The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said in a personal statement that testing by a special military laboratory had shown proof that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a novichok nerve agent. 'It is now clear: Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime,' Merkel said. 'He was meant to be silenced. This raises very difficult questions that only the Russian government can answer, and has to answer'
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Children locked up by parents over Covid should not go home, rules Swedish court
Family ‘nailed apartment door shut with planks’ and isolated three children from each other
Three children taken into care after being locked up by their parents for nearly five months in case they caught the coronavirus should not be allowed to return home, an administrative court in Sweden has ruled.
From March until early July, the children, aged between 10 and 17, were prevented from leaving the family’s apartment, whose door was “nailed shut with planks”, and also kept isolated from each other, according to the court verdict in Jönköping county.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: leading US Democrat Nancy Pelosi pictured without face covering in hair salon
US rejects global vaccine effort; cases rise in India, Russia and Hungary; Australia enters recession
- Schools reopen across Europe as cases grow
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- Scotland rules holidaymakers returning from Greece must isolate
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Greece recorded has recorded the first coronavirus case in the overcrowded migrant camp of Moria on the island of Lesbos, two migration ministry officials said on Wednesday.
A 40-year old asylum seeker has tested positive for the virus and had been put in isolation, one of the officials told Reuters. Authorities were trying to trace the people he had been in contact with, the official said.
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Continue reading...Turkey seeing second peak of Covid-19 outbreak – as it happened
US president’s move challenged by Congress; Silvio Berlusconi has Covid-19; Brazil’s death toll appears to be easing. This blog is now closed
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Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll appears to be easing for the first time since May, data shows, a sign the Latin American country could be descending from a long infection plateau that has seen it suffer the world’s second-worst outbreak after the United States, Reuters reports.
With nearly 4 million confirmed cases, the virus has killed over 120,000 people in Brazil. But the level of average daily deaths dropped below 900 per day last week - the lowest in three and a half months and below the rate of both the United States and India, according to a Reuters tally.
Researchers at Imperial College London also calculate that the transmission rate in Brazil, at which each person infected with the coronavirus infects another person, is now below 1, the level required for new infections to slow.
Charlie Hebdo attack: suspected accomplices go on trial in Paris
Fourteen charged over killing of 17 people at satirical magazine and kosher supermarket
The trial of 14 suspects accused of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket Hyper Cacher has opened in Paris.
The hearing, expected to last 49 days and recorded live for “the historical record”, began amid high security and will relive the three days of terror in January 2015 that left 17 people dead and others injured.
Continue reading...Lego reports sales jump after Covid crisis kept families at home
Shoppers globally bought toys online while physical stores were hit by restrictions
Lego, the toy brick company, has enjoyed a lockdown boost to sales as families around the world were forced to spend more time at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Total sales rose by 14% in the first half of 2020 and sales were up by more than 10% in its largest markets – including the Americas, western Europe, Asia Pacific and China – despite the closure of toy shops for months in some countries, including the UK.
Continue reading...European tour tests Chinese foreign minister’s pulling power
The reassessment of China highlighted by Wang Yi’s trip has political, economic and security implications
The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi did not exactly end his week-long European tour with his tail between his legs but he may have been chastened if he ever believed Beijing could simply win over Europe by pointing to the extremist cold war rhetoric of Europe’s natural ally America.
The five-nation tour surely marked the end of an era where China can any longer get away with simple homilies on win-win solutions, multilateralism and non-interference in another’s internal affairs. Pointing to Donald Trump is also no longer enough to win European friends.
Continue reading...Denmark announces plans to reform sexual violence laws
The government plan to make consent rather violence the basis for determining rape
The Danish government has announced plans to reform sexual violence laws to make consent rather than violence the basis for determining rape.
“We are moving from a system where there had to be coercion and violence for it to be rape, to one where there must be consent,” justice minister, Nick Haekkerup, told a press conference.
Continue reading...Global report: schools across Europe reopen as Covid cases grow
Parents and teachers fear face masks and other measures not enough to prevent second wave
Tens of millions of pupils, most wearing face masks, have headed back to class in France, Belgium, Poland and Russia, as schools across Europe cautiously reopened amid spiralling numbers of new coronavirus cases in several countries.
Parents and teachers around the continent have expressed fears that strict physical distancing and hygiene measures such as hand cleansing stations will not be able to prevent a second Covid-19 wave, maybe coinciding with the autumn flu season.
Continue reading...Migrant woman gives birth in a helicopter flying to Sicily
The woman tested positive for Covid-19 and health officials decided to transfer her to Palermo
A migrant woman, who tested positive for coronavirus, has given birth to a baby on board a helicopter as she was flying to Sicily from the small southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
The woman was staying at a migrant centre designed to hold about 100 people, which in recent days has been home to nearly 10 times as many due to a pickup in arrivals.
