Category Archives: Europe

‘I just need a connection’: the refugees teaching languages across borders

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A unique platform lets teachers from Venezuela to Syria to Burundi earn a living teaching their language online

Louisa Waugh and Ghaith Alhallak have met for language lessons in seven countries. “We counted it up the other day,” says Waugh, recalling the list of places from which she has video-called Alhallak: Britain, Mali, Senegal and Greece. Alhallak has answered from Lebanon, France and Italy, where he is now studying for a master’s degree in political science at the University of Padua.

“You just need a connection,” he says.

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Medellín cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence

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Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medellín cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s

The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medellín drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online.

Carlos Lehder Rivas, who has both German and Colombian citizenship, was escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities, the report said.

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France vows to end violence in Dijon after fourth night of unrest

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Police say alleged assault on Chechen boy may have sparked reprisals in Grésilles area

The French government has vowed to bring an end to violence in the usually placid eastern city of Dijon after it was hit by a fourth night of unrest allegedly linked to score-settling by members of the Chechen community.

According to police, the incidents appear to have been sparked by an alleged assault this month on a 16-year-old Chechen boy, prompting reprisal raids.

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Failure of Brexit talks could lead to terrorism intelligence delays, say Lords

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Real-time access to EU police databases has not yet been agreed in the negotiations

The UK risks losing its real-time access to a watchlist of suspected terrorists if it does not strike a comprehensive Brexit deal on justice and security, peers have been told.

The concerns of the policing consequences of a collapse in Brexit talks were raised by members of the Lords EU security and justice sub-committee during questioning of the Home Office minister James Brokenshire.

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Austrian police defend decision to fine man after ‘provocative’ fart

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Vienna force write on Twitter that ‘no one is reported for accidentally letting one go’

A man in Vienna has been fined €500 (£447) for breaking wind loudly in front of police in a move the Austrian capital’s police force was at pains to defend.

The Österreich newspaper reported that the penalty stemmed from an incident on 5 June and that the offender was fined for offending public decency.

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Why are Google and Apple dictating how European democracies fight coronavirus? | Ieva Ilves

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In Latvia we wanted to harness smartphone technology for contact tracing. We ran into a Silicon Valley-built brick wall

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a rush by governments, private companies and digital startups to harness and develop the latest technologies in the fight against the spread of the virus.

To best meet public health needs, digital technology should be able to trace the spread of the virus, identify dangerous Covid-19 clusters and limit further transmission. The essential goal is to register contacts between potential carriers and those who might be infected. This has led to tech solutions using smartphones to perform the otherwise arduous and labour-intensive task of “contact tracing” – determining who has come into contact with a disease carrier and what should be done when a person has had that contact.

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Family of Giulio Regeni ‘betrayed’ by Italian PM over arms sale to Egypt

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Murdered student’s mother and rights groups condemn $1.2bn deal approved by Giuseppe Conte

Rights groups and the family of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni have heavily criticised an arms deal between Italy and Egypt worth an estimated $1.2bn (£960m).

Regeni’s mutilated body was found by the side of a major road on the outskirts of Cairo in early 2016. His murder remains unsolved, but there are widespread suspicions that he was abducted, tortured and killed by Egyptian security forces.

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French Olympic hopeful climber Luce Douady, 16, dies after cliff fall

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  • Douady seen as one of the sport’s brightest young talents
  • French climbing federation expresses ‘immense sadness’

Teenage French climbing prodigy Luce Douady was killed on Sunday when she fell on a footpath in a climbing area in the French Alps, the French Mountain Climbing Federation (FFME) and its club in Chambery said.

The 16-year-old reigning world junior champion fell 150m as she and a group of friends were crossing a tricky path equipped with a handrail between two climbing areas.

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Boris Johnson: no reason why Brexit deal cannot be sealed in July

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EU agrees to look for early common ground as PM asks it to ‘put a tiger in the tank’ of talks

Boris Johnson has said there is no reason why the outline of a Brexit deal cannot be sealed by the end of July, after he asked EU leaders at a video summit to “put a tiger in the tank” of stalled talks.

In a boost for the prime minister’s plans to secure a deal by the end of the summer, the EU leaders agreed to strive to find early common ground on trade and security to avoid unnecessary economic chaos next year.

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Coronavirus live news: Beijing locks down 10 residential compounds amid new outbreak

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WHO warns UK not to lift lockdown; Iran deaths top 100 for first time in two months; cases worldwide near 7.9m. Follow the latest updates

The number of confirmed Covid-19 infections has passed 25,000 in Afghanistan while a key testing laboratory paused work due to lack of kits.

The health ministry has detected 761 new cases from 1,551 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 25,527.

Norway will halt its Covid-19 track and trace app, and delete all data collected so far, after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority.

The app was introduced by some Norwegian authorities to limit the transmission of the coronavirus.

We don’t agree with the DPA’s evaulation, but feel it is necessary to delete all data and put work on hold as a result of this.

We will as a result weaken an important part of our preparedness against a spread in infection, as we now lose time for development and testing of the app.

