Category Archives: Europe

EU draft declaration sets out stricter rules on migrant integration

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Contentious statement includes edict on learning language of new home country

Migrants to Europe must learn the language of their new home countries and encourage their children to integrate in the light of the recent Islamist terror attacks, EU governments plan to say in a declaration drafted by France, Austria and Germany.

The contentious draft statement, due to be made by EU home affairs ministers on Friday, is being championed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who was accused by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of religious persecution after his recent warning of the dangers of Islamist separatism.

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Global report: new Covid lockdown in Hungary as Belgium passes second peak

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Portugal imposes state of emergency; global cases pass 50m; infections in Germany ‘levelling off’

Hungary and Portugal have become the latest countries in Europe to impose tough new restrictions to stem the second wave of the coronavirus, as the first signs of light at the end of the tunnel emerged in France, Germany and Belgium.

As the US pharmaceuticals company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine appeared safe and more than 90% effective, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a partial lockdown.

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Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas wanted Doctor Zhivago movie rights

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Director wrote to Boris Pasternak in late 1950s, previously unpublished material reveals

It is one of the greatest British films of all time, directed in 1965 by David Lean with an A-list cast that included Julie Christie, Omar Sharif and Alec Guinness. But the epic adaptation of Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak’s classic love story set against the Russian revolution, might never have happened if a planned US production had got there first.

James Fenwick, a British film historian, has discovered that two of cinema’s most revered film-makers – Hollywood star Kirk Douglas and director Stanley Kubrick – had tried in vain to acquire the movie rights earlier, in the late 1950s.

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Italy faces 10,000 Covid deaths in a month with no lockdown – medics

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Doctors urge tougher national action as hospitals struggle to treat coronavirus patients

Doctors in Italy have warned there will be an additional 10,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month in the country unless a national lockdown is imposed.

The government is moving toward placing further restrictions in four more regions considered high risk: Campania, Liguria, Abruzzo and Umbria.

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Concern over French bill that cracks down on photos identifying police

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Journalists call for removal of clause that would ban footage disseminated ‘with intent to harm’ officers

A proposed bill in France that would make it illegal to disseminate photographs or videos identifying police and gendarmes “with intent to harm” is a danger to press freedom, critics have warned.

The measure comes amid growing concern about allegations of police violence in the country. It is outlined in draft global security legislation to be presented to the Assemblée Nationale next week.

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‘Super rare’ 100-year-old carrier pigeon message found in France

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Tiny capsule discovered in Ingersheim appears to have been sent by a soldier during the first world war

A couple out for a walk in eastern France have discovered a tiny capsule containing a message despatched by a Prussian soldier over a century ago using a carrier pigeon.

The message from an infantry soldier based at Ingersheim, written in German in a barely legible hand, detailed military manoeuvres apparently during the first world war and was addressed to a superior officer, said Dominique Jardy, curator of the Linge Museum at Orbey in eastern France.

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EU bank supports projects linked to human rights violations, NGOs claim

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European Investment Bank accused of failure to properly assess impacts of supported projects in Africa and Asia

The EU-funded European Investment Bank has been using taxpayer cash to support infrastructure projects linked to alleged human rights violations, an investigation by NGOs shows.

The report – led by campaign groups Counter Balance and the CEE Bankwatch Network – has accused the EIB of a lack of transparency and a failure to properly assess the impact of its funding as it extends its role beyond Europe to former Soviet republics, Africa and Asia.

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Global coronavirus cases pass 50m with US worst affected country

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US close to 10m cases, with India second on 8.5m cases, followed by Brazil and Russia

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which showed that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.

A total of 50,052,204 infections had been reported around the world by Sunday evening.

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Russia and China silence speaks volumes as leaders congratulate Biden

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Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping stay silent while Iran waits to see how US will compensate for Trump sanctions

Most world leaders rushed to congratulate Joe Biden on his election, but Russia and China, two likely losers from the defeat of Donald Trump, remained silent, perhaps waiting for the outgoing president to concede defeat.

The president of the Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, is thought to be the first to have congratulated Biden, tweeting his welcome within 24 minutes of the US networks declaring Biden victorious. By contrast, Vladimir Putin, accused of collusion in Trump’s 2016 victory, and Xi Jinping kept their counsel.

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Coronavirus live news: world war a risk in wake of pandemic, says UK defence chief; 16,017 new infections in Germany

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Economic fallout of pandemic makes prospect of third world war ‘a risk’; Covid-related deaths in France exceeds 40,000 for the first time; number of cases in Germany increases by 16,017

Lovely reporting from my colleague Lorenzo Tondo in Roccafiorita in Sicily:

When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.

When the phone rang, it was like lightning on a sunny day. With this second wave on its way, for a second I thought that we might actually be wiped off the map.

Related: 'Wiped off the map': tiny Italian villages cower from Covid threat

As Joe Biden announced he would name his own coronavirus taskforce on Monday, the US recorded its fourth consecutive record daily total of new Covid cases, close to 130,000.

“That plan will be built on a bedrock of science,” Biden said, promising to “spare no effort or commitment to turn this pandemic around.”

We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.

Related: US posts fourth consecutive daily Covid record as Joe Biden prepares taskforce

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Johnson risks rift with Biden by pressing ahead with Brexit bill

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Prime minister says changes to legislation will protect Northern Ireland peace deal

Boris Johnson has risked opening a rift with the US president-elect, Joe Biden, by insisting the internal markets bill that reneges on part of the EU withdrawal agreement would go ahead as planned.

