Moulin Rouge performed a full dress rehearsal two days ahead of the reopening of the cabaret following an 18-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Moulin Rouge and Le Lido, emblems of the crazy Parisian nights since 1889, will open again on 10 September.
Continue reading...Category Archives: Europe
Former Venezuelan spymaster arrested by Madrid police on US drugs charges
Gen Hugo Carvajal, who had defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared, was arrested on Thursday night
Police in Madrid have arrested a former Venezuelan spymaster on US narcotics charges nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared.
Gen Hugo Carvajal, who for over a decade was Hugo Chávez’s eyes and ears in the military, was arrested on Thursday night at a small apartment where he had been holed up.
Continue reading...France accuses Patel of blackmail in row over Channel migrants
Interior minister says UK plans to return boats of vulnerable people would not be accepted
Priti Patel has been accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat.
Gérald Darmanin said that UK plans, released on Wednesday night, to send back boats of vulnerable people into French waters would not be accepted by his government.
Continue reading...Austrian man mummifies dead mother to keep receiving her benefits
Man, 66, admitted to freezing her body after she died before wrapping her in bandages to absorb any fluid
Austrian police have discovered the body of an 89-year-old woman who died more than a year ago and was mummified in the cellar by her son who wanted to continue receiving her benefits.
In a statement, police said the woman, who is believed to have suffered from dementia, had died in June last year.
Continue reading...Return of migrant vessels: a violation of maritime law and moral duty
Analysis: experts say blocking right to apply for asylum is an infringement of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Gaspare, a fisher from Sciacca in Sicily, had rescued dozens of migrants attempting to reach Italy by boat from Libya when the Italian authorities threatened to arrest him and his crew for aiding illegal immigration.
“I wonder if even one of our politicians has ever heard the desperate cries for help at high sea in the black of night,” he said in 2019. “I wonder what they would have done. No human being – sailor or not – would have turned away.”
Continue reading...Putin and Lukashenko move to integrate economies of Russia and Belarus
Russian president announces agreement on macroeconomic policies, and common tax and customs measures
Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said they had made progress toward integrating the two countries’ economies during a summit on Thursday evening in advance of massive joint military exercises.
Speaking late on Thursday, Putin said the two leaders had agreed to coordinate the countries’ macroeconomic policies, institute common tax and customs measures, and harmonise other financial controls as part of a 28-point roadmap that is expected to increase Russia’s influence over its neighbour.
Continue reading...Syria cement plant at centre of terror finance investigation ‘used by western spies’
Jordanian intelligence officer tells Guardian Lafarge factory was used by intelligence agencies to gather information on IS hostages
A cement plant in Syria at the centre of a terror financing investigation in France was used by western intelligence agencies to gather information on hostages held by Islamic State, sources connected to the operation have said.
A Jordanian intelligence officer who was central to the spying effort has confirmed to the Guardian that the Lafarge factory, which continued operating after the terrorist group overran eastern Syria, in one of the most controversial episodes of the war, was the regional hub of a failed effort to rescue up to 30 hostages. Those IS held included the American journalist James Foley, British photographer John Cantlie and Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, two of whom were later confirmed to have been killed.
Continue reading...Brexit pre-settled status: EU nationals in UK face losing out on jobs and housing
Some people cannot prove they are in the country legally because of glitch in digital residency permits
EU nationals living in the UK who apply to change their status risk being rejected by landlords, employers and mortgage lenders because of an anomaly on the digital residency permits issued by the government.
Before they can access public or financial services, EU nationals have to prove that they have been granted either settled or pre-settled status by the Home Office.
Continue reading...Berlin’s bizarre new museum: a Prussian palace rebuilt for €680m
A cross between a Disneyland castle and a chilling concrete block, the Humboldt Forum is set to teach visitors about Germany’s colonial era. But is the past being examined – or exalted?
A museum gift shop has never been such an ideological battleground. At one end of the store in Berlin’s new Humboldt Forum is a display of souvenirs adorned with the gilded silhouette of the Stadtschloss, the city’s former royal palace, which was bombed to pieces in the second world war. Racks of silk scarves and Christmas baubles hang above rows of candles in regal colours, emblazoned with an image of the stately Prussian pile.
At the other end of the shop is a rival range of merchandise, themed around the former East German parliament and leisure centre, the Palast der Republik, which was triumphantly built on top of the ruins of the palace in the 1970s. With its sharp white marble walls, bronze-mirrored windows and space-age chandeliers, it was designed to showcase the wonders of socialism. You can buy keyrings and enamel mugs in a retro Soviet style, as well as a model kit of the building in Formo, the East German version of Lego, for €250.
Continue reading...France grants citizenship to 12,000 Covid frontline workers
Fast-track scheme is aimed at those whose jobs put them at risk in pandemic
France has granted citizenship to more than 12,000 frontline workers whose jobs put them at risk during the Covid pandemic under a special fast-track scheme.
As well as speeding up the application process, which normally takes up to two years, the government also cut the residency requirement from five years to two.
Continue reading...Priti Patel to send boats carrying migrants to UK back across Channel
Border Force is being trained on ‘turn-around’ tactics but France warns plan could endanger lives
Priti Patel is preparing to send back small boats carrying migrants in the Channel despite warnings from the French authorities that it could endanger lives.
Border Force staff are being trained to employ “turn-around” tactics at sea under plans developed for two years, a statement from the Home Office said.
