Category Archives: Europe

‘The next decade will be all about heat’: can Athens head off climate crisis?

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Mayor overseeing a green regeneration in city where temperatures can already surpass 40C

Like every Athens mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis is acutely aware of the illustrious heritage of one of the world’s oldest cities. After all, he says, it is busts of Pericles and his mistress Aspasia that adorn the entrance of the neoclassical town hall. From the windows of his cavernous office, he can glimpse the Parthenon through the jumble of concrete buildings and antennas.

But Bakoyannis prefers to talk about the present, not least his plans for fountains, parks and trees – antidotes to the afflictions of more modern times.

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Prince Michael of Kent’s army role questioned after claims he sold access to Kremlin

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Honorary position challenged by Labour after Queen’s cousin allegedly told reporters he could be hired for £10,000 a day to contact Putin’s team

Claims that the Queen’s cousin was willing to use his royal status to sell privileged access to Vladimir Putin’s regime have raised questions over whether he should keep his honorary position in the British army, according to Labour.

Prince Michael of Kent allegedly told undercover reporters posing as investors from South Korea that he could be hired for £10,000 a day to make “confidential” representations to the Russian president’s team.

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Emmanuel Macron: Covid highlights need to ‘beef up’ EU powers

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French president speaks of difficulties in coordinating efforts during pandemic due to lack of central powers in health

Emmanuel Macron has said national divisions during the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted the need to “beef up” EU powers, as he opened a consultation on Europe’s future at an event that was almost cancelled due to internal squabbling.

Speaking from a TV studio set up in the middle of the hemicycle of the European parliament in Strasbourg, the French president said he hoped the Future of Europe conference, a rolling series of events and online public opinion surveys, would strengthen EU level decision-making.

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Libya’s first female foreign minister pressed to quit

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Najla El-Mangoush subjected to personal abuse after demanding withdrawal of Turkish troops and mercenaries

Libya’s first female foreign minister has come under pressure to resign and been subjected to personal abuse seven weeks into the job, after she called for Turkish troops and mercenaries to leave her country.

Najla El-Mangoush, a lawyer and human rights activist, was appointed foreign minister by the country’s interim prime minister, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, after he faced a backlash for backtracking on promises that 30% of ministerial posts would go to women.

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Italian public broadcaster asked to stop promoting ‘intolerable’ content

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Activists claim Rai regulary breaks its own code of ethics when it should be setting example to rest of industry

Activists opposed to racism, homophobia, antisemitism and sexism in the Italian media have written to the public broadcaster, Rai, urging it to stop promoting “intolerable” content.

Rai apologised recently for the use of blackface in its shows, and advised editors to stop airing productions in which performers wear makeup to imitate black people, but stopped short of an outright ban.

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From the Normandy coast, the Jersey whelk wars look like sabotage

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Locals in the port of Granville think the row between France and the UK over fishing makes no sense

If you look out to sea from the Christian Dior museum on the cliffs above Granville, you see the grey outline of what appears to be another part of the Norman coast.

It is. But it isn’t.

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Italy’s birthrate is falling. Can the storks help?

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Last year, the population of Europe’s fourth biggest economy dropped by the equivalent of a city the size of Florence. Yet the northern hamlets of Val d’Ultimo have found ways to buck the trend

Read more: As the global family shrinks, migrants and the planet benefit

As if having a baby wasn’t expensive enough, fathers of newborns in the mountain hamlets that make up Italy’s Val d’Ultimo have an additional cost.

In a revival of an ancient myth that white storks deliver babies, carved wooden storks carrying a newborn child in a sling are a common feature outside homes in the valley.

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US must export doses before waiving Covid vaccine patents, say EU leaders

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Frustration expressed at what several leaders see as the US president’s attempt to claim the moral high ground

EU leaders have given short shrift to a proposal by Joe Biden and backed by the pope to waive Covid-19 vaccine patents as a way to increase supply, insisting that the White House should instead allow the export of doses and the key ingredients.

At a summit in Porto, a series of European leaders, including those who had previously appeared open to suspending intellectual property rights, said Biden’s idea was not a priority and expressed frustration at the US president’s attempt to claim the moral high ground.

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EU posts bail to free jailed Georgia opposition leader

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Move paves way for Nika Melia’s release and end to political crisis that has gripped the country

The European Union said on Saturday it had posted bail for Georgia’s jailed opposition leader, Nika Melia, paving the way for his release and ending a protracted political crisis in the Caucasus country.

Melia, the chair of Georgia’s main opposition force, the United National Movement (UNM), was arrested in February in a violent police raid on his party headquarters, sparking protests and condemnation from the west.

