Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
People in the French capital are hurt and baffled by the UK’s attitude to France as a no-deal Brexit looms
At the Châtelet branch of Boulinier, a Paris bookshop that has stocked English language books since 1845, shoppers were yesterday reflecting on a spate of British newspaper headlines threatening to send Royal Navy gunboats to board invading French trawlers in the event of a failure to agree a trade deal.
Anglophiles like Didier Aubert, 72, a retired civil servant, said the threats were “ridiculous”.
Home Office accused of making ‘no arrangements’ for transfers of unaccompanied minors after EU rules expire at end of year
Unaccompanied children in France are being told by the French authorities that they should give up hope of being reunited with family in the UK after the Home Office failed to offer the help it had promised.
With the deadline to enter the UK legally and safely under the EU’s family reunification rules due to expire at the end of the year, the Home Office is accused of reneging on its vow to help unaccompanied children reunite with family in the UK.
A new addition to the Christmas scene in artisan shops shows city’s love for footballer
The southern Italian city of Naples usually enjoys a fervent lead-up to Christmas, with one street in particular – Via San Gregorio Armeno – buzzing with people buying handcrafted cribs and terracotta figurines for their nativity scenes at home.
There is also much anticipation each year over which new figurine they can buy. Traditionally, it was a shepherd or an animal that would join baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but now it is usually a figurine of a personality of that year. Recently crafted statuettes include tributes to doctors and nurses who have worked throughout the pandemic as well as ones of the US president-elect Joe Biden and his deputy, Kamala Harris.
The late politician specialised in sowing division and indulged in national fantasies
The ghost of Enoch Powell hangs over Britain this weekend, with a smile on its thin lips. If you are too young to remember him, Boris Johnson offers a recrudescence. Powell was a genuine classical scholar. Cambridge awarded him a starred double first in Latin and Ancient Greek in 1933. Johnson was so-so academically. His failure to achieve a first at Oxford enraged him. But, like Powell, he learned the value of dropping a Latin phrase in a class-ridden country, which still thinks a classical education is a sign of superior intelligence.
Both told monstrous lies: not the usual dishonesties of politics, but lies that break people’s lives. Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech had a title adapted from a line from Virgil, but that didn’t make it classy. He unleashed hatred and violence against black and Asian immigrants and their children in 1968 by using the story of an old white woman in Wolverhampton. She had lost her husband and sons in the war and her reward was to be intimidated by “Negros”. Her “windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist,’ they chant.”
UK and Russian scientists are to test whether combining shots of the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Sputnik V coronavirus vaccines could result in better protection than two doses of the same one.
Trials will start by the end of the year, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which funded the development of the Sputnik V vaccine by Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, said on Friday. AstraZeneca confirmed that it was considering how it could assess combinations of different vaccines, and would soon begin exploring with the Gamaleya Institute whether their two vaccines could be successfully combined.
Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, has urged politicians involved in the UK-EU trade negotiations to “dial down the language”. In comments which seemed to be aimed at Boris Johnson, Coveney told reporters at a press conference in Berlin:
What I would say to politicians, we need to try and dial down the language in terms of the division and differences of views and focus on the detail.
There is a bigger picture here that goes beyond trade in a world that is changing and has a lot of risk.
The Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan has criticised Angela Merkel for refusing to let Boris Johnson lobby her over the UK-EU trade talks. (See 10.57am and 12.37pm.) You can tell Ahmad Khan’s a Brexiter, because he’s brought up the war ...
I stand with millions of Britons that are deeply insulted at the shocking news that the German Chancellor has refused the British Prime Minister’s request for a telephone call. This is an insult to every Briton, whether they support our PM or not.
Have our EU “friends” no regard or respect for the UK and our nations’ sacrifices that permit them to live in freedom and prosperity today, safely away from the shadow of totalitarianism?
The EU’s contemptuous treatment of the UK makes it clear there cannot be a deal until it accepts the UK as a sovereign equal and awards us the respect and regard we merit.
Esther Dingley has not been seen for nearly three weeks and officers say they have no answers
Almost three weeks have passed since Esther Dingley disappeared in the Pyrenees mountains on the French-Spanish border, and police in both countries admit they are no closer to finding her.
French gendarmerie captain Jean-Parc Bordinaro’s frustration was palpable. “Normally at the beginning of an inquiry we have something to go on, but we have nothing,” he said by phone. “Absolutely nothing.”
The director, who faced accusations of sexual misconduct, died while being treated in Latvia
Controversial South Korean film-maker Kim Ki-duk has died aged 59 in a Latvian hospital, where he was being treated for Covid-19. The news was initially reported by Vitaly Mansky, director of Latvia’s Artdocfest film festival, though and later confirmed by Kim’s family in the Korean media. Kim was understood to be developing a film project set in the Baltic region when he became ill.
