Moscow warns of retaliation against video-sharing platform after RT channels blocked over Covid disinformation
Russia on Wednesday threatened to block YouTube and take other retaliatory measures, after the US video-sharing platform blocked the German-language channels of state broadcaster RT.
Moscow has recently been ramping up pressure on foreign tech giants as it seeks greater control over content available online to its domestic audience.
Continue reading...Bloc accuses Lukashenko of incentivising migrants to cross Belarus’s border with the EU
The European Commission has said it wants to suspend easy access to visas for Belarusian officials in an attempt to deter it from pushing migrants from the Middle East and Africa across its border with the bloc.
Neighbouring Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have declared states of emergency after a sharp increase in arrivals at their borders with Belarus, accusing the country’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, of an act of “hybrid warfare” in seeking to orchestrate a EU migrant crisis.
Continue reading...Spain brought Catholicism, civilisation and freedom to Americas, says Isabel Díaz Ayuso
The rightwing president of the Madrid region has taken issue with the pope’s recent apology for the church’s “very painful errors” in Mexico, and said Spanish conquistadors brought Catholicism, civilisation and freedom to Latin America.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, touted as a possible future leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party, has a history of provocative pronouncements.
Continue reading...Élysée says future talks must have substance after Canberra’s decision to cancel submarine contract
France has said any future talks between Emmanuel Macron and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, over the fallout from Canberra’s decision to tear up a €56bn (£48bn) submarine deal will have to be “seriously prepared” and have “substance”.
The Élysée Palace has denied it is refusing to take Morrison’s calls, saying the president is “always available to talk on the phone”, but has admitted it is not in any hurry to resume contact with Canberra.
Continue reading...Song and interview were recorded by Danish schoolboys during Lennon and Yoko Ono’s stay in Thy in 1970
A cassette tape recording of an interview by Danish schoolboys with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in which the Beatles star sings a previously unreleased song has been sold at auction in Copenhagen for £43,000.
The 33-minute audio track was recorded by four teenagers as part of a report for their school magazine in January 1970, just months before the Beatles announced their breakup.
Continue reading...Brick brand says it does not not expect problems with Christmas stock despite global supply crisis
Lego profits more than doubled in the first six months of the year as brick fans stayed home to build Star Wars and Harry Potter models even after the Covid-19 lockdown ended.
The Danish toymaker was one of the winners from Covid restrictions as children and adults turned to its model kits to occupy themselves – and that trend has continued. Sales jumped 43% to DKr23bn (£2.6bn) in the first six months of 2021 while net profits surged 140% to DKr6.3bn.
Continue reading...There has been a chronic mistreatment of workers in the country’s meat industry, according to unions
Read more: exploitation of meat plant workers rife across UK and Europe
In spring 2018, Alina Serbenco’s husband, Vasile, sat in a fast-food outlet in Dublin and plugged his mobile phone into a socket to recharge. It had been only a few months since he had moved from Romania to take up a job in a car wash, but he was being paid less than half the minimum wage and could not send money home to Alina and their two children. Homeless and living in a car, Vasile urgently needed a new job.
As he scrolled through Facebook, he spotted an advert for a job in a meat factory. It was posted by Irish employment agency AA Euro, a specialist recruitment consultancy working with companies in the agricultural, food processing, construction and mining industries, which has offices across the EU, including in Romania, Poland and the Netherlands. The job offer was up to 70 hours a week of work for just over the minimum wage and a room in a house for about €60 (£51.50) a week. Vasile decided to apply.
Continue reading...Rijksmuseum says change in focus prompted by renewed interest in wake of Black Lives Matter
The two earliest portraits of men of African descent in the history of European art are being exhibited together for the first time in their 500-year history, reflecting a change of focus championed by the Black Lives Matter movement, curators at the Rijksmuseum have said.
Among more than 100 portraits by Renaissance artists being showcased by the museum in Amsterdam from Tuesday are Albrecht Dürer’s 1508 sketch, discovered in the German painter’s workshop at the time of his death, and Jan Jansz Mostaert’s portrait, dating from about 1525.
Continue reading...As the pandemic deals a death blow to an already struggling sector, former workers see little hope for recovery
The seafront along the town of Hammamet in Tunisia is deserted. Looking out at the bright empty coast from his souvenir shop, Kais Azzabi, 42, describes the crowds that would stroll along the broad boulevards. Today, there is nobody.
“It was very busy here,” he says, gesturing to the street and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. “Since the corona started, everything stopped.”
Continue reading...Thousands of outsourced workers on inferior pay and conditions to fulfil demand for cheap meat, Guardian investigation shows
Read more: ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industry
Meat companies across Europe have been hiring thousands of workers through subcontractors, agencies and bogus co-operatives on inferior pay and conditions, a Guardian investigation has found.
Workers, officials and labour experts have described how Europe’s £190bn meat industry has become a global hotspot for outsourced labour, with a floating cohort of workers, many of whom are migrants, with some earning 40% to 50% less than directly employed staff in the same factories.
