Category Archives: Europe

Coronavirus live news: WHO says poorer countries not getting vaccines; Denmark to restrict all travel

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WHO urges rich countries to stop making bilateral deals with manufacturers; Denmark to restrict entry from all countries after today

The United States has set a new daily record for new coronavirus cases, with 290,000 cases reported in 24-hours, according to the Johns Hopkins global tally.

Some 3,676 people in the US died with the virus in the same period.

Mexico has reported 14,362 new confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,038 deaths.

It is one of the highest daily case increases and brings the total number of cases in Mexico since the pandemic began to 1,507,931, with 132,069 deaths.

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‘I’m stuck here’: lorry drivers in Calais begin to feel effects of Brexit

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Truck drivers tell of long delays for checks at the Eurotunnel as trade barrier goes up between UK and EU

Roger White arrived in France at 2.30pm on Tuesday with a truckload of hard cheese from Somerset.

Before Brexit he would have rolled off the Eurotunnel train and carried on up the A16 to Belgium, unloading his wares a few hours later at his ultimate destination in Utrecht.

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Europe at tipping point with Covid running rampant, says WHO

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Europe director Hans Kluge says rapid spread of new variant is cause for alarm

Europe is at a tipping point in the course of the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said, warning that the coronavirus is spreading very fast across the continent and the arrival of a new variant has created an “alarming situation”.

Related: Coronavirus live news: Japan's PM announces state of emergency for Tokyo; US suffers record daily deaths

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Coronavirus live news: Israel ‘to vaccinate all over-16s by April’; France’s border with UK closed ‘for foreseeable future’

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More than 17% of Israelis have had first shot; 26,391 new infections in Germany; Reuters says Europe has now had more than 25m cases

Brazil has hit another dire milestone in its struggle with coronavirus as its death toll rose above 200,000 with the epidemic again worsening.

On Thursday afternoon a coalition of news groups that tracks the number of deaths said Brazil’s death toll had risen to 200,011.

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French authorities charge man suspected of organising new year rave

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Prosecutor say 22-year-old not alone in organising event that shocked a country in lockdown

French authorities have charged a suspected organiser of an illegal new year rave at which 2,400 people defied coronavirus rules, in a decision condemned by his supporters as an injustice.

The wildcat rave party in Brittany shocked the country as people continued to observe strict bans on gatherings to battle the coronavirus.

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Denmark launches children’s TV show about man with giant penis

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Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it

John Dillermand has an extraordinary penis. So extraordinary, in fact, that it can perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children.

The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world’s longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals.

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Chef and Le Gavroche restaurateur Albert Roux dies aged 85

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Member of Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness, his family has said

The chef and restaurateur Albert Roux has died at the age of 85.

The founder of the Michelin-starred Le Gavroche and member of the Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness.

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Change in the weather: German storm names to be more diverse

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Symbolic #WeatherCorrection is part of campaign for inclusivity in society

Move over, Siegfried. Ahmet is on the way.

A journalists’ group has named a low pressure system bringing low temperatures, dark clouds and snow to Germany after the boy’s name of Turkish origin in an effort to increase the visibility of the country’s increasingly diverse population.

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High-profile French political scientist accused of sexually abusing stepson

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Olivier Duhamel quits academic and media posts after allegations made in stepdaughter’s book

Olivier Duhamel, one of France’s most high-profile political scientists and media commentators, has resigned from his academic and media posts after he was accused of sexually abusing his stepson.

The constitutional expert’s stepdaughter – the alleged victim’s twin – says the abuse happened in the 1980s when she and her brother were 14 and was well known to many members of the family and friends.

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As parts of UK enter third Covid lockdown, how does rest of Europe compare?

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Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions

After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.

According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

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Covid vaccinations: slow start around world brings dose of reality

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Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors

The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.

The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.

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‘He’s a risk-taker’: Germans divided over Elon Musk’s new GigaFactory

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The Tesla project will put Grünheide on the map, but some say it is doing ‘irreversible’ harm to the environment

For the past 10 months, Silas Heineken has been flying a drone over one of Germany’s biggest building sites and posting the images on YouTube.

