Global wrap: Hong Kong ‘critical’ as Covid cases rise worldwide

Lam says situation out of control, while Melbourne makes face masks compulsory

The coronavirus situation in Hong Kong is “really critical”, with a record 100 new infections recorded on Sunday, the territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, said, as Melbourne became the first city in Australia to make wearing masks compulsory in response to a resurgent and aggressive outbreak there.

Hong Kong was held up months ago as a model for its success in keeping down Covid-19 cases in the crowded city-state of 7.5 million people, but its caseload – although still low by European and American standards – had grown by a third in the past fortnight to nearly 1,800. Lam has shuttered bars, gyms and nightclubs in the past week and on Sunday announced new guidelines including mandatory mask-wearing indoors.

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UK urges EU countries to ensure Britons living abroad can stay after Brexit

Government launches multimillion pound campaign to reach 1m British citizens in EU

The UK government is launching a multimillion pound communications campaign to reach the estimated 1 million British citizens living in the EU to ensure they know what steps to take if they wish to remain in their host countries after Brexit.

And it is urging all EU member states to accelerate the process to enable British nationals to secure their rights amid concern among campaigners that some countries have not yet even opened schemes for UK citizens.

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Spanish government denies spying on Catalan leaders

Calls for investigation into claims senior independence figures were targeted using powerful spyware

As a leading Catalan politician renewed calls for an investigation, Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government has emphatically denied any involvement in the use of spyware to target senior members of the Catalan independence movement, saying: “This government doesn’t spy on anyone.”

A joint investigation by the Guardian and El País has determined that the mobile phones of at least five members of the regional independence movement – including the speaker of the Catalan parliament – were targeted using powerful software its makers claim is sold only to governments.

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EU leaders go into extra time as tempers fray at coronavirus summit

Proposals on the size and terms of a recovery fund have led to splits between member states

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said they are willing to walk away from a summit of EU leaders, as they arrived at the third day of a long and acrimonious debate on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund.

With the EU split between northern and southern member states as well as eastern and western, France’s president and the German chancellor both indicated their patience was waning despite the need to respond to the economic recession facing the bloc.

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EU leaders in bitter clash over Covid-19 recovery package

Orbán accuses Netherlands’ Rutte of ‘communist’ tactics on tense third day of talks

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, accused his Dutch counterpart of using the same methods as his country’s former communist leaders on Sunday, as EU leaders publicly clashed during tense and acrimonious negotiations over the terms of a proposed €1.8tn budget and recovery package for the bloc.

A third difficult day of a summit of the EU’s 27 heads of state and government – the first in person for five months – saw movement towards agreement as talks stretched deep into the night, but laid bare the deep splits between north and south, and east and west.

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French police question man over Nantes Cathedral fire

Arson investigation launched after blaze at gothic Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul

French investigators are questioning a man who worked at the cathedral in Nantes, which was badly damaged by fire on Saturday, a prosecutor said.

The man “was responsible for locking up the cathedral on Friday evening and investigators wanted to clarify elements of the schedule of this person”, the prosecutor, Pierre Sennes, told Agence France-Presse.

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Sun, sea, safety: Greece woos Europe’s pensioners with 7% income tax rate

Athens offers generous tax incentives to lure retirees – and boost its own struggling economy

Most countries want to attract the young and the willing – entrepreneurs with ideas, students looking to learn, people prepared to do the jobs locals turn down. Greece, though, has decided on a different approach, by making a play for Europe’s retirees.

“The logic is very simple: we want pensioners to relocate here,” says Athina Kalyva, head of tax policy at the Greek finance ministry, who has helped design a scheme to get people to do just that. “We have a beautiful country, a very good climate, so why not?”

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All quiet in Ibiza as super-rich hide away and young Brits chill by the pool

With its near-deserted streets and laid-back vibe, the Spanish island is a world away from its pre-pandemic party scene

On the first day of lockdown in Britain, 48 private planes flew into Ibiza. While the island has only officially been open to tourists since the beginning of July, following one of Europe’s strictest quarantines, the super-rich have been making the most of a Balearic summer that hasn’t been this quiet for decades. Actor Emma Watson has been spotted in town and musician James Blunt has been living permanently in his villa in Santa Gertrudis, dubbed the island’s Notting Hill.

Exclusive boutique hotels, luxury villas and the island’s most expensive restaurants have reported an unexpected boom in business. Many are already full for July and much of August and say that wealthy customers are staying longer and spending more than the same period last year.

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EU talks to rescue €750bn recovery package stall amid heated debate

Claim of miserliness as second day sees negotiations split over size of fund and seven-year budget

European Union leaders were locked in intense negotiations on Saturday evening in an attempt to save a summit on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund from an acrimonious end as the debate over the bloc’s financial future became “heated”.

A second day of talks in Brussels saw Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, publicly accuse the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden of being “misers” while the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, claimed the Dutch were trying to rewrite the EU’s rules.

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Arson suspected in fire at 15th-century Nantes cathedral

Investigation opened after blaze destroys grand organ and shatters stained-glass windows

A fire that broke out in a cathedral in the western French city of Nantes blew out stained-glass windows and destroyed the grand organ in the 15th-century building, officials said.

