Police in Paris fire teargas as protesters in trade union-led march smash windows of bank branches
Thousands rallied on Saturday across France and Spain to hold May Day rallies in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic as police scuffled with protesters in Paris and fired teargas.
A police source told AFP that far-left “black bloc” protesters had repeatedly tried to block the trade union-led march in the French capital, with 34 people detained.
Continue reading...Brussels promises to retaliate against move, which Moscow says was a response to punitive EU measures in March
The EU has accused Russia of seeking confrontation after the Kremlin sanctioned senior officials in Brussels and the president of the European parliament in a retaliatory move.
In a joint statement by Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and David Sassoli, the heads of the European commission, council and parliament said Moscow’s action on Friday had been “groundless”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Frans Timmermans says older people need to make sacrifices to protect the future
Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned.
Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests.
Continue reading...Unicef warns many child refugees and migrants picked up off the coast of Libya will be sent to ‘appalling’ detention centres
Fears are rising over the numbers of lone children risking their lives to reach Europe after 114 were pulled from the Mediterranean Sea in one day this week.
The unaccompanied minors were among 125 children rescued off the Libyan coast on Tuesday by the authorities, aid agencies said.
Continue reading...Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall
Counting on an accelerating vaccination campaign to keep new infections in check, much of continental Europe has announced plans for a gradual exit from lockdown over the coming weeks as case numbers begin to fall. Here is where things stand:
Belgium (at least one vaccine dose administered to 25% of whole population) aims to permit outside dining in restaurants and bars again on 8 May, with a mandatory 10pm closing time and tables limited to groups of four. Non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened on Monday.
Continue reading...Observers say the Sputnik V jab is aimed more at sowing political division than fighting coronavirus
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has yet to win EU regulatory approval and is likely to play little part in the bloc’s rollout, but it has already achieved what some observers say is one of its objectives – sowing division among, and within, member states.
“Sputnik V has become a tool of soft power for Russia,” said Michal Baranowski, a fellow with a US thinktank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It’s planted its flag on the vaccine and the political goal of its strategy is to divide the west.”
Continue reading...Pascal Soriot says firm is doing its best to produce more and ‘should be proud of what we did in the world’
AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has mounted a robust defence of the drugmaker’s Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and said the business should be proud of what it has done for the world and is doing its “very best” to produce more, as the company faces legal action from the EU over delivery shortfalls, and shipments to poorer countries have also been delayed.
The company generated $275m (£197m) in revenues from the Covid vaccine it developed with Oxford University in the first three months of the year and shipped 48m doses to 120 countries through the global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax, 80% of which went to low and middle-income countries. In total, it has supplied more than 300m vaccine doses to more than 165 countries so far this year.
Continue reading...Culture minister says country is facing up to ‘historic and moral responsibility’ by returning artefacts to Nigeria
Germany is to become the first country to hand back the Benin bronzes looted by British soldiers in the late 19th century, after the culture minister, Monika Grütters, announced it would start returning a “substantial” part of the artefacts held in its museums to Nigeria from next year.
“We face up to our historic and moral responsibility to shine a light and work on Germany’s historic past,” Grütters said after museum experts and political leaders struck an agreement at a summit on Thursday.
Continue reading...The World Health Organization (WHO) said the kind of struggle India was having against a devastating resurgence in Covid cases could happen anywhere in the world, during a briefing on Thursday.
Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said relaxing measures and allowing mass gatherings should be avoided, especially where vaccination coverage was low and there were contagious variants.
The B.1.617 coronavirus variant – thought to be partly responsible for India's crisis – is now considered a 'variant of interest' by the WHO
Continue reading...Case of student whose body was found in Cairo in 2016 finally reaches courtroom
Italian prosecutors have asked a judge to put four senior members of Egypt’s powerful security services on trial over their suspected role in the disappearance and murder of Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016, as the case finally reached a courtroom five years after his death.
The 28-year-old doctoral student went missing in Cairo on 25 January 2016 while researching Egypt’s unions. His body was discovered on an outlying Cairo highway nine days later, displaying signs of extreme torture and abuse.
Continue reading...Three Dublin lads and their super-smart classmate face an uncertain future in a tale that only hints at dark possibilities
Here is an ensemble coming-of-ager in which someone actually says the line: “That summer may have changed everything …” It’s in a style I associate with the 90s: movies such as Trainspotting or Human Traffic, with people clubbing and yearning and discovering the value of friendship together as the sun comes up. There’s certainly an impressive cast lineup for this one, but there’s also something weirdly formless and frustrating about it as well; the film gestures at some dark and disturbing possibilities in human nature without quite knowing if or how to follow through.
