Category Archives: Europe

Brexit: France and Germany split as EU leaders debate length of further article 50 extension – live news

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Follow all the latest as the prime minister awaits the EU’s decision on a delay to Brexit

This is from the Telegraph’s James Crisp.

Theresa May has left the summit building for dinner. She is expected to return later.

France and Germany are understood to be at loggerheads over both the length of the extension and the conditions that the EU should put on a delay to Brexit.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is arguing that a short extension to 30 June is unlikely to provide enough time for the impasse in Westminster to be broken, and Berlin is seeking an extension until 31 December.

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Vatican to investigate 1983 disappearance of teenage girl

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Family has asked for tomb in grounds to be opened in search for Emanuela Orlandi

The Vatican has launched an internal investigation into the disappearance of a teenage girl in 1983, in what could be a breakthrough for police investigating one of the country’s darkest mysteries.

Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican police officer, was 15 when she was last seen leaving a music class on 22 June 1983.

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Spanish police ‘recover Julian Assange surveillance footage’

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Material that originated from Ecuadorian embassy was reportedly offered for sale

WikiLeaks has said it has uncovered a surveillance operation against Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy and that images, documents and videos gathered have been offered for sale.

Spanish police were said to have mounted a sting operation against unnamed individuals in Madrid who offered the material for sale in what lawyers and colleagues of Assange said on Wednesday was an attempt at extortion.

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Coffee beans not vital for human survival, Switzerland decides

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Government proposes end to decades-old strategy of stockpiling bags of raw product

Switzerland has announced plans to abolish the emergency stockpiling of coffee, a strategy that has been in place for decades, saying the beans are not vital for human survival – though opposition to the proposal is brewing.

Nestlé, the maker of instant coffee Nescafé, and other importers, roasters and retailers are required by Swiss law to store bags of raw coffee. The country also stockpiles staples such as sugar, rice, edible oils and animal feed.

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German police raid 30 premises linked to far-right extremists

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Alleged target is Inferno Cottbus ’99 group, suspected of criminal activity and neo-Nazism

Police have carried out extensive raids in four German states on premises linked to suspected far-right extremists.

Thirty properties including flats, offices and commercial premises in the states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony were searched in the operations which began at dawn and continued into Wednesday afternoon.

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Vienna State Opera’s ballet academy hit by abuse scandal

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Austrian magazine alleges pupils were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse

The Vienna State Opera has launched an investigation and promised far-reaching reforms after allegations that students at its prestigious ballet academy were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse by two teachers.

“Things have happened that are unacceptable,” the State Opera’s director, Dominique Meyer, said on Wednesday after the Austrian magazine Falter published a detailed exposé of the alleged abuse based on interviews with students and staff.

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May signals she would accept EU offer of longer Brexit delay

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British PM says UK will still be able to leave by 22 May if withdrawal deal is approved

Theresa May has signalled that she would accept the EU’s likely offer of a lengthy Brexit delay at a summit of leaders as the UK would still be able to leave when the withdrawal agreement is approved.

Arriving in Brussels, the prime minister said it would still possible for Britain to quit by 22 May if the Commons chose to approve her Brexit deal in the coming weeks.

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Fears grow over migrant rescue boat stranded for a week

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Vessel barred from entering Italy or Malta since picking up dozens of refugees on 3 April

Concerns are rising for the wellbeing of 64 people stranded on a migrant rescue vessel in the Mediterranean for a week because neither Italy nor Malta will allow the boat to dock.

The migrants and refugees were rescued from a dinghy off Libya on 3 April by a rescue boat operated by the German NGO Sea-Eye and named Alan Kurdi after the Syrian boy who drowned in 2015.

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Men charged with trafficking women into Italy to appear in court in Sicily

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Trial of five Romanians accused of labour exploitation and forced prostitution follows Guardian investigation

Five men will appear in court in Sicily on Friday to face charges of trafficking women into the country from Romania after a Guardian investigation exposed the conditions in which the women were living.

The men, all of whom are Romanian, are accused of trafficking at least seven women into Sicily and forcing them to work in greenhouses in Ragusa for paltry wages, as well as forcing them into prostitution.

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Trial gripping Italy hears police beat detainee who later died

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Francesco Tedesco says Stefano Cucchi was kicked and punched in the face by officers

An Italian police officer has told a court he witnessed the beating of a 31-year-old man who died after being held in police custody in 2009, in a major development in a case that has gripped the country.

Francesco Tedesco, one of three military police officers charged with the murder of Stefano Cucchi, told a courtroom in Rome his colleagues had kicked and punched Cucchi in the face, causing his death. Tedesco also alleged he had been threatened by officials who told him to keep quiet and conceal his report about the incident.

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Albania airport heist: armed robbers steal €2.5m from Austrian Airlines plane

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Police arrest four people and question 40 over audacious runway heist at Tirana’s Mother Teresa airport

Albanian police have arrested four people and questioned 40 others after armed robbers stole millions of euros from an Austria Airlines aeroplane in a deadly heist.

Armed men broke onto the runway of Tirana airport on Tuesday and stole the money due to be transported to a bank in Vienna, police said.

