French health minister confirms death of man from virus that has killed more than 1,500 people
Europe has recorded its first coronavirus fatality, a Chinese tourist in France, it has been confirmed.
The death of the 80-year-old man, who was visiting Paris with his daughter when he was taken to hospital three weeks ago after falling ill, also marks the first coronavirus mortality outside Asia since the start of the outbreak.
Continue reading...French president says EU must have effective defence policy, larger budget and integrated capital markets
Europe’s middle classes will only remain reconciled to the European Union if it becomes more integrated, with an effective defence policy, a larger budget and integrated capital markets, and is shorn of vetoes that slow decision-making, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said.
Setting out his 10-year vision for Europe on Saturday, Macron said he still wanted to see the UK involved in defence, but urged European countries to recognise that in terms of social welfare, Europe had a different values to the US.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing a renewed assault by the Syrian regime, in desperate circumstances. Is anyone paying attention?
After the torture and massacre of civilians, after the targeted attacks upon rescuers, doctors and schools, after the barrel bombs and chemical weapons, it should be hard to believe that there could be a new wave of misery for Syria unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Yet here it is. The assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held enclave, is the largest-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a war now in its ninth year. The United Nations has warned that 832,000 people, most of them children, have been displaced in less than three months; 100,000 people have fled in the past week. Many had already fled the Syrian regime’s murderous assaults before, in some cases three or four times; the province’s population has swelled from 1 million to 3 million since the war broke out. They face sub-zero temperatures, and many don’t even have tents in which to shelter. Doctors report children dying of exposure.
Conditions are likely to worsen. The frontlines are approaching Idlib city, probably sending further waves of families towards the closed Turkish border. Fighting has claimed the lives of both Turkish and Syrian troops, prompting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to move in reinforcements and threaten: “In the event of the tiniest harm to our soldiers … we will hit regime forces in Idlib and anywhere else.”
Continue reading...Pressure mounts on Angela Merkel’s party to find new leader after AKK resignation
Pressure is growing on Angela Merkel’s troubled Christian Democratic Union to speed up the process of finding a new leader, amid warnings from senior party members that paralysis within the party could spread across the EU when Germany assumes the rotating presidency of the council of the European Union in the second half of the year.
The German centre-right has been in turmoil since Merkel’s designated successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, resigned after CDU politicians in the eastern state of Thuringia defied instructions not to side with the far right in a state election.
Continue reading...Human rights activist Patrick Zaky had been studying at the University of Bologna
The family of an Italian doctoral student murdered in Cairo have urged “democratic governments” to intervene in the case of an Egyptian master’s student in Italy who was detained on arrival in Egypt last week.
Paola and Claudio Regeni, the parents of Giulio Regeni, whose mutilated corpse was found in 2016, called on Italy to do more to help Patrick Zaky, an Egyptian student and activist studying at the University of Bologna who was detained and reportedly tortured on arrival in Cairo to visit his family.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the latest eurozone growth figures
Andrew Kenningham of Capital Economics has told clients:
“We think the economy will continue to flirt with recession in the first half of this year.”
It’s hard to put too much gloss on a stagnating economy, but the German government has tried to strike an optimistic-ish tone this morning.
Berlin’s economy ministry says Germany’s economy is going through a weak phase, but it’s encouraged that business sentiment has improved.
Continue reading...Benjamin Griveaux, who was standing for party of President Macron, lambasts ‘vile attacks’
Emmanuel Macron’s candidate for mayor of Paris in next month’s municipal elections has been forced to stand down after the leak of sexual images and messages online, blaming what he called “vile” attacks on his private life on social media.
Benjamin Griveaux, who was standing for Macron’s governing centrist La République En Marche (LREM) party, made the shock announcement on Friday morning less than 48 hours after the material was first published.
Continue reading...With rightwing demagogues gaining power and public debate getting nastier, many are calling for a return to a more sensible politics. But this approach has its own fatal flaws. By Benjamin Moffitt
You’ve probably heard some version of it in recent years. Maybe you’ve even said or thought it yourself. “Politicians are always fighting!” “Politics has become totally irrational!” “Why can’t politicians just compromise, find some consensus and solve our problems?”
For many people, these views have come to seem like basic common sense. In this era of extreme partisanship, the argument goes, what we need is more unity and moderation to bring us together. And if there is one group of politicians who have been blamed for the sorry state we find ourselves in, it is populists.
Continue reading...Italian foreign minister’s move is sign of turmoil between coalition partners M5S and PD
The Italian foreign minister and former leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) is calling for protests this weekend against the government he sits in, as Italy appears set for another period of political instability.
Luigi Di Maio said the Italian people “must peacefully demonstrate” in Rome on Saturday against a system that “wants to cancel our laws”.
