Category Archives: Europe
COP25 climate summit: put children at heart of tackling crisis, says UN
Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock
Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.
Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.
Continue reading...EU trade deals must not contradict climate goals, says MEP
Pascal Canfin says he cannot back deal with South American bloc owing to ‘political context’
The EU’s trade deal with four South American countries will not be ratified in its current form because it contradicts Europe’s plans to confront the climate emergency, a leading MEP has said.
Pascal Canfin, a Frenchman who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said he could not vote in favour of the EU trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (the bloc known as Mercosur).
Continue reading...Swedish diplomat faces trial for trying to free China dissident
Anna Lindstedt accused of brokering unauthorised meeting over fate of Gui Minhai
Sweden’s former ambassador to Beijing is to go on trial for overstepping her duties by trying to negotiate the release of a Chinese-Swedish dissident held in China.
Anna Lindstedt is accused of brokering an unauthorised meeting to try to get Gui Minhai freed, prosecutors said.
Continue reading...Coats for homeless removed from Dublin’s Ha’penny Bridge
Action by city authority for ‘public safety’ reasons provokes social media outcry
The idea was simple: ask Dubliners to hang warm coats on the Ha’penny footbridge for the city’s burgeoning homeless population.
Shortly after #warmforwinter notices appeared on lampposts near the popular landmark last week, an array of anoraks, parkas and fleeces started to line the railings.
Continue reading...‘Sometimes the world goes feral’ – 11 odes to Europe
As Britain braces itself for the Brexit endgame, leading poets – from Carol Ann Duffy to Andrew McMillan – take the pulse of our fragmenting world
From the collection Kin, Cinnamon Press, 2018
Continue reading...Finland anoints Sanna Marin, 34, as world’s youngest-serving prime minister
Transport minister is the nation’s youngest leader ever and the country’s third female PM
Finland’s transport minister, Sanna Marin, has been selected to lead the Social Democratic party, making her the country’s youngest prime minister ever.
The 34-year-old Marin, whose party is the largest in a five-member governing coalition, will be the world’s youngest-serving prime minister when she takes office in the coming days. She is also Finland’s third female government leader.
Continue reading...France to press ahead with pensions reform despite protests
Train and metro strikes enter fourth day as prime minister vows to implement changes
The French government said it would press ahead with its planned pension changes but said the proposed new system that has sparked nationwide strikes would be introduced gradually and public concerns would be addressed.
Transport systems were paralysed for a fourth day on Sunday as unions at the state railway SNCF and Paris public transport system RATP extended their strike against the changes.
Continue reading...Josep Borrell: can EU’s new diplomat- in-chief strengthen bloc’s global standing?
The veteran Spanish socialist has a reputation for plain speaking, and a brief to build a more assertive EU
It has been called Europe’s “valley of tears”. But it isn’t in National Geographic; rather it is the monthly pilgrimage of the European Union’s 28 foreign ministers to Brussels or Luxembourg to discuss the woes of the world.
And the man who coined the phrase, Josep Borrell, a socialist veteran of Spanish politics, was not paying a compliment. He described the EU foreign affairs council as “more a valley of tears than a centre of decision-making” because “it’s where all the open sores of humanity come. They tell us their sufferings, we express our condolences and concern … but no capacity for action comes out of it and we just move on to the next one.”
Continue reading...Ukraine’s new president comes face to face with Putin in Paris
Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet Russian counterpart at summit on Kyiv’s five-year war with Russian separatists
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, faces a major test at a high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin in Paris as he pursues a campaign promise to negotiate an end to the war in south-east Ukraine despite vocal opposition at home.
Zelenskiy and his Russian counterpart will meet at the Élysée Palace on Monday alongside European leaders for their first face-to-face talks since the comedian-turned-president took office in May.
Continue reading...Nobel peace prize winner Abiy Ahmed embroiled in media row
Officials say winner’s refusal to face public questioning is ‘highly problematic’
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, has come under pressure to appear before the media in Oslo this week when he collects the Nobel peace prize on Tuesday.
Senior officials of the Norwegian Nobel Institute have said the 2019 winner’s refusal to attend any event where he could be asked questions publicly is “highly problematic”.
