Estimated 120,000 hectares stripped bare by rodents and now browning in heatwave
Large swathes of Germany’s farmland are being decimated by plagues of field mice leading to significant crop loss, according to the country’s national farming association.
In some parts of the country, a quarter of the arable land is affected, leading to calls for compensation as well as a relaxation on rules governing the use of pesticides.
Continue reading...Lagoon ‘liberated’ as firms announce switch to Trieste and Genoa, at least until end of year
Cruise ship opponents are planning a party in Venice after two Italian cruise operators announced they were dropping the city from their 2020 itineraries.
Activists with No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships) said the lagoon had been “liberated” after MSC Crociere and Costa Crociere decided their vessels would instead set sail from Trieste or Genoa when services resume on 16 August and 6 September respectively.
Continue reading...Dispute over exploration of energy reserves in eastern Mediterranean escalates
Greece has placed its military forces on high alert, recalling its naval and air force officers from holiday, as tensions with Turkey over exploration of potentially lucrative offshore energy reserves escalate in the eastern Mediterranean.
With Ankara dispatching the Oruç Reis, a drillship escorted by gunboats, to conduct seismic research in contested waters, Athens stepped up calls for Turkey to stop the “illegal” activities, intensifying a diplomatic offensive that has prompted the US, EU, France and Israel to express growing anxiety over the situation.
Continue reading...Too much is being read into the greenback’s recent weakening against the euro
The dollar is in freefall! The global greenback is doomed! screamed recent headlines. Actually, such sensational headlines are “too sensational”, to echo that noted authority on currencies, Miss Prism, in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
The dollar’s fall in July to a two-year low against the euro was the immediate impetus for these stories. In fact, the dollar’s recent slide is one in a series of readily explicable fluctuations. When the Covid-19 pandemic went global in March, the dollar strengthened on the back of safe-haven flows into US Treasuries, as it does at the start of every crisis. By May, the Federal Reserve, acting as global lender of last resort, had accommodated this mad scramble for dollars by pouring buckets of liquidity into financial markets and the greenback gave back its early gains.
Continue reading...Svetlana Alexievich warns of ‘civil war’ after unrest that followed Sunday’s disputed election result
Belarusian Nobel prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich has condemned police violence against protesters in her country and urged Alexander Lukashenko to go peacefully.
The 72-year-old author won the 2015 Nobel literature prize for her work chronicling the horrors of war and life under the repressive Soviet regime including the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Continue reading...Opposition leaders jailed or driven out of country amid crackdown on protests over election results
Authorities in Belarus say they have arrested more than 6,000 people during three nights of violently suppressed demonstrations against vote-rigging in Sunday’s disputed presidential election, as more footage and accounts emerged of police beating and violently detaining protesters.
Opposition leaders have been jailed and driven out of the country in a massive crackdown following the election, which the election commission said was won in a landslide by President Alexander Lukashenko.
Continue reading...Indigenous people in headwaters region say financing harms communities and ecosystems
Indigenous people living at the headwaters of the Amazon have called on European banks to stop financing oil development in the region, as it poses a threat to them and damages a fragile ecosystem, after a new report found $10bn in previously undisclosed funding for oil in the region.
The headwaters of the Amazon in Ecuador and Peru are home to more than 500,000 indigenous people, including some who choose to live in voluntary isolation. The area, covering about 30m hectares (74m acres), hosts a diverse rainforest ecosystem, but it is threatened by the expansion of oil drilling.
Continue reading...Italy is facing an influx of people trafficked on fishing boats, desperate to escape Tunisia’s deepening economic crisis
Unsurprisingly for a coastal town perched upon Tunisia’s border with Libya, it’s hot when Ahmed climbs into the back of the car outside the petrol station in Zarzis.
It’s clear from the outset he feels uncomfortable talking to a journalist. Nevertheless, he’s here.
Continue reading...S&P edges towards all-time record with oil prices and hospitality stocks rising as investor optimism rebounds
US stock markets moved closer to record highs on Tuesday after investors bet on a fresh round of government spending to lift the economy and counter the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500, seen as the broadest measure of US investor sentiment, raced to a 10-point gain by mid afternoon to leave it just 16 points short of the all-time high reached in February.
Continue reading...Alexander Lukashenko has cut off entire population’s internet to try to stifle election dissent
As he fights for his political survival, Alexander Lukashenko has taken a big gamble by cutting off the internet across most of Belarus.
Belarusians seeking to protest against his government have been mostly cut off from the outside world: mobile internet has been throttled and popular messaging apps have been disabled, leaving demonstrators scrambling to find wifi connections and working VPNs or proxies to get online and then sharing what news they can find.
