‘Old-style espionage’: Briton’s arrest feels like cold war throwback

Analysis: eastern bloc spy agencies historically would target western staff in junior roles

The arrest of a British citizen in Berlin for allegedly spying for the Russians has a distinctly cold war flavour.

In recent years the Kremlin has been accused of carrying out a number of spectacular cyber-operations. They include the hacking and dumping in 2016 of thousands of Democratic party emails. Moscow’s audacious goal, according to Washington: to help elect Donald Trump as US president.

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Polish government’s media bill is latest move to silence its critics

Analysis: legislation is likely to target US-owned broadcaster as press freedom continues to deteriorate

In 2015, the year that the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland, the country ranked 18th – its highest ever position – out of 164 countries on Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index.

By this year it had fallen to its lowest ever position, 64th, continuing an annual slide that has left it just below Malawi and Armenia, in 62nd and 63rd, and just above Bhutan and Ivory Coast, with a classification from RSF of “problematic”.

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French Holocaust survivor Simone Veil’s memorial vandalised

Police launch investigation after memorial in Brittany to former minister daubed with swastikas

A stone memorial commemorating the life of the Holocaust survivor and former minister Simone Veil has been defaced with swastikas, police have said, sparking fresh concern over antisemitism in France.

The memorial to Veil, at Perros-Guirec in the western Brittany region, was found to have been daubed with the Nazi insignia on Wednesday morning. An investigation has been launched.

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German police arrest Briton on suspicion of spying for Russia

Employee at British embassy in Berlin suspected of passing on documents in exchange for cash

German police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of spying for Russian intelligence in exchange for cash bribes, according to prosecutors.

Germany’s highest public prosecutor said the man, identified only as David S, was arrested at his Potsdam apartment at 2.20pm on Tuesday, and his home and embassy workplace were searched.

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Firefighters battle flames for 12 hours in worst night of southern Italy wildfires – video

Firefighters battled 300 different blazes across the southern regions of Italy, Calabria and Sicily in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Seven Canadair planes flew over the area, which has had 70% more wildfires than in the previous year, the majority breaking out in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and Sardinia

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Poland’s coalition under threat as parliament votes on media bill

Government confident of winning vote despite losing majority after coalition partner walks out

The future of Poland’s three-party coalition government has been thrown into doubt as parliament votes on Wednesday on a controversial media ownership bill that could lead to the country’s largest remaining independent TV station losing its licence.

After a night of protests in Warsaw and 80 other towns and cities against the bill, which opponents see as an attempt to silence an often critical broadcaster, the government said on Wednesday it was confident of winning the vote.

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Vanishing point: inside the 13 August Guardian Weekly

Life and death on the Atlantic migrant route. Plus, is it too late to halt global heating?
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When we think of Europe’s migrant crisis, much of our attention understandably focuses on Mediterranean sea crossings from North Africa. But the Guardian Weekly’s big story this week casts light on another deadly route, from Africa’s western coast to the Spanish Atlantic territory of the Canary Islands. While official death rates are comparatively low, concerns are growing that undocumented fatalities on this extremely dangerous crossing could be many times higher. Sam Jones reports from Gran Canaria.

As extreme weather-fuelled wildfires continued to blaze in several parts of the world this week, a major new report from hundreds of top scientists laid bare the severe extent of our damage to the Earth’s climate and the disaster looming if the slim chance to avert global heating above 1.5C is not grasped. Environment editor Damian Carrington analyses what the IPCC report means, while on our Opinion pages, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, warns starkly that only a complete transformation of our societies can now arrest the warming process.

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Emergency Brexit powers for lorry queues to be made permanent

Exclusive: ministers to make traffic provisions indefinite in expectation of further cross-Channel disruption

Emergency powers to handle post-Brexit queues of lorries heading for France are being made permanent, signalling the government expects further cross-Channel disruption.

Operation Brock, a traffic management system designed to cope with queues of up to 13,000 lorries heading for mainland Europe across Kent, was meant to end by October 2021, after being extended once when the Brexit transition period ended in December 2020.

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Handball chiefs urged to resign over bikini bottoms rule

Women’s sports associations accuse heads of IHF and EHF of ‘blatant sexism’ after Norwegian team fined

Women’s sports associations across Europe have called for the resignation of the presidents of both the international and European handball federations, accusing them of “blatant sexism” for rules that require female players to wear bikini bottoms.

The Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined €1,500 (£1,270) for wearing shorts in protest against the rule during a European Beach Handball Championships match against Spain in Varna, Bulgaria, on 19 July.

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Days of wine and olives: how the old farming ways are paying off in Spain

The ‘no-plough’ regenerative methods adopted in small vineyards have spread to olive groves and leading wine producers – boosting biodiversity and profits

They call it the sea of olives, 70 million olive trees that stretch to the horizon in every direction in the province of Jaén in southern Spain. It’s a spectacular landscape and yet, olives aside, the land is virtually dead, with scarcely a flower, bird or butterfly to be seen.

