Mayor says residents, known as Fuckingers, ‘have had enough of visitors and their bad jokes’
Residents of an Austrian village will ring in the new year under a new name – Fugging – after ridicule of their signposts, especially on social media, became too much to bear.
They finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name, which some experts say dates back to the 11th century.
Continue reading...Regulation will help prevent deaths of 1m waterbirds by lead poisoning every year
Lead shot is to be banned from all wetlands in the European Union, in a decision that is expected to pave the way for phasing out all toxic ammunition.
The European parliament voted against objections lodged by far-right parties, allowing the European commission to introduce the new regulations by the end of the year.
Continue reading...Footage shows victim, who was later released without charge, being punched, kicked and hit with truncheon
Three French police officers have been suspended after they were filmed beating and allegedly racially abusing a music producer in his Paris studio.
An official inquiry has been opened – the third such investigation in a week – into the officers’ behaviour. The latest incident comes after MPs in the French parliament voted to approve a new law increasing police powers.
Continue reading...Army officers, pilots and civilians convicted of being leaders in plot to take power
A Turkish court has sentenced leaders of the attempted coup in 2016 to life imprisonment, convicting hundreds of army officers, pilots and civilians over the failed effort to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
More than 250 people were killed on 15 July 2016 when rogue soldiers commandeered warplanes, helicopters and tanks to take control of institutions and overthrow the government, directed from an airbase near the capital, Ankara.
Continue reading...Germany, Italy and France in favour of resort closures but Austria and Switzerland fear economic damage
Governments are at odds over a Europe-wide plan to bar ski holidays over Christmas and new year, with Germany, Italy and France in favour but Austria and Switzerland reluctant to damage a sector worth billions to their economies.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Thursday joined Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in calling for a Europe-wide shutdown of winter sports until 10 January to avert a fresh coronavirus wave.
Continue reading...Daily cases continue to fall in France; health campaigners fear Africa will have to wait until mid-2021 for vaccine; weddings banned and cafes closed in Croatia
The head of British drug manufacturer AstraZeneca said further research was needed on its Covid-19 vaccine after questions emerged over the protection it offers, but the additional testing is unlikely to affect regulatory approval in Europe.
AstraZeneca and its partner, the University of Oxford, announced on Monday that it was seeking regulatory approval for the vaccine after it showed an average 70% effectiveness.
Related: Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine results face growing scrutiny
Spain’s capital Madrid turned on its Christmas lights on Thursday, spending more than last year to illuminate 30 additional streets and squares despite a sharp economic downturn driven by the coronavirus pandemic.
Banners of LED lights in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag appeared in parts of the city, including stretches of over a kilometre alongside the central boulevard that runs past the world-famous Prado museum.
Así ha encendido Madrid la Navidad
#MD964
DIRECTO https://t.co/Cnw7Ol5lQX@MadridDirecto pic.twitter.com/LkccoTnpkx
Choppy waters as clash of ‘newbie dryrobe types’ with ‘hardy’ bathers swells into debate on tribes and snobbery
James Joyce opened Ulysses with a reference to the “scrotum tightening” effect of swimming in Dublin bay, but these days there is a secondary, somewhat more visible effect: dryrobe bashing.
A boom in the popularity of sea swimming in Ireland has filled Dublin’s bathing spots with people wrapped in fleece-lined hooded robes – and for some of the old-timers it feels like an invasion.
Continue reading...Germany reports 410 Covid-related deaths in 24 hours; Sicilian hospitals struggling with shortage of medical personnel; global cases near 60m cases
The regional government of Madrid is proposing allowing groups of up to 10 people to gather on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and the feast of the Epiphany (6 January). The number of different households allowed to mix would be capped at three.
Under the plans, which have been submitted to the central government, the current midnight to 6am curfew would be replaced on those days by one running from 1.30am to 6am.
Authorities in Sicily have asked Cuba’s government to send to the region about 60 health operators, including doctors and nurses, as hospitals are struggling with a shortage of medical personnel during the second wave.
The request was filed this week to the Italian embassy in Cuba and consists of intensive care specialists, nurses, anaesthetists, resuscitators, virologists and pneumologists, the Italian newspaper la Repubblica has reported.
Continue reading...Michel Barnier says further negotiations would be pointless if UK does not change stance
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned David Frost that without a major negotiating shift by Downing Street within the next 48 hours he will pull out of the Brexit negotiations in London this weekend, pushing the talks into a fresh crisis.
In talks via videoconference on Tuesday, Barnier told his British counterpart that further negotiations would be pointless if the UK was not willing to compromise on the outstanding issues.
Continue reading...Photographers against Oppression have organised a print sale to raise money for those adversely affected by recent events in Belarus. More than 16,000 people have been detained for taking part in peaceful protests in the wake of disputed election results, according to the Viasna human rights organisation based in Minsk
Continue reading...They set out to capture the forgotten France, the everyday architecture of emptied towns and overlooked villages – before their uniqueness is lost for ever. Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier talk us through their vast photographic atlas
From the industrial north to the sun-baked south, Eric Tabuchi has spent two decades scouring the landscape of France with an obsessive eye. In 2008, the Danish-Japanese-French photographer created a beguiling series called Alphabet Truck by sneaking up on 26 different articulated lorries on the move and photographing the single giant letter adorning each one’s rear, from A to Z. In 2017, he made Atlas of Forms, a 256-page guide to all the shapes, from pyramid to polygon, the world’s buildings are based on. And in 2017, he joined forces with the painter Nelly Monnier, also his partner, to create the Atlas des Régions Naturelles.