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Remains of nine Neanderthals found in cave south of Rome

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Italian archaeologists believe most of Neanderthals were killed by hyenas then dragged back to den

Italian archaeologists have unearthed the bones of nine Neanderthals who were allegedly hunted and mauled by hyenas in their den about 100km south-east of Rome.

Scientists from the Archaeological Superintendency of Latina and the University of Tor Vergata in Rome said the remains belong to seven adult males and one female, while another are those of a young boy.

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Refugees and the Armenian genocide: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

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‘Green list’ guide: the countries travellers from England can visit

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The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed

The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.

Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know

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Dough to go: Rome’s first pizza vending machine gets mixed reviews

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Mr Go Pizza booth offers 24/7 pizzas, kneaded by a machine and served with cutlery

Massimo Bucolo bravely dared to go where nobody else had gone before in order to take a slice of Italy’s competitive pizza market: a 24-hour vending machine that dishes out freshly baked pizza in three minutes.

Located in a booth on Via Catania, close to Piazza Bologna in Rome, Mr Go Pizza offers up four varieties, including the classic margherita invented in Naples in 1889, each costing between €4.50 and €6. Customers can watch through a small glass window as the vending machine kneads and tops the dough.

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‘We’re piggy in the middle’: Brexit has made life impossible, say Jersey fishers

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Their families have been fishing here for decades but despite promises of frictionless trade, the market for their fish is disappearing

Steph Noel, who has been fishing the waters off Jersey for almost four decades, could not see the point of chugging out to sea in his 8.5-metre boat, Belle Bird, this weekend.

“There’s no value in it for me,” he said. “It’ll cost me in bait and diesel but even if I have a good day there’s no market there for what I bring back.”

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Libyan coastguard boat that shot Italian fisher was provided by Rome

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Italian government supplied vessel to help Tripoli control flow of migrants in Mediterranean

An Italian fisher wounded when his trawler was machined-gunned by the Libyan coastguard was fired on from a boat supplied by Italy’s government to help Tripoli control the flow of migrants.

Libyan authorities, who say the coastguard vessel fired warning shots into the air, said three Italian fishing vessels had entered Libyan territorial waters without authorisation before the incident on Thursday, the latest episode in a territorial dispute involving crews from the Sicilian port of Mazara del Vallo who fish for red prawns off the Libyan coast.

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‘A scene out of the middle ages’: Dead refugee found surrounded by rats at Greek camp

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Chios case highlights deplorable conditions on islands despite EU allocating millions of euros to improve facilities, aid workers say

At a desolate refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios earlier this week, a young man died alone in a tent. By the time the guards arrived on the scene, about 12 hours after the Somali refugee’s death, the body was surrounded by rodents.

Asylum seekers who had initially alerted staff spoke in horror at seeing rats and mice swarming about.

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Italian fisher wounded after Libyan coastguard reportedly shot at boat

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Navy rescues man, who was injured in one arm, after coastguard fired on his boat off the coast of Misrata in Sicily

Italy’s navy has rescued an Italian fisher who was wounded after the Libyan coastguard reportedly fired on his boat.

Salvatore Quinci, mayor of the fishing port of Mazaro del Vallo in south-western Sicily, said members of the coastguard shot at the fisherman’s boat off the coast of Misrata, the Italian news agency Agi reported.

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US-Germany rift as Berlin opposes plan to ditch Covid vaccine patents

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  • Germany says waiver would inhibit private sector research
  • Opposition to Biden plan threatens to deadlock WTO talks

The US and Germany are at odds on the issue of waivers for patents on Covid-19 vaccines, as Berlin argued that a waiver would not increase production and would inhibit future private sector research.

The disagreement is the first major rift between the two economic powers since Joe Biden took office, and threatens to deadlock discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and sour relations within the G7 group of major industrialised democracies.

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French fishers’ protest over Jersey rights is over but the dispute will go on

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New restrictions and deep cuts to allowances mean both French and Jersey boat owners feel betrayed by Brexit

Dawn was still four hours away and the small Normandy port of Carteret was alive, some boats hurriedly unloading their catch for a rapid turnaround, others turning on their lights and firing up their engines for the first time that night.

Minutes after 3am on Thursday they had left the quayside and, in pitch darkness and a gentle swell, were pushing smartly out to sea to join a growing armada of 60-odd boats from Cherbourg right the way round to St-Malo.

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Amsterdam plans out-of-town ‘erotic centre’ as part of cleanup bid

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Proposals for 5,000-sq-metre building detailed in document submitted to the council by mayor

Amsterdam is preparing to build an out-of-town five-storey “erotic centre” with two bars, 100 small rooms and an “erotic entertainment” venue such as a strip club as it downsizes its red-light district.

The plan for the 5,000-sq-metre building has been detailed in a document submitted to the council by mayor Femke Halsema as the city seeks to find a commercial partner for the enterprise.

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