US president suggests Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not done enough to end war
Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel.
The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US.
Continue reading...Marsala on island’s west coast badly affected after powerful storm approached from Mediterranean
Two tornadoes have struck the coastal town of Marsala in western Sicily, injuring dozens of people, damaging buildings including a school, and overturning cars.
A series of videos began to circulate on Friday morning showing two waterspouts approaching the Sicilian town from the sea as people braced for their arrival.
Continue reading...Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of ‘mass hysteria’? Or are they from attacks with an energy weapon and, if so, who is responsible? And has there been a cover-up?
Shortly after 1am one night in April 2019, a CIA officer on a work trip to London was jolted awake in his hotel room by the most intense head pain he had ever experienced. His body was soaked with sweat and he felt like his eyes were spinning in their sockets. He manoeuvred his way out of bed, hoping to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but found his sense of balance had deserted him. Eventually, he fell back into a fitful, shallow sleep.
The next day, arriving at the work meeting he had travelled for, the officer found he could not remember the names of colleagues in the room, people he knew well. As the meeting got under way, he could barely follow the discussion. Initially, he chalked it up to a terrible – if rather odd – case of food poisoning. But over subsequent weeks, worrying symptoms persisted: brain fog, loss of balance and increasingly harsh tinnitus.
Continue reading...Gang breaks into cellar of Marchesi Antinori in Cortona and loads two trucks with 30,000 bottles before getaway
Thousands of bottles of wine worth €5m (£4.2m) have been stolen from a prestigious winery in Tuscany in what is thought to be the biggest heist of its kind in Italy.
A gang of at least seven masked individuals broke into the cellar of Marchesi Antinori, a family-owned winery dating back to the late 1300s, in Cortona after shutting off the alarms and surveillance cameras before using company forklifts to load two large trucks with 30,000 bottles of wine and making off.
Continue reading...Founder of influential Rybar blog detained after warnings of attempts to destabilise Balkan country, officials say
A leading pro-Kremlin Russian military blogger with reported ties to Russia’s intelligence services has been arrested in Montenegro, after warnings of attempts to destabilise the Balkan country, officials have said.
Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the influential Rybar war blog, was detained on Friday alongside his wife and three other Russians by police and security agents in the Adriatic resort town of Risan, on suspicion of spreading Russian influence, local media reported.
Continue reading...Rally to remember woman, 87, whose rent battle with investment firm triggered nationwide protests over housing crisis
About 20,000 people took part in a march through the centre of Madrid on Thursday evening in memory of María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction from her flat in the capital a fortnight before her death triggered mass protests over Spain’s housing crisis.
The pensioner, whose flat had been bought by an investment firm that sought to increase her rent by 230%, had become the public face of the crisis before her death in hospital on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Schools blockaded again across country as teenagers and teachers demand more investment and ‘concrete measures’ to improve conditions
High school students have again blockaded schools and marched through cities across France, promising to continue their campaign despite government pledges to address the grievances underlying 10 days of protests that have left hundreds injured.
Large crowds took to the streets on Thursday for mainly peaceful demonstrations in cities including Lille, Rennes, Nantes, Lyon, Toulon and Marseille, while in Paris a large procession marched through the city centre to the Place de la Bastille.
Continue reading...Zelenskyy says Kremlin deliberately targeted ‘ordinary public transport stop’ in Kramatorsk, with 18 wounded
A Russian missile strike on a bus in the eastern city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 30 people, officials have said, in one of the worst attacks by Moscow on Ukrainian civilians this year.
The regional prosecutor’s office in the Donetsk region said on Thursday the vehicle had been hit at 10am by an aerial bomb. “As of now, the death toll from this morning’s attack has risen to 30. Eighteen people were wounded,” it said, adding that all local public transport had been suspended.
Continue reading...Parties vow to challenge law in court, arguing that extra reward for those with 42% of support distorts public representation
A controversial overhaul to electoral law that critics say is aimed at boosting Giorgia Meloni’s chances of clinging on to power in elections next year has been given final approval by the Italian parliament.
Meloni, the Italian prime minister, says the new system, which introduces a fully proportional model, including bonus seats for any coalition that wins the most votes, will bring about greater political stability, while opposition parties argue that it mainly serves the interests of those in power.
Continue reading...Finance minister, Roland Lescure, welcomes Burnham’s pledge to explore closer ties with bloc
The French finance minister has invited the UK to “come all the way back” to the European Union after Andy Burnham raised the prospect of a new referendum to reverse Brexit.
