Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Sioned Jones convicted of stealing logs after 20 years of felling non-native trees in Cork
Sioned Jones used to adore the landscape and wildlife of her adopted home in Bantry, a bucolic region in west Cork on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. She planted vegetables and herbs, foraged for nuts and berries and observed birds, insects, frogs and lizards.
Then, on land above her house, the state-owned forestry company Coillte planted a forest of Sitka spruce, a non-native species that Jones considered a dark, dank threat to biodiversity.
Papers show Telegraph article was in briefing pack before historic speech on Europe
Margaret Thatcher’s infamous “No, no, no” retort to Jacques Delors, a historic moment in the UK’s relationship with Europe, which also had the effect of precipitating her downfall, was partly inspired by an article penned by a young journalist named Boris Johnson, her newly released private papers show.
In 1990, 30 years before Johnson took the UK out of the European Union, an article he penned as the Telegraph’s EC (European Community) correspondent warning of the threat the EC posed to national sovereignty was in Thatcher’s briefing pack as she delivered the combative speech to parliament.
Activists protest against director who pleaded guilty to statutory rape in US but fled before sentencing
Police and protesters clashed briefly outside the French “Oscars” ceremony on Friday evening as the Franco-Polish film director Roman Polanski was awarded the prize for best director.
Immediately after the announcement there was shouting and booing among the audience, and the two actors who announced the award quickly left the stage.
Dozens of Syrian refugees were seen rushing to board coaches in Turkey's Istanbul on Friday after Ankara decided to open its border to Europe. The move comes after an airstrike on Thursday killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria's Idlib province. Fearing the window to leave Turkey would soon close, some of the 3.6 million Syrians living in the country have begun to vacate
Fire reportedly started by protesters opposed to concert nearby by Congolese singer
Police evacuated the Gare de Lyon in Paris after scooters and rubbish bins were set alight outside the station, reportedly by protesters opposed to a concert being given by a Congolese singer.
Photos on social media showed flames reaching several metres into the sky and a cloud of black smoke around the station, which was evacuated at the height of rush hour.
German teenager spoke at an event at US rightwing conference CPAC
A young campaigner who has been hailed by climate sceptics as the right’s answer to Greta Thunberg has previously described a white nationalist who appeared to promote “white genocide” theories as one of her “inspirations”.
Naomi Seibt, a 19-year-old from Münster, Germany, who styles herself as a “climate realist”, has also had to deny she made remarks that could be seen as antisemitic following an attack on a synagogue last year.
Teams allowed to take beach route to get to Netherlands’ first F1 grand prix in 35 years
The return of Formula One to the Netherlands after 35 years has become mired in controversy after two racing teams got the green light to drive across a beach nature reserve to ensure their staff avoid traffic on the way to the circuit.
The teams of Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri will be allowed to drive from their hotels along two miles of beach within the Noordvoort reserve, a popular resting spot for seals and breeding birds located between the Zandvoort racetrack and the North Sea.
Neither side can back down from proxy standoff, but Russia holds whip hand in Idlib
For more than three years, Russia and Turkey have been shadow boxing on the soils of northern Syria. In the past three weeks, the stalking has turned to shooting; the Turks aiming their guns at the Moscow-allied Assad regime, and the Russians increasingly swinging their turrets towards the Turkish military.
In a war fought largely through proxies, any direct conflict between main players was considered highly dangerous and, until Thursday night, unlikely. But after the deaths of at least 30 Turkish troops – most likely the consequence of a Russian airstrike – both sides are in a standoff from which neither can afford to back down.
New recruits needed to process millions of extra declaration forms from 1 January 2021
A race to hire 50,000 people in the next six months to process Brexit paperwork is under way after the government confirmed they would be needed for border operations.
But experts have warned it will be a challenge to train enough people in time to be competent in the complexity of customs declarations and the second layer of red tape involving entry and exit declaration forms that are mandatory for trading with the EU.
Move appears designed to put pressure on Europe to support Turkey’s Idlib operation
Hundreds of refugees in Turkey began arriving at the country’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday after Ankara suddenly indicated it would no longer block their passage to Europe.
The move prompted both neighbouring nations to shore up their borders as their governments insisted they would not allow anyone to enter. Greek police used smoke grenades at one border crossing, while Bulgaria sent an extra 1,000 troops to its frontier with Turkey.
