Three girls and two boys aged between 18 months and eight years discovered in Solingen
The bodies of five children have been discovered in a flat in western Germany with their mother the main suspect in their killings, police have said.
The bodies were found on the third floor of a building in the city of Solingen by the children’s grandmother, who alerted emergency services at 1.45pm local time on Thursday.
Continue reading...Jean-Paul Enthoven forgave Raphaël for relationship with Carla Bruni but autobiographical novel too much
Is it possible to know anything, philosophers have pondered for centuries. In the case of two heavyweight French thinkers, the question is more: is it possible to know too much?
A respected French philosopher has publicly disowned his equally famous philosopher son, not for stealing his girlfriend, but for writing a book he claims has left him “heartbroken” and loved ones “drowning in a sea of ingratitude”.
Continue reading...White House summit irritates EU diplomats, who say deal brokered by them is near
The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.
Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.
Continue reading...Jean Castex unveils €100bn plan aimed at returning France to pre-pandemic economic strength
France’s prime minister has stressed the importance of getting the country back on its feet within 18 months and “transforming” the French economy with a green makeover as he unveiled a €100bn (£89bn) coronavirus recovery plan.
Jean Castex outlined how France would spend its way out of the crisis, rather than create “social misery” through austerity measures, with a plan that had the environment, competitiveness and employment as its three pillars.
Continue reading...A third of €100bn post-Covid package to be used for greener future, but critics say it falls short
Billed by the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, as a “big green recovery plan”, one-third of France’s €100bn (£90bn) post-Covid economic stimulus package will be spent, in the government’s words, on “ecological transition” and “greening the economy”.
Environmental groups said the plan, presented on Thursday by the prime minister, Jean Castex, and other cabinet members, marked a welcome first step – but criticised a missed opportunity to break decisively with a growth-driven, high-carbon economy.
Continue reading...It is hard to gauge the chances of the Russian opposition leader regaining his former health
Alexei Navalny is likely to survive his poisoning with novichok but his long-term prospects and chances of making a full recovery are unknown, the hospital treating him in Berlin said on Thursday.
The Russian opposition leader “continues to improve”, doctors at the Charité hospital said. But they stressed: “Recovery is likely to be lengthy. It is still too early to gauge the long-term effects which may arise in relation to this severe poisoning.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Testimony of HGV drivers from ex-Soviet countries raises fresh questions over supply chain
Haulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld in a breach of the e-commerce multinational’s pledges about working conditions in its supply chain.
HGV drivers recruited from former Soviet-bloc countries have told the Guardian that they were instructed to cheat tachograph machines that log their working hours, so that they could drive illegally long and unsafe stints in western Europe.
Continue reading...Warning that lack of agreement means more young people will risk lives crossing Channel
The EU has rejected a British proposal for a system to reunite children seeking asylum with their families in the UK or Europe, prompting warnings that more young people will risk their lives in dangerous Channel crossings.
The government had proposed a post-Brexit agreement to continue transfers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to families living in either the UK or EU, although with no obligation on either side.
Continue reading...German opposition calls on chancellor to use gas pipeline project to pressurise Kremlin
Angela Merkel is under growing domestic pressure to end her support for the joint German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project over the confirmed poisoning of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The German Green party called on the chancellor to use the nearly completed infrastructure project to pressure the Kremlin into answering allegations over what Merkel called the “silencing” of Navalny with a novichok nerve reagent.
Continue reading...Bulgarian protesters were confronted by riot police outside parliament in Sofia on Wednesday night in the largest demonstration in two months of anti-government demonstrations.
More than 60 protesters were arrested in the capital as demonstrators threw bottles, eggs and firecrackers at police cordoning off the parliament building.
The prime minister, Boiko Borisov, faces accusations of corruption as demonstrators demand the disbandment of government
Continue reading...Angela Merkel says poisoning was attempted murder and White House calls it ‘reprehensible’
World leaders are demanding answers from the Kremlin after toxicological examinations indicated that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok family.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests carried out at a military laboratory had “identified unequivocally” the Soviet era nerve agent. She referred to the case as an “attempted murder” and said the findings raised “very difficult questions that only the Russian government can answer, and has to answer.”
Continue reading...World leaders can be in little doubt: the evidence leads directly to Moscow and Putin
The debate over what precisely happened to Alexei Navalny has raged for almost two weeks. Some facts are agreed. The Russian opposition leader drank a cup of tea at Tomsk airport and then collapsed on a flight back to Moscow. After cursory treatment in a Russian hospital, he was flown to Berlin. Since then German doctors have been treating him in the Charité hospital, where he remains in a medically induced coma.
Far murkier is the question of who poisoned Navalny and why. On Wednesday the German government provided a pretty big clue when it revealed Navalny was poisoned with novichok. This is the substance used in 2018 against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. It was smeared on the front door of Skripal’s Salisbury home. Novichok also killed Dawn Sturgess, a Wiltshire woman who unknowingly sprayed it on her wrists.
Continue reading...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'
Continue reading...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...US rejects global vaccine effort; cases rise in India, Russia and Hungary; Australia enters recession
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.
I am now handing over the blog to the very capable Amy Walker. Thank you for reading and please do keep us updated on all coronavirus-related tips and stories.
Continue reading...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
We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:
Related: Coronavirus live news: Trump pushes to withdraw WHO funding immediately
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.
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...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...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...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...