A local prosecutor said three fires were started at the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral and authorities were treating the incident as a criminal act. An investigation has been opened.

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Thousands protest again over arrest of Russian regional governor

Unrest in Khabarovsk as Sergei Furgal is held in Moscow in connection with murders

Tens of thousands of people in the Russian city of Khabarovsk have turned out for a protest over the arrest of the region’s governor on charges of involvement in multiple murders.

Local media estimated that the rally on Saturday attracted between 15,000 and 50,000 people. Protests have taken place every day this week, typically drawing hundreds of people .

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German police capture ‘Black Forest Rambo’ after six-day manhunt

Yves Rausch had been on run after allegedly pulling gun on police last Sunday

German police have captured a heavily armed suspect accused of stealing officers’ weapons, after a six-day manhunt for the “Black Forest Rambo”.

The man, named by police as Yves Rausch, had been on the run since last Sunday morning after holding up four officers and stealing their firearms in what his mother claims was a moment of “panic”.

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Who has been using spyware on Catalan independence campaigners?

At least two victims have blamed the mobile phone infiltration on a ‘dirty war’ by the Spanish state

In spring last year, Sergi Miquel Gutiérrez realised something odd was going on with his mobile.

“I remember some issues, for example losing some information on WhatsApp, and losing emails and having them appear in places I didn’t put them,” he said.

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Medical error led to painter Raphael’s death, study finds

Bloodletting contributed to worsening health of painter, who probably had pneumonia

A medical error contributed to killing the Italian painter Raphael, according to the latest reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding the Renaissance master’s untimely death.

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino is believed to have been aged 37 when he died in Rome on 6 April 1520, eight days after contracting a fever. Several museums in Italy are holding exhibitions to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his death.

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Elbow bumps and bows: masked EU leaders start physically distanced summit – video

The leaders of EU27 countries wore face masks as they greeted each other with elbow bumps, nods, bows and some variations at a summit to thrash out a deal on a multibillion coronavirus recovery fund for the bloc's economies.

There were birthday gifts for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who turned 66, and the Portuguese prime minister, António Costa, who turned 59

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Former Catalan president amassed huge fortune through crime, judge says

Jordi Pujol, his wife Marta Ferrusola, his seven children and 18 other individuals linked to the family will be charged

A Spanish judge plans to charge the former Catalan president Jordi Pujol, along with his wife Marta Ferrusola, his seven children and 18 other individuals linked to the family, with forming a criminal organisation that used its political influence to amass “a disproportionate fortune”.

Pujol was the first democratically elected president of Catalonia after the end of the Franco dictatorship at the end of the 1970s, a position he held for 23 years, during which time his Convergència i Unió party dominated the Catalan political scene.

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Lisbon’s back-alley fado legends – photo essay

A portrait of Lisbon, saudade and the fado folk music of the city and its relationship with tourism. Henri Kisielewski is the 2019 recipient of the Joan Wakelin bursary, administrated in partnership with the Royal Photographic Society

Fado is Lisbon’s urban folk music, born in and around the brothels, alleyways and ​tascas ​of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods. Fado is to Lisbon what the Blues are to the Delta. Written records trace it back to the early 19th century, though some argue it is much older, connecting it to oral traditions imported from across the Portuguese empire.

At the heart of fado is ​saudade.​ This elusive word – apparently untranslatable from the original Portuguese – broadly refers to a sense of sorrow, of yearning, and a resigned desire for what once was. This is the underlying emotion of all fado and perhaps of Lisbon itself.

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No backslapping, no bonhomie? EU summit opens with Covid-19 safeguards

Leaders gathering for Brussels talks are asked to wear masks on arrival and avoid shaking hands

The air will be freshly piped, the rooms deep-cleaned, and handshakes will be banned. As EU leaders gather for their first physical meeting in Brussels to thrash out a coronavirus recovery plan, no effort has been spared to avoid a local outbreak of the disease.

The two-day meeting, thought to be the largest gathering of world leaders since the start of the pandemic, will be the first featuring all 27 heads of state and government since February, when an attempt to agree the EU’s €1tn seven-year budget collapsed in acrimony. On Friday and Saturday, they will return to the same task and will also seek to hammer out a €750bn (£689bn) recovery plan in response to the biggest economic shock forecast in EU history.

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Russian state-sponsored hackers target Covid-19 vaccine researchers

UK National Cyber Security Centre says drug firms and research groups being targeted by group known as APT29

Russian state-sponsored hackers are targeting UK, US and Canadian organisations involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine, according to British security officials.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said drug companies and research groups were being targeted by a group known as APT29, which was “almost certainly” part of the Kremlin’s intelligence services.

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French police officers charged over death of man put in chokehold

Family of Cédric Chouviat, who died of asphyxiation, say manslaughter charge is too lenient

Three French police officers have been charged with manslaughter over the death of a delivery man who was pinned to the ground and put in a chokehold during an arrest in January.

Cédric Chouviat, 42, died in hospital two days after a heated exchange with the officers. He was held down while still wearing his scooter helmet for about 20 seconds, near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

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