Non-Russian producers now required to mark their bottles as sparkling wine
If anything is guaranteed to get French wine producers in a fizz, it is the suggestion that champagne can be made anywhere outside the Champagne region in France.
As a protected appellation, the term is jealously guarded and legally defended. As the Champagne committee’s website clearly states: “Champagne only comes from Champagne.”
Continue reading...Officials to be investigated after film appears to show patrol boat firing shots at a vessel carrying 64 people in the Mediterranean
Prosecutors in Sicily have launched an investigation against the Libyan coastguard after footage emerged appearing to show officials firing on a boat of migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.
On 30 June, rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the Libyan coastguard patrol vessel coming dangerously close to the small wooden boat and apparently firing shots in an attempt to force the 64 people onboard back to Libya.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Mobile Covid testing units offering results in 15 minutes are among a host of rapid tests that play a crucial role in keeping rates down
Parked outside an espresso bar on Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz junction, Maximilian Fritzsch’s mobile coronavirus testing unit aims for similar speed of service as an on-the-go shot of caffeine. Working from the back of a cargo e-bike, staff in lab coats take a quick swab from the nostrils of stressed commuters, who usually receive the result in their inboxes within 15 minutes.
“It is a bit physically intrusive”, said office worker Luisa Larsen, 42, as she impatiently checked her smartphone for the test result. “But then again it’s free, and it feels like the responsible thing to do.”
Continue reading...Deadly blaze that killed four people and forced evacuation of 10 villages is now close to being under control
Authorities in Cyprus have said a deadly forest fire that was the worst to hit the island in decades was close to being brought under control after water bombing by Greek and Israeli aircraft.
Fanned by strong winds, the fire broke out on Saturday afternoon and swept through the southern foothills of the Troodos mountain range as the country grappled with a blistering heatwave.
Continue reading...Irish foreign minister hits out at Brexit minister over provocative article on Northern Ireland protocol
The EU fears that Boris Johnson wants to “dismantle” the Northern Ireland protocol, the Irish foreign minister has said, as relations between Brussels and London deteriorated again after remarks by the Brexit minister David Frost in the past 24 hours.
Simon Coveney told RTÉ on Sunday that EU leaders feared the worst after what he felt was a provocative article written by Lord Frost and the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, in the Irish Times on Saturday.
Continue reading...Vatican says pontiff will undergo operation for diverticular stenosis of the colon
Pope Francis has been admitted to a hospital in Rome for scheduled surgery on his large intestine, the Vatican has said. The news came just three hours after the pope had cheerfully greeted the public in St Peter’s Square and told them he would visit Hungary and Slovakia in September.
The brief statement from the Holy See’s press office did not say exactly when the surgery would be performed at the Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic teaching hospital, only that there would be a medical update when the surgery was complete. However, sources indicated that the surgery would be carried out later on Sunday.
Continue reading...Foreign-based fans slept in cars and even planned marriage proposals to be at the scene of Euro 2020 quarter final
They came from Berne, Berlin, Luxembourg and Dubai, some forgoing a night’s sleep as they drove across the Alps or took red-eye flights. Some of the more ardent football fans bought tickets two years ago; others bagged them in the last-minute rush that followed England’s historic win over Germany on Tuesday.
They were rewarded with an extraordinary, emphatic, exhilarating 4-0 victory over Ukraine, and those inside the stadium sang till their voices gave out.
Continue reading...Ravil Mingazov, who spent 15 years in the US prison camp, could be sent to Russia where ‘he will not be free for the rest of his life,’ experts warn
A former Guantánamo detainee is facing forced repatriation from the United Arab Emirates to Russia where he faces a “substantial risk of torture” according to UN human rights experts.
Ravil Mingazov is a Muslim Tartar who spent 15 years without charge in the US prison camp on Guantánamo Bay before being transferred to the UAE in January 2017. The conditions of the transfer were kept secret, but his family and legal team were given assurances that he would be freed after a few months. Those assurances were not kept.
Continue reading...Extra cost of permission for British temporary staff to work in resorts likely to be prohibitive for firms
School skiing trips that rely on British personnel to staff their EU winter camps could be wiped out by Brexit after it emerged they are facing the same obstacles as the music and theatre sectors.
Just like rock bands and music artists, instructors who work on the slopes of France, Italy or elsewhere in the EU are now required to have visas if they work in Europe, even if it is for just one week at a time.
Continue reading...Analysis: when the German chancellor steps down in September, her departure will leave a gaping hole
Angela Merkel, now on an affable UK farewell tour including tea with the Queen, leaves a paradoxical legacy for many British.