Roland Lescure was speaking after the prime minister used his Labour conference speech to pledge that the government would explore closer ties with the bloc at a summit later this year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thinktank says Britain’s drive towards global commitments is symptom of ‘outdated foreign policy’
The UK’s military is too focused on global commitments at the expense of domestic defence, meaning the government’s planned increase in defence spending is likely to result in even greater waste, a thinktank report has warned.
According to an analysis by researchers at the Transition Security Project, Britain has the most overseas-oriented military among European nations, with almost a quarter of the defence budget spent on commitments across five continents.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: A youth-led movement is protesting crumbling school buildings and teacher shortages while turning adult focus onto wider educational inequalities
Good morning. In my experience, at any protest, the most memorable and encapsulating slogans are always the ones written by hand with marker pen on cardboard placards.
“School is a right, not a privilege,” read one such sign held aloft by a student in Paris, where huge youth protests over the state of high school education have brought tens of thousands of young people and adults on to the streets, with further strikes planned today.
UK politics | Kemi Badenoch has announced that the Conservatives would abolish inheritance tax on family homes if elected, prompting criticism that she is prioritising cutting taxes for the rich.
Education | Labour’s flagship changes to special education in England are at risk of unravelling because parents are rushing to secure support for their children before the system changes, new analysis has found.
Spain | María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.
Science | A type of gene therapy based on Nobel prize-winning science is safe and can partly restore sight in blind people, researchers have revealed.
Epstein | British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith warned that Jeffrey Epstein was a “sexual deviant” decades before the FBI closed in on the abuser, a Guardian investigation has found.
Continue reading...In the shadow of the Parthenon, the secretary of state gave a selective reading of history as he urged Europe to ‘awaken from its slumber’
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, delivered a classically inspired apologia for Donald Trump’s “America first” foreign policy on Wednesday, giving a sweeping speech to the backdrop of the Parthenon in Athens that appeared tailor-made for campaign ads if he runs for president in 2028.
In the speech, the top US diplomat drew historical parallels from the founders, philosophers and conquerers of antiquity to the modern American spirit – as well as his family’s own journey to the United States – as he called on Europe to “awaken from its long slumber” and reject a “future of atrophy and servitude and decline”.
Continue reading...Maricarmen’s eviction from Madrid apartment after over seven decades set off wave of protests against housing crisis
‘Now is the moment’: housing activists at Madrid encampment pin wary hopes on Spain’s early election
María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.
News of her death came two weeks after Maricarmen, as she had come to be known across Spain, was evicted from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for more than seven decades.
Continue reading...Minister says use of grenades has been stopped after a student lost a hand as protests across France continue
France’s interior minister has suspended the use of stun grenades by police at high school demonstrations but rejected mounting accusations of police brutality during two weeks of protests marred by often violent clashes that have injured hundreds.
Laurent Nuñez told RTL radio on Wednesday that he had ordered a temporary halt on the use of the grenades “in the context of the high school students’ movement” after a 15-year-old boy lost a hand during a protest in Lens, northern France, on Monday.
Continue reading...Russian officials said a Liberian-flagged tanker was attacked and a crew of 23 Indian nationals rescued
An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said.
The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that “crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea”.
Continue reading...Russian officials said a Liberian-flagged tanker was attacked and a crew of 23 Indian nationals rescued
An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said.
The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that “crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea”.
Continue reading...World Health Organization detects no sign of further outbreak since Darya Shipilova died last week
The World Health Organization has said the risk of an epidemic in Russia is low after the sudden death of a lab technician who worked at a plague research institute in Siberia.
Darya Shipilova, who was 28, died last week, two days after falling ill. Russian media reports suggested she may have become infected after an accident at her workplace, where dangerous pathogens are kept and studied.
Continue reading...Service to be tested in Spain and Portugal this year, with a UK rollout if successful, as pre-loved markets boom
Ikea is to test an online version of its buy-back service where the retailer offers vouchers for unwanted secondhand furniture.
The service will be tested in Spain and Portugal before the end of December and will be launched in the UK if it proves successful. Ikea already offers buy-back in stores, including in the UK. The online version will extend it to a much wider audience, with Ikea predicting pre-owned goods are likely to grab 16% of the UK homewares market by next year
Continue reading...Service to be tested in Spain and Portugal this year, with a UK rollout if successful, as pre-loved markets boom
Ikea is to test an online version of its buy-back service where the retailer offers vouchers for unwanted secondhand furniture.
The service will be tested in Spain and Portugal before the end of December and will be launched in the UK if it proves successful. Ikea already offers buy-back in stores, including in the UK. The online version will extend it to a much wider audience, with Ikea predicting pre-owned goods are likely to grab 16% of the UK homewares market by next year
Continue reading...