Coastline that has been up for Unesco listing has been in poor condition for years
Italian prosecutors have seized control of the famous Scala dei Turchi limestone coastline, one of the Mediterranean’s main tourist attractions, citing poor handling of the cliff’s preservation.
For years, the site of the Scala dei Turchi – meaning Turkish steps or stairs of the Turks – a candidate for Unesco heritage, has been in a state of degradation. It is subject to constant erosion and theft by visitors who detach pieces of marl, the white sedimentary rock that gives the steps their distinctive appearance.
In the US, health and human services secretary, Alex Azar, on Thursday said that at least 40 public health labs can currently test specimens for coronavirus and that could more than double as soon as Friday.
Azar, speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tested 3,625 specimens for the fast-moving virus as of this morning.
He said at least 40 labs currently have test kits that were previously manufactured by the CDC that were modified to test for coronavirus.
He added that a newly manufactured CDC test can be sent to 93 public health labs as soon as Monday, and a privately manufactured test based on the new CDC test could be sent to those same labs as early as tomorrow, pending FDA clearance.
Spanish opera singer says his words had been misunderstood after apology triggers backlash
Plácido Domingo has rowed back on an apology he made over sexual harassment allegations just two days earlier, after his mea culpa triggered a backlash and cancellations in Spain.
The Spanish opera singer, who faces multiple allegations of sexual harassment, apologised on Tuesday for “the hurt” caused to his accusers, saying he accepted “full responsibility” for his actions. But on Thursday, the 79-year-old insisted his words had been misunderstood.
The UK is to abandon a crucial tool used to speed up the transfer of criminals across borders with other European countries.
Acting against the warnings of senior law enforcement officials, the government said it would not be seeking to participate in the European arrest warrant (EAW) as part of the future relationship with the European Union.
Alert issued after woman opens bottle believed to have been used to transport drug
Belgian prosecutors have issued an alert over a woman who died after taking a sip of wine from a bottle suspected of being used to transport the drug MDMA.
The 41-year-old collapsed shortly after opening the French red to enjoy with a colleague after work. She took a sip from a glass, which left an unpleasant taste, and the intake was enough to give her a fatal dose of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy pills.
Tumso Abdurakhmanov is the latest victim of a murder attempt after similar attacks on exiled dissidents
A well-known Chechen blogger has survived an apparent assassination attempt in Poland, in the latest of a series of attacks on dissidents exiled in Europe.
Tumso Abdurakhmanov posted a video showing him disheveled and breathing hard, standing over the bloodied body of another man. “Who sent you? Where have you come from?” Abdurakhmanov asks, before producing a hammer, which he says was used by the man in an attempted murder.
Opponents of the communist regime under her husband’s rule say an ‘executioner has departed’
Nexhmije Hoxha, the widow of Albania’s Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, died on Tuesday aged 99, her son said, having fallen dramatically from grace following his death but remaining the staunchest defender of his isolationist regime.
Most Albanians view Hoxha’s 40-year rule, when the country was cut off from the world much as North Korea is now and a pervasive secret police clamped down violently on dissent, as a dark period in its history that caused widespread misery and triggered a massive exodus after communism collapsed.
Lufthansa has announced a hiring freeze and is offering employees unpaid leave as part of a range of cost-saving measures to attempt to limit the financial impact of the spread of the coronavirus.
The German airline, which has already cancelled all flights to China until the end of March, also said it will expand part-time work options and cancel flight attendant and other personnel training courses from April onwards. Those that are already on courses will not be hired. The company said it aimed to offer affected trainees “employment contracts in the long term”.
Fiji has extended its travel ban due to coronavirus fears. Travellers who have been in Italy, Iran and the South Korean cities of Daegu and Cheongdo will not be permitted to enter Fiji. Visitors who had been in mainland China in the last 14 days have also been forbidden entry into the Pacific nation.
Ian Thorpe, the Australian Olympic swimming legend, says athletes must consider their own health before attending the Tokyo Games this year.
Thorpe, whose five Olympic golds make him the most successful Australian Olympian all time, spoke out as concerns mounted about whether the Games in July and August will go ahead because of the coronavirus outbreak.
I think the decision should come down to each individual athlete. But whether or not they want to compete, that they should take their health into consideration first.