Italian TV show to reveal alleged abuse at Vatican’s youth seminary in 1980s and 90s
Three more former altar boys have claimed they were sexually abused by two priests in the Vatican, as the child abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church zeroed in for a second time on its headquarters.
The allegations of abuse in the Vatican’s youth seminary, to be set out in an Italian TV show on Sunday, date back to the 1980s and 90s when the boys were aged between 10 and 14.
Continue reading...Cold war style-agreement brings several high-profile espionage cases to a close
Russia has freed two Lithuanians and a Norwegian in return for two Russian spies held in Lithuania, in a cold war-style spy swap that brought several high-profile espionage cases to a close.
The Norwegian, Frode Berg, a retired border guard, was arrested in Moscow in 2017 and convicted of gathering intelligence on behalf of Norway. He pleaded not guilty.
Continue reading...US urges Khalifa Haftar to end offensive on Tripoli amid concerns about unofficial Russian influence
Fears that Russian mercenaries, unofficially backed by Moscow, are tipping the scales in Libya in favour of the military leader Khalifa Haftar appears to have prompted the US to issue a strong warning to the general to pull back.
The US has been accused of taking little interest in the eight months of fighting on the outskirts of Tripoli that began when Haftar’s Libyan National Army mounted an assault on Tripoli, provoking a fierce counter-offensive by militia forces supporting the Government of National Accord (GNA).
Continue reading...Rightwing parties reject proposals as lagoon city faces worst flooding in 53 years
Veneto’s regional council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes before its offices on the Grand Canal, in Venice, were flooded, it has emerged as the city continues to battle high water levels.
Venice has been hit by recurrent flooding since Tuesday, with 70% of the lagoon city engulfed on Friday morning as the acqua alta, or high water, level reached 1.54 metres amid heavy downpours.
Continue reading...Over 20 years, the debate about freedom of movement has become skewed by a hostile narrative. By Rachel Shabi
Few chance encounters have had a greater political impact than Gordon Brown’s fateful meeting with Gillian Duffy on an April morning in Rochdale in 2010. When the then prime minister was caught on a hot mic calling the Labour-voting pensioner a “bigoted woman” – after she cornered him with complaints about immigrants “flocking” into Britain – it did not just sink his floundering campaign. It set the tone for the way immigration would become the most toxic issue in British politics for the decade to come.
When New Labour came to power in 1997, just 3% of the public cited immigration as a key issue. By the time of the EU referendum in 2016, that figure was 48%. During those intervening years, the issue came to dominate and distort British politics – exactly according to the script established by Bigotgate. Brown’s gaffe both consolidated and gave credence to a political coding that would shape everything that came after: the “hostile environment”, the Windrush scandal, the EU referendum and the revival of Britain’s far right – deploying a narrative in which sneering, out-of-touch, big-city politicians who favour foreigners and open borders are hopelessly oblivious to the struggles and the so-called “legitimate concerns” of ordinary working people (who, in this scenario, are always white).
Continue reading...Uncertainty over UK citizens’ future status is prompting some European employers to steer clear
Past 40, and nearly five years after he arrived in Madrid, John Halliday is moving back to the UK and in with his parents. He had “nowhere else to go”, he says: Brexit had cost him his job and made other Spanish employers reluctant to hire Britons.
Related: Britons in Europe face citizens' rights 'lottery' in event of no deal
Continue reading...Exclusive: president’s personal lawyer has emerged as a key figure in the impeachment inquiry, with speculation Republicans will seek to paint him as a rogue actor
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has said he is confident the president will remain loyal to him as an impeachment inquiry unfolds in which the former New York mayor has become a central figure.
But Giuliani joked that he had good “insurance” in case Trump did turn on him, amid speculation Republicans will seek to frame him as a rogue actor.
Continue reading...Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov gives stark assessment of leader’s dictatorial rule
The children of Russian oligarchs learn about freedom in the UK only to return to Moscow to reinforce Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial rule, Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian dissident jailed for five years by Russia, has warned in a stark assessment of Putin’s stranglehold on power.
Sentsov, Russia’s most famous political prisoner, was released with 35 other Ukrainians in a high-profile prisoner swap in September, in which an equal number of Russians were released.
Continue reading...Bundestag backs law that will fine parents up to €2,500 if children are not inoculated
Germany’s parliament has voted to make measles vaccinations compulsory for children, in response to a global rise in cases of the disease.
Parents who refuse to get their children inoculated face fines of up to €2,500 (£2,140) and a likely ban from nursery or school.
Continue reading...Army general rebuked after lashing out at chief architect over cathedral rebuild plans
The French government has rebuked the army general charged with the rebuilding of the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral after he told the chief architect to “shut his mouth”, in a sign of tensions over the cathedral’s future appearance.
Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin lost his cool with Philippe Villeneuve in a dispute over whether to replace the spire, which collapsed in the fire in April, with an exact replica or a modern alternative.
