But judge rules that ex-premier does not have to face corruption charges
A Portuguese court has cleared the way for former prime minister José Sócrates to stand trial for money laundering and falsifying documents, but cleared him of corruption charges in the years-long case.
Sócrates is accused of pocketing €34m from three companies while he was in power between 2005 and 2011, but the ex-prime minister has maintained his innocence.
Continue reading...Government says killing of Giorgos Karaivaz, reportedly by two men on a motorbike, has ‘shocked us all’
A prominent Greek crime journalist has been shot dead in what was described as an “execution-style” murder near his home in Athens.
Giorgos Karaivaz, who sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside with his coverage of law and order stories on the private Star TV channel, died of gunshot wounds outside his home in the south of the city.
Continue reading...Government prepares rescue package as rare freezing temperatures damage crops and vines
Winemakers across France are counting the cost of several nights of frost this week that threaten to decimate grape harvests in some of the country’s best-known and prestigious wine-producing regions.
The government is readying an emergency rescue package after rare freezing temperatures that could cause some of the worst damage in decades to crops and vines.
Continue reading...Intelligence reports show Russian tanks and short-range ballistic missiles just 150 miles from Ukraine
Kremlin officials have said that its forces massing on the border with Ukraine could intervene if Kyiv launches an assault on Russian-backed separatists, as concerns grow about the largest military buildup since 2014.
Open source intelligence reports have shown that tanks, rocket artillery, and short-range ballistic missiles have been transported to just 150 miles from Ukraine, where Russia has established a large new military staging area.
Continue reading...EMA says four serious cases reported, one fatal, and also expands inquiry into AstraZeneca vaccine
The EU’s drug regulator is reviewing reports of rare blood clots in four people who received Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine and has expanded its inquiry into AstraZeneca’s shot to include reports of a bleeding condition.
Of the four serious cases of clotting and low platelets, three occurred in the US during the rollout of J&J’s vaccine from its Janssen pharmaceuticals unit, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday, adding that one person had died and one case was reported in a clinical trial. It was the first news of EMA’s inquiry into the J&J vaccine.
Continue reading...Nikolai Glushkov was strangled by assailant who then wrapped dog lead around his neck, inquest told
The prominent Kremlin critic Nikolai Glushkov was strangled at his home in south-west London by an unknown assailant who wrapped a dog lead around his neck in a crude attempt to “simulate” the appearance of suicide, an inquest heard.
Glushkov’s body was discovered on 12 March 2018 at his suburban home in New Malden. His daughter Natalia Glushkova told the hearing that she and Glushkov’s partner, Denis Trushin, had called round that evening after growing concerned.
Continue reading...Bill would give national government power to impose restrictions in states with high infection rates
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, plans to take control over the Covid-19 response from federal states to impose restrictions on regions with high numbers of new infections, as the head of the country’s disease control agency said Germany needed a two- to four-week lockdown to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
“Germany is in the middle of a third wave, so the federal government and the states have agreed to add to the national legislation,” a spokesperson for the German chancellor told reporters on Friday.
Continue reading...Paris has repeatedly dismissed UN report into attack that killed 19 wedding guests as not credible
France is facing growing calls to accept responsibility for an airstrike that killed 19 civilians at a wedding in a village in Mali in January, following the publication of a United Nations report into the attack.
The damning investigation by the UN released last month, its first into French military action, said the airstrike hit Bounti village on 3 January, killing 19 guests at the wedding and three militants.
Continue reading...Erna Solberg breached ban on events attended by more than 10 people
Norway’s prime minister, Erna Solberg, has been fined 20,000 kroner (£1,713) after breaking coronavirus social-distancing rules when organising a family gathering to celebrate her birthday.
The matter came to light in a report by the public broadcaster NRK, which triggered a police investigation.
Continue reading...The singer’s fight against domestic violence and homophobia and her body-positive posts on Instagram have led to a torrent of abuse – some from very powerful people
Russia’s 2021 Eurovision candidate breezes into a conference room, Channel One documentary film crew in tow, offering a simple tea of mint leaves brewed in hot water. “On days like today, I want something calming,” Manizha says, pouring two cups, as a boom mic hovers over us. No pressure.
The Tajikistan-born singer, who will perform her feminist ballad Russian Woman next month at the much-loved, much-mocked song contest in Rotterdam, is the target of a fiery conservative backlash for her foreign roots and her lyrics attacking female stereotypes.
