Time at a Standstill is a digital project that brings together the work of 42 photographers who explore the experience of el confinamiento in a country becalmed by coronavirus and isolation. The project can be viewed on the PHotoESPAÑA website
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‘It’s bittersweet’: reopened Varosha highlights ongoing division in Cyprus
Tourists can return to crumbling resort in northern Cyprus – but Turkey’s involvement has caused anger
Pavlos Iakovou was 17 when he met his wife, Tuolla, at the Edelweiss cafe in Famagusta, the fashionable Cypriot holiday resort where his family owned a hotel. Last week, the couple returned to some of their old haunts in the abandoned quarter of Varosha, or Maraş in Turkish, for the first time in 46 years.
Sealed off as a militarised zone and untouched since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a Greek coup, the decaying slice of 1970s glamour is now open again to visitors – Greek Cypriots included.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Tories and migration: stop the posing | Editorial
The drowning of a family of five in the Channel and a fire on a ship off the coast of Senegal should prompt action – ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough
“We don’t see migration as a problem at all: we see people dying at sea as a problem and the existence of the mafias as a problem.” Such was the view expressed last week by Hana Jalloul, secretary of state for migration in Spain. Days earlier, more than 140 people had died off the coast of Senegal, after their ship caught fire and capsized, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded this year. Ms Jalloul spoke of efforts to support the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals, and stressed her determination to combat organised crime. She also pointed to migrants’ crucial role in Spanish life, including as care workers during the pandemic.
British politicians could profit from studying her example in the aftermath of the drowning of a family of four Kurdish Iranians in the Channel. (A fifth member of the same family, aged 15 months, is missing and presumed dead.) Reports of the deaths of Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children drew forth platitudes from the home secretary, Priti Patel, about “thoughts and prayers”. But nothing said by her or Boris Johnson did anything to dispel the impression that their attitude to people trying to reach the UK to seek asylum is chiefly antagonistic. While Ms Patel repeated her opposition to “callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people”, there was no serious attempt to sympathise with the migrants’ desperation – or acknowledge that their reliance on smugglers is a matter not of accident but of political choice.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron: violence not an acceptable response to cartoons of Muhammad – video
Emmanuel Macron has defended the right of publishers to depict caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in France. 'I will never accept that someone can justify the use of physical violence because of these cartoons,' Macron said.
On 16 October, a history teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded outside his school near Paris after showing pupils two caricatures of Muhammad as part of a discussion about free speech.
The French president sought to calm anti-French protests in Islamic countries after the reprinting of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in an interview with Al Jazeera. Macron said he 'understands the feelings of Muslims about the caricatures'. But he said it was not his role as president to restrict freedom of expression when it caused offence
Continue reading...Nice terror attack: French police arrest three more men
Total of six people taken in for questioning over knife attack at basilica that killed three
French police investigating the terrorist attack in Nice have arrested three more men, bringing the number of people taken in for questioning to six.
A 29-year-old Tunisian man was arrested on Saturday in Grasse, and two other men aged 63 and 25 were later taken in for questioning from the same address. They join two men aged 33 and 35 picked up on Saturday and a 47-year-old who has been held since Thursday.
Continue reading...Frustrations and infections rise in Naples as second Covid lockdown looms
With citizens and health service overstretched, protests are gaining momentum in the Italian city
The four women huddling around their neighbour in an alleyway off Via dei Tribunali, in central Naples, took turns to call an ambulance. “It’s an absolute disaster!” yelled one of them, called Antonietta. “Nobody is responding, we’ve been trying for hours.”
The woman sitting on a chair in the middle of them, with her head bent forward, had a heart problem. Not even taxi drivers were answering the phone. One woman suggested calling the police. “Now do you understand why we’re so angry?” added Antonietta. “Things are so desperate here – Covid is not the only thing that is killing us.”
Continue reading...Spain’s PM calls for calm after violent anti-lockdown protests
Arrests and injuries in Madrid and looting in Logroño amid anger over Covid restrictions
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called for an end to “the violent and irrational behaviour” of a minority of people after a weekend of angry demonstrations in cities around the country against the government’s decision to declare a six-month state of emergency in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thirty-two people were arrested and 12 injured in Madrid on Saturday night after a protest over the region’s midnight to 6am curfew turned violent, with rubbish bins set alight on the city’s Gran Vía and skirmishes with police.
Continue reading...Russia rules out cutting fossil fuel production in next few decades
Energy minister says Moscow will also focus on clean-burning hydrogen and carbon capture
Russia has no plans to rein in its production of fossil fuels in the coming decades despite the global efforts to shift towards low-carbon energy, according to its energy minister.
Alexander Novak told the Guardian that Russia did “not see that we will achieve a peak in [gas] production anytime soon” because the world’s appetite for gas would continue to grow in the decades ahead despite its growing number of climate targets.
Continue reading...Half of Slovakia’s population tested for coronavirus in one day
More than 2.5 million Slovaks took swab tests on Saturday, with 25,850 testing positive
Nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population took Covid-19 swabs on Saturday, the first day of a two-day nationwide testing drive the government hopes will help reverse a surge in infections without a hard lockdown.
