Category Archives: Europe

Italian woman tells how colleague spiked coffee to ‘eliminate’ her from job

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Alice Bordon says she is still shocked co-worker drugged her to make her underperform

An Italian woman has described how a bitter workplace rivalry resulted in a colleague spiking her morning cappuccino with a sedative as job cuts loomed.

Alice Bordon, the target of the plot, told the newspaper La Stampa that she had always trusted the colleague and was still incredulous that she had tried to “eliminate” her by slipping a tranquilliser into her coffee so that she would feel sleepy and underperform at work.

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Battle over EU ban on ‘veggie burger’ label reaches key vote

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Farmers and meat lobbyists accuse plant-based food producers of ‘cultural hijacking’

The terms “veggie burger” and “veggie sausage” could be banned under proposals being voted on by the European parliament next week. Also banned would be terms such as “yoghurt-style” and “cheese-like” for plant-based alternatives to dairy products.

Sales of these products are growing fast but farming and meat lobbyists say the terms mislead people and amount to a “cultural hijacking” of the meat industry. Opponents, backed by major food companies including Unilever and Nestle, say the claims of consumer confusion are ridiculous. They say a ban would also contradict the EU’s drive to help consumers choose more sustainable food and cut climate-heating emissions.

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Western spies privately blame Russia’s FSB for Alexei Navalny poisoning

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Exclusive: stark conclusion shared between London, Berlin and Paris in effect points finger at Kremlin

Western security agencies have privately concluded that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the country’s FSB domestic spy agency, in effect pointing the finger at the Kremlin for ordering the attack.

The stark conclusion has been shared between London, Berlin and Paris, among others, and underpins the decision this week by the UK and the EU to target the FSB chief, Alexander Bortnikov, with sanctions.

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Senior Libyan coastguard commander arrested for alleged human trafficking

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Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, is suspected of being behind the drowning of dozens of refugees

The UN-backed government in Libya has arrested a coastguard commander alleged to be one of the world’s most ruthless human traffickers.

On Wednesday, authorities in Tripoli said Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, and suspected of being behind the drowning of dozens of people, has been arrested in the Hay-al-Andalus district of the city and is now being detained by Rada special forces.

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No 10 startled by EU insistence that UK accept Brexit trade terms

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Bloc’s stance apparently taken as challenge to Boris Johnson’s threat to walk out on talks

Downing Street reacted in dismay as Emmanuel Macron led EU leaders in warning Boris Johnson that he must swallow the bloc’s conditions, in what appeared to be taken as a direct challenge to the British prime minister’s threat to walk out on the talks.

At a summit in Brussels, the EU proposed a further “two to three weeks” of negotiations but Europe’s heads of state and government offered Johnson little succour, demanding that he alone needed to “make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible”.

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Single fathers with children via surrogates flee Russia amid crackdown

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Authorities’ attack on LGBT community turns on men who use surrogacy who are assumed to be gay

Several gay men have fled Russia after officials said that they would arrest people “of non-traditional sexual orientation” who had had children through surrogacy. The announcement formed the authorities’ latest attack on the LGBT community.

Surrogacy is legal in Russia but has increasingly been attacked by conservative lawmakers and the Orthodox church. Police arrested a number of top fertility doctors this year and have accused them of “child trafficking” in an ongoing case.

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Europe’s daily Covid deaths could reach five times April peak, says WHO

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Hans Kluge says epidemic could worsen drastically, but latest controls could save lives

Daily coronavirus deaths in Europe could reach four or five times their April peak within months without effective countermeasures, the World Health Organization has said, as nine more countries reported record numbers of new infections.

Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said on Thursday that Europe had recorded its highest weekly number of new Covid-19 cases as the virus again spread rapidly across the continent.

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Justice on trial: three years after murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia – video report

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The murder of the Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 plunged the country into turmoil. Guardian journalist Juliette Garside, who has been investigating Caruana Galizia's death, speaks with Matthew Caruana Galizia about his mother, his family's quest for justice, and how tragedy may be uniting the country over political divides

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Sweden to increase military spending by 40% as tension with Russia grows

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Military run down after cold war but Russian activity in Baltic Sea forces hasty rearmament

Sweden will increase military spending by about 40% in the next five years and double the number of people conscripted into its armed forces as it aims to strengthen its defence amid growing tensions with Russia, the government has said.

The country, which is not a member of Nato but enjoys close ties with the alliance, ran down its military forces after the cold war to save money.

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French police search politicians’ homes in coronavirus inquiry

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Health minister and former PM among those targeted after complaints over virus response

French police have searched the homes and offices of French officials including the former prime minister as part of an investigation into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Current and former ministers have been targeted by at least 90 formal legal complaints from civic groups and members of the public over their response to the health emergency.

