Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
EU science funding is being spent on developing new tools for policing and security. But who decides how far we need to submit to artificial intelligence?
Patrick Breyer didn’t expect to have to take the European commission to court. The softly spoken German MEP was startled when in July 2019 he read about a new technology to detect from facial “micro-expressions” when somebody is lying while answering questions.
Even more startling was that the EU was funding research into this virtual mindreader through a project called iBorderCtrl, for potential use in policing Europe’s borders. In the article that Breyer read, a reporter described taking a test on the border between Serbia and Hungary. She told the truth, but the AI border guard said she had lied.
Democracy is seriously under threat in our countries. The EU must stand up to the bullying tactics of Orbán and Morawiecki
As European leaders gather in Brussels this week municipal buildings and monuments in Warsaw and Budapest have been lit up in blue. The illuminations, organised by campaign groups and the mayors of these cities, are meant as a powerful reminder of the dark path ahead if the EU stands aside while the rule of law is extinguished in Poland and Hungary. The lights are a call for solidarity with the millions of citizens of both countries who argue that EU funding should be conditional on their governments upholding these fundamental rights.
The release of €1.8tn in EU funds for rebuilding after the pandemic and the EU’s 2021-2027 budget is at stake. So far agreement has been derailed by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki because of their unwillingness to accept that membership of the EU depends on upholding democratic values.
Firefighters tackle a blaze in an abandoned industrial building squatted by migrants near Barcelona. At least two people have died and 17 have been injured, five seriously, in the blaze in Badalona which broke out in the small hours. Firefighters fear that more people could be trapped inside and that the building could collapse
Bolivia’s cholita wrestlers are making a comeback to the ring after the iconic female fighters were forced to hang up their billowing skirts and bowler hats due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
I’ve been wrestling for about 10 years. I am a single mother of two children, and I have a trade. Because of the trade I am in, I am able to dedicate enough time to my children, to take them to school and to study.
Before the pandemic, we were a part of the cultural heritage that wasn’t recognised, tourists came from all over the world to see just us, the fighting cholita luchadores of wrestling.
Significant gaps remain between PM and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen after Brussels dinner
A Brexit deal must be sealed by Sunday or there will be no deal, Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen agreed after a “lively and frank” three-hour summit that set the stage for a dramatic final act of the negotiations.
Despite nine months of troubled talks, “very large gaps” were said to remain between the UK and EU. The leaders said they should come to a deal or no deal outcome by the end of the weekend, with pressure on both sides to find time for parliamentary ratification.
The lawyers, in a statement, provided no details about the back taxes . But the newspaper El Pais in an earlier report said the former monarch sought to settle certain alleged illegal credit card transactions with the revenue service to avoid being charged in an investigation and to be enable his return to Spain.
Agents travelled from China at Swiss taxpayers’ expense to interview deportation targets
The full text of a secret deal between Switzerland and China that allowed Chinese security officials access to the country at Swiss taxpayers’ expense has been revealed for the first time as the government pushes to renew it.
The five-year “readmission agreement”, which was signed in 2015 and expired on Monday, lay out terms for Chinese agents to travel to Switzerland and interview suspected Chinese nationals that Swiss authorities wished to deport.
Scotland came close to eliminating Covid during the first nationwide lockdown, according to genomic sequencing for Sage of 5,000 samples of the virus, the Scottish government believes.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, said analysis by scientists in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews on the COG-UK consortium found that around 300 different strains of the virus were circulating in Scotland during the first wave.
That allows us to say this did get us incredibly close to eliminating the virus in our communities, but as we opened up, inevitably people began to travel across the UK [and] travel abroad. New strains were imported again into Scotland.
[This] indicates that, while lockdown in Scotland is directly linked with the first wave case numbers being brought under control, travel-associated imports (mostly from Europe or other parts of the UK) following the easing of lockdown are responsible for seeding the current epidemic population.
This demonstrates that the impact of stringent public health measures can be compromised if, following this, movements from regions of high to low prevalence are not minimised.
