Category Archives: Europe

Global report: rise in Delta variant cases forces tougher restrictions

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Moscow has reported the highest death toll of any Russian city, while the Delta variant is forcing tighter restrictions in the Asia-Pacific region

Moscow has recorded the highest Covid-19 daily death toll of any Russian city so far, as the highly contagious Delta variant forced tougher restrictions on countries across the Asia-Pacific region and fuelled mounting concern over holiday travel in Europe.

Vaccinations have brought infection numbers down in many wealthy countries, and curbs on daily life continue to ease in much of the EU and US, but experts warn the fast-spreading strain means the pandemic – while slowing globally – is far from over.

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Macron and Le Pen face new test as France votes again in regional polls

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Second-round voting begins after record low turnout in first round left the two rivals disappointed

France has begun voting in the second round of regional elections after a first round that resulted in a drubbing for Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, disappointment for Marine Le Pen’s far right and a record low turnout.

For some observers, the outcome of the 20 June first round raised doubts over whether the 2022 presidential election would come down to a duel between the president and Le Pen in a runoff long seen as the most likely scenario.

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Le Pen looks to Provence for last hope of victory in French regional elections

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Poll on knife-edge as parties form alliances in a bid to defeat far-right RN party

At the 17th-century town hall in the Provençal city of Arles, a large tricolour flapped vigorously outside the open window of the mayor’s office last week, animated perhaps by what locals call the mistralet, a gentle summer version of the strong wind that blows through the Rhône valley.

The world heritage city – the largest commune in metropolitan France – has been marked by foreign influence throughout its history: the Romans conquered it in 123BC, leaving the magnificent arena, theatre, necropolis and aqueduct; much later came the artists, Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh and Spanish-born Pablo Picasso among them.

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Man captures moment tornado hits his house in Czech Republic – video

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An eyewitness video captured the moment a tornado hit a house in the southern Czech city of Hodonín on Thursday evening. The footage shows trees being bent and broken by winds that knock through a wall and send debris flying through the air before the tornado hits the man's house, blowing a window in. At least five people were killed and hundreds injured after the tornado ripped through towns and villages around Hodonín, near the Czech Republic's borders with Austria and Slovakia. The man who filmed this footage says he was not injured

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Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens ‘scrabbling’ to attain post-Brexit status before deadline

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Pressure grows for UK to extend Wednesday’s settlement-scheme cut-off date as backlog of applications grows and helplines crash

EU citizens are struggling to apply for post-Brexit settled status as the Home Office reaches “breaking point” coping with a last-minute surge in applications.

With three days before the deadline of the EU settlement scheme this Wednesday, campaigners say late applicants are being stuck in online queues as others find it impossible to access advice on the government helpline.

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Senegalese immigrant saves stranger from drowning in Spanish river – video

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When a 72-year-old man fell unconscious into the Nervión River in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao, Senegalese migrant Mouhammad Diouf did not hesitate. Diouf jumped into the river and for 15 minutes kept the man afloat. The 27-year-old arrived in Spain four years ago after a 20-month journey. After the video of the rescue went viral, a request was opened on Change.org to reward his courageous act with legal permission to stay in Spain.

• This video was republished on 27 June 2021. Due to mislabelled agency content, an earlier version misattributed a video interview to Mouhammad Diouf when the speaker was Serigne Sene.

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‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war

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Three years ago, a small group of academics at a German university launched an unprecedented collaboration with the military – using novels to try to pinpoint the world’s next conflicts. Are they on to something?

As the car with the blacked-out windows came to a halt in a sidestreet near Tübingen’s botanical gardens, keen-eyed passersby may have noticed something unusual about its numberplate. In Germany, the first few letters usually denote the municipality where a vehicle is registered. The letter Y, however, is reserved for members of the armed forces.

Military men are a rare, not to say unwelcome, sight in Tübingen. A picturesque 15th-century university town that brought forth great German minds including the philosopher Hegel and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, it is also a modern stronghold of the German Green party, thanks to its left-leaning academic population. In 2018, there was growing resistance on campus against plans to establish Europe’s leading artificial intelligence research hub in the surrounding area: the involvement of arms manufacturers in Tübingen’s “cyber valley”, argued students who occupied a lecture hall that year, brought shame to the university’s intellectual tradition.

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Recipe for inflation: how Brexit and Covid made tinned tomatoes a lot dearer

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Combine the pandemic with rising raw material costs, stir in a labour shortage, a twist of Brexit, add a pinch of poor weather and voila …

Tinned tomatoes are a taken-for-granted store cupboard staple, relied upon by Britons to whip up home cooked favourites such as spaghetti bolognese. But the price could soon make you take notice, amid warnings of higher shopping bills, set against a backdrop of soaring global food prices.

From the packaging to the transportation and the energy used in manufacturing, nearly all aspects of the production of this popular ingredient now cost more. The crushed tomatoes alone are 30% dearer than a year ago, at €0.48 per kilo. The same pressures are driving the prices of many foods higher, meaning Britons will probably face bigger bills for groceries or meals out this autumn.

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‘I don’t have a choice’: Russians scramble to get Covid vaccine amid new restrictions

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With infections at highest since January, country is introducing curbs for non-vaccinated

Russia has finally admitted it has a vaccination problem – but with an “explosion” of new cases driving the country’s daily toll to its highest since January, the question is whether that public realisation has come too late.

Just 11% of Russia’s 146 million population is fully vaccinated – whether due to vaccine skepticism, doubts about Sputnik or other Russian-made vaccines, or “nihilism”, as a Kremlin spokesperson has suggested.

