At least five people were wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.
About 800 people were evacuated from their homes, including a convent of nuns, after a fire broke out in the 53-hectare (131-acre) Pineta Dannunziana nature reserve, as the fires continue to be active on different fronts
Continue reading...These fragile ecosystems are where the impacts of the climate crisis are often felt first, say experts
The Ebro delta appears to be in robust health, to a casual observer. There is water gurgling in the canals and irrigation channels, and what appears to be a mighty river flowing into the sea. The dazzling green rice fields are dotted with ibis, egrets and redshanks.
However, all is not what it seems. The Ebro, the only one of Spain’s three great rivers that flows into the Mediterranean, is one of the most abused and exploited in Europe.
Continue reading...Wildfires burn across Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in heatwave bringing temperatures above 40C
At least five people have been wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.
A five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but her condition is not believed to be life-threatening, according to reports.
Continue reading...The increasingly draconian approach to irregular migration betrays the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention
Seventy years ago, the 1951 UN refugee convention established the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary, and the obligations of states to protect them. Increasingly, it seems that much of Europe is choosing to commemorate the anniversary by ripping up some of the convention’s core principles.
So far this year, close to 1,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, more than four times the death toll for the same period in 2020. Many will have been economic migrants. Others will have been fleeing persecution. Increasingly, Europe does not care. All were “irregular”. And all must be discouraged and deterred through a strategy of cruelty.
Continue reading...Holidaymakers have been evacuated from beaches by rescue boats in Turkey after wildfires threatened hotels is several resort towns.
Six people have died and more than 500 needed hospital treatment in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns from fires that have raged across the country since Wednesday
Continue reading...Spectrum of measures including incentives and hardline laws have met with responses varying from rise in uptake to wave of protests
Last week, the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, appeared on television for a late-night address.
The hardliner has previously pushed a shoot-to-kill policy against drug gangs, but had something else on his mind this time: the coronavirus pandemic and those refusing to be vaccinated, who he suggested should be compelled to stay at home.
Continue reading...The Home Office appears to be in breach of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, says legal charity
European citizens who have applied for settled status are being detained and threatened with deportation, a development that contradicts assurances from ministers and appears to contravene the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
The Home Office has served EU nationals with removal directions even though they could prove they had applied for settled status, which should protect their rights to remain in the UK.
Continue reading...The land mass that linked Britain to continental Europe was rich in early human life until it flooded
The idea of a “lost Atlantis” under the North Sea connecting Britain by land to continental Europe had been imagined by HG Wells in the late 19th century, with evidence of human inhabitation of the forgotten world following in 1931 when the trawler Colinda dredged up a lump of peat containing a spear point.
But it is only now, after a decade of pioneering research and the extraordinary finds of an army of amateur archaeologists scouring the Dutch coastline for artefacts and fossils, that a major exhibition is able to offer a window into Doggerland, a vast expanse of territory submerged following a tsunami 8,000 years ago, cutting the British Isles off from modern Belgium, the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.
Continue reading...Daughter of Holocaust survivor pledges to continue her fight for family property seized by Nazi occupiers
A few years ago, Shoshana Greenberg stood outside a building in Lodz, Poland, once owned by her family, with an old photograph in her hands and tears running down her face.
Greenberg, now 74 and living in Tel Aviv, was on a quest to reclaim property lost during the Holocaust. Her father was head of a prominent, wealthy Jewish family in Lodz that owned industrial buildings, residential homes and holiday properties.
Continue reading...Holidaymakers have been evacuated from beaches by rescue boats in Turkey after wildfires threatened hotels in the Aegean resort of Bodrum.
Coastguard vessels were joined by private boats and yachts to bring the tourists to safety, according to Turkish media on Saturday. Videos posted online showed people wheeling their suitcases along the road while smoke from forest fires billowed into the sky.
Continue reading...200,000 take to the streets to oppose proof-of-vaccination for hospitals, trains, and cultural and leisure centres
Thousands of people have protested in Paris and other French cities over a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to many public venues, introduced by the government as it battles a fourth wave of infections.
Protesters injured three police officers in Paris, a police spokesperson said. The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said on Twitter that 19 demonstrators were arrested, including 10 in Paris.
Continue reading...Louise Kerton went missing in 2001 after travelling to stay with her boyfriend’s family in Germany
Twenty years since the disappearance of Louise Kerton, who travelled to Germany to holiday with her boyfriend’s family and disappeared, her father is looking for fresh leads.
Phil Kerton is hoping publicity to mark the anniversary might trigger memories or encourage police in Germany, the UK or Belgium – which she is supposed to have travelled through via rail and sea – to reopen the case.
Continue reading...An ancient Roman ship carrying a cargo load of wine jars, or amphorae, has been found underwater in the Mediterranean Sea off the Italian island of Sicily. The vessel was discovered during an underwater reconnaissance expedition by the island's Regional Agency for Environment Protection. The findings will shed light on Rome’s trade activity in the Mediterranean, where the Romans traded spices, wine, olives and other products in north Africa, Spain, France and the Middle East
Continue reading...Grant Shapps defends decision to put France on UK’s amber-plus list over Beta variant threat
A British cabinet minister has sought to dampen down a growing diplomatic row with France over the imposition of tougher international restrictions on millions of travellers owing to the threat of the Beta variant of coronavirus.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, defended the decision to put France on the “amber-plus” list, after the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, on Thursday suggested the variant’s prevalence on Réunion, a French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean, was partly to blame.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Haiti to Pakistan
Continue reading...Party islands Mykonos and Ios could be shut down as Delta variant infection rates surge among young people
Greece has begun deploying police units to holiday island hotspots as the country’s tourism season moves into high gear amid a worrying spread of coronavirus variants.
Authorities moved to beef up police presence on party isles such as Mykonos and Ios as concerns mounted over local entrepreneurs failing to comply with health measures aimed at curbing the pandemic. “The Delta variant has meant that every country is dealing with the fourth wave now and not as expected in November,” the Greek tourism minister Haris Theoharis told the Guardian. “While hotels and family-type venues are implementing protocols diligently, there’s more congestion than we would like to see in bars, especially among the younger crowd ... so we are trying to ensure some balance is kept.”
Continue reading...After several ‘hiccups’ on the journey to the ISS, the Nauka lab module accidentally fired its rockets after docking
Russia’s troubled Nauka laboratory module has caused a fright when its rockets accidentally fired after docking the with the International Space Station, briefly throwing the station out of position.
A few hours after docking, Nauka’s propulsive devices unexpectedly fired, forcing personnel aboard the ISS to fire thrusters on the Russian segment of the station to counter the effect.
Continue reading...Inquiry into death of Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 says state had created a culture of impunity
An independent inquiry in Malta into the murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has found that the state had to bear responsibility after creating a “culture of impunity”.
The 437-page report, conducted by a team of judges and released on Thursday, said the state “failed to recognise the real and immediate risks” to the investigative journalist’s life and “failed to take reasonable steps to avoid them”.
Continue reading...Catholic church had denied 13-year-old girl sexually assaulted and killed in 1955 a funeral due to arcane rule
There had never been so many people at a funeral in the history of Montedoro, a village suspended in time among wheat fields and abandoned sulphur mines in central Sicily.
Its 1,500 inhabitants had waited for this moment for more than half a century, and on Wednesday gathered in hundreds in solemn prayer in the village church around a small white coffin.
Continue reading...Fuelled by summer heatwaves, wildfires have swept through more than 1.5m hectares of Yakutia’s swampy coniferous taiga, with more than a month still to go in Siberia‘s annual fire season
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