Boris Johnson has publicly suggested a Brussels summit next week is his deadline for a deal
Brussels does not believe Boris Johnson will walk out on the Brexit talks next week despite repeated threats from London, with negotiations set to continue deep into the month.
The prime minister has publicly suggested that an EU summit next Thursday is his deadline for a deal. He said in September that without agreement it would be time to “accept and move on”.
Continue reading...Putin proposes halt in fighting to exchange prisoners and collect soldiers’ bodies, says Kremlin
Russia has moved to stop the worst escalation of fighting in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in more than a quarter-century by offering to host ceasefire talks on Friday.
Late on Thursday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a statement calling for a break in the fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that has raged for nearly two weeks over the region.
Continue reading...The beachfront of Varosha has been opened to the public on Thursday for the first time in 46 years in a move by the Turkish-backed government of Northern Cyprus. Hundreds of people descended on the beach in the former resort town that was abandoned when Varosha’s Greek Cypriot inhabitants fled as Turkish troops advanced in 1974. The area was placed under the control of the Turkish military before it was cordoned off and left to the elements for nearly five decades. The move to reopen the area has been criticised by Cyprus's president amid concerns of rising tensions between Turkey and EU members, Greece and Cyprus
Continue reading...Greek Cypriots who fled area when troops invaded in 1976 among those embittered by Turkish move
For the first time in 46 years the public have been permitted to access the beach of Varosha in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of Cyprus, in a contentious move unveiled by its internationally unrecognised premier who is running in an election on Sunday.
Hundreds filed through a gate manned by Turkish Cypriot police on Thursday to walk on a freshly paved asphalt road leading to the beach that was the jewel of what was once a premier tourist resort in Famagusta. The road was flanked by police tape to keep pedestrians out of windowless homes and rusting business, some swallowed up by decades-old undergrowth.
Continue reading...British king granted 50 Flemish fishermen ‘eternal rights’ to English fishing waters in 1666
All is fair in love and cod war. And with the EU’s coastal states under pressure to give way on Britain’s demands for greater fishing catches in its waters post-Brexit, any old argument is worth a try.
When the issue of the future access of European fishing fleets was being discussed by EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday the Belgian government’s representative, Willem van de Voorde, made a notable intervention.
Continue reading...Backing for law demanding 60% reduction from 1990 levels puts capitals under pressure
EU capitals have been put under pressure to agree to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2030 compared with 1990, after the European parliament voted in favour of an “ambitious” climate law that would also oblige each member state to be carbon neutral by 2050.
The vote, which sets the chamber’s position as it goes into negotiations with the 27 member states and the European commission, won the backing of 392 MEPs, with 161 voting against and 142 abstaining.
Continue reading...Warwick University academic ‘broke German court ruling that protected dead woman’s reputation’
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has begun a legal battle to protect her deceased mother’s reputation from allegations that she had a lesbian relationship with an SS guard.
Earlier this year, a German court ruled that Dr Anna Hájková, associate professor of modern continental European history at Warwick University, had violated the woman’s postmortem personality rights by publicly claiming that she had a sexual relationship with the Nazi guard while imprisoned in concentration camps.
Continue reading...Court told Helga Wauters was drunk when she botched Xynthia Hawke’s caesarean
An alcoholic anaesthetist who botched an emergency caesarean operation that left a young British woman brain dead had been drinking since she woke up that morning, a French court has heard.
Helga Wauters, 51, pushed a breathing tube into 28-year-old Xynthia Hawke’s oesophagus instead of her windpipe and failed to react even when the young woman turned blue, vomited, cried out in pain and went into cardiac arrest.
Continue reading...More than 100 women launch action as activists say practice is serious violation of human rights and privacy
A group of more than 100 Italian women have asked prosecutors to investigate who is behind the burial for nearly a decade of foetuses in graves marked with the names of their mothers in a cemetery in Rome.
The practice only came to light last week after one of the women, whose curiosity was sparked after reading about the so-called “fields of angels” in local newspapers, discovered a plot with a wooden cross bearing her name and the date on which the foetus was buried at Prima Porta cemetery. She subsequently posted about her experience on Facebook.
Continue reading...Concern in Germany and maximum alert in France, as other countries report record infection rates
Several mainland European countries have recorded their highest daily number of Covid-19 infections since widespread testing began, as governments struggle to stem a rapid resurgence of the virus that risks overwhelming some healthcare systems.
The figures came as the World Health Organization reported a record one-day increase in global coronavirus cases, with the total rising by 338,779 in 24 hours. The previous record for new cases was 330,340 on 2 October.
Continue reading...Giuseppe Conte under pressure from Italian exporters to ensure favourable outcome on withdrawal agreement
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has urged the British government to come good on a Brexit deal but admitted it was currently “difficult to feel optimistic” amid legal wrangling over the withdrawal agreement.