Continue reading...New infections back to nearly half their peak in the Netherlands as France reports ‘worrying increase’
New daily coronavirus infections in the Netherlands are back to roughly half their level at the peak of the pandemic, while France’s prime minister has said it is crucial for his country to avoid a new lockdown amid a “worrying increase” in cases.
Jaap van Dissel, the Netherlands’ chief epidemiologist, told the Dutch parliament on Tuesday that 4,036 new Covid-19 cases had been reported in the past week, an increase of 55% on the previous seven days. The figure translated to a daily average of more than 500, compared with nearly 1,200 at the peak of pandemic.
Continue reading...Experts offer other options as UK government seeks to reduce numbers crossing in boats
The government insists the way to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats is to prevent the vessels from leaving France in the first place or by intercepting the boats and returning those attempting to make a crossing.
But humanitarian groups and refugee and asylum experts argue the way to reduce the number of attempted crossings is to offer alternative “safe and legal” routes to the UK to claim asylum.
Continue reading...Sputnik V’s development has been marked by worrying opacity and ethical issues
The race to find a vaccine against Covid-19 has not always been particularly edifying, driven at times by so-called “vaccine nationalism”, much cautioned against by the World Health Organization, which has itself been accused of being invested as much in self-interest and prestige as global public health.
Russia’s announcement that it has registered its Sputnik V vaccine as safe and effective for mass production and inoculation even before so-called phase 3 large-scale safety trials, which usually take months, fits the pattern.
Continue reading...Police seize drugs valued at up to €6m and arrest at least 17 suspects at stables
At least 17 people are in custody in the Netherlands after police raided a former riding stables that had been transformed into the country’s largest ever illicit drugs “laundry” capable of producing up to 200kg of cocaine a day.
Thirteen of those detained were Colombian nationals, police said on Tuesday. Three Dutch citizens – including the 64-year-old owner of the stables, in the northern village of Nijeveen – and one Turkish suspect were also arrested.
Continue reading...Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the main opposition candidate in Belarus' disputed elections, is thought to have left the country for Lithuania as clashes between heavily armed police and demonstrators escalated during a second night of protests follow re-election of longtime ruler Alexander Lukashenko.
In an emotional video posted to social media, Tikhanovskaya indicated she had faced an ultimatum and urged people to 'please be careful' adding that 'children are the most important part of our lives'.
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevičius, told the Guardian that Tikhanovskay had been detained by Belarusian authorities for seven hours after filing a complaint against vote-rigging
Continue reading...Police in Minsk use rubber bullets and stun grenades against protesters during second night of violence
Government says it will not cancel trains to seaside after dozens are involved in fight
Belgium’s government has ruled out cancelling trains to the seaside after a weekend beach brawl prompted local mayors to call for limits on visitors to the coast.
Local politicians across Belgium’s 40-mile (65km) strip of coastline called for action after police confronted dozens of young people, who had been disturbing other holidaymakers, at a beach in Blankenberge on Saturday. Some of the young people threw sand in people’s faces and used parasols as projectiles against police. Three people from Brussels appeared before a judge on Monday charged with assault and battery.
Continue reading...Host Henry Deane remembers Belarus’s opposition leader arriving in Roscrea at the age of 12
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the woman who has been catapulted into political stardom in Belarus by her push to dislodge the man often referred to as Europe’s last dictator, may be an accidental challenger, standing in Sunday’s presidential election only because her opposition activist husband Sergei was arrested.
But a hint of the strength and resilience that has made her a courageous if unlikely opponent who has refused to accept Alexander Lukashenko’s claim to victory in a poll marred by vote-rigging may have been present at age of 12, when she arrived to spend a summer in rural Ireland.
Continue reading...WHO says virus has shown no seasonal pattern and tells western Europe to react fast
Face masks have become compulsory in more than 100 Paris streets and tourist areas, Greece is “formally” in a second wave and new outbreaks are causing alarm in Italy and Spain as coronavirus infections continue to pick up again across Europe.
The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control called on member states that are seeing an increase in cases to reinstate control measures, warning of a “true resurgence” in several countries and a “risk of further escalation” across the continent.
Continue reading...Experts compare situation with 1989 revolutions that toppled Europe’s communist regimes
For a man who has spent a quarter of a century building a political brand based on stability, there is no doubt that the events unfolding in Minsk will change politics in Belarus and the standing of its veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko forever.
What is not yet clear is whether the new political era that will follow the protests will be one of dynamic change and a new government, or one of a sustained and bloody crackdown.
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