Opposition leader accuses state of orchestrating case to damage his image among Russians
Alexei Navalny, the leading opposition figure whose jailing this month sparked protests across Russia, has been back in court to face charges of slandering a war veteran in a separate case.
Navalny denies the charges and has accused the state of orchestrating the case to damage his image among the Russian public.
Continue reading...Joint statement between UK and EU agrees to ‘spare no effort’ in implementing solutions
Michael Gove and the European commission’s vice-president have reiterated their “full commitment” to the Northern Ireland protocol following crisis talks in London.
A joint statement said Gove and Maroš Šefčovič had a “frank but constructive discussion” on Thursday evening, in which they agreed to “spare no effort” in implementing solutions.
Continue reading...Departure to cost EU 0.5% of GDP but UK 2.25% by end 2022, according to first official estimate since deal was agreed
The economic blow dealt by Brexit will be four times greater in the UK than the EU, according to the latest forecasts by Brussels.
A month into the new relationship, the European commission said the UK’s exit on the terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government would generate a loss in gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2022 of about 2.25% in the UK compared with continued membership. In contrast, the hit for the EU is estimated to be about 0.5% over the same period.
Continue reading...The unit, which supplies the Herta brand, had been cleared by French state vets and claimed to be addressing concerns
French veterinary officials have been accused of publishing “falsely reassuring” inspection findings after undercover footage at a farm appeared to show pigs in conditions that continued to breach regulations following allegations of abuse in December.
The farm is a supplier for the Herta brand of frankfurter, part-owned by Nestlé, which is sold by most major UK supermarkets.
Continue reading...Government accused of taking law and order agenda to new heights with plans for campus police force
Before the sun had risen over Thessaloniki on Wednesday, Stergios Grigoriou and his fellow students had surrounded the Greek metropolis’s main university site and barricaded every entrance to it.
The act of defiance was not a one-off. In a country where protest politics reign large, students are on a mission: to overturn a bill that, in the name of bringing order to unruly universities, foresees the creation of disciplinary councils and a special campus police force. “Our demand is simple. The educational bill has to be withdrawn,” said Grigoriou. “It’s a repressive law that far from serving our needs only serves the fake needs of a conservative few.”
Continue reading...After laying silent for more than 17,000 years, an ancient instrument Is heard again – a deep, plaintive bleat, like a foghorn from the distant past. When archaeologists realised that a large conch shell discovered in the Marsoulas cave in the Pyrenees had been modified thousands of years ago to serve as a wind instrument, they invited a French horn player to play the conch in a sound studio. The horn produced clear C, C-sharp, and D notes.
Continue reading...European commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday acknowledged failings in the EU's approval and rollout of vaccines against Covid-19. ‘We were late to authorise, we were too optimistic when it came to mass production and perhaps we were too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time,’ she told MEPs
Continue reading...World Health Organization recommends AstraZeneca jab ‘even if variants present’; Israel to open hotels and gyms to those who have had vaccine or recovered from virus
Update from earlier post about Israel’s planned re-opening of sections of its society:
With some elementary schools due to open on Thursday, health minister Yuli Edelstein, speaking separately with reporters, said he would seek to require teachers who are not documented as being immune to Covid-19 to test negative every 48 hours.
#BREAKING WHO vaccine experts recommend AstraZeneca Covid jab for over-65s pic.twitter.com/Uoiv9wKxaW
Continue reading...Jessica Elgot and John Crace look at why the latest coronavirus travel restrictions might not work the way the government expects. Plus, Helen Davidson and Jon Henley on how the world sees the UK’s Covid response
In response to the myriad of new Covid-19 variants entering the UK, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced in the Commons on Tuesday that travellers arriving from coronavirus hotspots who refuse to adhere to the new restrictions could face £10,000 fines and jail sentences of up to 10 years. The move might seem extreme, but given how long we have known about variants cropping up since the new year, many are asking, is it too little too late?
The housing minister, Robert Jenrick, has announced billions of pounds in extra support to address the cladding crisis exposed after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. Will it be enough to help hundreds of thousands of people feel safe again in their own homes?
Continue reading...Working from home can mean never being able to switch off, but could EU-wide regulation end the always-on culture?
When Poland went into strict lockdown last March, Natalia Zurowska barely had time to clear her desk at work. “I went in to get my laptop and then left,” says the 36-year-old, an office manager for a graphic design firm in Warsaw at the time. “I had been working in an office for 10 years. So it was a new thing, working from home. But from day one I knew I didn’t like it.”
Continue reading...European commission leader says bloc late to authorise jabs and ‘not where it wants to be’
The EU is “not where it wants to be” with its coronavirus immunisation programme, Ursula von der Leyen has conceded, as she faced MEPs in the European parliament amid mounting criticism of the bloc’s slow deployment of vaccines.
“We were late to authorise,” the European commission president said. “We were too optimistic when it came to massive production, and perhaps too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time. We need to ask ourselves why that is the case.”