Continue reading...More people given temporary status as backlog of unresolved cases reaches half a million
The proportion of EU citizens being granted a temporary, more precarious “pre-settled status” in the UK has continued to rise, the latest Home Office statistics show, and the backlog of unresolved cases has grown to more than half a million, causing unease among campaign groups that support EU nationals living in Britain.
All of the estimated 3.4 million EU citizens resident in the UK must apply for settled status if they want to continue living here legally after Brexit. The latest EU settlement scheme statistics show that 590,300 people applied for settled status in October, bringing the total number of applications to 2,450,000.
Continue reading...Sovereign wealth fund cites risk of company contributing to ill-treatment of migrant labour in Qatar and UAE
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has banned all holdings of shares in G4S because of the risk of human rights violations against the British security company’s workforce in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Norway’s Council of Ethics, which monitors investments in the country’s £860bn Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), said there was an “unacceptable risk of the company contributing to systematic human rights violations”. Up to 30,000 staff could be affected.
Continue reading...The prime minister delivers the first big set-piece speech of the campaign as Labour pledges £26bn extra per year for NHS
That’s all from us for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. For a comprehensive rundown of the day’s events, see my colleague Andrew Sparrow’s daily election briefing:
Related: Andrew Sparrow's election briefing: Johnson won't change Brexit stance to please Farage
Related: Boris Johnson heckled over floods but does not apologise for 'slow response'
Hoey also said complained that MPs had spent the last two years trying to thwart Brexit, telling LBC:
We’ve had two years of parliament – a remain parliament – doing everything they can to stop us leaving; by different methods and some not so serious as others. But most of the Labour MPs in there and a substantial number of Conservatives have tried to stop it.
Continue reading...Businesses and residents say they feel helpless as they brace for next high tides
As tourists posed for selfies at St Mark’s Square on Wednesday evening, shop owners mopped the floors of their premises and cleared debris while assessing the cost of the damage caused by record high tides.
“An apocalypse happened,” said Antonella Rossi, who owns a handmade jewellery shop under the portico that surrounds the square.
Continue reading...Three decades after the Berlin Wall fell, the crossing is a mess of souvenir shops and fast-food restaurants – and time is running out to change things
It was the most famous border crossing in the Berlin Wall, the official gateway for allied diplomats, military personnel and foreigners to enter communist East Berlin by road.
And in 1961, Checkpoint Charlie seized the world’s attention when a diplomatic spat about allied forces’ freedom to travel in East Berlin quickly escalated and saw Soviet and American tanks squaring up to one another. The world watched aghast, fearful of a third world war, as a formidable flock of superpower tanks rolled towards the border, standing just 100 yards apart.
Continue reading...DNA left by suspect who shot himself during robbery leads police to suspected guerrillas
Two suspected urban guerrillas allegedly linked to planned attacks on foreign embassies in Athens have been remanded in custody after a high profile anti-terror operation in the Greek capital.
The two men, both in their 40s, were jailed after appearing before a public magistrate charged with membership of the terror group, Revolutionary Self Defense, which has claimed credit for assaults on both the French and Mexican embassies. Under Greek law they can be detained for up to 18 months pending trial.
Continue reading...Airline scratches out traveller’s air miles after he used feline double to flout cabin rules
The Russian airline Aeroflot has stripped a passenger of his air miles after he boasted online of sneaking his overweight cat onboard by switching him for a slimmer cat during check-in.
Mikhail Galin wrote in a Facebook post last week that his cat Viktor was judged too fat to be taken into the passenger cabin during a layover in Moscow on a trip from Latvia to his home in Vladivostok, in the far east of Russia.
Continue reading...Alleged militant deported as part of Turkey’s drive to expel foreign jihadists in its custody
An alleged American member of Islamic State, stranded for a second day on the border between Greece and Turkey after Turkey expelled him, is “not our problem”, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said.
The man, named by the Turkish news agency Demiroren as Muhammed Darwis B, is believed to be a US citizen of Jordanian descent. He was deported on Monday as part of Turkey’s controversial new policy to deport foreign jihadists in its custody.
Continue reading...European court of justice says origin must be identified in decision likely to anger Israel
The European Union’s top court has ruled that EU countries must oblige retailers to identify products made in Israeli settlements with special labels, in a ruling likely to spark anger in Israel.
The European court of justice (ECJ) said in a statement that “foodstuffs originating in the territories occupied by the state of Israel must bear the indication of their territory of origin”.
Continue reading...Accusations levelled by Valeria Gontareva against Ihor Kolomoiskiy provide test for Ukraine’s new president
It is possible that when a car drove into Valeria Gontareva at a pedestrian crossing in Knightsbridge, central London, in late August it was merely an accident.
But soon after, while Gontareva was recovering in hospital, her son’s car was set on fire back home in Kyiv. A few days after that, her family home in the Ukrainian capital was also burned down. For Gontareva there is no doubt that the attacks are part of a disturbing pattern.
Continue reading...