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13,300 new infections in Spain – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

Hi, Helen Sullivan here. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: France reports record new cases as WHO warns Europe's case surge is 'of great concern'

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Third of newborns with Covid infected before or during birth – study

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Review of reported neonatal cases finds most babies with virus contract it in hospital

Nearly a third of coronavirus infections in newborn babies are picked up in the womb or from the mother during labour, a review of reported cases has found.

While Covid-19 is rare in newborns, doctors have been keen to understand the potential risks that babies face should tests reveal they have the infection soon after birth.

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Neo-Nazi leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn sentenced to 13 years

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Leaders of violent far-right group, including former MPs, shown little leniency by judges

The neo-Nazi leaders of Golden Dawn have each been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a court in Athens, at the end of a historic hearing.

The neo-fascist group was officially laid to rest as its disgraced former MPs were shown little mercy by a three-member panel of judges. Last week the court ruled that Golden Dawn lawmakers had operated a criminal organisation under the guise of being a democratically elected party.

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Dutch government backs euthanasia for under-12s

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Dutch heath minister says change is needed to help terminally ill children

The Dutch government will permit doctors to euthanise terminally ill children aged between one and 12 after months of debate within the ruling coalition.

The country’s health minister, Hugo de Jonge, said a change in regulations was necessary to help “a small group of terminally ill children who agonise with no hope, and unbearable suffering”.

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Berlin gives middle finger to anti-maskers in tourism agency ad

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Agency says it chose message that suits city’s outlier character but some politicians are critical

Berlin has eschewed polite public messaging on the coronavirus in favour of a more direct reminder of the rules by flipping the bird to people who won’t wear a mask.

An ad placed in local papers by the German capital’s senate as part of a public information campaign shows an elderly woman presenting her outstretched middle finger to the camera, next to the words: “A finger-wag for all those without a mask: we stick to corona rules.”

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Coronavirus: students to replace older teachers in Moscow

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Trainees and graduates will teach in primary schools amid record infections in Russia

Moscow is to draft university students into primary schools to replace older and vulnerable teachers, as Russia reports record numbers of coronavirus infections but resists a fresh lockdown.

Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of the Russian capital, announced on Wednesday that high schools would remain closed next week after an extended autumn holiday, with about half a million students moved to distance learning.

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WW2 bomb explodes underwater in Poland during attempt to defuse it – video

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A British bomb left over from the second world war has been detonated in Poland. The 5,400kg Tallboy bomb was dropped by the RAF in 1945 during an attack on a German cruiser. It was rediscovered in September 2019 during works to deepen a waterway near the port of Szczecin. Navy divers from Poland had rigged a small explosion to disarm the bomb but instead it went off. There were no injuries.

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Coronavirus live news: France brings in 9pm curfew for Paris region and eight other cities

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Public heath emergency declared in France; Italy sees 7,332 new cases; record new daily infections in Portugal, Switzerland, Iran and Russia

The German chancellor Angela Merkel urged young people to do their part to halt the spread of the coronavirus after private parties were repeatedly blamed for localised outbreaks in German cities.

“We must call especially on young people to do without a few parties now in order to have a good life tomorrow or the day after,” Merkel said at a news conference after agreeing additional measures against coronavirus with the heads of Germany’s 16 states.

Ireland’s government moved three counties on its open border with Northern Ireland - Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan - to Level 4 of its five-step framework of Covid-19 constraints and banned almost all visits to homes across the country.

Northern Ireland announced the strictest curbs seen in the UK since early summer on Wednesday in response to a rapid rise in cases that the Irish prime minister Micheal Martin described as “hugely worrying.”

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Nuclear arms talks spiral into confusion as Russia rejects US ‘delusion’

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Top US negotiator claimed there was ‘an agreement in principle’ between Trump and Putin

US-Russian arms control talks have sunk into confusion after the top American negotiator claimed there was “an agreement in principle” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a claim Moscow quickly rejected as a “delusion”.

Marshall Billingslea, the US special envoy for arms control, said he had flown to Helsinki on Monday to meet the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on the understanding that there could be an imminent breakthrough in discussions on whether to extend the 2010 New Start treaty, which limits the number of deployed strategic warheads on either side, and which expires in February.

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Brexit: Barnier mocks Johnson’s ‘third deadline’ on talks

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Chief negotiator says little prospect yet of EU and UK entering ‘tunnel’ negotiations

Michel Barnier has mocked Boris Johnson for issuing a “third unilateral deadline” during a meeting with EU ministers, warning that the Brexit talks remain difficult with little prospect yet of the two sides entering a decisive “tunnel” negotiation.

With 48 hours remaining before an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, by which time the British prime minister has demanded a breakthrough moment, the bloc’s chief negotiator suggested a deal was “very difficult but still possible”, according to diplomatic sources.

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