Category Archives: Europe

Farmer moves border stone for tractor – and makes Belgium bigger

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French farmer could theoretically face criminal charges for moving 200-year-old marker

The boundary between France and Belgium is believed to have been inadvertently redrawn by a farmer who found the 200-year-old border stone marking the divide in an inconvenient location for his tractor.

The French farmer could theoretically face criminal charges after making Belgium bigger by moving the stone that has marked the border since after the defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo.

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Melting ice reveals first world war relics in Italian Alps

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Accelerating retreat of glaciers in Lombardy and Trentino Alto-Aldige reveals preserved history of ‘White War’

The soldiers dug the wooden barracks into a cave on the top of Mount Scorluzzo, a 3,095-metre (10,154ft) peak overlooking the Stelvio pass. For the next three-and-a-half years, the cramped, humid space was home to about 20 men from the Austro-Hungarian army as they fought against Italian troops in what became known as the White War, a battle waged across treacherous and bitterly cold Alpine terrain during the first world war.

Fought mainly in the Alps of the Lombardy region of Italy and the Dolomites in Trentino Alto-Adige, the White War was a period of history frozen in time until the 1990s, when global warming started to reveal an assortment of perfectly preserved relics – weapons, sledges, letters, diaries and, as the retreat of glaciers hastened, the bodies of soldiers.

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UK likely to give green light for travel to fewer than 10 EU countries

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Traffic light system to be used cautiously despite European plan to let in Covid-vaccinated tourists from June

Britons’ summer holiday plans were given a major boost on Monday, as the EU confirmed vaccinated travellers will be able to fly to Europe from June, though it’s understood the UK could give the green light to travel to fewer than 10 countries.

The changing quarantine requirements for popular holiday destinations looks set to make 2021 the year of the last-minute booking.

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German police shut one of world’s biggest darknet child abuse images sites

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Boystown platform had membership of more than 400,000 international subscribers

An online platform said to be one of the largest websites for child sexual abuse images in the world has been closed down by German police after a lengthy investigation.

The Boystown platform, which had a membership of more than 400,000 international subscribers and was active for almost two years, was accessible only via the darknet, a component of the wider internet for which special software is needed. It was used for the swapping and sharing of images and films, mainly of boys, according to investigators from Germany’s federal investigative police force (BKA).

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UK dairy firms try to count the cost of churn in post-Brexit trade

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Country Milk’s trade with the EU has nosedived with the dairy industry particularly badly affected by new customs rules

A small error in the paperwork – a box ticked by mistake – and the tanker of butter oil was held at French customs for five days, with veterinary authorities at the border threatening to destroy it. The debacle nearly cost the tanker’s exporter, dairy company County Milk, a six-figure sum. After fraught negotiations, the cargo was eventually repatriated.

“You don’t need too many of those to be destroyed and you are in dire straits,” says Phil Langslow, trading director at County Milk, the UK’s largest privately owned dairy ingredients business.

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‘Stark contrast’: how Covid pass is helping Denmark open up

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The ‘coronapas’ has enabled places such as bars, restaurants and museums to welcome people back

Outside Forum, a concert venue turned coronavirus test centre in Copenhagen’s university district, the queue was starting to build up before a sunny Labour Day weekend.

As he waited, Casper Beckers, 25, was monitoring the WhatsApp group where the night’s festivities were being planned, starting with a board game bar, then cocktails.

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‘We’re all Ayuso’: lockdown sceptic poised for victory in Madrid election

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Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s mix of bluntness, defiance and appeals to far-right voters appears set to pay off

The late lunchers who linger over coffee and wine on the terraces of Calle Ponzano, Madrid, sit beneath banners bemoaning the neighbourhood’s noise levels and among posters bearing the capital’s most ubiquitous face.

From the windows of many of the bars and restaurants that line the bustling street – and from the walls of metro stations across they city – stare the eyes of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, regional president of Madrid, scourge of Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition government, and unofficial patron saint of a hefty proportion of the region’s hospitality industry. Her campaign posters and letters feature little more than her image and the single word libertad. Freedom.

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Thousands mark May Day with rallies in France, Spain and Germany

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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.

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EU condemns ‘groundless’ Russian sanctions against its officials

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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”.

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Climate crisis: our children face wars over food and water, EU deputy warns

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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.

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More than 100 lone children rescued trying to cross Mediterranean

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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.

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How continental Europe is emerging from Covid lockdown

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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.

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Is Russia’s Covid vaccine anything more than a political weapon?

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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.”

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AstraZeneca CEO hits back at Covid vaccine supply criticism

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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.

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Germany first to hand back Benin bronzes looted by British

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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.

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‘The situation in India can happen anywhere,’ says WHO Europe director – video

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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

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Italian judge is asked to put Egyptian officers on trial over Giulio Regeni death

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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.

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Here Are the Young Men review – Anya Taylor-Joy and the bad boys

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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.

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Belarus was given boot from Eurovision over ‘no dissent’ songs

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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.

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‘Covid is just an excuse’: the scandal of Rome’s saturated cemeteries

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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.”

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