“Obviously the legislative move in the UK creates tension,” said Conte, referring to Boris Johnson’s tabling of a bill that violates key elements of the agreement reached with Brussels last year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: majorities in seven countries favour Joe Biden and rate Donald Trump poorly
Fewer than one in 10 Europeans expect next month’s US presidential election to be completely free and fair, and an overwhelming majority say they would like Joe Biden to triumph over Donald Trump.
According to a YouGov tracker survey in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, in only one of these countries – Italy – are more than a tenth of voters confident that the American electoral process will prove irreproachable.
Continue reading...Villages in Ryazan region south-east of Moscow cleared after grass fire reaches military facility
Russia has evacuated more than 2,000 people from nearby villages after a wildfire set off explosions at a munitions depot in the Ryazan region south-east of Moscow, officials said.
More than 400 firefighters were battling into the evening on Wednesday to extinguish a blaze that broke out at the depot that day, with the authorities saying five people were injured but there were no deaths.
Continue reading...Brain of a young man killed in the eruption was found in Herculaneum, Italy
Brain cells have been found in exceptionally preserved form in the remains of a young man killed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago, an Italian study has revealed.
The preserved neuronal structures in vitrified or frozen form were discovered at the archaeological site of Herculaneum, an ancient Roman city engulfed under a hail of volcanic ash after nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.
Continue reading...German capital tells bars to shut at 11pm, while fellow role model Belgium also tightens rules
Berlin’s nightlife is facing a closing time for the first time in 70 years as the party-loving German capital seeks to contain spiralling coronavirus infection rates.
From Saturday, bars, restaurants and off-licences will have to close their doors between 11pm and 6am as a large second wave of Covid-19 cases in the city threatens to taint Germany’s image as a pandemic role model.
Continue reading...Simon Coveney says talks will not progress without signal that UK is ready to show some realism
The EU’s Michel Barnier will not move Brexit talks into the so-called “tunnel” of more intense negotiations “unless he gets a very clear signal from the UK that they are willing to show some flexibility and realism” in its approach to a deal, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister has said.
Simon Coveney, who played a significant role in the first three years of talks, also said the talks would blow up completely if the UK went ahead with clauses in the yet-to-be-tabled finance bill giving ministers unilateral powers over the Northern Ireland protocol for a second time.
Continue reading...Ex-leader and MPs found guilty after biggest trial of fascists since Nuremberg
A court verdict in Athens with ramifications for the far right across Europe has been met with jubilation in Greece and internationally after judges ruled the neo-fascist Golden Dawn was a criminal organisation in disguise.
Tens of thousands people who had converged near the heavily guarded court complex in Athens in anticipation of the judgment roared in excitement as the news emerged. Many broke into spontaneous applause and punched the air as it became clear that the three-member tribunal had found the far-right group guilty of operating a gang of hit squads bent on eliminating perceived enemies.
Continue reading...More than 7,500 people living in tents on squalid settlement, with two other camps on Lesbos set to close
Thousands of people who fled the fire that destroyed the infamous Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, last month are living in dire and unsanitary conditions in a temporary settlement with little access to water or basic sanitation.
Just over 7,500 people are now living in tents among the rubble and dust of a former shooting range in an informal settlement that has become known as “Moria 2.0”.
Continue reading...Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport, €4bn over budget and nine years late, now has virus to contend with
Almost three decades after the plans were first mooted, over nine years behind schedule and more than €4bn (£3.6bn) over budget, Berlin’s new international airport is finally ready to open its doors.
But the already tortuous birth of Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport (BER) expected to open on 31 October, and once hailed as a celebration of the ambitious German reunification project, has only been compounded by the decision to unveil it in the middle of a pandemic.
Continue reading...The Swedish example is regularly raised by libertarian-minded Conservatives when protesting against government restrictions aimed at quelling the spread of the virus in the UK. But what did the Scandinavian country do differently and could it be applied elsewhere?
When politicians across the world were confronted with the reality of a spreading pandemic, hospitals nearing capacity and deaths rising almost all of them reached for emergency legislation to enforce lockdowns, curfews and other bans on social gatherings. But Sweden chose a markedly different approach.
The Guardian’s Europe correspondent Jon Henley tells Anushka Asthana how in Sweden, the government vested its pandemic response in its unelected public health expert Anders Tegnell, who issued advice and guidance rather than strict lockdowns. It was highly controversial because of catastrophic failures in its care homes: deaths rose rapidly, far outstripping those recorded in neighbouring countries. But as much of Europe appears to be experiencing a second wave of Covid infections, in Sweden cases are not rising so rapidly.
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