Born in 1960, Kim made his name with a series of violent yet aesthetically challenging features, including The Isle (2000) and Bad Guy (2001) – the former of which was sanctioned by the British Board of Film Classification for animal cruelty. Subsequently he became a fixture on the international festival circuit with films such as Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring(2003) and3-Iron (2004), and he would go on to win the Golden Lion at Venice with his 2012 film Pieta, which the Guardian described as “bristl[ing] with Kim’s trademark anger and agony”.
Companies in America are considering various options to get employees back to work after the Covid vaccine has been rolled out, Reuters is reporting.
Options on the table include giving workers a choice between a free vaccine and a cash bonus if everyone gets inoculated, to being reassigned or even losing your job.
Australia has cancelled the production of a locally made vaccine against Covid-19 after trials showed it could interfere with HIV diagnosis, Reuters is reporting.
The government has instead securing additional doses of rival vaccines.
Germany is heading for a major new nationwide lockdown to stem the rapid spread of the coronavirus after health experts said that to wait until after Christmas to wind the country down could cost tens of thousands of lives and overwhelm hospitals.
The country recorded almost 23,000 new cases on Wednesday morning, and 598 deaths, both rates higher than at any time since the start of the pandemic.
Accord reached after Poland held out for concessions puts bloc on path to climate neutrality by 2050
EU member states have agreed to strengthen their target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, in line with their long-term goal of net zero carbon by 2050.
Carbon will be cut by 55% in the EU by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, after wrangling among member states into early Friday morning, as Poland held out for concessions.
Bloc defers decision on trade tariffs and arms until consultation with Biden administration
EU leaders have agreed to impose sanctions on an unspecified number of Turkish officials and entities involved in gas drilling in Cypriot-claimed waters – but they deferred bigger decisions such as trade tariffs or an arms embargo until they have consulted with the upcoming Biden administration.
The decision reached by the EU council after hours of heated debate disappointed hardliners such as France, Cyprus and Greece, which had pressed for more urgent and substantive action to express EU disapproval of Turkish foreign policy.
The World Health Organization has been accused of conspiring with the Italian health ministry to remove a report revealing the country’s mismanagement at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic – the publication of which was intended to prevent future deaths.
Italy was the first European country to become engulfed by the pandemic. The report, produced by the WHO scientist Francesco Zambon and 10 colleagues across Europe, was funded by Kuwait’s government with the objective of providing information to countries yet to be hit.
Compromise on budget payments pushes back a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law
The compromise between the EU and Hungary and Poland on establishing a link between budget payments and member states maintaining the rule of law – agreed on Thursday night – allows the bloc to move ahead with a new seven-year budget and coronavirus recovery fund, but is unlikely to be the end of the story.
The compromise pushes back to a later date a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law criteria. Judit Varga, justice minister for Hungary’s rightwing government immediately declared “victory”, and also said the Hungarian government would challenge the new provision in the European court of justice.
Struggle of murdered student’s parents has come to symbolise broader fight for justice
When the body of the Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni was found by the side of a Cairo highway in 2016, his mother later said she only recognised her son’s corpse by “the tip of his nose”, as he had suffered such extensive torture.
Almost five years after Regeni’s body was found, and following years of investigation by the Italian authorities, prosecutors in Rome on Thursday charged four men with Regeni’s kidnapping, including one accused of grievous bodily harm.
There was said to have been a refreshing candidness, but there is much still left to chew over
In the final few moments, at the end of a long dinner on the 13th floor of the European commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen slipped away from their advisers and chief negotiators to talk alone in a corner of the room. It was a tête-à-tête between two leaders mindful of the historic nature of their discussions.
Their conversation was intense, and notable for its apparent frankness; the body language made that clear to observers. The entire evening, as Von der Leyen would later tweet, had been “lively” – but this was not two politicians merely talking past each other. Both appeared to understand each other’s point of view, sources told the Guardian, and concluded it was worth “one last go” to reach a Brexit deal, even amid warnings of increasingly gloomy prospects. A Sunday deadline was set.
Analysis: prosecutions seen as opportunity for national security apparatus to come under scrutiny
Almost five years after the mutilated corpse of Giulio Regeni was found on the outskirts of Cairo in February 2016, Italian prosecutors have charged four members of Egypt’s national security agency over his kidnapping and murder.
For those working to uncover the truth about how Regeni died and why Egyptian security forces had entrapped the student in a web of surveillance, it was a day heavy with emotion.
Cairo killing of doctoral student in 2016 long believed to be work of Egypt’s security forces
Prosecutors in Italy have charged four members of Egypt’s national security agency over the kidnapping and murderof the Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni in Cairo.
Tariq Saber, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Capt Uhsam Helmi and Maj Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif are accused of kidnapping the young student in 2016, and Sharif is also accused of grievous bodily harm and murder.
Decomposing mink buried in mass graves in Denmark after being culled because of coronavirus fears may have contaminated the groundwater, local radio has reported, as parliament announced a commission to investigate the government’s actions.
Denmark, the world’s largest exporter of mink fur, announced early last month it would cull up to 15 million mink after discovering a mutated version of the virus that could have jeopardised the effectiveness of future vaccines.