Category Archives: Europe

Russian state-sponsored hackers target Covid-19 vaccine researchers

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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

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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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Pandemic shows climate has never been treated as crisis, say scientists

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Letter also signed by Greta Thunberg urges EU leaders to act immediately on global heating

Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate scientists have written to EU leaders demanding they act immediately to avoid the worst impacts of the unfolding climate and ecological emergency.

The letter, which is being sent before a European council meeting starting on Friday, says the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that most leaders are able to act swiftly and decisively, but the same urgency had been missing in politicians’ response to the climate crisis.

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Two Catalan politicians to take legal action over targeting by spyware

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Pair say they will file complaint against former head of Spain’s national intelligence centre

Two leading members of the Catalan independence movement whose mobile phones were targeted with spyware are to take legal action against the former head of Spain’s national intelligence centre (NIC).

The announcement came after a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent, the speaker of the Catalan parliament, and the former regional foreign minister Ernest Maragall were among at least four pro-independence activists targeted using Israeli spyware that its makers say is sold only to governments to track criminals and terrorists.

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Angela Merkel set for central role in talks on EU recovery plan

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Germany has foot in both camps as leaders try to agree on rescue package and seven-year budget

When Angela Merkel attended her first EU summit as Germany’s chancellor, in 2005, she joined Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and leaders from central and eastern Europe that had joined the bloc only 17 months earlier. Nearly 15 years later, Merkel is the EU’s longest-serving leader and seen as the key to unlocking a deal to help Europe face the worst economic slump forecast in its history.

A year ago Merkel was seen as tired and drifting, having announced her intention to stand down as chancellor in 2021 after disastrous election results. Now credited for her calm leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, with personal approval ratings close to 80%, she is once again seen as the indispensable broker as EU leaders seek a recovery plan.

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Climate change made Siberian heatwave 600 times more likely – study

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Scientists say human fingerprint on record temperatures has rarely if ever been clearer

The record-breaking heatwave in the Siberian Arctic was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to a study.

Between January and June, temperatures in the far north of Russia were more than 5C above average, causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse, and sparking an unusually early and intense start to the forest fires season. On 20 June, a monitoring station in Verkhoyansk registered a record high of 38C.

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Global report: Barcelona facing new lockdown as Tokyo raises alert level

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Tensions over how to quell outbreak in Catalan capital as cases flare up around the world

Part of the northern Spanish region of Catalonia has gone back into lockdown, with Barcelona suggesting it might also follow suit with restrictions in some districts, as authorities sought to control a resurgence of coronavirus cases emerging just weeks after a nationwide lockdown was lifted.

As a judge overturned a previous court decision to approve the stay-at-home order for the Lleida area, west of Barcelona, friction was emerging over how to handle an increase in cases in a suburb of the Catalan capital.

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Emmanuel Macron accosted by gilets jaunes as he takes Bastille Day walk

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Call for increased security as French president tells demonstrators ‘be cool’

Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vests) hurled abuse at Emmanuel Macron as he walked with his wife, Brigitte, on Bastille Day in a public garden in Paris, prompting calls from opposition leaders for increased security.

Demonstrators confronted the French president and his wife, Brigitte, as they walked with bodyguards in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on Tuesday.

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‘Italy’s Robinson Crusoe’ despairs as eviction from island paradise looms

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Mauro Morandi, 81, has lived on Budelli near Sardinia since his catamaran broke down in 1989

He has lived alone on an Italian paradise island for over three decades and intimately knows its ecosystem. But as eviction looms, Mauro Morandi, 81, has plunged into despair.

Labelled “Italy’s Robinson Crusoe”, Morandi, originally from the Emilia-Romagna city of Modena, stumbled across Budelli, an island off Sardinia famous for its pink-sanded beach, in 1989 after his catamaran broke down on the way to the South Pacific. In a fortuitous twist of fate, he discovered that the island’s caretaker was about to retire, and so he abandoned the sailing trip, sold his boat and took over the role.

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Revealed: Italy’s call for urgent help was ignored as coronavirus swept through Europe

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Exclusive: A litany of failings meant that when Italy faced disaster, its distress call to the EU met with a shocking silence

It was a moment of chilling clarity. On 26 February, with the numbers of Italians known to be infected by coronavirus tripling every 48 hours, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to fellow EU member states for help.

His hospitals were overwhelmed. Italian doctors and nurses had run out of the masks, gloves and aprons they needed to keep themselves safe, and medics were being forced to play God with the lives of the critically-ill due to an acute lack of ventilators.