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Woman who killed stepfather after years of abuse in France found guilty

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Valérie Bacot convicted of the premeditated murder of Daniel Polette after suffering over 20 years of violence

A French woman who killed her stepfather, who raped her at the age of 12 and later became her husband, has been convicted of premeditated murder but spared any more time in prison.

Valérie Bacot was subject to more than 20 years of violence at the hands of Daniel Polette, with whom she had four children. The court heard she shot and killed him after he began prostituting her to strangers, fearing that he was about to begin abusing their teenage daughter.

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‘The thought is unbearable’: Europeans react to EU plans to cut British TV

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EU media critics say post-Brexit plans could pave way for more homegrown content

It was during a trip to Brighton for an English language course in 1984 that the young German student Nicola Neumann first discovered British television.

“The elderly couple who put me up tried really hard to educate me further, so we’d sit in front of the telly together every evening and then talk about the programmes afterwards,” she said.

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Frank Gehry’s Luma Arles tower to open in south of France

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Building is architect’s tribute to Arles’ most famous residents: the Romans and Vincent Van Gogh

Rising from the skyline of Arles, the tower appears like a futuristic structure from a Marvel movie with nearly 11,000 stainless steel panels gleaming in the Provençal sun.

Here, at what was once the centre of the Roman empire in France, this twisting structure is the 92-year-old architect Frank Gehry’s tribute to Arles’ most famous residents: the Romans and the artist Vincent Van Gogh.

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Underground tunnels of Rome’s Colosseum fully opened to public

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Hypogeum of 2,000-year-old monument – its ‘backstage’ – restored with walkways for visitors

For the first time, visitors to the Colosseum in Rome can fully explore the underground tunnels and chambers where gladiators and wild animals once prepared for battle.

Spread across 15,000 square metres, the hypogeum of the 2,000-year-old monument is open to the public following the completion of a restoration project funded by the Italian fashion house Tod’s.

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UK facing summer of food shortages due to lack of lorry drivers

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Loss of 100,000 hauliers due to Covid and Brexit will cause food ‘rolling power cuts’, experts warn

The country is facing a summer of food shortages likened to a series of “rolling power cuts” because of a loss of 100,000 lorry drivers due to Covid and Brexit, industry chiefs have warned.

In a letter to Boris Johnson they have called for an urgent intervention to allow eastern European drivers back into the country on special visas, similar to those issued to farm pickers, warning that there is a “crisis” in the supply chain.

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Balearic officials urge Madrid to tighten Covid controls on UK tourists

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Regional government welcomes green list status but calls for Spain to set ‘strict and safe’ entry rules

Authorities in the Balearic Islands – the only Spanish region to be added to the UK’s green list for quarantine-free travel – are calling on the central government to tighten controls for holidaymakers arriving from the UK.

Last month Spain began allowing in British travellers without the need to provide a negative Covid test. The move, aimed at wooing back some of the more than 18 million British tourists who visited in the years prior to the pandemic, contrasts with the growing push for tighter restrictions on UK tourists in the EU in light of the rapid spread of the Delta variant.

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Fractious EU summit rejects Franco-German plan for Putin talks

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Bloc to explore sanctions instead, as gathering also holds ‘emotional’ debate over Hungary’s LGBT laws

A Franco-German plan to restart talks with Vladimir Putin has been rejected at a fractious EU summit that resulted in a decision to explore economic sanctions against Russia instead.

The two-day gathering in Brussels also included an “emotional” debate over LGBT rights in Hungary, as EU leaders confronted Viktor Orbán over a law that will ban gay people from being shown in educational and entertainment content for minors.

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Tornado hits south-east Czech Republic, razing houses and injuring dozens – video

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A rare tornado has hit the south-east of the Czech Republic, razing houses and causing dozens of injuries. Winds hitting 267-322km/h were reported in the towns surrounding Hodonín. Villages were also hit by large hailstones, while the tornado caused widespread power outages

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Covid news: UK removes quarantine requirement for arrivals from Balearics, Malta and some Caribbean islands

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Latest updates: territories are added to UK’s green list or green watchlist, while more countries added to red list

Rory Boland, travel editor for consumer group Which?, said travellers still needed to be “extremely cautious” about booking trips abroad.
He said: “Countries can be downgraded quickly and with little warning, as we saw with Portugal, while several European countries have introduced quarantine requirements for UK residents. “Restrictions around international travel are changing regularly and when they do, the cost to holidaymakers is significant. “Most providers will not pay refunds if a country is moved from green to amber, and ‘free’ amendments are often anything but, with many companies requiring significant notice of any changes and bookings for new dates usually costing hundreds of pounds. Travel insurance is also unlikely to pay out in these circumstances. “It is only advisable to book if you are able to do 14 days’ quarantine, can be flexible about destination and dates, and book with a provider that guarantees refunds in the event of traffic light changes or quarantine requirements.”

Eluned Morgan MS, minister for health and social services in Wales, said: “International travel is resuming but the pandemic is not over and protecting people’s health remains our main priority.

“Our strong advice continues to be not to travel overseas unless it is essential because of the risk of contracting coronavirus, especially new and emerging variants of concern.

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After 16 years of Merkel, EU summit could mark end of an era

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Analysis: Outgoing German chancellor attended her first summit in 2005 with likes of Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac

When Angela Merkel attended her first EU summit in December 2005, her fellow leaders included Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac. It was a different world from the one that exists now as she attends what could be her last.

Europe’s divisions over the Iraq war were still raw. Blair was running the European Council, as the British held the EU’s rotating presidency. During the summit, the UK brokered a deal on the EU budget that cut the British rebate to pay for enlargement into central and eastern Europe.

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