Bloc warned against making symbolic gestures not backed up by concrete action
The European parliament has declared a global “climate and environmental emergency” as it urged all EU countries to commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The vote came as scientists warned that the world may have already crossed a series of climate tipping points, resulting in “a state of planetary emergency”.
Continue reading...Spontaneous rallies opposing Matteo Salvini’s divisive rhetoric have captured imaginations. They offer a model that could be emulated elsewhere
For over a decade, the dominant theme in European politics has been the emergence of movements that seek to dramatise and exploit social divisions through crude and aggressive sloganeering. One of the trendsetters in this regard was the comedian Beppe Grillo, who in 2007 held an anti-establishment rally billed as “Vaffanculo Day” (Fuck-off Day). That mass protest in Bologna launched a populist wave in Italy, eventually leading to the rise of the anti-immigration politician Matteo Salvini, whose hard-right League party – currently out of government – is polling far ahead of its rivals.
Progressives have despaired at the apparent inability of centre-left politicians to find the vocabulary and imagination to challenge the divisive and often violent rhetoric of figures such as Salvini and Marine Le Pen. But help may be at hand, in the form of a burgeoning grassroots movement in Italy that takes the symbol of a fish as its inspiration. Appropriately, it began in Bologna.
Continue reading...Three tonnes of drugs found on vessel off coast of Galicia could be worth €100m
A large portion of the three tonnes of cocaine smuggled aboard the “narco-submarine” seized by Spanish police last weekend would have ended up on British streets, according to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).
The 20-metre semi-submersible craft was intercepted off the coast of Galicia, north-west Spain, on Sunday following a joint operation with police forces from the UK, Portugal, the US and Brazil. The NCA said the cocaine was worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
Continue reading...Her shocking pictures told the truth about mafia murders – and earned her death threats. Ahead of a powerful film about her extraordinary life, we meet the woman who dared to confront killers. Warning: contains graphic imagery
Letizia Battaglia can still remember the first corpse she photographed: a man lying beneath an olive tree in a field in rural Sicily. It remains a viscerally unsettling image, made all the more so by its telling details: the dead man’s shoeless left foot, the resigned gaze of the policeman guarding the body, the olive leaves hanging low over the spreadeagled torso. The fact that he was a mafioso murdered in a local feud is, insists Battaglia, neither here nor there. “Everyone,” she says quietly, “is equal in death.”
What has stayed with her, over 40 years later, is the smell that hung in the summer air that day and was carried on the breeze. “It was very hot and he had been dead for a few days,” she says, drawing deeply on a cigarette. “Now, as soon as you ask about this photograph, it comes back to me. I can almost feel it, this atmosphere of death.”
Continue reading...No reason given for withdrawal from show, called ‘homosexual flotilla’ by pro-Orbán journalist
Hungary will not participate in next year’s Eurovision song contest, amid speculation the decision was taken because the competition is “too gay” for the taste of the country’s far-right government and public media bosses.
While no official reason has been given for the withdrawal, the move comes amid an increase in homophobic rhetoric in Hungary, where the anti-migration prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has launched a “family first” policy aimed at helping traditional families and boosting birth rates.
Continue reading...‘Final straw’ was refusal to allow partner to mark dubious claims by far-right parties
Facebook’s only Dutch factchecker has quit over the social network’s refusal to allow them to highlight political lies as being false.
The online newspaper Nu.nl had been Facebook’s only factchecking partner in the Netherlands since Leiden University dropped out of the programme last year. The website had sole responsibility for marking Facebook and Instagram news content for Dutch users as being false or misleading, in order to help power the social network’s tools that suppress distribution of misinformation.
Continue reading...An avalanche of recent books and articles about the “crisis of capitalism” is predicting its demise or dépassement. For those who remember the 1990s, there is a strange similarity between this and the literature of the time, which argued that the Hegelian “end of history” had arrived. That theory was proved to be wrong. The former, I believe, is also factually wrong and misdiagnoses the problem.
The facts show capitalism to be not in crisis at all. It is stronger than ever, both in terms of its geographical coverage and expansion to areas (such as leisure time, or social media) where it has created entirely new markets and commodified things that were never historically objects of transaction.
Continue reading...Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi resign, as police continue inquiry into 2017 death of Daphne Caruana Galizia
The Maltese prime minister’s chief of staff and the country’s tourism minister have resigned in an escalation of the political turmoil surrounding the investigation into the murder of the prominent anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017.
“Yesterday evening, my chief of staff informed me that from today he would be relinquishing his post,” the prime minister, Joseph Muscat, said at a brief press conference on the steps of his office on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...Footage shows man using axe to smash display case in Green Vault of Royal Palace
Police in Germany have released dramatic CCTV footage of one of two suspects in the Dresden jewellery heist using an axe to smash a display case in the state museum’s Green Vault.
Two robbers snatched priceless 18th-century jewellery in an astonishing smash-and-grab raid from the Grünes Gewölbe’s jewel room at the Royal Palace in the east German city on Monday morning. Local media have called it the biggest art heist of all time.