Continue reading...Austria struggles with marauding Krampus demons gone rogue
Police record rising violence and drunkenness in relation to traditional folkloric festivities
Goat-horned half-demons with scraggy coats of fur, lolling tongues and threatening bundles of birch branches are no one’s idea of a welcome guest on a winter’s night.
In Austria, however, the figure of the Krampus has been part of pre-Christmas folklore for centuries, with men in costumes roaming the streets to scare children and grownups from the end of November to the middle of December.
Continue reading...Nobel winner Peter Handke avoids genocide controversy in speech
Literature laureate accused of supporting Slobodan Milošević gives inaugural lecture
The controversial 2019 Nobel literature laureate, Austrian author Peter Handke, gave his inaugural lecture on Saturday night in front of the Swedish Academy and in the face of intense criticism of his selection for the honour.
Handke, 77, who is perhaps best known for the novel Wings of Desire, is accused of supporting the genocidal Serbian regime led by Slobodan Milošević and of denying the extent of Serbian terror and killing during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
Continue reading...German group with far-right ‘prepper’ links trains civilians for combat
Former soldier behind group recorded saying he wants to build up infantry force
A network of elite German combatants with links to far-right “prepper” circles secretly trained civilians in “commando-like structures”, raising fears the group planned to build up a paramilitary fighting unit.
Drone footage filmed in June 2018 at a former barracks of the German armed forces in the southern town of Mosbach shows a group of around half a dozen men in military-style gear moving in formation across sandy terrain, holding what appear to be assault rifles in a firing position.
Continue reading...‘Gross hypocrisy’: Nobel heavyweight to boycott Peter Handke ceremony
Peter England, former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy and current member, refuses to celebrate the controversial 2019 literature laureate
Days before the Nobel laureate Peter Handke receives his award, a longstanding member of the Swedish Academy has announced that he will be boycotting the ceremonies because celebrating the Austrian writer’s win would be hypocritical.
Peter Englund, the former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Friday that he would not participate this year because “to celebrate Peter Handke’s Nobel prize would be gross hypocrisy on my part”. Handke was set to give a press conference about his win at noon on Friday, with his laureate’s lecture due on Saturday. Formal presentation of his medal is timetabled for Tuesday.
Continue reading...Angela Merkel visits Auschwitz for first time
German chancellor pledges further €60m donation to Auschwitz Foundation
Angela Merkel has for the first time visited the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, site of one of the most notorious atrocities Adolf Hitler’s regime inflicted on Europe.
The German chancellor also pledged a donation of €60m (£51m) towards a fund to conserve the physical remnants of the site of the barracks, watchtowers and personal items of those who died, such as shoes and suitcases.
Continue reading...France faces second day of travel chaos as strikes continue
Transport stoppages to run into weekend amid protests against planned pension changes
France is facing a second day of travel chaos and school closures after unions said there would be no let-up in nationwide strikes against Emmanuel Macron’s proposed changes to the pensions system.
The far-reaching strike, which brought more than 800,000 people on to the streets on Thursday, is seen as the greatest test yet for the centrist president, who has promised to deliver the biggest “transformation” of the French social model and welfare system since the immediate post-war era.
Continue reading...‘Everyone is on the streets’: strike forces France to a halt – video
Rail workers, air-traffic controllers, teachers and public sector staff staged walkouts and took to the streets across France to protest against proposed changes to the pension system.
The strike is the biggest in Emmanuel Macron's presidency and 90% of regional trains were cancelled on 5 December
Continue reading...Doctors in Spain revive British woman after six-hour cardiac arrest
Audrey Mash developed severe hypothermia while hiking in Catalan Pyrenees in freezing weather
Doctors in Barcelona have managed to revive a British woman who had a six-hour cardiac arrest after developing hypothermia while hiking in the Catalan Pyrenees in freezing weather last month.
Audrey Mash said she was surprised at the attention her case had attracted and said it had not put her off hiking. “I feel like a fraud for not being back at work. I’m hoping to go back before the end of next week,” she said on Thursday.
Continue reading...More than 800,000 people march against Macron as strikes grip France
Transport workers bring country to standstill amid anger over pension changes
More than 800,000 people have marched in cities across France as railway workers, teachers and hospital staff held one of the biggest public sector strikes in decades against Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the pension system.
A nationwide transport strike brought much of France to a standstill and was expected to continue for the next few days as unions dug in, saying the president’s pension changes would force millions of people to work longer or receive lower payments.
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