Public Health Wales has recorded 2,238 further coronavirus cases. That is a new record daily high for recorded cases. The previous daily record was 2,021, on Monday. A week ago today the figure was 1,480.
There have also been 31 further deaths. A week ago today the figure was 51.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated.
Analysis: While there are similarities with the 2015 clash between Athens and Brussels, there are also key differences
It was a marathon even by the European Union’s standards. For hours, leaders of countries in the eurozone argued, haggled and shouted at each other. After breaks for refreshment, they argued, haggled and shouted some more. Rumours swirled around the packed media room. Eventually, as Brussels was waking to a new morning, the 17-hour overnight summit staggered to an end.
All participants were in agreement that victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat. Despite the brinkmanship, a deal was eventually done – as seasoned EU watchers had always said it would be, even when all hope seemed lost.
French president responds to angry protests and concerns force is losing public confidence
Emmanuel Macron has announced a national consultation on reforming the police amid concerns the force is losing the confidence of the French public.
The move comes after multiple allegations of police violence – several captured on film – in recent weeks and angry protests over a new law giving officers powers that critics say threaten civil and press freedom.
With unique access to remote communities in the snow-capped landscape of Norway, this film follows characters on either side of a fierce debate on whether to cull the wolf population. For decades the topic has split political parties, families and communities across the country, with environmentalists world-wide criticising Norway for how it handles its tiny population of critically endangered wolves. Here, a group of hunters await news from the government on whether their yearly hunt will be permitted, while the environmentalists anticipate the worst. With angry threats on both sides, the film takes a deep dive into what’s at stake for both groups, as well as the wider world
Previous prime ministers have defined their leadership via a row with Europe – will Johnson be different?
Since the formation of the European Union, it has been a habit for British prime ministers to try to define their premiership via a row with the rest of the bloc, especially given the laudatory domestic newspaper headlines such disputes engender.
The leading exponent was Margaret Thatcher, ironically in many ways the architect of the single market from which Boris Johnson is struggling to organise the UK’s retreat.
Chloé Lopes Gomes claims she was repeatedly told she did not fit in because of her skin colour
The first black female dancer at Berlin’s principal ballet company has accused the institution of racial harassment, claiming she was repeatedly told she did not fit in because of her skin colour.
Chloé Lopes Gomes, a French citizen, who joined the Staatsballett as a corps de ballet member in 2018, said she had faced recurrent racial abuse from her ballet mistress. In an interview with the Guardian she also accuses the company of institutional racism after managers failed to act even after various incidents were brought to their attention.
Experts say ‘incredible discovery’ is the earliest known version of the early 17th century artist’s Holy Family works
A painting that hung for decades in a municipal building in Brussels has been authenticated as the work of Flemish master Jacob Jordaens.
After analysis including dendrochronology – dating works from the wood panels they are painted on – experts determined that it is the oldest known version of The Holy Family by Jordaens, painted in the early 17th century.
Radio equipment stolen from Ilyushin-80 aircraft designed to protect Putin and top officials
Thieves have targeted a Russian “doomsday” plane, the military aircraft that would be used by top officials, including Vladimir Putin, in case of a nuclear war.
The robbery of the Ilyushin-80, a mobile command post specially designed to keep officials alive and in command of the military during a nuclear conflict, took place at an airfield in southern Russia, state media reported.
UK prioritising over-80s, frontline healthcare workers and care home staff and residents; France unlikely to end lockdown on 15 December; Brazil to make vaccines free
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Good Morning Scotland the next doses of the vaccine will arrive next week. He said:
The next scheduled arrival will be next week and the numbers depend on how quickly Pfizer can manufacture it.
It is being manufactured in Belgium and obviously right across the UK the job is to be able to get the vaccinations done as quickly as the manufacturer can create it, so we’ve been all working together really closely, the UK Government, which has been buying the vaccine and getting it delivered into the country, and then the NHS in the four nations of the UK.
We’ve got a broad schedule, there will be several million for the UK as a whole, so several hundred thousand for Scotland over the remainder of this month.