Continue reading...Security footage from Monday morning has captured the moment thieves broke into Dresden's Green Vault museum and smashed open a display cabinet before stealing three ensembles of early 18th-century jewellery the museum has described as 'priceless'
Continue reading...From steel to railways, Beijing is spending billions in EU countries. But are there strings attached?
The Yiwu-to-London train pulls into the DB Eurohub terminus in Barking, east London, 18 days after leaving the Chinese city, a trading centre south of Shanghai. Over the course of its 7,500-mile (12,000km) journey to Europe, the train has wound its way through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France, following part of the old east-west Silk Road.
This freight-rail link is just one of many new routes that, along with roads and ports, form China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Whether the branding is an elaborate PR exercise or a new version of the Silk Road, what is real is that as China globalises, its investment is being gratefully sought across Europe. From ports to power stations, football clubs to financial companies, from the Norwegian city of Kirkenes to the Greek port of Piraeus and the Portuguese national grid, Chinese investment has become indispensable to the European economy. However, the country’s rise as a global economic power poses a strategic dilemma for European governments. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, warned in March that the “period of European naivety” about China had to end.
Continue reading...Complex military operations in desert north of Mali have been described as game of cat and mouse
Thirteen French troops were killed in a midair collision between two helicopters in Mali on Monday night as they fought Islamic militants in the west African country.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, expressed his “deep sadness” at the crash, stressing the “courage of the French soldiers” in what he called the “hard fight against terrorism” in west Africa’s Sahel region. It was the biggest loss of French troops in a single day since an attack in Beirut 36 years ago when 58 soldiers died.
Continue reading...Magnitude 6.4 quake strikes at shallow depth, bringing down buildings in Tirana and nearby
At least 16 people have died and 600 people have been injured after a powerful earthquake hit Albania in the early hours of Tuesday, causing damage along the country’s Adriatic coastline and in the capital, Tirana. Several buildings collapsed, burying residents in the rubble.
The 6.4-magnitude quake struck shortly before 4am local time (0300 GMT), the US Geological Survey said, and was the second powerful tremor to hit the region in two months. It was centred 19 miles west of Tirana, at a shallow depth of 12.4 miles. Scores of aftershocks included three with preliminary magnitudes of between 5.1 and 5.4.
Continue reading...A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Albania early on Tuesday, killing four people and sparking panic in the capital, Tirana, and other cities. The epicentre of the quake, the strongest in the region in decades, was about 20 miles north-west of Tirana, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre
Continue reading...Dramatic footage shows the moment a young girl was hauled to safety after a migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean. The Italian coastguard says it rescued 149 people after the boat ran into trouble a mile off Lampedusa while transporting hundreds of migrants from Libya. At least 20 people are feared dead
Continue reading...Vox refusal to sign joint all-party statement outrages civil rights groups and embarrasses allies
Spain’s far-right Vox party has refused to sign an all-party declaration condemning violence against women, drawing outrage from civil rights groups and embarrassing its allies in the conservative People’s party.
Vox’s refusal to sign the declaration by Madrid city council on Monday meant that for the first time since a landmark 2004 law on gender violence, local authorities in the Spanish capital were unable to issue a joint all-party statement.
Continue reading...Nicolas Bardy says decision by France’s highest court is ‘stupidity pushed to its limit’
A French farmer has been ordered to pay €8,000 (£6,835) after neighbours complained about the smell from his herd of cows, bringing to an end a 10-year legal battle.
Nicolas Bardy, whose family have farmed cattle at Lacapelle-Viescamp in the Cantal, in south-central France, for six generations, was accused of stocking bales of hay too close to his retired neighbours’ home, causing “strong irritating odours”.
Continue reading...Seven people die as weekend of heavy rain brings landslides, floods and collapsed overpass
Seven people have died as violent storms swept through parts of France, Greece and Italy over the weekend, causing flash floods, landslides and the collapse of an overpass.
Greek media described the storms as leaving a trail of “biblical destruction” in some areas of the country while the overpass collapse in northern Italy brought back a chilling reminder of Genoa’s Morandi bridge giving way during a thunderstorm in August 2018, killing 43 people.
Continue reading...Government’s announcement represents blatant disregard for human rights, says IRC
Greece is poised to create “prison” island camps, say aid groups amid growing criticism of government plans to overhaul refugee reception centres on Aegean outposts facing Turkey.
As the UN refugee agency’s top official, Filippo Grandi, prepared this week to fly to Lesbos, where almost 16,000 people are crammed into a single facility, Athens was criticised for adopting legislation in contravention of basic human rights.
Continue reading...Demonstrators chant ‘Venice resist’ amid anger over waves caused by ocean liners and flawed flood-proofing project
Thousands of Venetians have taken to the streets to protest over frequent flooding and the impact of giant cruise ships.
In heavy rain between 2,000 and 3,000 people answered the call of environmental groups and a collective opposed to the ships. Critics say the waves cruise ships create are eroding Venice’s foundations.
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