The Guardian has uncovered evidence of a two-tier employment system with workers subjected to sub-standard pay and conditions to fulfil the meat industry’s need for a replenishable source of low-paid, hyper-flexible workers.
Researchers find space in Gorham’s Cave complex that has been closed off for at least 40,000 years
Researchers excavating a cave network on the Rock of Gibraltar have discovered a new chamber, sealed off from the world for at least 40,000 years, that could shed light on the culture and customs of the Neanderthals who occupied the area for a thousand centuries.
In 2012, experts began examining Vanguard Cave, part of the Gorham’s Cave complex, to determine its true dimensions and to see whether it contained passages and chambers that had been plugged by sand.
Continue reading...Analysis: some say Covid has increased voters’ sense of social justice, but the picture remains uneven
Social democracy is back, according to jubilant SPD officials. And after Germany’s oldest political party edged the narrowest of wins against its conservative CDU/CSU rival, it may be tempting to believe Europe’s centre left is stirring.
Not everywhere, though: in France, the Socialist party shows no sign of recovering from its near-obliteration in 2017, when it failed to make the second round of the presidential election and crashed from 280 MPs to 30 and just 7.4% of the vote.
Continue reading...Sculpture based on the poem The Gleaner of Sapri was unveiled by former PM Giuseppe Conte on Saturday
A statue depicting a scantily dressed woman from a 19th-century poem has sparked a sexism row in Italy.
The bronze statue, which portrays the woman in a transparent dress, was unveiled on Saturday during a ceremony attended by the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte in Sapri, in the southern Campania region.
Continue reading...Party that entered German parliament in 2017 drops about 2% nationally despite performing strongly in east
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which made a whirlwind entry into the German parliament in 2017, is set to lose its status as the main opposition force following Sunday’s election but has at the same time emerged as the strongest party in parts of eastern Germany.
The party, which rose to prominence on an anti-immigrant ticket after the arrival of around 1m refugees in 2015 but has more recently focused its attention on attacking the government’s pandemic management, dropped just over 2% nationally to secure 10.3% of the vote.
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz, poised to become next chancellor, wades into row over HGV driver shortage
The centre-left politician in pole position to replace Angela Merkel as German chancellor has pinpointed the decision to end freedom of movement with Europe after Brexit as the reason for Britain’s petrol crisis.
Olaf Scholz, who is seeking to form a coalition government after the SPD emerged as the biggest party in Germany’s federal elections, said he hoped Boris Johnson would be able to deal with the consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU.
Continue reading...Christopher Johns talks about what conditions are like for drivers in the UK and whether any solutions might be forthcoming
Christopher Johns, 37, from Burwash, Sussex, has been an HGV driver for more than 10 years, and drives long distance in UK and Europe. Here he speaks about what conditions are like for HGV drivers in the UK, and why he feels there may be no quick solution to the current truck driver crisis.
“I’m always staggered by how much truck drivers have been taken for granted in the UK. We work so hard for very little money. Our wages have desperately needed improving for such a long time. A friend’s starting salary at Lidl is the same as that of many trucker friends. I could earn more if I did temp work, like many others do, but I have a wife and three kids, I need job security. I only earn enough now because I do a lot of overseas work, where you get bigger expenses allowances.
Continue reading...Residents sent fleeing into the streets and schools evacuated from quake on Greek island
The Greek island of Crete has been hit by an earthquake killing one man and injuring 20, while damaging homes and churches and causing rock slides near the country’s fourth-largest city.
The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of at least 5.8, sent people fleeing into the streets in the city of Heraklion, where schools and older buildings were evacuated.
Continue reading...Centre-left contender to replace Angela Merkel announces plan for ‘social-ecological-liberal’ alliance
The centre-left contender to fill Angela Merkel’s shoes has announced his intention to forge a “social-ecological-liberal coalition” following Sunday’s knife-edge German national vote, as momentum slips from the outgoing chancellor’s own designated successor.
Related: Germany election: what happens next as parties vie to form government
Continue reading...Chahinez Boutaa killed months after telling police her estranged husband had ambushed and beaten her
French police officers are facing disciplinary action over the death of a woman who was shot and burned alive in the street by her estranged husband, weeks after she told police she feared for her life.
Mounir Boutaa allegedly shot his wife, Chahinez, at least twice in the legs yards from her home on the outskirts of Bordeaux in broad daylight in May, before soaking her with petrol and setting light to her as she lay injured on the ground.
Continue reading...Actor helped deliver food to people onboard NGO vessel that was refused entry to Italian port by then minister
Richard Gere has agreed to testify against Italy’s far-right former interior minister Matteo Salvini, who is standing trial for refusing to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019.
Prosecutors in Sicily have accused Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for blocking the NGO vessel Open Arms from docking in August 2019 as part of his closed-ports policy. Onboard were 147 people rescued in the Mediterranean. During the standoff, as the ship was anchored off the island of Lampedusa, some people threw themselves overboard in desperation.
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