Category Archives: Europe

Spain and UK reach draft deal on post-Brexit status of Gibraltar

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British overseas territory had been left out of deal announced on Christmas Eve

A last-minute deal between the UK and Spain – agreed just hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only frontier marked by a hard Brexit – will allow for free movement between the British overseas territory and much of the EU.

“Today is a day for hope,” Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said on Thursday as she announced that an agreement in principle had been reached. “In the long history of our relations with the UK, related to Gibraltar, today we’re facing a turning point.”

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View from the EU: Britain ‘taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns and their cheerleaders’

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European commentators weigh in on what Britain’s departure from the EU means

Britain faces an uncertain future as it finally pulls clear of the EU’s orbit, continental commentators have predicted, its reputation for pragmatism and probity shredded by a Brexit process most see as profoundly populist and dangerously dishonest.

“For us, the UK has always been seen as like-minded: economically progressive, politically stable, respect for the rule of law – a beacon of western liberal democracy,” said Rem Korteweg, of the Clingendael Institute thinktank in the Netherlands.

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Messina to Maastricht: the modest European towns that marked the road to Brexit

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As Britain embarks on its solo journey, we celebrate the places put on the map by the UK’s rocky relationship with Europe

Ioannina is no Mykonos. A city on the northern Greek mainland near the border with Albania, it is landlocked and rarely on any tourist trail. As far as guidebook mentions go, it’s silverwork, feta cheese and local spring water.

But back in spring 1994 it burst on to front pages across Europe, seizing the minds of politicians. Ioannina joined the ranks of little-known European cities to host a European summit and become a household name for a fortnight.

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World takes in muted New Year’s Eve under Covid shadow

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Lockdowns and curfews curtail celebrations, with limited exceptions, after year most would prefer to forget

In Sydney the fireworks soared into the sky above the Opera House, but the harbour below was empty. In New York, Times Square will be mostly deserted. No light show illuminated Beijing from the top of the TV tower.

With revelry around the world curtailed by lockdowns and curfews imposed to stem the spread of Covid-19, the lions of London’s Trafalgar Square will be barricaded off, and there will be no crowds in St Peter’s Square and no one diving into the Tiber in Rome.

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Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal passes into UK law

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Prime minister thanks MPs and peers after Queen gives royal assent to bill redrawing ties with EU

  • How did your MP vote?
  • Labour frontbenchers quit after defying Starmer on deal

    • Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.

    The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday.

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    Landslide injures at least 10 in Norwegian town of Ask

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    Landslide north of Oslo prompts evacuation of 700 residents, with more than 20 people still unaccounted for

    A landslide has smashed into a residential area near the Norwegian capital, injuring at least 10 people, leaving 21 unaccounted for and destroying several homes, authorities said. About 700 people have been evacuated amid fears of further landslides.

    Norwegian police were alerted at 4am to the slide in the village of Ask, in the municipality of Gjerdrum, some 20km (12 miles) north-east of Oslo.

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    Siberia permafrost yields well-preserved ice age woolly rhino

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    Calf carcass from thawing ground in north-east region of Yakutia found with many internal organs intact

    A well-preserved ice age woolly rhino with many of its internal organs still intact has been recovered from the permafrost in Russia’s extreme northern region.

    Russian media reported on Wednesday that the carcass was revealed by thawing permafrost in Yakutia in August. Scientists are waiting for ice roads in the Arctic region to become passable to deliver the animal to a laboratory for studies in January.

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    Egypt drops inquiry into murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni

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    Prosecutors reject Italy’s finding that Egyptian security officials were behind kidnap and torture

    Egypt’s public prosecution has officially closed its investigation into the murder of Giulio Regeni, rejecting Italian prosecutors’ findings that accused four Egyptian security officials of kidnapping and torturing the Italian doctoral student in 2016.

    Italy officially indicted four Egyptian security officials including two from Egypt’s national security agency in early December. The four men were accused of kidnapping Regeni, whose body was found on an outlying Cairo highway in February 2016 showing signs of torture. One of the suspects, named as Magdi Ibrahim Abdel Al Sharif, is accused of grievous bodily harm.

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    Johnson to hail ‘historic resolution’ as Brexit bill comes before Commons

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    Prime minister to celebrate bill to MPs ahead of vote, but fast-tracking of legislation faces condemnation

    The UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels delivers a “historic resolution” making the country a “friendly neighbour” to the EU, Boris Johnson will tell MPs on Wednesday as they vote on the agreement.

    The deal is expected to sail through the parliamentary approval process in just a day, with the backing of Labour and after the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs indicated on Tuesday that it would support it.

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    At least seven dead after strong earthquake strikes central Croatia

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    Casualties include girl, 12, as mayor of town of Petrinja says ‘half of the city no longer exists’

    At least seven people have been killed and dozens injured after a strong earthquake hit central Croatia, destroying buildings and sending panicked people fleeing into rubble-covered streets in a town south-east of the capital Zagreb.

    The European Mediterranean Seismological Center said an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude hit 28 miles (46km) from Zagreb at 12.19pm, at a depth of 10km. Initial reports said the earthquake caused extensive damage, causing roofs, building facades and entire buildings to collapse.