All this could be about to change following the remarkable success of a project that is raising new life from the dust of Andalucía.

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Video captures moment arsonist sets fire to grass in southern Italy – video

A video has been released by the Italian carabinieri military police showing a hidden camera capturing an arsonist starting a fire in the countryside.

The video released on 6 August showed a person light a match and place it on the grass before running away near Montesarchio, a town 31 miles (49km) from Naples in Italy. The man was arrested.

In Italy, the civil protection authority warned on Monday of more fires to come as temperatures in parts of the country reach 45C.

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Vodafone to reintroduce roaming fees for UK customers in Europe

Provider joins EE in bringing back charges for people to use their phone in mainland Europe from next year

Vodafone is to reintroduce charges for UK customers who use their phones in Europe, despite Britain’s biggest mobile companies previously saying that they would not bring back roaming costs after Brexit.

Vodafone said new customers and those upgrading will have to pay up to £2 a day to use their monthly allowance of data, calls and text messages in mainland Europe.

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German election frontrunners fail to impress with flood response

Poll ratings of CDU and Green candidates take a hit and could result in complex coalition negotiations

Germany is bracing itself for complex coalition negotiations following September’s national elections, after the leaders of the two strongest parties failed to impress voters with their response to last month’s devastating floods and boosted the confidence of smaller parties.

A two-way coalition between the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of the outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the German Greens has long looked the most likely outcome when the country votes in seven weeks’ time, with polls showing a consistent governing majority between the two parties.

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Wildfires rage in Greece and Italy as EU mounts firefighting operation

Week of blazes forces evacuations and brings devastating scale of destruction to large areas of southern Europe

The devastating scale of destruction from a week of wildfires in Greece and Italy was being assessed as the EU mounted one of its largest firefighting operations ever and smoke from forest fires in Siberia reached the north pole.

As UN experts on Monday said global warming was advancing faster than feared and that humanity was “unequivocally” to blame, firefighters and local residents battled massive blazes on the island of Evia, east of Athens, for a seventh straight day.

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Bull reportedly rammed to death by car after ring escape in Spain

Police investigating incident after Campanito the bull forced its way out of ring and injured two people

Police in Spain are investigating after a half-tonne fighting bull pushed its way out of a bullring, injuring two people as it charged through the streets of a small town in central Spain before being reportedly rammed to death by a car.

The incident took place in the early hours of Sunday as many in the village of Brihuega, population 2,400, had gathered in the local bullring to take in a concurso de recortadores, in which participants take turns jumping, twirling and manoeuvring around a bull or heifer in hopes of being deemed the most “courageous” in the ring.

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French police question man who reportedly admitted killing priest

Father Olivier Maire had offered a home to the accused who was awaiting trial for cathedral arson

A man is being questioned by police after he reportedly admitted killing a priest who had offered him a home while awaiting trial for arson.

The suspect walked into a gendarmerie in the Vendée in western France on Monday morning and allegedly told officers he had killed the cleric, the head of a Catholic religious order.

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1,000-year-old remains in Finland may be non-binary iron age leader

DNA suggests body buried in feminine attire with swords had Klinefelter syndrome, researchers say

Modern analysis of a 1,000-year-old grave in Finland challenges long-held beliefs about gender roles in ancient societies, and may suggest non-binary people were not only accepted but respected members of their communities, researchers have said.

According to a peer-reviewed study in the European Journal of Archaeology, DNA analysis of remains in a late iron age grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki in Hattula, southern Finland, may have belonged to a high-status non-binary person.

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France extends Covid health pass after fourth weekend of protests

Pass sanitaire allows people to visit restaurants, hospitals and take long train trips but backlash continues

An extension to France’s “health pass” covering activities including going to restaurants and cafes, taking long-distance train journeys and visiting hospitals has come into effect after a fourth weekend of protests.

The pass sanitaire, which the government hopes will boost vaccination rates, is shown in the form of a QR code either digitally or on paper and given to those who are fully vaccinated, have a negative Covid-19 test or have had coronavirus and recovered.

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Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: ‘Belarusians weren’t ready for this level of cruelty’

Opposition leader speaks to the Guardian a year after anti-Lukashenko protests began, as crackdown continues

A year has passed since Belarusians took to the streets to challenge the authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, over stolen elections, marking the greatest crisis of his 27 years in power and the most harrowing year in the country’s modern history.

In an interview, the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya issued a message of defiance tinged with pain as she detailed the toll that the last year has taken on the 35,000 jailed, hundreds tortured, and thousands more forced to flee the country or hide from Lukashenko’s crackdown.

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Belarus regime steps up ‘purge’ of activists and media

Alexander Lukashenko leading ‘vicious operation to eviscerate critical voices’ and civil society, rights groups warn

Aleysa Ivanova wakes up each morning wondering when the knock on her door will come.

“You understand you can be next. Every day I wake up, I think ‘maybe it’ll be tomorrow, maybe today. Maybe they’ll come for me this evening’,” said Ivanova (not her real name).

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