We’ve got that as a broad delivery schedule but obviously the manufacturing process itself is complicated, so we’ve got to get the stuff in the country and then once it’s in the country we can be confident that we’re able to deliver it, and I’m sure the NHS across Scotland and across the whole of the UK is up to the challenge.
We are not proposing to have a sort of immunity certificate that allows you to do different things.
Got a bit of a lump in the throat watching this. Feels like such a milestone moment after a tough year for everyone. The first vaccines in Scotland will be administered today too. https://t.co/KKaEhf19Jo
NHS nurse Mrs Parsons said it was a “huge honour” to be the first in the country to deliver the vaccine to a patient.
She said:
It’s a huge honour to be the first person in the country to deliver a Covid-19 jab to a patient, I’m just glad that I’m able to play a part in this historic day.
The last few months have been tough for all of us working in the NHS, but now it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel.
PM to make trip in 11th-hour effort to break impasse, raising hopes of a deal on trade and security
Boris Johnson will travel to Brussels for a face-to-face summit with the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in an 11th-hour attempt to break the impasse in the Brexit negotiations.
A long-awaited crunch meeting will be held in the “coming days”, the two leaders said in a joint statement following a phone call lasting over an hour, keeping hopes alive of agreement on a trade and security deal. Sources on both sides pointed to Wednesday or Thursday as the most likely dates.
Paris’s concerns about UK demands are widely shared, analysts, politicians and EU diplomats say
Emmanuel Macron may be talking tougher than the rest of the EU27 as Brexit talks reach their endgame, but despite claims to the contrary in London and by a UK media that always enjoys pointing fingers across the Channel, France is far from isolated.
Headlines such as “Le bust-up” and “France derails Brexit talks” do not reflect European reality, analysts, politicians and EU diplomats have insisted, saying Paris’s fundamental concerns are widely shared across the EU27.
Latest updates: EU’s chief Brexit negotiator says gaps on level playing field, governance and fisheries are still not bridged
RTE’s Europe editor, Tony Connelly, has posted a thread on Twitter with the full comments from Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, this morning.
“Having heard from Michel Barnier this morning, really the news is very downbeat. I would say he is very gloomy, and obviously very cautious about the ability to make progress today.
2/ "There was news last night on some media sources that there was a breakthrough on fishing. That is absolutely not the case from what we’re hearing this morning,” he said.
Mr Coveney said that fisheries, the level playing field and governance remain “very problematic.”
3/ “There really was no progress made yesterday, that’s our understanding and so we’ve got to try to make a breakthrough at some point today, before the two principals, the Commission president and the prime minister speak later on this evening.
4/ “Unfortunately, I’d like to be giving more positive news, but at the moment these negotiations seem stalled, and the barriers to progress are still very much in place.
5/ “We haven’t, through the negotiating teams, found a way to find compromises that can progress these negotiations towards a successful conclusion.
6/ “There is still time. Lunchtime seems a long way away now, given the intensity of these discussions, but that’s where we are, and anyone who is briefing that there are breakthroughs in either of these two big areas...I don’t think is accurate.”
The number of new Covid-19 infections per day in France is unlikely to fall to a 5,000 target by 15 December as the population is not sufficiently respecting social distancing measures, one of France*s top coronavirus experts said today.
Eric Caumes, head of infectious diseases at Paris hospital La Pitié-Salpêtrière, told LCI television that if the French are not cautious enough over Christmas and year-end holidays, it will lead to a third wave of the virus in mid-January.
It’s back to school today for some New York City schoolchildren, weeks after the schools were closed to in-person learning because of rising Covid-19 infections.
The city’s public school system, which shut down in-person learning earlier this month, will bring back preschool students and children in kindergarten through fifth grade, whose parents chose a mix of in-school and remote learning. Special education students in all grades who have particularly complex needs will be welcomed back starting Thursday.
We have facts now for two straight months of extraordinarily low levels of transmission in our schools, our schools are clearly safer. This is what our health care leaders say. Our schools are safer than pretty much any place else in New York City. So, I really think everyone in the school community can feel secure because so many measures are in place to protect everyone.