Thousands of people gathered in central Vienna to protest against new tough pandemic measures in Austria. Whistling, clapping, blowing horns and banging drums, protesters – many of them far-right supporters – streamed into Heroes’ Square on Saturday. With daily infections still setting records, the government said it would put the countryt back in lockdown from Monday and make it compulsory to get vaccinated from 1 February
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Rotterdam police open fire as Covid protest turns into ‘orgy of violence’
Three people treated in hospital with serious injuries after clashes in Dutch city over reintroduction of Covid restrictions
Three people were being treated in hospital in Rotterdam on Saturday after they were seriously injured when police fired shots during a demonstration against Covid-19 restrictions.
In what the Dutch city’s mayor described as an “orgy of violence”, crowds of several hundred rioters torched cars, set off fireworks and threw rocks at police during the protests on Friday evening. Police responded with warning shots and water cannon.
Continue reading...Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland
Continue reading...Croatia violated rights of Afghan girl who was killed by train, court rules
Madina Hussiny, 6, died after police refused to let her family apply for asylum and made them walk back to Serbia
After four years of legal struggle, the European court of human rights (ECHR) has ruled that Croatian police were responsible for the death of a six-year-old Afghan girl when they forced her family to return to Serbia via train tracks without giving them the opportunity to seek asylum.
The little girl, named Madina Hussiny, was struck and killed by a train after being pushed back with her family by the Croatian authorities in 2017.
Continue reading...Lukashenko says Belarusian troops may have helped refugees reach Europe
Leader acknowledges it was ‘absolutely possible’ his army had a part in creating migrant crisis at Polish border
The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has acknowledged that his troops probably helped Middle Eastern asylum seekers cross into Europe, in the clearest admission yet that he engineered the new migrant crisis on the border with the EU.
In an interview with the BBC at his presidential palace in Minsk, he said it was “absolutely possible” that his troops helped migrants across the frontier into Poland.
Continue reading...‘An attack on our health system’: Austria’s chancellor condemns anti-vaxxers – video
Austria is to go into a national lockdown to contain a fourth wave of coronavirus cases, the chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, announced on Friday, as new infections hit a record high amid a pandemic surge across Europe. Despite all the persuasion and campaigns, too few people had decided to get vaccinated, Schallenberg said, leaving the country no other choice but to introduce mandatory vaccinations in February
Continue reading...‘It was mind-boggling’: Richard Gere on the rescue boat at the heart of Salvini trial
Exclusive: the Hollywood actor, who lawyers have listed as a key witness, describes scenes of desperation on the Open Arms vessel
The Hollywood actor Richard Gere has revealed for the first time the full story behind his mercy mission to the NGO rescue boat Open Arms as he prepares to testify as a witness against Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, who is on trial for attempting to block the 147 people onboard from landing in Italy.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gere, 72, who lawyers have listed as a key witness to the situation aboard the NGO rescue boat Open Arms, described the scenes of desperation he saw when he arrived on the vessel being held off the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2019 with conditions rapidly deteriorating.
Continue reading...‘Storm clouds’ over Europe – but UK Covid rates remain high
Analysis: likes of Slovakia and Austria have worse figures but UK’s have topped EU average for months
As Covid infection rates surged again across Europe, Boris Johnson spoke this week of “storm clouds gathering” over parts of the continent and said it was unclear when or how badly the latest wave would “wash up on our shores”.
The situation in some EU member states, particularly those with low vaccination rates, is indeed dramatic. In central and eastern Europe in particular, but also Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, case numbers are rocketing.
Continue reading...Covid live: Dutch police open fire at protest; German government not ruling out full lockdown — as it happened
Two injured as police in Rotterdam fire warning shots; German health minister says nothing can be ruled out
- Rotterdam police open fire as protest turns violent
- Austria plans compulsory Covid vaccination for all
- Analysis: ‘Storm clouds’ over Europe but UK Covid rates remain higher
- Bavaria gets tough on Covid with Christmas market cancellation
- First Covid patient in Wuhan was at animal market, study finds
A quick snap from Reuters here that the UK government has announced it will add booster shot status to the Covid-19 pass for outbound international travel, though it said they would not be added to the domestic pass at this time.
The health ministry said that travellers who have had a booster or a third dose would be able to demonstrate their vaccine status through the NHS Covid pass from Friday, adding that a booster was not necessary to travel into England.
This pandemic has exposed a vulnerability to whole-system emergencies – that is, emergencies that are so broad that they engage the entire system. Although the government had plans for an influenza pandemic, it did not have detailed plans for many non-health consequences and some health consequences of a pandemic like Covid-19. There were lessons from previous simulation exercises that were not fully implemented and would have helped prepare for a pandemic like Covid-19. There was limited oversight and assurance of plans in place, and many pre-pandemic plans were not adequate. In addition, there is variation in capacity, capability and maturity of risk management across government departments.
Continue reading...‘No way around it’: Austrians queue for jabs as unvaccinated told to stay home
In Linz, jab willingness is rising as police check Covid passports – but confusion remains on what is essential travel
On a street of shops in the Austrian city of Linz, a stone’s throw from the winding Danube river, two police officers in navy-blue uniforms and peaked white caps stop random passersby to check their vaccine passports.
Elderly shoppers rummage around in their handbags and comply with a smile, but a fortysomething woman with a nose piercing is less forthcoming: she says she left her immunisation certificate on the kitchen table as she had to dash across town to see a dentist.