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    Alexei Navalny to be investigated by Russian authorities over alleged fraud

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    The prominent Kremlin critic, poisoned in August, is under investigation for allegedly mishandling $5m private donations

    Russian authorities have ramped up the pressure on the prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny by levelling new fraud accusations against him.

    The Investigative Committee, Russia’s main investigative agency, said on Tuesday it had opened a new criminal case against Navalny on charges of large-scale fraud related to his alleged mishandling of $5m in private donations to his Anti-Corruption Foundation and other organisations.

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    Boy is pulled alive from rubble after 6.3-magnitude earthquake in Croatia – video

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    A young boy was rescued after a collapsed building fell on a car during a powerful earthquake in Croatia. Authorities said a girl was killed and at least 20 people were treated in hospital in the town of Petrinja by the quake. 'My town has been completely destroyed. We have dead children,' Darinko Dumbović, the mayor of Petrinja, said in a statement. 'Half of the city no longer exists.' 

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    Pierre Cardin helped define modernity in the 1960s and beyond

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    Fashion designer will forever be associated with the decade that embraced his space-age aesthetic

    The Beatles smiling for an early group portrait in 1963, their pixie handsomeness perfectly framed by four snappy collarless jackets. US first lady, Jackie Kennedy, unimpeachably elegant in a boxy scarlet wool day-suit on a visit to Canada in 1962. Marisa Berenson in a groovy sunset-hued kaftan, gazing through matchstick lashes at the lens of Irving Penn for a 1967 cover of Vogue.

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    Global report: India finds six cases of new UK variant; South Africa bans alcohol sales

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    Germany says infectious variant has been present since November; Spain sets up Covid vaccine register

    India has found six cases of a more infectious variant of the coronavirus in people arriving from Britain, while South Africa reimposed a ban on alcohol sales and ordered the closure of all bars as it battles a resurgence of the virus, including another new variant.

    All six of the infected people in India are in isolation and their fellow travellers are being traced, the health ministry said.

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    Render unto Rome – contrite tourists return pilfered relics

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    Whether compelled by guilt or superstition, more and more tourists are returning items they lifted from Italian cultural sites

    Some of the repentant sinners may be compelled by guilt, others by superstition.

    But Italian museum curators and archeological officers have observed a trend of tourists who, having pilfered artefacts from cultural sites, return them, years later, with a heartfelt letter of confession.

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    Through gilets jaunes, strikes and Covid, Paris’s 400-year-old book stalls fight to survive

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    With passing trade hit hard by the pandemic, the booksellers on the banks of the Seine are struggling

    Usually, Sundays are good days for the bouquinistes. Legions of strollers – tourists, out-of-towners, Parisians – throng the banks of the Seine, and the open-air booksellers whose green boxes have lined the quays for 400-odd years do good business.

    One recent Sunday, though, Jérôme Callais made €32. And there was a day that week when he made €4: a single paperback, he can’t even recall which. It has not, Callais said, sheltering from driving rain on an all but deserted Quai de Conti, been easy.

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    How Joe Biden’s cold war experience will shape his approach to Russia

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    President-elect’s formative years of going toe-to-toe with the USSR on arms control hint at how he may deal with Putin

    It was 1988, near the end of the cold war, when then-senator Joe Biden made yet another visit to the Soviet Union for talks on arms control. By that time, he felt comfortable enough in Moscow to bring a guest into the room: his teenage son.

    “Would you mind my son, Hunter Biden, sitting in and listening? The gentleman is interested in international affairs and diplomacy,” he said, according to Victor Prokofiev, the Soviet foreign ministry interpreter at the meeting.

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    Swan song: German firefighters remove ‘mourning’ bird blocking railway line

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    At least 20 trains cancelled after swan stopped at site of another’s death near Fuldatal

    Police and firefighters in Germany were forced to intervene to move an apparently “mourning” swan that was blocking a high-speed railway line, according to a statement released by the rescuers on Monday.

    The swan was pictured blocking the line near Fuldatal, causing at least 20 trains to be cancelled, after a second swan was killed when it flew into the overhead line above the tracks.

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    Only about 12 Britons stay in quarantine in Swiss ski resort after hundreds flee

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    Hundreds left Verbier after discovery of new Covid variant despite order to self-isolate

    Only about a dozen British tourists out of about 420 appear to be left in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier after an undisclosed number fled a mandatory quarantine, many under cover of darkness, risking a 10,000 Swiss franc fine (£8,300) and drawing widespread condemnation on social media.

    Asked about the runaway tourists, the Swiss health minister, Alain Berset, said: “We are aware of that. It’s obviously a problem. There was an order to quarantine that has not been respected.”

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    EU states unanimously back Brexit trade and security deal

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    Backing of EU27 paves way for new arrangements between UK and EU to come into force on 1 January

    The post-Brexit trade and security deal has been unanimously backed by EU member states, paving the way for the new arrangements to come into force on 1 January.

    At a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, the 27 member states gave their support for the 1,246-page treaty to be “provisionally applied” at the end of the year. The decision will be formally completed by written procedure at 3pm central European time (1400 GMT) on Tuesday.

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