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Brexit: ERG Tories tell Brussels it will regret letting ‘Perfidious Albion’ remain in EU beyond Friday – live news

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s talks with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, and MPs debating how long the article 50 extension should be

These are from my colleague Angelique Chrisafis in Paris.

Before Macron meets May, Elysee official insists any long extension would need ‘very strict guarantees’ that UK as an exiting state wouldn’t fully take part in or disrupt key decisions on future of EU eg commission head, budget. Would mean regular checks that UK abiding by this

Elysee source on length of possible Brexit extension: ‘we think one year would be too long’

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Brexit: Government sets date for UK participation in EU elections – live news

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

MPs are now debating amendments to Cooper Letwin. A result is expected within an hour or so.

We expect the House of Commons to debate the #CooperLetwin Bill around 9pm for up to an hour, with votes at the end. pic.twitter.com/0leLoH8gZQ

There’s been a split in the hard Brexit-supporting Tory backbench ERG group this evening: The MP, Daniel Kawczynski, has announced his resignation.

There have been recent rumblings of disquiet among the group; some of whom believe others are so determined to deliver the hardest of Brexits that they are actually imperiling the whole project. Kawczynski is one of them.

Have decided to resign from ERG. Despite excellent Chairmanship by @Jacob_Rees_Mogg who has accommodated all views I can no longer be a member of caucas which is preventing WA4 from passing. Hardcore element of ‘Unicorn’ dreamers now actually endangering #Brexit

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Libyan crisis escalates as warplane strikes Tripoli airport

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Passengers reported to have been seen leaving terminal after strike by pro-Haftar forces

A warplane has attacked the only functioning airport in Tripoli as fighting between forces loyal to the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar and rival militias escalated and EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to try to de-escalate the violence.

Mitiga airport, in an eastern suburb of the capital, was closed after it was hit in an airstrike by pro-Haftar forces. Passengers could be seen leaving the terminal, a Reuters correspondent at the airport said. Fighting was also under way at Tripoli’s international airport, 15 miles from the city centre, which has not been functioning since fighting destroyed much of it in 2014.

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MEPs back fines for web firms that fail to remove terrorist content

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Not responding to notification could cost companies 4% of their revenue under EU law

Internet companies will be fined up to 4% of their revenue if they fail to remove terrorist content within one hour of being notified by authorities, under legislation approved by MEPs.

The civil liberties committee approved the move by 35 to one, with abstentions, but removed an obligation on companies to monitor uploaded content or use automated tools.

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The rise of the killer robots – and the two women fighting back

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Jody Williams and Mary Wareham were leading lights in the campaign to ban landmines. Now they have autonomous weapons in their sights

It sounds like something from the outer reaches of science fiction: battlefield robots waging constant war, algorithms that determine who to kill, face-recognition fighting machines that can ID a target and take it out before you have time to say “Geneva conventions”.

This is no film script, however, but an ominous picture of future warfare that is moving ever closer. “Killer robots” is shorthand for a range of tech that has generals salivating and peace campaigners terrified at the ethical ramifications of warfare waged via digital proxies.

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Cabinet ‘in the dark’ over Theresa May’s plans for Brexit

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Cabinet source says PM negotiating with one hand behind her back, amid warnings long delay would cause ‘tremendous angst’

Theresa May is facing intense cabinet pressure to avoid the prospect of a long Brexit delay, amid increasing expectations that last ditch cross-party talks on a compromise departure plan will not produce anything concrete.

Before a crucial EU summit later this week, the prime minister is facing a fast-diminishing range of options that could split the Conservative party and prompt a mass cabinet walkout, or could result in the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal on Friday.

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Should democracies leave voters to their handheld devices? | Paul Chadwick

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The European parliament has identified the dangers of social media misuse ahead of its polls next month

It feels urgent, with elections approaching in several democracies, to focus on lessons from 2016, when the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election were both marred in ways still coming to light. Among several valuable reports, a recent study for the European parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology usefully encapsulates the challenges without unremitting alarmism and pessimism. It is clear-eyed about both the benefits and dangers to democracies of technologies that are in the handheld devices of most voters.

Against a backdrop of increasing polarisation, “new digital technologies have taken centre stage in political processes – both as a source of information and a campaigning platform”, says the study, Polarisation and the use of technology in political campaigns and communication. “Such new and relatively unregulated platforms create new opportunities for nefarious actors to deliberately push false content and distort information flows for political gain.” But artificial intelligence will also offer new opportunities for better accountability and transparency.

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Holocaust memorial replica stunt shines light on rightwing radicalism in Germany

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Art collective likened to ‘terrorist organisation’ by far-right politician Björn Hocke

When a group of performance artists erected a replica of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial next to the home of a far-right politician, they were hoping to draw attention to the revisionist views of a rising figure on Germany’s nationalist right.

But as the collective finds itself targeted by the first criminal investigation of its kind against a group of artists in modern German history, their stunt is instead putting the spotlight on the proximity between far-right politics and the public servants in formerly Communist east German states.

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