania’s northern city of Cluj, was suspended on Monday by the superior council of magistrates over two videos he posted on TikTok last year, which a panel decided amounted to “behaviour that affects the image of the justice system”.

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‘Colossal waste’: Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending worldwide

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Governments urged to use ‘peace dividend’ to help UN tackle pandemics, climate crisis and extreme poverty

More than 50 Nobel laureates have signed an open letter calling for all countries to cut their military spending by 2% a year for the next five years, and put half the saved money in a UN fund to combat pandemics, the climate crisis, and extreme poverty.

Coordinated by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, the letter is supported by a large group of scientists and mathematicians including Sir Roger Penrose, and is published at a time when rising global tensions have led to a steady increase in arms budgets.

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Spanish scientists cautious as La Palma volcano quietens

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Experts have recorded no seismic activity from Cumbre Vieja volcano since Monday night

A volcano that has been spewing lava in the Canary Islands for almost three months has quietened but scientists warned the lull did not necessarily mean the eruption was over.

Experts recorded no seismic activity from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma island since Monday night, the Canary Islands’ volcanology institute tweeted.

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EU urged to rachet up green energy standards for buildings

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Call comes after ambitious early draft of EU energy performance in buildings directive ran into opposition

The EU executive is under pressure to ratchet up green energy standards for buildings, as it prepares a further batch of legislation to tackle the climate emergency.

The European Commission is expected to propose mandatory energy efficiency upgrades for buildings in the EU in legislative proposals published on Wednesday, but MEPs and Green NGOs fear they will not be strict enough.

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‘Teflon’ Mark Rutte set for fourth Dutch term after record-breaking talks

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Political parties reach new coalition agreement to form government 271 days after elections in March

Dutch political parties have reached a new coalition agreement, paving the way for the country’s caretaker prime minister, Mark Rutte, to form his fourth successive government a record 271 days after general elections in March.

The text of the accord between Rutte’s rightwing liberal VVD party, the progressive D66, Christian Democrat CDA and orthodox Christian party Christen Unie will be presented to the parties’ MPs on Tuesday and the whole parliament on Wednesday.

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‘Null and void’: boycott clouds New Caledonia’s final poll on independence

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Overwhelming vote to remain with France, but low turnout ‘weighs heavily’ on self-determination process, say observers

Low voter turnout at New Caledonia’s independence referendum “weighs heavily” on the French territory’s self-determination process, election observers from the Pacific Islands Forum have said.

In Sunday’s referendum, more than 96% of voters were opposed to independence from France, compared with 57% in 2018 and 53% in 2020.

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Putin tells Boris Johnson urgent talks needed over Nato’s plans for Ukraine

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Kremlin wants legal agreement that alliance will not expand into disputed territory

Vladimir Putin has told Boris Johnson that he wants immediate talks to secure clear legal agreements that Nato will not expand eastwards. According to a Kremlin readout of the two leaders’ phone call on Monday, Putin said talks were needed to discuss Nato’s future intentions, and to clarify Ukraine’s plans for the east of the country.

The call marked the first time the two men had spoken since October before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. Johnson expressed the UK’s “deep concern over the buildup of Russian forces on Ukraine’s border”, and warned him “that any destabilising action would be a strategic mistake that would have significant consequences”. The British prime minister also called for the issues to be resolved through diplomatic channels.

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Gazprom profits as Russia prospers from Europe’s gas crisis

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State-owned company accused of ‘selling as much gas as possible without lowering market prices’

• Gas prices near record highs as Berlin rejects pipeline from Russia

About 12.7bn cubic feet of gas flowed into Europe from Russia’s state-owned Gazprom last month. The world’s largest gas producer typically supplies more than a third of the needs of countries across the European Union, but in November flows dwindled to a six-year low.

Gas supplies from Russia have fallen well short of pre-pandemic levels for months. The volumes of Russian gas flowing into homes, businesses and storage facilities this year have been almost a quarter below those in 2019.

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Gas prices near record highs as Berlin rejects pipeline from Russia

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Germany says escalating tensions over Ukraine are one factor in Nord Stream 2 not getting green light

• Gazprom profits as Russia prospers from Europe’s gas crisis

Gas prices across the UK and Europe are on course to return to record highs after Germany said a controversial pipeline from Russia could not be approved amid deepening tensions on the Ukrainian border.

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could not be given the green light in its current form because it did not meet the requirements of EU energy law.

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Catalonia row deepens over family’s push for Spanish in school

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Nationalists furious as court sides with family abused for seeking quarter of lessons in Spanish for their child

The long-running and bitter row over language teaching in Catalonia has intensified after a family in the Spanish region was harassed and abused for seeking to ensure that a quarter of the lessons at the school their five-year-old son attends are taught in Spanish.

The family’s actions have provoked an angry response from some Catalan nationalists who view their stance as an assault on the region’s language and culture.

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Spanish bishop who married ‘transgressive’ erotica author is stripped of powers

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Xavier Novell i Gomà was Spain’s youngest bishop before abandoning clerical career to marry Silvia Caballol

A controversial Spanish bishop has been formally stripped of his powers and prohibited from administering the sacraments four months after he abandoned his clerical career to marry a “dynamic and transgressive” erotic novelist.

Xavier Novell i Gomà, who became Spain’s youngest bishop aged just 41 when he was appointed to the Catalan municipality of Solsona in 2010, is reported to have backed and participated in so-called conversion therapies for gay people, and has also been criticised for supporting regional independence.

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Austria ends Covid lockdown restrictions for vaccinated people

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Strict rules lifted across most of country after three weeks as case numbers plummet

Austria has ended lockdown restrictions for vaccinated people across most of the country, three weeks after reimposing strict rules to combat a rising wave of coronavirus infections.

The rules, which vary by region within the country, largely allow for the reopening of theatres, museums and other cultural and entertainment venues on Sunday. Shops will follow on Monday.

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Sicily apartment block explosion leaves at least four dead

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Firefighters say the blast in the southern town of Ravanusa was probably caused by a gas leak

Four people have been killed and five are missing in Sicily after an explosion caused a four-storey apartment building to collapse.

Two women were recovered alive from the rubble in the southern town of Ravanusa on Saturday night, and rescuers and sniffer dogs were searching for those still missing.

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