She is often hailed as the upholder of a liberal Europe that faced a populist onslaught from Donald Trump. But she is also the woman who refused to throw David Cameron a lifeline on immigration ahead of the Brexit referendum, judging it not in the national interest. But for Merkel’s stance then, her jocular host now might not have been Boris Johnson, who leaves her cold, but an ageing Cameron in his 11th year in office.
Continue reading...Italy tries for second time to block Croatia’s efforts to win special EU recognition for its dessert wine
Croatian winemakers have leapt to the defence of their centuries-old dessert wine, prošek, amid a renewed prosecco identity war sparked by Italy.
Italy said it would defend prosecco at all costs after Croatia applied to the European Commission for special recognition of prošek.
Continue reading...Christos Pappas was last of far-right group’s cadres to evade justice after dozens of operatives jailed last year
The far-right extremist long regarded as Golden Dawn’s chief ideologue has been placed behind bars after nine months on the run, starting a 13-year prison sentence handed down by a Greek court in October.
Flushed out of his lair – a flat where he had been hiding in Athens – Christos Pappas, the now-defunct group’s deputy leader, was driven in a whirl of sirens on Friday from police headquarters to the courts and then on to jail in central Greece.
Continue reading...German rescue group issues video of Libyans’ ‘brutal attack’ on boat of migrant families in Mediterranean
Footage has emerged that appears to show the Libyan coastguard firing on a boat in distress carrying migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the coastguard patrol vessel apparently trying to ram the small wooden boat and firing shots in an attempt to force the people onboard back to Libya.
Continue reading...EU vaccine passport scheme omits Covishield jab, despite it offering same protection as UK-made one
British travellers hoping to visit Europe this summer face an extra hurdle as it emerged that those vaccinated with Indian-manufactured AstraZeneca jabs would not automatically skip quarantine.
Under the EU vaccine passport scheme, people given the AstraZeneca jab produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) would not automatically avoid quarantine and mandatory testing when travelling in Europe.
Continue reading...After disappointment in past tournaments, there has never been as good a time to be a Ukraine fan
Kyiv doesn’t look like a city gripped by Euro 2020 fever. Take a walk through Ukraine’s capital on a non-game day and there are few banners or flags to suggest the national team is on a historic run to its first quarter-finals of a European football championship.
But scratch the surface and you’ll find a city of diehards. “I’m set for a Ukraine victory,” said Andriy, 29, the head of a marketing agency, outside the popular Espressoholic cafe in the Podil district. “I know, of course, that England are stronger, but I want to believe.”
Continue reading...Prime minister will welcome German leader at Chequers in her last visit as chancellor
Boris Johnson is to welcome Angela Merkel to Chequers on Friday, with coronavirus travel restrictions anticipated to be high on the agenda for their meeting.
The German chancellor, who is making her final visit to the UK before stepping down, has called for quarantine for all UK travellers entering the EU, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, due to concerns over the Delta variant.
Germany has already designated the UK a “virus variant region”, meaning anyone travelling from the UK has to quarantine for two weeks on arrival – excluding those in transit.
Continue reading...Regions speed up plans to vaccinate under-30s as more than 1,000 cases traced to Mallorca school trip
Authorities and health experts in Spain have called for prudence and responsibility amid a surge in cases among young people who are still waiting to be vaccinated after more than 1,000 Covid cases across the country were traced back to an end-of-year school trip to Mallorca.
Although more than a third of Spain’s 47 million people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, case numbers have been rising over recent days – most notably among younger people still waiting to get their shots.
Continue reading...Italy’s justice minister orders an investigation after images from the 2020 incident are published
Italy’s justice minister, Marta Cartabia, has ordered a report into conditions in the country’s prisons after the release of video footage showing guards brutally beating inmates at a jail near Naples who had demanded better coronavirus protections.
The shocking scenes of prisoners being kicked, slapped and beaten with truncheons at Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in Caserta were caught by surveillance cameras on 6 April 2020, the day after a riot erupted in the prison as inmates demanded face masks and Covid-19 tests in reaction to an outbreak of the virus. The footage was published this week by the newspaper Domani.
Continue reading...As Turkey quits the Istanbul convention, Gülsüm Kav’s group We Will Stop Femicide is helping keep women alive amid a rise in gender-based violence
“History is on our side,” says Gülsüm Kav. She leans in and speaks intensely. She has a lot to say: Kav helped create Turkey’s We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) group, and has become one of the country’s leading feminist activists even as the political environment has grown more hostile.
Amid protests, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul convention, the landmark international treaty to prevent violence against women and promote equality, on Thursday. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has long attacked women’s rights and gender equality, suggesting that feminists “reject the concept of motherhood”, speaking out against abortion and even caesarean sections, and claiming that gender equality is “against nature”.
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