Voicemail message revealed as police say chances of finding footballer alive are ‘slim’
The search for the plane carrying the Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala that went missing over the English Channel has resumed, amid only “slim” hopes he survived.
The aircraft, carrying Sala and the pilot, disappeared off Alderney in the Channel Islands on Monday night.
Continue reading...Macron and Merkel sign update to 1963 Élysée treaty in effort to mitigate populist party gains
France and Germany have renewed their vows of postwar friendship, aiming to show that the traditional engine powering the EU project is still strong but drawing fierce criticism from the nationalist and populist parties advancing across the continent.
President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel signed the 16-page update to the 1963 Elysée treaty on Tuesday in the German border city of Aachen, residence of Charlemagne, the “father of Europe” who managed to unite much of western the continent in the ninth century.
Continue reading...European commission is expected to sound alarm on their use to attract wealthy
Brussels is to warn EU member states that the “golden visa” schemes used by Britain and others to attract the wealthy have exposed the continent to corruption and organised crime.
A report from the the European commission, expected to be published on Wednesday, claims the schemes designed to encourage the super-rich to invest in return for residency rights or citizenship pose a danger to the continent’s security.
Continue reading...Spokesman says it is ‘pretty obvious’ border controls would be needed under no deal
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The EU has confirmed it will enforce a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, despite the risk it would pose to peace.
In comments that will be highly uncomfortable for Dublin, Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief spokesman told reporters it was “pretty obvious” that border infrastructure would be necessary if the UK were to leave without deal.
Continue reading...Italian deputy PM blames migrant crisis on France’s ‘colonisation’ of Africa
France’s foreign ministry has summoned the Italian ambassador in an escalating row over migrant arrivals in Europe that pits the centrist government of Emmanuel Macron against Italy’s far-right-populist coalition.
Teresa Castaldo was summoned over “hostile” remarks made by the Italian deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio.
Continue reading...Twenty-nine-year-old in custody with two others after woman files complaint
The American singer Chris Brown and two other people were held in custody in Paris after a woman filed a rape complaint.
Brown was detained on Monday on potential charges of aggravated rape and drug infractions, a French judicial official said. Investigators have two days to decide whether to let him go or file preliminary charges.
Continue reading...Paul Whelan, ex-marine accused of spying, may have been unaware of possession
A Russian lawyer for Paul Whelan, the US citizen accused of spying on Russia, has said his client was carrying state secrets when he was arrested in Moscow but may not have realised it.
Whelan, an ex-marine, has been accused of an unspecified “act of espionage”, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Continue reading...As newsprint sales fall and tourists demand keychains, the city of Barcelona is trying to keep alive the old social culture that revolves around street kiosks
For generations, the day in Spain has begun with picking up the paper from the newspaper kiosk and then reading it over breakfast in a bar. These two urban institutions – the kiosk and the bar – have been the twin pillars of any barrio, or neighbourhood.
“You have a close relationship with your clients,” says Máximo Frutos, who owns a kiosk and is vice-president of the city’s news vendors association. “I have copies of the house keys for around 15 people in the barrio, in case they lose theirs. It’s not like any other business.”
Continue reading...Juventus footballer pleads guilty after agreeing to fine and suspended sentence in Madrid court
The Portugal and Juventus footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted committing tax fraud while playing for Real Madrid and agreed to pay an €18.8m (£16.5m) fine after striking a deal with prosecutors and tax authorities in return for a 23-month suspended prison sentence.
Ronaldo, 33, had been accused of defrauding the authorities of €14.8m (£12.9m) in unpaid taxes between 2011 and 2014.
Continue reading...PM faces a looming revolt over a no-deal Brexit as Corbyn criticises her talks as ‘PR sham’
Theresa May doubled down on her opposition to a second Brexit referendum on Monday night, claiming it would threaten Britain’s “social cohesion” and insisting the centrepiece of her strategy remained negotiating changes to the Irish backstop.
With just 67 days to go until Britain is due by law to leave the European Union, May exasperated MPs and business groups by offering scant evidence that she was willing to change course.
