Category Archives: Europe

Anger at ‘send them back’ chants by rightwing MEPs after EU migration law vote

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Other lawmakers respond with ‘shame on you’ in heated confrontation over passing of plan to increase deportations

Rightwing MEPs have come under fire after they celebrated a vote aimed at increasing deportations across the EU with chants of “send them back”, leading other lawmakers to respond with cries of “shame on you”.

The heated confrontation in the European parliament came on Wednesday after lawmakers voted 418 to 218 to approve controversial measures aimed at increasing deportations of undocumented people.

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Rejoining customs union would not fix damage caused by Brexit, research finds

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Exclusive: Economists find Brexit caused 12% depression in UK exports, most of which is due to leaving single market

Brexit has depressed UK exports to the EU by 12%, and rejoining the customs union would undo only a fraction of the damage, research shared with the Guardian shows.

With the UK’s future relationship with the bloc likely to feature prominently in a potential Labour leadership contest, the economists John Springford and Anton Spisak, of the Centre for European Reform, provide fresh evidence of the damage caused by exiting.

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Western Europeans believe crime is rising despite fall in overall rates, poll finds

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YouGov survey of six countries shows respondents think crime is increasing – though most trust their national police

Western Europeans believe crime is rising in their country, according to a survey, despite long-term overall crime rates falling across the region since the mid-1990s.

The YouGov poll of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found most countries trusted their national police, led by Denmark where 74% of respondents said they had a lot or a fair amount of confidence in police nationally.

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Ancient DNA provides evidence of earliest known plague outbreak

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Discovery in Siberia suggests bacterium from raw marmots devastated hunter-gatherer tribes about 5,500 years ago

The earliest evidence for an outbreak of plague has been uncovered at late stone age cemeteries in south-eastern Siberia where dozens of hunter-gatherers and their children were buried.

Ancient DNA collected from the remains suggests the disease tore through the sparse communities in devastating waves that began about 5,500 years ago, at least two centuries after the bacterium responsible, Yersinia pestis, first emerged.

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Milan tram drivers ‘used WhatsApp for sexist chat about female passengers’

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Drivers suspended as prosecutors investigate group said to have been used to share and comment on CCTV images

A group of tram drivers in Milan have been suspended from their jobs amid an investigation into a WhatsApp group in which they allegedly exchanged sexist and vulgar comments about images of female passengers.

Milan prosecutors placed at least one employee of ATM, the city’s public transport firm, under investigation on Tuesday for allegedly accessing an IT system without authorisation and for hacking a CCTV system to obtain images of female passengers.

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France to ditch Palantir’s AI data tools in favour of domestic provider

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Move to ChapsVision is to avoid ‘strategic dependencies’, says PM amid concern about reliance on US-controlled tools

France’s domestic intelligence service is to ditch AI data tools from the US tech company Palantir in favour of a domestic provider in an effort to avoid “strategic dependency”, the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has said.

“We must use our own AI models; we cannot accept new strategic dependencies in ‌the digital sphere,” Lecornu posted on social media. “We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools.”

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EV prices in UK and EU not likely to dive due to Chinese rivalry, says Xpeng boss

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Brian Gu says he sees Chinese car firms competing on quality rather than launching price war as at home

Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said.

Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China.

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Sweden votes to back laws reinforcing its immigration crackdown

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So-called ‘good behaviour’ legislation fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups

Sweden’s parliament has voted to escalate the country’s crackdown on immigrant rights, backing laws that allow authorities to revoke residency permits based on a vague criteria of bad behaviour and obliging most public sector workers to report anyone suspected of being undocumented.

The new legislation comes ahead of parliamentary elections in September, pitting the centre-right government, which currently depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern, against a far right that has said its intent is to create one of Europe’s most hostile environments for non-Europeans.

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Wheels of justice turn (very) slowly: moped stolen in 1984 returned to owner

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Garelli bike recovered by police in Italy after they spotted it without licence plate during roadside check

A moped stolen from a northern Italian town in 1984 has been traced and returned to its rightful owner after four decades.

The case of the missing moped – a dark grey Garelli that these days might be classified as vintage – was finally cracked by police in Volpiano, a suburb of Turin, after they spotted a 64-year-old man travelling without a licence plate during a roadside check.

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Son of Norway’s crown princess convicted of rape and sentenced to four years in prison

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Marius Borg Høiby found guilty of ⁠two ​counts of rape, one count of domestic violence and other ⁠crimes

Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has been sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of several offences including two counts of rape.

The verdict was handed down by the Oslo district court on Monday morning in a courthouse packed with journalists, nearly three months after Høiby’s closely watched six-week trial.