Continue reading...No 10 blames EU and plays down prospects of Brexit trade deal
Spokesman for Boris Johnson says hopes of meeting deadline in December are dwindling
Downing Street has played down the prospect of reaching a trade deal with the EU in time for December, saying it will be “very difficult” – and blaming Brussels’ insistence on tackling tough issues upfront.
The UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, is meeting his EU counterpart Michel Barnier in London, in advance of the next round of formal talks next week.
Continue reading...Macron visits Lebanese singer in bid to change political soundtrack
French leader meets Fairouz, 85, amid frustration with ruling class unwilling to change
The French president had tried it all before: rebuking his counterpart, cajoling ministers, withholding aid and imploring the Lebanese ruling class to change its ways in order to save the country.
This time Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beirut with a different approach – a visit to one of the country’s most unifying figures. His first port of call was to the home of the illustrious singer, Fairouz, whose songs of loss and lament have been a soundtrack to Lebanese life for more than 50 years.
Continue reading...‘Hot, sweaty … just very unpleasant’: Parisians adjust to Covid mask law
Face coverings now mandatory ‘in all shared and enclosed spaces’ as Covid-19 infections rise in France
It had not – really not – been a pleasant experience. Queuing for their banh mi and bibimbap, sushi or Thai salad outside the fast-food takeaways of the Rue Saint-Lazare, young office workers in central Paris spoke with one voice.
“I thought I wasn’t going to last an hour, it was so uncomfortable,” said Egé, gesturing at her blue surgical mask. “Hot, sweaty, the smell of your own breath … Just very unpleasant. But you get used to it. In any case, we have no choice.”
Continue reading...German minister spat at and verbally abused at Covid protest
Jens Spahn subjected to shouts of ‘shame’ and ‘gay pig’ as he confronts crowd
Germany’s health minister was jeered, spat at and targeted by homophobic abuse as the countrywide protests of a vocal minority of people against coronavirus restrictions has taken on an increasingly aggressive tone.
The Conservative politician Jens Spahn, a key figure in Germany’s handling of the pandemic, on Saturday tried to confront a crowd of protesters outside an event ahead of local elections in North-Rhine Westphalia.
Continue reading...Charlie Hebdo reprints cartoons of prophet ahead of terror trial
Images depicting Muhammad on cover as alleged accomplices in 2015 attack due in court
The French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo is to republish controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to mark the start of a trial of suspected accomplices of terrorist gunmen who attacked its offices in January 2015.
The attack on the publication’s offices by brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi left 12 people dead, including several of France’s most famous cartoonists.
Continue reading...Coronavirus: ‘selfish covidiots’ on flight to UK from Greek island criticised
Tui launches investigation after almost 200 passengers told to isolate after outbreak
A flight from the Greek island of Zante was “full of selfish ‘covidiots’ and an inept crew”, according to a passenger among the almost 200 onboard who have been told to self-isolate after a coronavirus outbreak.
Tui said it had launched an investigation after 16 people tested positive for Covid-19 linked to its flight to Cardiff on 25 August, including seven passengers who were infectious or potentially infectious on the plane.
Continue reading...Maltese journalist was killed over reporting on power plant, say police
Detective tells court Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder was motivated by desire to suppress information
Police believe that the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed for what she was about to reveal about a government-sponsored power station deal, a court in Malta has heard.
At the start of 2017, Caruana Galizia received a cache of 600,000 emails leaked from an energy company partly owned by Yorgen Fenech, who is now the chief suspect in the murder. The company, Electrogas, holds a lucrative concession to supply Malta’s state-owned electricity provider.
Continue reading...Racism investigation after French magazine shows black MP as slave
Prosecutors’ inquiry follows outcry over images of Danièle Obono in Valeurs Actuelles
French prosecutors have opened an investigation into allegations of racism after a rightwing magazine published images depicting a black female MP as a slave, prompting a nationwide outcry.
The Valeurs Actuelles weekly triggered controversy after publishing images of the leftwing MP Danièle Obono with a chain fixed to an iron collar around her neck.
Continue reading...Berlin minister ‘deeply regretful’ over far-right Reichstag standoff
Andreas Geisel condemns ‘shameful’ scenes at rally against Covid restrictions
Berlin’s interior minister has expressed regret over a standoff outside the Reichstag building on Saturday during a rally against coronavirus restrictions.
Speaking to a committee of the city state’s interior ministry on Monday, Andreas Geisel said he was “deeply regretful” about the images from the protest, which were seen around the world.
Continue reading...German coronavirus protesters attempt to storm Reichstag – video
Demonstrators against Covid-19 restrictions in Germany have been denounced by politicians after an attempt to storm the country’s parliament building. Some of the protestors carried the former imperial flag, which was used up until the end of the first world war, during the rally on Saturday.
Police said about 38,000 people, double the number expected, had gathered in Berlin to protest against restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus, such as the wearing of masks and social distancing. About 300 were arrested after scuffles with police in front of the building.
‘Flags from the Reich and far-right profanity in front of the German parliament are an unacceptable attack on the heart of our democracy,’ the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said. ‘We will never accept this’
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