Matthew (Dean-Charles Chapman), Kearney (Finn Cole) and Rez (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) are three Dublin lads who leave school without much idea of what they want to do – not like their super-smart classmate Jen (Anya Taylor-Joy) who has some ambitious life plans figured out and on whom sweet, sensitive Matthew has a massive crush. But then the boys witness something horrible that shakes them up and reveals a sinister side to Kearney, who has a creepy attitude to Jen and a droog-like enthusiasm for torturing homeless people.
Continue reading...Decision taken despite the risk of politicising music competition, head of European Broadcasting Union says
Belarus had to be banned from this year’s Eurovision after it repeatedly submitted songs calling for “no dissent” despite the risk of the decision politicising the music competition, the head of the event’s organising body has said.
Noel Curran, director general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the industry body that produces the annual international competition, said a stand needed to be taken with Belarus cracking down on anti-government protests, while also conceding the danger of stoking controversy over future country submissions.
Continue reading...Funeral directors say up to 2,000 bodies await burial or cremation in warehouses at Prima Porta cemetery
Steps away from a warehouse containing row upon row of coffins at Prima Porta cemetery in Rome, anger simmered among a group of about 12 funeral workers queueing up outside the administrative office.
Some were there to deliver bodies for burial or cremation, others to collect the ashes of the deceased cremated months ago. “It’s a tragic, shameful situation,” said Maurizio, a funeral company worker. “Just look around you – we’re all waiting. They blame it on coronavirus, but that’s just an excuse. This is how it is every day.”
Continue reading...Critics of 2020 law allowing gay couples to marry gather 61,027 signatures to force national vote
Switzerland will hold a referendum on whether to push ahead with same-sex marriage after opponents forced the government to hold a binding vote on a 2020 law allowing gay couples to marry.
The Swiss parliament passed a bill recognising same-sex marriage last December, several years after most other western European states.
Continue reading...Rome had long urged Paris to detain 10 people found guilty of terrorist acts from late 1960s to early 80s
Seven Italian far-left guerrilla fighters, who hid in France for decades after escaping terrorism convictions that left “an open wound” in Italy, have been arrested.
French authorities are also searching for three other Italians convicted on terrorism charges linked to bombings and assassinations between the late 1960s and early 1980s.
Continue reading...UK and EU senior figures hail moment as a ‘new chapter’ of friendly relations after four years of division
The European parliament has given its overwhelming backing to the Brexit trade and security deal, prompting senior figures on both sides to speak of hope for a “new chapter” of friendly relations after four years of division.
Five MEPs voted against the deal, with 660 in favour and 32 abstentions, although in an accompanying resolution the chamber described the referendum result of 23 June 2016 as a “historic mistake”.
Continue reading...Digital health certificates could show whether tourists have been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from the virus
Spain plans to reopen to overseas holidaymakers from June under the Covid digital health certificate scheme, which could show whether tourists have been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from the virus.
According to the country’s secretary of state for tourism, the scheme will prove “fundamental to offering travellers certainty”.
Continue reading...Spaniards David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile, and Rory Young, a Zambian-born Irish citizen, ambushed by jihadists
Two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist have been killed after they were ambushed by jihadists while on an anti-poaching mission in Burkina Faso.
On Tuesday, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said 44-year-old David Beriáin, a reporter, and 47-year-old Roberto Fraile, a photographer, were believed to have been murdered on Monday, after they were identified from an image provided by Burkinabe authorities.
Continue reading...Former leader of neo-Nazi party convicted in absentia in 2020 faces extradition to Athens
When the authorities caught up with Ioannis Lagos, they caught up with him fast. The MEP, once a feared leader of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, has been arrested hours after he was stripped of his immunity as an elected member of the European parliament and told he would be extradited to Athens.
Seized in his Brussels home on Tuesday, the convicted lawmaker had been sentenced to 13 years after a Greek court determined at the end of a landmark trial in 2020 that Golden Dawn was a criminal organisation masquerading as a political party.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Torture survivors and lone children stuck in Greece and Italy after Home Office ‘deliberately’ ends cooperation on family reunions
The Home Office has been accused of failing to reunite vulnerable refugees who have the right to join family in the UK under EU law, leaving lone children and torture survivors stranded.
The government faced widespread criticism when it announced that family reunion law would no longer apply after the UK left the EU, and it promised that cases under way on that date would be allowed to proceed.
Continue reading...