Category Archives: Europe

Poverty-stricken Hungarians are easy pickings for traffickers on Facebook

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Promises of a better life in many social media posts are often a trap for marginalised communities such as the Roma

In the village of Bag, north-east of Budapest, the houses along the main street are smart and well-kept. Tucked behind, up a slight hill, where the buildings become bare brick and the tarmac road turns into a dust track, people sit on the ground in the afternoon sun, talking and playing cards.

These are the Roma, or the Roma who remain in Hungary, where they live on society’s edge, clinging on in the outskirts of towns and villages, shunned and stigmatised as potential criminals.

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French police shoot man holding knife in Metz

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Prosecutors say man ‘known for radicalisation’ taken to hospital and placed in custody

French police have shot and injured a man holding a knife in Metz, two days after a fatal stabbing in Paris.

Christian Mercuri, the public prosecutor in the city in north-east France, said the man involved in the incident on Sunday, who was known to police both “for his radicalisation and for a personality disorder”, shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) before being shot.

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Russia announces plan to ‘use the advantages’ of climate change

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Kremlin website recognises global heating as a problem but lists ‘positive’ economic effects

Russia has published a plan to adapt its economy and population to climate change, aiming to mitigate damage but also “use the advantages” of warmer temperatures.

The document, published on the government’s website on Saturday, outlines a plan of action and acknowledges changes to the climate are having a “prominent and increasing effect” on socioeconomic development, people’s lives, health and industry.

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Notre Dame Cathedral ‘not saved yet’ and still at risk of collapse

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Head of restoration says removal of fused scaffolding may destroy vaulted ceiling

The French general appointed to oversee the reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral has said the iconic building is still at risk of collapse more than six months into the efforts to restore it.

Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin said the cathedral is “not saved yet” and has to undergo a delicate operation to remove fused scaffolding around the spire, destroyed by a devastating fire last April.

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Raab urges Cyprus to ‘do the right thing’ over Ayia Napa teenager

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Woman convicted of lying about being gang-raped is due to be sentenced on Tuesday

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has urged Cyprus to “do the right thing” in the case of a British teenager convicted of lying about being gang-raped in Ayia Napa but cautioned against aggravating the situation before her sentencing this week.

Last week, a judge ruled the 19-year-old wilfully indulged in public mischief in claiming she was raped by a group of Israeli males while on holiday in July.

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Six people dead after being hit by suspected drunk driver in Italy

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Group of 17 German tourists were struck by speeding Audi TT in early hours in Alto Adige

Six people have been killed and 11 injured after a suspected drunk driver hit a crowd of German tourists in the northern Italian region of Alto Adige.

Those who died, all in their early 20s, were among a group of 17 people when they were struck by the speeding Audi TT as they crossed a road at about 1am on Sunday near the mountain village of Lutago in Valle Aurina. Three of the injured are in a serious condition. One woman was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Innsbruck, Austria.

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Austria’s Greens vote to enter government with People’s party

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Untested left-right alliance may prove template for future coalition in Germany

Members of Austria’s Green party voted on Saturday to join a new government led by the conservative former chancellor Sebastian Kurz, clearing the final hurdle for an untested national left-right alliance.

The coalition pact approved by their party leadership and Kurz’s People’s party earlier this week was backed by 93% of Green delegates . Out of 264 delegates, only 15 voted against or abstained.

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Appeal by Cyprus rape claim teenager may take three years

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Foreign Office under pressure to get Cypriot authorities to move case to front of queue

The British teenager allegedly gang-raped in Cyprus could face a three-year wait to exhaust the legal process relating to her conviction for lying. The long delay increases pressure on the Foreign Office to lobby Cyprus to expedite the appeal process.

The student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was ruled to have “wilfully indulged in public mischief” by claiming that she was raped by a group of male Israeli tourists while on holiday in Ayia Napa last July.

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To move on, Labour must learn lessons from the left’s failure worldwide | Owen Jones

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The party’s defeat was a debacle, but was part of a global trend. Now leadership hopefuls must say how they would buck it

British exceptionalism – the myth that Britain is uniquely different to its European neighbours – afflicts everything from our understanding of our place in the world to our domestic political situation. The rise of Scottish nationalism, the rightwing populist surge, Brexit, Corbynism: all are seen through the confines of the UK’s borders. And so it goes for Labour’s catastrophic electoral rout. But it does not detract from the party’s own failure to understand the broader context: across the continent and even the world, social democracy and the so-called political centre are in crisis.

Related: Can Keir Starmer pass the tests set by the left and win the Labour leadership? | Chaminda Jayanetti

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Man shot dead by police after stabbing attack in Paris suburb

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Motive as yet unclear for knife attack in Villejuif that left one dead and two seriously injured

Police shot dead a man who stabbed several people in a Paris suburb in a knife attack that left one person dead and at least two others seriously injured.

Armed officers were called at around 2pm on Friday after the man stabbed several people – apparently at random – near a park and busy shopping centre in Villejuif, south of the French capital.