Continue reading...Key event in European automotive calendar could be under threat as crisis deepens
Carmakers are monitoring the development of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe amid concerns that a key motor show in Geneva could be affected.
The spread of the disease has forced the cancellation of the Mobile World Congress, a tech trade fair in Barcelona that had been expected to host more than 100,000 delegates from about 200 countries.
Continue reading...Decision leaves Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael with choice of a deal or risking fresh election
Ireland’s largest party, Fianna Fáil, has said it will not consider going into government with Sinn Féin, a decision likely to prevent the leftwing nationalists from entering power for the first time.
It effectively leaves Ireland’s two dominant centre-right parties – Fianna Fáil and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael - with a choice of joining forces or risking a fresh election that could further boost Sinn Féin.
Continue reading...ECHR accused of ‘ignoring reality’ in ruling on men who entered north African enclave
The European court of human rights has been accused of “completely ignoring the reality” along the continent’s borders after it ruled that Spain acted lawfully when it summarily deported two people who tried to scale the border fence separating Morocco from Spanish territory six years ago.
The Strasbourg court announced its decision on Thursday in the case brought by the two men, who are from Mali and Ivory Coast.
Continue reading...Mayor cites survey of tourists in Singel area as she looks to clean up overcrowded red-light district
The mayor of Amsterdam has sought to win political backing for her cleanup of the overcrowded red-light district by revealing that a third of foreign tourists and nearly half of Britons would be less likely to visit the city again if they were barred from buying cannabis in the coffee shops.
Femke Halsema, who is understood to want to reduce the number of outlets selling cannabis, attached the survey results to a letter to councillors announcing her intention to examine how they may reduce the attraction of drug use to tourists.
Continue reading...Steve Rotheram says far-right Italian politician is not welcome in the city
Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has denied he is going to Liverpool after the mayor of the city said “the only audience he’ll find here is one that won’t be shy in telling him what they think of fascists like him.”
The mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, said Salvini’s “division and hate” would not be welcomed in the city after reports Lega nel Mondo, a global network of the League established by Salvini in 2018, was holding an event in March.
Continue reading...Elsewhere in the country rainfall offered relief from the bushfires, but caused flash flooding as well
Tropical Cyclone Damien made landfall in Western Australia over the weekend and lashed north-western parts of Australia with heavy rain and damaging winds. Unrelated to the cyclone, eastern Australia also recently had some substantial rainfall totals. While rain came as welcome relief after the severe bushfires, flash floods have now swept across the region.
Storm Hervé marked the end of unseasonable warmth across parts of France and Germany last week as the system brought a cooler airmass, strong winds, and fresh, heavy snowfall to the Alps. Prior to this, south-west Europe as a whole was experiencing exceptional heat, and temperatures rocketed to 29.6C in Valencia in Spain on Tuesday, setting a new all-time February record.
Continue reading...Research shows abundance at sites in Europe has plunged by up to 80% in two decades
Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades.
The research adds to growing evidence of what some scientists have called an “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth. A third study shows plummeting numbers of aquatic insects in streams.
Continue reading...When he was interior minister, Salvini prevented 177 migrants from disembarking in Italy
Italy’s senate has formally authorised a criminal case against Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader accused of kidnap last year when, as interior minister, he prevented 177 migrants from disembarking from a coast guard ship.
Last December, the Italian court of ministers in Catania, Sicily, ruled that Salvini should be tried for allegedly depriving the asylum seekers on board the Gregoretti coast guard ship of their liberty by refusing to allow them to leave.
Continue reading...Dams between Scotland, Norway, France and England ‘a possible solution’ to problem
A Dutch government scientist has proposed building two mammoth dams to completely enclose the North Sea and protect an estimated 25 million Europeans from the consequences of rising sea levels as a result of global heating.
Sjoerd Groeskamp, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said a 475km dam between north Scotland and west Norway and another 160km one between west France and south-west England was “a possible solution”.
Continue reading...Schoolgirl Mila received death threats after posting anti-religious diatribe on Instagram
Emmanuel Macron has waded into a row over a schoolgirl whose attack on Islam has divided France, insisting that blasphemy is “no crime”.
The French president defended the teenager, named only as Mila, who received death threats and was forced out of her school after filming an anti-religious diatribe on social media.
Continue reading...Hungarian political party says it is no longer far right, but its shift should not be exaggerated
Hungary’s Jobbik was one of the farthest right parties in Europe. One of its MPs suggested drawing up a list of Hungary’s Jews, others had a history of racial hate speech, and the party was affiliated with the Hungarian Guard, a uniformed movement that on occasion terrorised Hungary’s Roma communities.
Recently, though, the party has a new message to voters: we’re not far right any more.
Continue reading...