Category Archives: Europe

Airlines make dramatic cuts to services and call for state bailouts

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Aviation consultancy warns that international industry could collapse within months


Major airlines including British Airways, Ryanair, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic announced a dramatic scaling-back of their operations on Monday, including plans to cancel the majority of their flights and ground thousands of planes, with experts and industry executives calling for government bailouts to avoid bankruptcies.

The moves came as an aviation consultancy warned that the international airline industry will collapse within months, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, unless states worldwide inject billions of dollars of emergency funding to see it through the coronavirus “catastrophe”.

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Coronavirus: more than 100 million Europeans on lockdown – video report

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More than 100 million Europeans are living under lockdown after Spain joined Italy in imposing a national quarantine to combat coronavirus, with a wave of further restrictions on travel coming into effect worldwide.

The World Health Organization announced that Europe was the new centre of the Covid-19 outbreak, with hundreds of thousands of cases. The UK is yet to impose the level of restrictions seen in the rest of Europe but the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said new measures will be announced in the coming weeks

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UK ministers will no longer claim ‘no successful examples’ of Russian interference

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Change of official line is first admission that Kremlin may have distorted UK elections

Ministers have been told they can no longer say there have been “no successful examples” of Russian disinformation affecting UK elections, after the apparent hacking of an NHS dossier seized on by Labour during the last campaign.

The dropping of the old line is the first official admission of the impact of Kremlin efforts to distort Britain’s political processes, and comes after three years of the government’s refusal to engage publicly with the threat.

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Madrid claps for healthcare workers amid coronavirus lockdown – video

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People living in Madrid stood on balconies and leaned out of windows to clap and cheer doctors and healthcare workers on Saturday evening following a campaign launched on social media to show appreciation after the Spanish government declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus.

People have been ordered to stay at home for two weeks unless they have to buy food or medicine or go to work or hospital as Spain has become the country most affected by the coronavirus in Europe after Italy.

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Forward-thinking Utrecht builds car-free district for 12,000 people

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Scheme will enhance city’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe

The “cyclist-first” city of Utrecht is constructing the Netherlands’ first high-density, car-free residential district for more than 12,000 people, making it one of the largest of its type in the world.

The 24-hectare site, located between two canals in the middle of the city, is a business park but by 2024 it is hoped the area will enhance Utrecht’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe.

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Coronavirus latest updates: all arrivals in Australia must self-isolate for 14 days, says PM

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Trump tests negative while Spanish PM’s wife tests positive; France and Israel announce partial closure of country; scientists condemn UK ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Follow live news

The US city of Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, has announced a night curfew starting 16 March and ordered bars and restaurants to conduct only delivery services amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

An Uzbek citizen has tested positive for coronavirus after returning from France, Uzbekistan’s Healthcare Ministry said on Sunday, marking the first infection from the virus in the Central Asian country of 34 million.

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Coronavirus latest updates: Trump gives briefing as Ohio and Illinois go into lockdown

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Number of UK deaths rises to 35 while other countries introduce stricter new measures

Here comes Donald Trump.

Speaking of which:

California governor Gavin Newsom announces that the state's bars, nightclubs, breweries and wineries be closed.

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With the closure of another club space, the scene that revived Berlin is being lost | Michael Scaturro

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The dance community helped reunify East and West Germany in the 1990s, but gentrification is slowly killing it

I was in bed when my friend Alfonso called me. “It’s the last party at Griessmuehle,” he said. “It’s the last Cocktail there. Throw on some clothes. We’re going.”

Cocktail d’Amore is one of a handful of landmark Berlin parties that have made the German capital a centre of LGBTQ+ youth culture over the past two decades. It took place in a venue called Griessmuehle, an old East German grain mill that people enjoyed because one moment you might be kissing on shower tiles, the next dancing in a silo. Sadly, it is to be demolished this spring to make space for a resort hotel. It certainly wasn’t an architectural jewel like the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall or Museum Island – but clubs, along with cheap studio space and vibrant subcultures, are what made Berlin the city so many love today.