This sprawling, unwieldy multipart portrait of a nation takes as its foundation the 500-odd régions naturelles, or non-administrative areas (a bit like British counties) into which mainland France is divided. Monnier and Tabuchi are slowly making their way around the country, arriving in each area with a minimum of preconceptions. First impressions are key, the idea being to shoot a few characteristic landscapes, then to work their way up through the area’s vernacular architecture, with everything dictated by local conditions.
Continue reading...Algerian couple were survivors of a shipwreck in October off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy
On 9 November, a migrant rescue boat came across a red backpack floating in the Mediterranean alongside other remains from a shipwreck that took place weeks before. The rucksack, covered with sea snails and reeking of petrol, contained two wedding rings, inscribed with the names Ahmed and Doudou.
“We thought it was proof of yet another love story that ended up at the bottom of the sea,” said Riccardo Gatti, the president of the NGO Open Arms in Italy, who recovered the personal items. “Unfortunately we find many of these. Most of the time suitcases and bags, floating in the sea, are nothing more than symbols of yet another journey that began in Libya and ended in tragedy.”
Continue reading...French police and gendarmes removed tents set up at Place de la République in Paris by refugees in a charity-organised protest on Monday against mass evacuations of homeless camps. Footage posted online showed police and demonstrators pushing against each other as officers moved in to clear the square of tents, which the police said had been set up without official permission. The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said on Tuesday that images of the scuffles were 'shocking' and he was launching an investigation into the clashes
Continue reading...French president says lockdown to ease; Italy reports most daily deaths since late March; Spain’s daily deaths highest of second wave
Scientists have warned the UK’s Christmas coronavirus plans, which will allow up to three households form a “bubble” to meet over the festive period, will cause the virus to spread and lead to further deaths.
Martin McKee, the professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “We know that the virus spreads easiest where people mix together, close to each other, for long periods of time indoors. These are exactly the conditions the government seems to be encouraging.”
Brazil registered a further 31,100 confirmed Covid-19 cases over the last 24 hours and 630 deaths, the health ministry said.
The South American nation has now registered 6,118,708 cases since the pandemic began and the official death toll has risen to 170,115, according to ministry data.
Continue reading...Foreign ministers hope US will lift sanctions in effort to revive 2015 agreement with Tehran
European foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK have met to discuss a joint approach with the incoming Joe Biden administration on reviving the Iranian nuclear deal.
The three nations, whose ministers met in Berlin, are hoping Tehran can reach an agreement under which the US would lift its crippling sanctions in return for Iran ending its non-compliance with the 2015 agreement constraining its nuclear activities.
Continue reading...Vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca; US suffers one Covid death every minute
AstraZeneca will have 200m doses of its candidate vaccine developed by the University of Oxford by the end of 2020, with 700m ready globally by the end of the first quarter of 2021, operations executive Pam Cheng has said.
Cheng told a briefing that there would be 20m doses in the UK by the end of the year, with 70m more for the UK by the end of March that year.
Pope Francis can relate to people in intensive care units who fear dying from coronavirus because of his own experience when part of his lung was removed 63 years ago, he has been quoted as saying.
The comments are included in excerpts of a new book “Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future”, which are carried in Italian newspapers on Monday ahead of publication of the full work next month.
I know from experience the feeling of those who are sick with coronavirus, struggling to breathe as they are attached to a ventilator.
They took about a litre and a half of water out of one lung and I was hanging between life and death.
[The experience] changed my bearings. For months, I didn’t know who I was, if I would live or die, even the doctors didn’t know. I remember hugging my mother one day and asking her if I was about to die.
Thanks to her regular contact with sick people, she knew what patients needed better than the doctor and had the courage to put that experience to work.
Continue reading...NatWest denies accusation made by Bill Browder in thinktank report into practice of ruining reputations
A longstanding critic of Kremlin corruption has accused NatWest of closing his bank account in the UK because it had been influenced by an intense and pervasive “black PR” campaign mounted against him by Russian actors in their home country.
“Black PR” is a term referring to a series of connected practices used by Russian state and non-state actors seeking to discredit individuals as part of political or business disputes, and can involve trying to create or obtain kompromat (compromising material) or generating fake media reports.
Continue reading...Heiko Maas criticises young protester who compared herself to Sophie Scholl, a German student executed by the Nazis
German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, on Sunday lashed out at anti-mask protesters comparing themselves to Nazi victims, accusing them of trivialising the Holocaust and “making a mockery” of the courage shown by resistance fighters.
The harsh words came after a young woman took to the stage at a protest against coronavirus restrictions in Hanover on Saturday saying she felt “just like Sophie Scholl”, the German student executed by the Nazis in 1943 for her role in the resistance.
Continue reading...WHO says Europe faces third wave early in 2021 if nations repeat their failures to prepare
France is preparing to ease its Covid-19 lockdown rules in the weeks leading up to Christmas with new daily caseloads falling and pressure building from retailers to allow the annual shopping season to go ahead.
But parts of east Asia that were thought to be controlling the disease have raised the possibility of new restrictions.
Continue reading...Agencies point finger at state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
State-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are engaged in concerted attempts to steal coronavirus vaccine secrets in what security experts describe as “an intellectual property war”.
They accuse hostile-state hackers of trying to obtain trial results early and seize sensitive information about mass production of drugs, at a time when a range of vaccines are close to being approved for the public.
Continue reading...