Continue reading...Action on the climate crisis must come with a social contract to protect the poor and vulnerable
As a climate policy researcher, I am often asked: what is the biggest obstacle to decarbonisation? My answer has changed profoundly over the last couple of years. I used to point to the lack of affordable green technologies and an absence of political will. Today, I point to something else. Something less tangible, but possibly more challenging: the absence of a green social contract.
The green revolution is already unfolding, driven by a stunning reduction in the cost of green technologies and by a global momentum for climate neutrality by the mid-century. So, if cheaper green technology and an unprecedented political green ambition are rapidly converging, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, the situation is not as simple as it seems. Decarbonisation will reshape our economies and our lifestyles. Nothing will be left untouched in the process: the green world will be profoundly different from the one we know today.
Continue reading...Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden
Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz.
It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch of tiny green grains clinging to the base of the eelgrass.
Continue reading...Oslo death sparks questions about role of technology in reducing physical contact in society
A man lay dead in his Oslo flat for nine years before being discovered by a caretaker in December, Norwegian police have said.
The man, who was in his 60s, had been married more than once and also had children, according to the state broadcaster NRK.
Continue reading...Europe could have fully vaccinated 70% of adults before UK reaches its target, says head of EU taskforce
The UK will be reliant on the EU to complete its vaccine rollout and a little recognition of that would not go amiss, the European commissioner leading Brussels’ vaccine taskforce has said – adding that Europe could have fully vaccinated 70% of adults before the UK reaches its own target of one dose for all over-18s by the end of July.
Thierry Breton also said AstraZeneca had agreed that almost all the Covid vaccine doses made in the Netherlands over which the UK has made a claim will stay in the EU.
Continue reading...Diplomatic spat erupts as Mario Draghi accuses Turkish president of humiliating European commision president
A diplomatic spat has erupted between Turkey and Italy, after prime minister Mario Draghi accused president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of humiliating European commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and described him as a “dictator”.
Von der Leyen – the commission’s first female president – was left without a chair during a meeting on Tuesday with Erdoğan and the European council president Charles Michel met Erdoğan. The commission chief was clearly taken aback when the two men sat on the only two chairs prepared, relegating her to an adjacent sofa.
Continue reading...Spanish government imposes export ban on oil painting as experts study it to determine authorship
Before it was pulled from sale, lot 229, a small but luminous oil painting of the scourged Christ attributed to the circle of the 17th-century Spanish artist José de Ribera, had been due to go under the hammer in Madrid on Thursday with a guide price of €1,500 (£1,300).
Closer inspection, however, has raised suspicions that the Crowning with Thorns may be the rather more valuable work of the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, leading the Spanish government to impose an export ban on the painting.
Continue reading...Germany could act independently of EU but would require regulator’s approval of Covid vaccine
Germany’s health minister has said he wants to hold talks with Moscow about obtaining supplies of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, in an effort to boost the country’s inoculation campaign.
Jens Spahn said Germany would have no hesitation in acting independently of the European Union, indicating his frustration over the bloc’s refusal to engage with the Russian jab’s manufacturers, but he stressed that the vaccine would only be used if it was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Continue reading...Downing Street will not confirm or deny report that more than 700,000 Covid jabs were sent after EU blocked export
British ministers and officials did not deny that more than 700,000 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine were secretly dispatched from the UK to Australia a few weeks ago as the EU blocked the drug’s export.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that 717,000 AstraZeneca doses were dispatched in late February and March from the company’s British operations – also during a period when the EU was demanding the vaccine from the UK.
Continue reading...Institution has been pathway to power for country’s elite, including four French presidents
Emmanuel Macron is expected to officially announce on Thursday the closure of the École Nationale d’Administration, the elite French finishing school for the country’s leaders where he studied.
Known as ENA, the grande école has been the hothouse for France’s top civil service and a pathway to power in the public and private sectors. Four French presidents, including Macron, have passed through its doors as have dozens of ministers and business leaders.
Continue reading...With five million birds a year illegally caught in Italy, activists in Brescia are teaming up with local police to trap the hunters
After two hours of scouring the mountains of Brescia, Stefania Travaglia finally finds what she is looking for. Among the remote farmhouses of an alpine hamlet, a spring-net trap is partially hidden behind a grassy embankment and a few trees. Tangled in the wire mesh, an exhausted fieldfare thrush sits silent and unmoving.
Travaglia sets to work quickly and quietly, hiding two motion-sensor cameras next to the trap. Clear evidence of wrongdoing is needed to catch a poacher. “You have to see everything: you have to see the trap; you have to see the person; and if there is a bird in it,” she says.
Continue reading...