Continue reading...Book alleging political scientist Olivier Duhamel sexually abused stepson has led to resignations and calls for changes to age of consent
When Camille Kouchner – daughter of a former government minister and stepdaughter to a renowned constitutional expert – published a book about alleged child sexual abuse in her family it sparked another of France’s periodic moral, social and political crises.
Once again, the country turned itself out to explain why another of its great and good might have abused a child, and how his equally great and good friends might have turned a blind eye – but this time the impact went much further.
Continue reading...French nun Sister Andrée tested positive in her retirement home in Toulon but had no symptoms
A French nun who is Europe’s oldest person has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, and will celebrate her 117th birthday this week.
Sister Andrée, born Lucile Randon in 1904, tested positive for the coronavirus last month at the Sainte-Catherine Labouré home near Toulon where 81 of the 88 residents contracted the virus – 10 of whom died.
Continue reading...Police arrest three men accused of demanding money from mourning relatives for spaces in Tropea graves
Italian police have arrested three cemetery workers in Calabria accused of illegally removing bodies from tombs to make way for new corpses, as the country struggles with a shortage of burial space.
According to military police investigators, the suspects allegedly demanded money from mourning relatives to get the deceased a place in the local cemetery in Tropea, a seaside resort town near Vibo Valentia.
Continue reading...Man is alleged to have been Nazi SS guard at Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945
German prosecutors have charged a 100-year-old man with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served during the second world war as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin.
The man is alleged to have worked at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi party’s paramilitary wing, said Cyrill Klement, who led the investigation of the centenarian for the Neuruppin prosecutors’ office.
Continue reading...Nutri-Score system fails to take account of health benefits of meats like jamón ibérico, say farmers
Spain’s Iberian pork producers are hoping their famous meats will follow in the wake of olive oil and be excused from a new traffic-light food labelling scheme, arguing it fails to take account of what they claim are the health benefits of jamón ibérico.
Spain is in the process of implementing the Nutri-Score system, which grades foods from a green A to a red E on packaging. The voluntary scheme has been billed as a way to help EU countries advance towards bloc-wide food labelling by the end of 2022 as part of the European commission’s “fair, healthy and environmentally friendly” Farm-to-Fork strategy.
Continue reading...Court tells professors to apologise to 81-year-old woman who claims they defamed her late uncle
A court has ordered two prominent historians to apologise to an elderly woman who claimed they had defamed her late uncle over his wartime actions, in a case seen as critical to independent Holocaust research in Poland.
Prof Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa and Prof Barbara Engelking of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research were accused of defaming Edward Malinowski by suggesting in a book that he gave up Jews to Nazi Germans.
Continue reading...A French teen ski champion navigates sexual exploitation by her male coach in Charlène Favier’s difficult but impressive debut
Is this a tale of abuse, or forbidden love? Or is there something insidious in asking that question, suggesting an ambiguity that will err leniently on the side of love? Slalom is the debut feature by director and co-writer Charlène Favier, who has indicated that it is drawn from personal experience and her own teen years growing up in the ski resort of Val-d’Isère in south-eastern France. It is impeccably acted and beautifully shot, although I wondered if it is burdened by a softcore-tasteful aesthetic and a tactful reluctance to take its own narrative implications very far. The movie finishes on an unresolved chord, as if we have left the story months or years before the actual scandalous denouement. But it is arguably faithful to the mood of messy bewilderment and frustration that governs the ongoing situation.
A retired slalom ski champion – whose retirement might have been due to injury – is now pouring all his passion and frustration into coaching in a facility leased from a school. This is Fred, played by Jérémie Renier, who is a fierce and exacting teacher of teenage skiers, turning them into possible national champions and even future contestants at the Olympic Games. Almost from the very first, it is clear that his star pupil is 16-year-old Lyz, played by Noée Abita, who has got what it takes both in terms of skill and energy but also those dark, fissile ingredients of submission and self-abasement. Her divorced mum Catherine (Muriel Combeau) is away working in Marseille, and has a new boyfriend there, leaving Lyz alone in the apartment.
Government has not been straight with fishing industry, says Sam Baron of Baron Shellfish in Bridlington
A lobster exporter who is winding up his 60-year-old family business has blamed the government for failing to be honest about Brexit red tape and hidden costs.
Sam Baron, who worked alongside his father to set up Baron Shellfish in Bridlington, east Yorkshire, said the government had failed to be straight with the fishing industry.
Continue reading...Travellers from Middle East using Irish capital as a backdoor into Britain to swerve coronavirus rules
The Irish government has promised to crack down on travellers from the Middle East who use the “Dublin dodge” to enter the UK and evade coronavirus restrictions.
The number of people flying to Dublin from Dubai has increased since the UK added the United Arab Emirates to a travel ban list last month, prompting concern that passengers are using Ireland’s capital as a back door to Britain.
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