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The stranded babies of Kyiv and the women who give birth for money

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Lockdown exposed the scale of the commercial baby business in Ukraine, and now women hired for their wombs are speaking out

Some are crying in their cots; others are being cradled or bottle-fed by nannies. These newborns are not in the nursery of a maternity hospital, they are lined up side by side in two large reception rooms of the improbably named Hotel Venice on the outskirts of Kyiv, protected by outer walls and barbed wire. 

They are the children of foreign couples born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers at the Kyiv-based BioTexCom Centre for Human Reproduction, the largest surrogacy clinic in the world. They’re stranded in the hotel because their biological parents have not been able to travel in or out of Ukraine since borders closed in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Russia sentences ex-US marine to 16 years in prison on espionage charges

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Paul Whelan has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up

A Russian court has convicted a former US marine of espionage charges and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security prison.

The harsh sentence handed down by a court in Moscow to Paul Whelan is likely to raise tensions between Russia and the US. It followed a secret trial that was criticised by the country’s ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, as a “mockery of justice”.

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EU ‘covered up’ Croatia’s failure to protect migrants from border brutality

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Exclusive: Brussels officials feared disclosing Zagreb’s lack of commitment to monitoring would cause ‘scandal’

EU officials have been accused of an “outrageous cover-up” after withholding evidence of a failure by Croatia’s government to supervise police repeatedly accused of robbing, abusing and humiliating migrants at its borders.

Internal European commission emails seen by the Guardian reveal officials in Brussels had been fearful of a backlash when deciding against full disclosure of Croatia’s lack of commitment to a monitoring mechanism that ministers had previously agreed to fund with EU money.

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Women stage ‘mass scream’ in Switzerland over domestic violence and gender pay gap

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Thousands of marchers screamed for a minute at 3.24pm – the time of day when women in effect start working without pay

Women across Switzerland have let loose with screams during a national protest demanding equal treatment and an end to violence at the hands of men.

Last year half a million people marched to highlight the nation’s poor record on women’s rights. This year’s version of what organisers call the Women’s Strike was more subdued on Sunday due to coronavirus restrictions.

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WHO cautions against further lifting of lockdown in England

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Exclusive: senior official says contact tracing should be more effective before measures eased

England’s coronavirus lockdown should not be further lifted until the government’s contact-tracing system has proven to be “robust and effective”, the World Health Organization has said after widespread criticism of the first results of the new tracking operation.

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Global report: China detects highest daily case rise in months

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Partial quarantine remains in Beijing; European countries continue to open borders to neighbours

China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, locking down parts of Beijing in a warning of the difficulties of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic as Europe prepared to open more borders and loosen restrictions this week.

A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed at the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.

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Milan mayor refuses to remove defaced statue of Italian journalist

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BLM protesters targeted monument to Indro Montanelli, who admitted buying 12-year-old Eritrean girl

Milan’s mayor has rejected calls to remove a statue from a public park of an Italian journalist who acknowledged having bought a 12-year-old Eritrean girl to be his wife during Italy’s colonial occupation in the 1930s.

Giuseppe Sala said in a Facebook video that he was perplexed by “the lightness” with which Indro Montanelli had confessed to buying the child from her father, in a widely circulated video of a 1969 talkshow appearance, but said “lives should be judged in their totality” and he believed the statue should stay.

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Cafe society spills on to Paris cobbles as drivers bid to reclaim post-lockdown streets

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With streets pedestrianised and the mayor turning parking spaces into cycle lanes, motorists fear being squeezed out of public spaces

It is evening rush hour and the Rue de Rivoli, a major east-west road through central Paris, is heaving. Pre-coronavirus, it would have been one long traffic jam, paralysed by increasingly frustrated and angry motorists. Now, though, with private cars banned, it is busy with pedestrians, cyclists and a smattering of taxis and buses.

North of Rue de Rivoli, in the Marais, a maze of narrow cobbled streets, cafes, restaurants and bars have spread out across pavements and parking places.

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Riot police fire teargas on anti-racism protesters in Paris

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Peaceful protest erupts into skirmishes as anger at death of George Floyd resonates in France

Riot police fired teargas to prevent thousands of anti-racism protesters marching through central Paris on Saturday, as a wave of anger continued to sweep the world following the death of African-American George Floyd.

The protesters gathered in Place de la Republique, where the crowd chanted “No justice, no peace” and some climbed the statue of Marianne, who personifies the French Republic. Police refused organisers permission to proceed to the Opera House.

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Madeleine McCann suspect told he was on German police radar in 2013

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Mistake raises questions over whether Christian Brückner had time to dispose of evidence

Criminal investigators in Germany notified Christian Brückner as early as 2013 that he was on their radar in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, raising questions over whether they inadvertently allowed the suspect to dispose of evidence.

According to a report in the news weekly Der Spiegel, Brückner received a letter from police in Braunschweig on 4 November 2013 inviting him to be interviewed as a witness in the “missing person case Madeleine McCann”.

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