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Spain’s prime minister faces difficult week as wife and ex-PM summoned before judges

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Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, charged and predecessor José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero investigated over offences including influence peddling

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is facing one of the longest and most difficult weeks of his premiership as his wife and his fellow socialist predecessor prepare to appear before judges investigating them for alleged influence peddling and other offences.

Sánchez, who came to power in 2018 by promising to end the corruption that had mired the ruling conservative People’s party (PP), has found his family, his party and his administration engulfed by a series of scandals.

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Kyiv monastery set on fire in night of Russian attacks across Ukraine

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Dormition Cathedral at Unesco world heritage site struck along with residential buildings across capital

A massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv has badly damaged the Dormition Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a Unesco world heritage site and one of Ukraine’s most significant religious and cultural sites.

Five people were killed in Kyiv, where waves of drones and missiles drove residents to underground shelters and heavy explosions echoed throughout the capital. Kyiv’s Oleksandr Dovzhenko national film studio, which houses Ukraine’s largest and oldest costume collection, was also hit.

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Trump reportedly tells Putin he is prepared to help end war in Ukraine

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Trump also says in ‘friendly and frank’ phone call that US is nearing peace deal with Iran, according to Putin adviser

Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin that ending Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine was critical and that he was prepared to help, reported Russia’s TASS news agency.

During a phone call on Sunday, Trump also informed the Russian president that the US was nearing a peace deal with Iran as the US-Israel war against the country continues, according to Yuri Ushakov, a Putin adviser. The call between Trump and Putin, which lasted about an hour, was described as “friendly and frank” by Ushakov.

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Police stop Tommy Robinson on his way back to London from Russian trip

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Met seizes far-right activist’s phones after he disembarks flight at Heathrow under counter-terrorism provisions

British police say they stopped the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and seized his phones as he returned from a trip to Russia.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, met Elon Musk’s father in Moscow during his trip.

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DNA from 2,000-year-old grape seeds points to origins of modern winemaking

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Researchers also discover that the ancient vines of Chianti, famed for its red wines, produced white fruit

DNA extracted from 2,000-year-old grape seeds found in ancient wells in Tuscany has enabled scientists to map the most extensive genetic history of grapevines recovered from a single site, revealing that vineyards of the Roman era formed part of the empire’s sophisticated agricultural network that might have influenced the development of modern winemaking.

The research led by scientists at the University of York also found that white grapes once dominated the site in Chianti, an area of Tuscany famous for its red Sangiovese wines.

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Ukraine and Moldova to enter first phase of EU membership negotiations

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Election of new Hungarian government in April has paved way for EU member states to agree to open talks

Ukraine and Moldova will take a decisive step towards joining the EU on Monday, as they embark on the first phase of membership negotiations.

The start of substantive negotiations, launched by senior EU officials and ministers from both countries in Luxembourg on Monday, will be a highly symbolic moment for the two countries that were both part of the former Soviet Union. It comes after Russia has intensified its bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities, while sustaining huge losses for little territorial gain.

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Trial of 12mph bike lane speed limit grinds gears of Dutch cyclists

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Increase in road deaths amid rise of e-bikes prompts Houten to test willingness of freedom-loving cyclists to slow down

As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).

The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.

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Albanians protest against another luxury development on Adriatic coast

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Fencing removed at environmentally sensitive site, mirroring protests against Trump son-in-law’s project

About 200 protesters on Saturday tore down metal and razor-wire fences surrounding a luxury development site on Albania’s Adriatic coast, in another sign of growing anger against construction in environmentally sensitive areas.

Albanians have been protesting for weeks against a planned luxury resort backed by a company linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, near Vlora, which is famed for its flamingos and a turtle nesting site.

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Swiss wait to hear result of ballot on capping population at 10 million

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The far-right proposal would require the government to put restrictions in place to limit the population by 2050

A national ballot on an unprecedented far-right proposal to limit Switzerland’s population to 10 million concludes this weekend, amid warnings of devastating consequences for the country’s economy if voters back the initiative.

A “yes” vote would require the Swiss government to take steps to cap the population at 10 million by 2050, enacting tough restrictions on family reunification, residency permits and asylum if the number reaches 9.5 million before that date.

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Dutch far-right party pays damages to court artist after changing image with AI

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Geert Wilders’ PVV altered sketch of jailed Syrian brothers to make them look more menacing

A Dutch court artist has received damages after an MP for the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) used one of her drawings without permission and manipulated it with AI to make the subjects look more menacing.

Petra Urban, a court artist for 19 years, was shocked to discover a drawing she had made last year of two Syrian brothers jailed for the murder of their sister had been reworked and used in a video on Instagram and Facebook by the party’s Noord-Brabant region.

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