Continue reading...Man ‘subjected to homophobic assault’ in Madrid says injuries were consensual
LGBTI protests against hate crime in Spain will still go ahead
A Spanish man who said he had been attacked by a masked gang who subjected him to a homophobic assault at knifepoint and carved the word “faggot” into one of his buttocks has now told police that his injuries were consensual.
The apparent attack, which was alleged to have taken place in the central Madrid neighbourhood of Malasaña on Sunday afternoon, shocked Spain and came amid a rise in hate crimes – and just two months after a gay man was beaten to death in the northern city of A Coruña.
Continue reading...German Covid super-spreader event driven by poor ventilation, study finds
Low-grade ventilation system at indoor carnival in Gangelt leading factor in outbreak among partygoers
Airborne viruses recycled through a low-grade ventilation system likely created Germany’s first super-spreader event of the Covid-19 pandemic, a CSI-style analysis of a carnival celebration has found.
The event at the town hall of Gangelt, a municipality on the border with the Netherlands, was labelled “Germany’s Wuhan” after it was found to be the driver of a major outbreak in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia last year.
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz: ‘Merit in society must not be limited to top-earners’
Exclusive: Germany’s possible next chancellor on his plans for Europe, tackling inequality and how to revive the centre-left
The new frontrunner to win Germany’s national vote at the end of this month says he believes he can reawaken Europe’s centre-left from its decade-long slumber with a two-fold promise: to guarantee his country’s continued economic success, while at the same time putting an end to the myth that individual success is always self-made.
Germany’s vice-chancellor and finance minister, Olaf Scholz, has this summer surprisingly lifted his Social Democratic party (SPD) above Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in opinion polls, in large part due to a reputation for rational decision-making and fiscal prudence that mirrors that of the outgoing chancellor.
Continue reading...‘I will see the ghosts of the dead forest for a long time’ – returning to Evia after the wildfires
Gideon Mendel has been photographing people returning home after the devastation of recent wildfires on the island of Evia in Greece. The work follows his earlier projects about people affected by wildfires in New South Wales, Australia, and flooding globally
At the end of August, as part of my long-term work on the global climate emergency, I travelled to Evia in Greece to explore the impacts of the unprecedented fires that had devastated village communities and the ecology of the island. I chose not to chase the drama of the burning flames, but rather to seek out their aftermath. I encountered endless blackened landscapes and made these portraits of people whose lives have been destroyed by the fire they describe as a “burning hell”. I know that it was not easy for my subjects to return to their homes to be photographed, and for some this was the first time that they had stepped inside since the fire. However, I found that they embraced this moment of having their fractured situation witnessed and were keen to share their stories. I was moved by their openness to my camera after all the horrors of their recent experience. Visually I found that an eerily precise symmetry seemed to emerge from the unspeakable chaos of their ruined homes, many of which are situated in places of profound beauty. I hope that their gaze at the camera will provoke a visceral sense of the climate threat we all face.
Continue reading...US-led meeting to set out framework for Taliban cooperation
Talks involving up to 20 nations come as militants ignore calls to form inclusive government in Afghanistan
The US is convening an expanded group of western nations to set a framework for cooperation with the new Taliban government, amid fears that isolating the militant group could backfire.
The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, faces an all-male, Pashtun-dominated caretaker government that has ignored calls to form an inclusive administration.
Continue reading...Jewellery worth €10m stolen in heist at Bulgari store in Paris
Two armed robbers are in custody after a police chase, with a hunt under way for remaining suspects
A group of thieves have struck the Bulgari store on the Place Vendôme in Paris, making off with about €10m (£8.6m) in jewellery. They then led police on a high-speed chase during which two of the suspects were captured, sources have told AFP.
Three individuals, wearing sharp suits and armed with guns, robbed the recently revamped boutique on the Place Vendôme in central Paris, where the Ritz hotel is located, shortly before midday on Tuesday, police said.
Continue reading...German Greens receive more large donations than Angela Merkel’s party
Environmental party given highest one-off sum in its history by Dutch tech entrepreneur
Germany’s Greens have so far received more large donations ahead of this September’s federal elections than the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel, after a Dutch tech entrepreneur gave the environmental party the highest one-off sum of cash in its history.
Steven Schuurman, co-founder of software company Elastic, whose net worth is listed by Forbes magazine as 2bn US dollars (£1.45bn), on Tuesday transferred to the German Greens (Die Grünen) a donation of 1.25m euros (£1m).
Continue reading...Merkel urges Germans to back her party’s choice of successor
Outgoing chancellor implores public to pick Armin Laschet over his surging centre-left rival
Angela Merkel has used what is likely to be her last speech in the German parliament to make her most impassioned intervention in the electoral race so far, urging the public to vote for her party’s beleaguered candidate over his surging centre-left rival.
The chancellor, who will stand down after federal elections on 26 September, warned of the possibility of the Social Democratic party (SPD) and the Greens governing the country in a coalition with the far-left Die Linke.
Continue reading...Poland’s government risks fines for flouting European court order
Ruling party failed to comply with order on judicial independence, European Commission claims
Poland’s nationalist government risks daily fines for flouting a European court order, after EU authorities in Brussels urged financial penalties over what are seen as threats to judicial independence.
The European Commission called on the European court of justice (ECJ) to hit the Polish government with daily fines “to ensure compliance”, in a move hailed as a watershed moment in the struggle over the rule of law in the central European country.
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