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UK tour firm used by teenager in gang rape case ends trips to Ayia Napa

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Summer Takeover’s move comes amid anger over her treatment by Cyprus authorities

The UK tour operator behind the working holiday on which a British teenager was allegedly gang raped has said it will no longer send young clubbers to Ayia Napa following a week of rising anger about her treatment by Cypriot authorities.

Summer Takeover said it would stop operations at the resort “in any capacity” after the Guardian discovered it was still promoting the much-criticised budget hotel where the young woman was allegedly attacked by a group of Israelis in July.

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Mystery of Rolling Stones tracks posted briefly on YouTube

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Vintage recordings may have been published in attempt to extend copyright protection

A mysterious YouTube account that posted, then hid, a collection of 75 rare and unpublished Rolling Stones recordings may have been a canny attempt to avoid EU copyright laws and keep the tracks out of the public domain on the 50th anniversary of their creation.

Shortly before midnight on 31 December, the YouTube account 69RSTRAX posted a collection of recordings including studio out-takes and live performances to its public page on the video-sharing site, with no commentary or explanation. Hours later, on 1 January, again with no warning, the account made all the videos private.

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French prosecutors open rape inquiry into author Gabriel Matzneff

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New book describes sexual relationship between Matzneff and 14-year-old girl

Paris prosecutors have opened a rape investigation into the author Gabriel Matzneff, a day after the publication of a book detailing his sexual relationship with a girl of 14 more than three decades ago.

The case has attracted huge interest in France, which is only now beginning to scrutinise decades of what are seen by some as permissive attitudes towards sexual exploitation and paedophilia.

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Ostrich-like birds’ Venice day out earns fines for owners

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Police received dozens of calls about two rheas wandering among tourists

Two ostrich-like birds have provoked the ire of Venetian authorities after they brazenly roamed around the lagoon city’s narrow streets.

The rheas, which are native to South America, arrived in the city by train on Thursday with their Slovenian owners from nearby San Donà del Piave, where a circus is in town.

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Costa del Sol deaths: church leaders praise strength of widow

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Pastor describes Olubunmi Diya as ‘remarkable woman’ as her lawyer says case not closed

Church leaders say the widow of a Christian pastor from London who drowned in a pool at a Spanish resort with two of their children on Christmas Eve has astonished them with her grace and dignity in grief, as her lawyer stressed the case was not closed.

Olubunmi Diya, who witnessed the incident with their surviving daughter, Favour, 14, has returned to the UK and is being comforted by members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), of which her husband, Gabriel Diya, 52, was a pastor in Charlton, south-east London.

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Vogue Italia drops photoshoots from January issue in green statement

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Illustrated covers intended to highlight environmental impact of shoots

Vogue Italia will not feature any photoshoots in its January 2020 issue in a bid to make a statement about sustainability. The move is intended to highlight the environmental impact of photoshoots in print magazines.

In his editor’s letter, Emanuele Farneti listed some of the resources it took to fill the September 2019 issue, the biggest of the year, with original photographs: “One hundred and fifty people involved. About 20 flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras … ”

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Volkswagen in ‘Dieselgate’ settlement talks with 400,000 German owners

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Carmaker has compensated VW owners in US and Australia over emissions-rigging scandal and faces class action in UK

Volkswagen is in discussions over an out-of-court settlement with more than 400,000 German owners of vehicles that were affected by the carmaker’s “Dieselgate” emissions-rigging scandal.

Germany’s VZBV – an umbrella group of consumer rights organisations – said it had entered talks about a “pragmatic solution in the interests of customers” but stressed that talks were at a very early stage and would remain confidential.

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Can Merkel and Macron get Franco-German relations back on track?

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As a year of big EU decisions begins, the bloc’s most important relationship is stuck in a rut

In early December, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel sat down opposite each other in Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at the Savoy Hotel, central London, for a two-hour tête-à-tête dinner. They had some talking to do.

Cordial and constructive, diplomats in Paris and Berlin said, the evening apparently cleared the air. But it will take more than a dinner to clear the structural obstacles to a relationship that is critical to what Europe can achieve in 2020.

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Resurgent Austrian Greens in coalition deal with centre-right party

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Sebastian Kurz, who leads the People’s party, can now return to power with small majority

Austria’s main centre-right party and the Greens have agreed on a coalition deal that will return ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to power.

Both Kurz and Werner Kogler from the Greens, who led the negotiations between the two parties, told reporters in Vienna they had hammered out a government programme that will be presented to the public in detail on Thursday afternoon.

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Calls for tourism boycott add to pressure to reopen Cyprus trial

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Mother of British teenager found guilty of lying about rape is among those who have publicly rejected the verdict

Pressure is mounting on the Cypriot authorities to reassess the case of a British teenager found guilty of lying about being gang-raped as anger rises over the verdict.

Calls for a tourism boycott of the country were backed by the woman’s mother, who said Ayia Napa, the holiday resort in which her 19-year-old daughter said the attack took place, was unsafe.

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