The 14-year-old self-named “Tesla Kid” has built a significant following, as tens of thousands tune in each week to see the latest developments in Elon Musk’s GigaFactory as it emerges at speed from the sandy ground of Brandenburg, south-east of Berlin.

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Budapest Black Lives Matter artwork sparks rightwing backlash

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Officials from Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party stoke outrage over two-week installation

It will be only one metre high, and will be on display for just two weeks. Nevertheless, a planned art installation dedicated to the theme of Black Lives Matter is causing uproar in Budapest, where the rightwing, nationalist government of Viktor Orbán has taken aim at the movement and all it represents.

The installation won a recent tender for public art in Budapest’s ninth district, an area on the city’s Pest side that combines streets of grand turn-of-the-century buildings with communist-era social housing projects.

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Look further afield for good television | Brief letters

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Best TV shows | The European Economic Area | ‘Bigly’ | Classical music | Renaming the Severn Bridge

While I thoroughly enjoy your annual lists of the best TV shows (The 50 best TV shows of 2020, 22 December), I cannot help noticing that non-English speaking programmes are never included. In recent years some of the most gripping and enjoyable shows have come from Germany (Babylon Berlin and Dark, for example), Scandinavia and other European countries. Perhaps, now that we are adrift politically, it is the time to embrace the wonders of European television.
Christina Neal
Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear

• However long it takes to rejoin the EU (Could Britain rejoin the EU? It seems like a hopelessly lost cause – but so did leaving, 1 January), the first aim should be to join the European Economic Area. That would at least restore some of the freedoms which Boris Johnson’s government has deprived us of.
Alan Pavelin
Chislehurst, Kent

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Netherlands and Germany refuse entry to UK nationals for non-essential travel

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Thirteen people barred since Brexit because UK no longer exempt from EU Covid-related travel restrictions

More than a dozen UK nationals have been refused entry to the Netherlands since 1 January because Britain is no longer exempt from Covid-related restrictions on non-essential travel from outside the EU since it left the bloc.

A Dutch border force spokesman confirmed on Monday that up to 13 British citizens had been turned away at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport since Friday because their trips were not necessary and third-country coronavirus regulations now applied.

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Greek Orthodox church to defy lockdown by opening for Epiphany

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Holy synod says services will be held at places of worship on Wednesday despite closure rules in Greece

The Greek Orthodox church has announced it will defy government lockdown orders aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus and open places of worship to mark Epiphany this Wednesday.

After an emergency session of the holy synod, its governing body, senior clerics said they would press ahead as planned and celebrate the baptism of Christ on 6 January.

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British ex-soldier and 12 others on trial over kidnap of French millionaire

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Jacqueline Veyrac, 80-year-old owner of Cannes hotel, was found bound and gagged in car in 2016

A former British soldier has gone on trial with 12 others in France accused of kidnapping a wealthy hotel heiress.

Jacqueline Veyrac, 80, the owner of the five-star Grand Hotel in Cannes, was snatched from the street near her home in October 2016.

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Italian government under pressure over economic recovery plan

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Prime minister to meet with coalition party leaders as Italia Viva threatens to quit in dispute over Covid-19 fund

The fate of the Italian government hangs in the balance this week amid a confrontation between the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and his coalition ally and former prime minister, Matteo Renzi.

Renzi has repeatedly threatened to pull his small Italia Viva party from the ruling majority unless the government changes tack on how to reboot Italy’s fragile economy. Renzi has also called for Conte to relinquish his control over the secret services and for the government to speed up the distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations.

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Moscow metro hires first female train drivers in modern history

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Role of train operator removed from government’s register of jobs deemed harmful to women’s health

The Moscow metro has hired female drivers for the first time in its recent history, following changes in Russian legislation prohibiting women from many professions.

The Russian capital’s transport system, which oversees the sprawling metro network, said in a statement that “the first female electric train drivers in modern history started working for the Moscow metro.”

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