The scheme, a first for a country of Slovakia’s size, is being watched by other nations looking for ways to slow the virus spread and avoid overwhelming their health systems.
Continue reading...Belarus protesters use Telegram to keep up pressure on Lukashenko
Secure messaging app pivotal to organisation of protests and spreading of news about repressions
In a small Minsk apartment one evening last week, a group of people gathered to discuss plans for a Halloween party with a twist. There would be costumes, drinks and games, but the main event was a ceremonial funeral. The plan: to bury Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship.
“Maybe we should bury a pumpkin with a moustache,” suggested one young woman.
Continue reading...Shooting of priest shocks France as two more held over Nice killings
Police seal off area and make an arrest after Greek Orthodox cleric is seriously hurt in Lyon shotgun attack
French police were hunting a gunman who shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the city of Lyon yesterday afternoon.
The latest attack came two days after a terrorist killed three people at a church in Nice and two weeks after the beheading of a high school teacher.
Continue reading...A selfie set in stone: hidden portrait by cheeky mason found in Spain 900 years on
A British art historian’s painstaking study of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela uncovered a medieval prank
He is a medieval in-joke, a male figure carved in the early 12th century for one of the world’s greatest cathedrals, but no one has known of his existence until now. The figure has gone unnoticed by millions of worshippers who have made the long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, north-western Spain over the centuries. He has looked down on them from the top of one of the many pillars that soar upwards, each decorated with carved foliage, among which he is concealed.
Now he has been discovered by a British art scholar who believes that he was actually never meant to be seen because he is a self-portrait of a stonemason who worked on the cathedral in the 12th century.
Continue reading...Lyon attack: priest seriously injured in shooting at church
Greek Orthodox priest was left with life-threatening injuries
Police have arrested a suspect after a gunman shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the French city of Lyon, local media have reported.
The priest, named by French media as Nikolaos Kakavelakis, was shot at twice and seriously injured in the stomach at about 4pm local time on Saturday as he was closing the church in the city’s seventh arrondissement, police said.
Continue reading...How plot linked to Kremlin fooled UK peers into fake ‘murder’ probe
Son-in-law of Russian oligarch seeks apology from parliamentarians
It was a murder straight from the McMafia playbook, a killing that connected Moscow to London and high finance to a criminal underworld.
In its aftermath, a group of Siberian miners launched a campaign to get justice for the murdered man – Evgeny Lazarevich, a coal mine manager who had apparently fallen foul of a magnate whose profits flowed into London via Cyprus.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Germany sets another daily case record as Europe passes 10m infections
England lockdown expected early next week; US passes 9m infections; Melbourne records no new cases or deaths. Follow the latest:
- Belgium facing new lockdown as Germany takes in patients
- Europeans seek ways to ride out Covid winter
- ‘An operational tsunami’: preparing for a winter surge of Covid
- Paris sees record traffic jams before lockdown
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Ukraine announced a new high of 8,752 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the national security council said on Saturday, up from 8,312 cases on Friday.
Total infections stood at 387,481, it said.
Coronavirus is “running riot” across all age groups in the United Kingdom, says Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Semple told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: US sets world record for daily cases – as it happened
England lockdown expected early next week; US passes 9m infections; Melbourne records no new cases or deaths. Follow the latest:
- Belgium facing new lockdown as Germany takes in patients
- Europeans seek ways to ride out Covid winter
- ‘An operational tsunami’: preparing for a winter surge
- See all our coronavirus coverage
This blog will wrap up shortly. Here the latest key developments at a glance:
Just a reminder that if you want to get in touch and share comments or tips, you can contact me either on Twitter or via email.
Pro-choice supporters hold biggest-ever protest against Polish government
About 100,00o people take to the streets of Warsaw to oppose tightened abortion law
About one hundred thousand protesters took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Friday, in the largest demonstration of popular anger directed against Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) since it assumed office in 2015.
Protests have been held across the country since Poland’s constitutional tribunal declared earlier this month that abortions in instances where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect were unconstitutional. Such procedures constitute about 96% of legal abortions in Poland, which already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
Continue reading...Turkey earthquake: drone shows buildings reduced to rubble in İzmir – video
Drone footage captured buildings reduced to piles of rubble in the Turkish city of İzmir on Friday after a strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea, setting off tidal waves which slammed into coastal areas and islands. Search and rescue operations continued at 17 collapsed or damaged buildings, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said.
Continue reading...Russia loses UN vote over women’s rights in conflict zones
Security council resolution that many feared would weaken human rights is rejected by UK, US and other states
Attempts by Russia to introduce a UN security council resolution, which activists said would have unravelled the rights of women in conflict have failed as 10 countries abstained on a crucial vote on Friday.
The UK, US, Germany and France were among the abstaining member states, which meant the resolution did not gain the nine votes required to pass.
Continue reading...Polish hospitals begin turning away women seeking abortions
Institutions appear to enforce controversial ban despite legislation not yet taking effect
Hospitals in Poland have been turning away women seeking abortions even though a court ruling that has instituted a near-total ban on terminations has not yet taken effect.
The ban, which outlaws one of the three narrow exceptions under which abortion is still permitted – that of severe foetal defects – has sparked huge protests in Poland.
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