Continue reading...CNIL found that company failed to offer users transparent information on data use
The French data protection watchdog CNIL has fined Google a record €50m (£44m) for failing to provide users with transparent and understandable information on its data use policies.
For the first time, the company was fined using new terms laid out in the pan-European general data protection regulation. The maximum fine for large companies under the new law is 4% of annual turnover, meaning the theoretical maximum fine for Google is almost €4bn.
Continue reading...A collection of vintage ski and winter sports posters up to a century old – some worth thousands of dollars – is about to be auctioned in New York. The resorts advertised range from Europe’s Alpine jewels to the mountains of Canada, and all offer fun in the outdoors
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch accuses EU institutions of sustaining network of ‘inhuman and degrading’ migrant detention centres
The EU’s support for Libya’s anti-migrant policies is contributing to a cycle of “extreme abuse”, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, extortion and forced labour.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, who interviewed 66 migrants and asylum seekers in Libya last year, EU institutions and member states are continuing to sustain a network of detention centres characterised by “inhuman and degrading” conditions where the risk of abuse is rife.
Continue reading...Use of ‘O1G’ expletive illustrates rising anger at PM’s ‘slave law’ and anti-migrant rhetoric
Visitors to Budapest in recent weeks may have noticed the proliferation of a strange three-character code all across the city: “O1G”.
Graffitied on to walls and fences: O1G. Traced into the snow on car windscreens every time a wintry flurry falls: O1G. The abbreviation is short for Orbán egy geci, a pithy phrase deriding the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, using a Hungarian expletive that literally means sperm but is used as a catch-all insult.
Continue reading...Alexey Knedlyakovsky and Lusine Djanyan say they fear being arrested and beaten if sent home
Two Russian opposition activists denied political asylum in Sweden say they fear being arrested and beaten up if they are forced to go home.
“You never know when something will happen,” say Alexey Knedlyakovsky and Lusine Djanyan, who fled their home city of Krasnodar in March 2017 after what they say was a campaign of persecution by the secret police. They flew to Sweden with their two-year-old son and claimed asylum.
Continue reading...Charity calls for 1% wealth tax, saying it would raise enough to educate every child not in school
The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.
In an annual wealth check released to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the development charity Oxfam said 2018 had been a year in which the rich had grown richer and the poor poorer.
Continue reading...Critics warn many could be left without legal status to stay if settlement scheme fails
Migration experts have warned that the post-Brexit system for registering EU citizens living in the UK could become a new “Windrush scandal” as the scheme to register an estimated 3.5 million EU citizens living in the UK begins.
From Monday, the third phase of testing will open to EU residents in the UK, who will be able to register for the new post-Brexit “settled status”. The Home Office is extending its live trial to all EU citizens who hold a valid passport and any non-EU citizen family members who hold a valid biometric residence card.
Continue reading...Statement on Monday expected to focus on finding a remedy to issue that threatens to split Tory party
Theresa May is expected to reject calls to forge a cross-party consensus on Brexit when she lays out her plan B to parliament on Monday, choosing instead to back new diplomatic efforts in Brussels to renegotiate the Irish backstop.
The prime minister held a conference call with her bitterly divided cabinet from the country retreat of Chequers on Sunday evening.
Continue reading...Pre-dawn blaze injured 22 others and forced evacuation of 60 resort workers
Two people have died and 22 others have been injured after fire swept through a building in the French ski resort of Courchevel.
The fire spread rapidly after breaking out on an upper floor of the building, housing nearly 60 resort workers – many of them foreigners – some time after 4.30am on Sunday, forcing several residents to jump from windows.
Continue reading...Even as Paweł Adamowicz was lying in state at Gdańsk’s European Solidarity Centre, a museum, archive, and public space dedicated to the history and values of the independent trade union born in the city’s shipyards, its grief-stricken staff were preparing his entry into history.
The opening of the museum in 2014 was the realisation of a dream for Adamowicz, a Gdańsk native who had long sought to present his city to the world as a symbol of Europe’s hard-won freedom. In between shifts maintaining an overnight vigil by his coffin, researchers gathered materials with which to commemorate him.
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