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Race too close to call as North Macedonia holds first poll since name change

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Vote will decide whether country continues on course of pro-European reform

North Macedonia goes to the polls on Wednesday in an election viewed as crucial for the Balkan state’s future after months of political drift exacerbated by voting being postponed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The vote, originally due to be held in April, will be the first since the country changed its name from Macedonia in a landmark deal with Greece two years ago. It is hoped the election will end the political uncertainty that has lingered since the European Union’s refusal to set a date for North Macedonia to begin eagerly-awaited accession talks with the bloc.

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Allegations over offshore funds swirl around Spain’s former king

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Questions over Juan Carlos’s finances are having an ‘unprecedented impact’ on the country’s monarchy

Damaging allegations over the financial arrangements of Spain’s former king Juan Carlos have placed the royal family under unprecedented scrutiny but are unlikely to result in current or futures monarchs losing their constitutional immunity, according to legal experts.

Juan Carlos abdicated in favour of his son, Felipe, six years ago, renouncing the throne after a series of damaging scandals including in a controversial elephant-hunting trip to Botswana as Spain was devastated by the financial crisis.

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Calls for inquiry over claims Catalan lawmaker’s phone was hacked

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Speaker of regional parliament was told he was targeted by spyware in ‘possible case of domestic espionage’

Current and former leaders of Catalonia’s pro-independence government have called for an inquiry after it emerged that the speaker of the region’s parliament has been warned that his mobile was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.

On Monday, a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters have been told they were targeted last year in what experts describe as a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe.

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Police ability to detain EU suspects ‘slower’ without Brexit deal

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Senior officer says powers less effective if UK forces are denied access to criminal databases

The ability of UK police forces to detain criminal suspects from the EU will become slower and less effective if the government fails to seal a Brexit security deal, a senior officer has told MPs.

Richard Martin, a deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police and the lead for Brexit and international criminality, said forces would lose the “instant, at your fingertips” access to EU-wide databases on criminals and criminal activity that could be the difference between catching a criminal and losing them.

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Italy deploys soldiers to town housing quarantined migrants

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Residents protest against arrival of people who tested positive for coronavirus

Italy has deployed dozens of soldiers to a town in Calabria to patrol apartment buildings where rescued migrants who tested positive for coronavirus have been placed under quarantine.

The decision follows residents’ protests in Amantea, in the province of Cosenza, where 13 people from Bangladesh were moved to after arriving in the coastal town of Roccella Jonica last week and testing positive for the virus.

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Baby boy infected with coronavirus in womb

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French study is believed to be first such confirmed case but doctors say infant has made good recovery

Doctors in France have reported what they believe to be the first proven case of Covid-19 being passed on from a pregnant woman to her baby in the womb.

The newborn boy developed inflammation in the brain within days of being born, a condition brought on after the virus crossed the placenta and established an infection prior to birth. He has since made a good recovery.

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Video of drunken Brits maskless in Magaluf appals Spaniards

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Tourists flouting rules on face coverings and social distancing prompt fears of second wave

Spaniards fear that the sacrifices made during the coronavirus lockdown will be in vain after tourists from overseas flouted regulations about wearing masks and social distancing.

As footage of drunken British tourists dancing on cars in the Mallorcan resort of Magaluf went viral, one Twitter user commented: “Parts of Spain in lockdown, the elderly shut away in care homes, we all wear masks in the street, but in Magaluf the antisocial and irresponsible Brits do whatever they please. It’s shameful.”

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UK to open 10-12 Brexit border customs sites in EU trading shake-up

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New border checks in Kent and elsewhere reverse 47 years of removal of trade barriers

The UK government is to build “10 to 12” new Brexit border customs and controls sites across the country in a move that Michael Gove has said cements the mission to “take back control” from the EU.

In the biggest shake-up to trading with the EU for 50 years, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced the £470m programme for facilities to process freight going to and from the EU, along with a 206-page document detailing new border controls.

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Polish election: Andrzej Duda victory hands populists free rein

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President’s critics fear result will boost illiberal tendencies at home and within EU

Poland’s ruling populists have been given free rein in their mission to reshape the country after liberal hopes of taking the presidency were crushed in a narrow defeat following a divisive campaign.

The incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, was elected for another five-year term as a familiar set of demographic divisions played out in the vote. Poles under 50 and those living in larger towns and cities backed the liberal challenger, Rafał Trzaskowski, while older and rural voters stood by Duda.

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