Continue reading...Abandoned former USSR sites – in pictures
In post-USSR Russia and neighbouring states, places now abandoned offer reminders of the region’s turbulent history, from the grandeur of a ruined Orthodox church, to the frescos that still adorn the crumbling walls of former barracks, schools and factories
Continue reading...Wanted: 100,000 pioneers for a green jobs Klondike in the Arctic
Europe’s newest industrial megaprojects are relocating to the far north of Sweden. But are curling, wild reindeer and the northern lights enough to convince workers to follow?
One by one, the 20 engineers and technicians step up to receive their equipment before the briefing. They have come to the far north of Sweden from as far away as Mexico, the US, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany and Russia.
“Welcome!” bellows Håkan Pålsson, their instructor. “We’re here to show you how to do curling, and then you’re going to go out on the ice and show us.”
Continue reading...Rio Tinto’s past casts a shadow over Serbia’s hopes of a lithium revolution
People in the Jadar valley fear environmental catastrophe as Europe presses for self-sufficiency in battery technology
- Read more in the Battery life series
Photographs by Vladimir Zivojinovic
A battery sign, flashing dangerously low, appears superimposed over a view of the globe as seen from space. “Green technologies, electric cars, clean air – all of these depend on one of the most significant lithium deposits in the world, which is located right here in Jadar, Serbia,” a gravel-voiced narrator announces. “We completely understand your concerns about the environment. Rio Tinto is carrying out detailed analyses, so as to make all of us sure that we develop the Jadar project in line with the highest environmental, security and health standards.”
Beamed into the country’s living rooms on the public service channel RTS, the slick television ad, shown just after the evening news, finishes with images of reassuring scientists and a comforted young couple walking into the sunset: “Rio Tinto: Together we have the chance to save the planet.”
Continue reading...China condemns opening of Taiwan office in Lithuania as ‘egregious act’
De facto embassy opening in Vilnius defies pressure from Beijing
Taiwan has opened a de facto embassy in Lithuania in a diplomatic breakthrough for the island, brushing aside Beijing’s strong opposition to the move which again expressed its anger and warned of consequences.
Taipei announced on Thursday it had formally opened an office in Lithuania using the name Taiwan, a significant diplomatic departure that defied a pressure campaign by Beijing.
Continue reading...One-year-old Syrian child dies in forest on Poland-Belarus border
Boy is youngest known victim of crisis as medical workers say family was living in forest for a month
A one-year-old child from Syria has died in a forest in Poland near the border with Belarus, according to Polish medical workers, becoming the youngest known victim of the crisis on the eastern edge of the European Union.
Thousands of people attempting to reach the EU are still stranded in freezing conditions, amid a standoff between the bloc and Belarus, which has been accused of deliberately creating the crisis by flying in people from the Middle East and facilitating their travel to the border.
Continue reading...Albania angrily denies it would process asylum seekers for UK
PM Edi Rama says he will ‘never receive refugees for richer countries’ after Raab said UK was exploring plans
Albania has strenuously denied it is willing to process people crossing the Channel to Britain, after the UK deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, confirmed that the government is exploring ways of processing asylum seekers abroad.
Edi Rama, the prime minister, said he would “never receive refugees for richer countries”, after a report in the Times suggested Albania would be willing to host an offshore processing centre for people arriving in the UK from France in small boats.
Continue reading...Covid live: UK reports 46,807 new cases and 199 deaths; Austria provinces to lockdown fully amid record cases
UK cases remain high; Austria’s daily infections hit a new record
- Offshoot of Delta variant more likely to cause asymptomatic infections
- Rollout of third Covid jabs in England condemned as ‘shambolic’
- Germany set to tighten rules for unvaccinated as Covid cases rise
- Mask-wearing cuts Covid incidence by 53%, global study finds
- Follow all our coronavirus coverage
From Washington, David Smith brings us this report about hard-hitting Covid-19 documentary The First Wave:
It is tempting to suggest that the Covid deniers, the hoaxers, the hucksters, the anti-vaxxers, the flat earthers, the merchants of disinformation and the crackpot conspiracy theorists be strapped into a chair and force fed The First Wave, a harrowing documentary about the early toll of the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Refugee activist facing Greek court left ‘in limbo’ after trial postponed
Sean Binder and 24 aid workers are accused of espionage, forgery and intercepting radio frequencies
An Irish defendant among 24 aid workers accused of espionage in Greece has said he has been left in a legal “limbo” after their trial was postponed, prolonging an ordeal that has highlighted growing hostility towards NGOs involved in migrant solidarity work.
A three-member panel of judges on the Aegean island of Lesbos, where the alleged crimes are said to have occurred, referred the case to a court of appeals citing lack of jurisdiction. It is unclear when the higher tribunal will convene.
Continue reading...Michel Barnier in French election spotlight as lurch to right pays off
Mild-mannered former centrist has become a surprise favourite to win Les Républicains’ nomination
In a restaurant in prosperous western Paris, fans of the EU’s former negotiator on Brexit, Michel Barnier, crowded in to hear their hero speak, cheering the mild-mannered 70-year-old who has gone from rank outsider to potential favourite in the contest to choose a presidential candidate for the right’s Les Républicains.
Barnier is one of the big surprises of the unpredictable pre-election season in France. He was known for almost 50 years in right-wing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. But he has amazed observers by significantly hardening his stance as the rightwing party prepared to decide on its candidate early next month.
Continue reading...German health chief urges Covid crackdown to avert ‘very bad Christmas’
Country facing ‘extremely dismal days’ as it set ninth consecutive record for daily case numbers
The head of Germany’s disease control agency has said the country is heading for a “very bad Christmas season” if drastic measures are not taken to dampen the spread of coronavirus.
Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), said that even if measures were taken Germany faced a period of “extremely dismal days” during which hundreds of people would die out of those currently infected.
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