The prime minister said the legislation would go through parliament and added that the planned changes, which would hand unilateral power to ministers to change or disapply export rules for goods traveling from Britain to Northern Ireland, would protect the Good Friday peace deal.

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‘Wiped off the map’: tiny Italian villages cower from Covid threat

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Coronavirus potentially poses a threat to the very existence of places such as Roccafiorita in Sicily

When the mayor of Roccafiorita received a phone call in October informing him that an employee in his office had tested positive for Covid-19, his heart sank.

Set among the forests at the foot of Mount Kalfa, Roccafiorita is the smallest village in southern Italy. The average age of its 187 inhabitants is over 60. If Covid were to spread among the population, the village could disappear.

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Azerbaijan claims to have captured key town in Nagorno-Karabakh

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President Aliyev says country’s forces have taken Shusha, despite Armenian denials

Azerbaijan has said it has recaptured the symbolic town of Shusha, a claim denied by Armenian officials as fighting in the bloody six-week-old battle over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory appeared to reach an apex.

“[This day] will become a great day in the history of Azerbaijan,” said Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, in a televised address. His announcement on Sunday was greeted with celebrations on the streets of Baku as Azerbaijanis gathered to wave flags and sing.

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‘Crush the fascist vermin’: Belarus opposition summons wartime spirit

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Partisan tactics once used to fight the Nazis have been turned against Alexander Lukashenko’s brutally repressive regime

In Minsk, what people here call the Great Patriotic War is never far away. Monuments, street names and museums venerate the memory of the awful years from 1941 to 1945, when the Soviet Union was at war with Nazi Germany.

Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, has used the years of partisan resistance against the Nazi occupation of the country, and the eventual victory by the Red Army, as the basis for a neo-Soviet, Belarusian identity.

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Salud! Barcelona’s tiny local bodegas saved for posterity

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Protection move widely welcomed, but many traditional bars are struggling to pay their rents, especially under lockdown

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Barcelona council has come to the rescue of some of the city’s most emblematic and best-loved bars by adding them to the list of protected sites and buildings. However, thanks to Covid-19 restrictions, you won’t be able to get a drink in any of them for at least the next few weeks.

The city has added 11 bodegas to the list of 220 shops that are considered part of the city’s cultural heritage. The move has been widely welcomed, though it comes too late to save many small businesses, from toy and book shops to grocery and furniture stores, that were part of the fabric and essence of the city but were forced out by soaring rents. In most cases they have been replaced by chain stores.

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What will President Biden’s United States look like to the rest of the world? | Timothy Garton Ash

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The future of a diminished superpower now lies in being part of a wider network of democracies

What is the best the world can now hope for from the United States under President Joe Biden, now that the election has been called for him? My answer: that the US will be a leading country in a post-hegemonic network of democracies.

Yes, that’s a, not the leading country. Quite a contrast to the beginning of this century, when the “hyperpower” US seemed to bestride the globe like a colossus. The downsizing has two causes: the US’s decline, and others’ rise. Even if Biden had won a landslide victory and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the United States’ power in the world would be much diminished. President Donald Trump has done untold damage to its international reputation. His disastrous record on handling Covid confirmed a widespread sense of a society with deep structural problems, from healthcare, race and infrastructure to media-fuelled hyper-polarisation and a dysfunctional political system.

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Brexit talks remain deadlocked going into decisive week

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‘Large differences remain’ after call between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen

The Brexit negotiations remained stuck after a call between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen before a decisive week of talks.

The European commission president and the prime minister both highlighted in their post-call statements the contentious issues of EU access to British waters and agreement on future rules to ensure fair competition.

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‘Nobody can block it’: how the Telegram app fuels global protest

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The controversial messaging app has moved huge crowds on the streets of Belarus. But who is its secretive puppet master?

One Sunday in August, two weeks after Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko declared an implausibly decisive victory in presidential elections, I joined a crowd of around 100,000 people as it moved through central Minsk. Protest in Belarus was no longer the domain of a few hundred hardy opposition figures, and the homemade placards many people carried illustrated how broad the coalition had become: “Let’s drink to love, from the bartenders of Belarus”; “Teachers against violence”; “Working class, go on strike!”

The previous fortnight had been a time of national awakening, as the country united around the goal of ending Lukashenko’s 26 years in charge. As grim footage of police violence circulated on the messenger app Telegram, large numbers came out to demand that their voices be heard.

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Travel to UK from Denmark to be banned amid worries over Covid in mink

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Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, understood to be concerned by new strain

All travel to the UK from Denmark is being banned amid mounting concern over an outbreak in the country of a mutation of coronavirus linked to mink, the Guardian understands.

Downing Street had already taken action to remove Denmark from the travel corridor, forcing arrivals to quarantine for two weeks from Friday at 4am.

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Johnson and EU commission chief to hold talks before decisive week for Brexit deal

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Phonecall with Ursula von der Leyen could be final chance for PM to avert no-deal Brexit

Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, will hold talks on Saturday before a potentially decisive week in the Brexit negotiations, amid growing concern in Brussels at the lack of progress.

UK sources played down expectations of a breakthrough moment but with time short for parliamentary ratification the phonecall may prove to be the final chance for a political intervention in the troubled talks.

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