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France closes ‘non-essential’ public spaces due to coronavirus

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Food shops, tobacconists, banks, and public transport will remain open despite the order

France has announced the closure of all public places “non-essential” to public life including restaurants, cafes, cinemas and discos from midnight Saturday.

“We must absolutely limit movement, meetings and contacts,” French prime minister Edouard Philippe said on Saturday evening. Food shops, tobacconists, banks and public transport will remain open, he said.

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Czech village razed by Hitler at heart of row on truth and history

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Lidice’s survivors hit back at claims that Jewish woman was denounced to Nazis as academics resign over state interference

For more than three-quarters of a century, the story of Lidice has stood as haunting testimony of Czech suffering and victimhood at the hands of cruel Nazi occupiers.

The village, 16 miles from Prague, was razed to the ground, its adult male population murdered and its women and children transported to concentration camps – where the majority died – after Adolf Hitler singled it out in retribution for the assassination in 1942 of Reinhard Heydrich, deputy leader of the SS, by British-trained Czech and Slovak resistance fighters.

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Anti-inflammatories may aggravate Covid-19, France advises

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French minister says patients should take paracetamol rather than ibuprofen or cortisone

French authorities have warned that widely used over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs may worsen the coronavirus.

The country’s health minister, Olivier Véran, who is a qualified doctor and neurologist, tweeted on Saturday: “The taking of anti-inflammatories [ibuprofen, cortisone … ] could be a factor in aggravating the infection. In case of fever, take paracetamol. If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctor’s advice.”

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Jet2 planes turn around in mid-air as firm cancels Spain flights

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LOT Polish Airlines has also suspended flights from Poland and Hungary for 10 days

Jet2 planes heading to Spain turned back in mid-air on Saturday as the airline cancelled all flights to the country because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The decision follows a sharp increase in infections in Spain and a rise in the death toll to 120. The government has declared a two-week state of emergency and placed 60,000 people in four towns under mandatory lockdown on Friday.

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Varadkar and Foster discuss cross-border coronavirus approach

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Republic of Ireland’s caretaker taoiseach and Northern Ireland’s first minister meet in Armagh

Leo Varadkar and Arlene Foster are meet to discuss a cross-border approach to combatting coronavirus.

With mass gatherings including sporting events and concerts to be banned across the UK from next weekend, pressure was growing on Northern Irish leaders to close schools in line with the move south of the border.

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Italians sing patriotic songs from their balconies during coronavirus lockdown

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Neighbours from Naples to Tuscany make harmonies across empty streets to lift spirits and pass the time during quarantine

Italians have been singing from their balconies across the country, in an effort to boost morale during its nationwide lockdown that began this week, due to Covid-19.

Videos of Italian neighbours singing together have been appearing on social media after Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced the restrictions that shut down virtually all daily life, and leftonly grocery stores, banks, and pharmacies open.

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‘Do not let this fire burn’: WHO warns Europe over coronavirus

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Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency

The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.

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Trump’s changing reactions to coronavirus: from calm to closing borders – video report

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On 17 March, Donald Trump told reporters he knew this coronavirus 'was a pandemic all along', but that is in stark contrast to many of his previous statements. Here's a look back at how the US president has spoken about Covid-19 since January 2020

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Fed bids to shore up confidence after worst week in 12 years

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Pledges of help from EU, China and Germany plus declaration of US emergency produce mild rally after torrid week

The world’s most powerful central bank, the US Federal Reserve, is preparing a fresh attempt to shore up investor confidence despite a late rally on Wall Street on Friday that ended a torrid week for stock markets on a more positive note.

Fresh pledges of help from China, Germany and the European commission combined with Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over coronavirus to reassure investors after an ordeal for equities on both sides of the Atlantic that echoed the depths of the banking crisis.

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Brexit: EU’s demands in negotiations with UK revealed in draft treaty

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Document highlights distance between two sides on issues including state aid rules

Britain will have to guarantee “uniform implementation” of Brussels’s state subsidy rules while the European court of justice will hand down rulings to British courts, under the EU’s vision of the future relationship with the UK.

A 441-page treaty draft, obtained by the Guardian, spells out in full legal text for the first time the demands that Brussels will make of David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, in the next round of talks.

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