Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Under the baking sun, workers toil for €2 an hour. And the country’s hard-right authorities keep turning the screw
The dawn was about to break as I arrived, with a team of workers in the farmer’s van, at the vast fields that stretch out for miles around Campobello, the “handsome fields”, in western Sicily. Everyone got out, and immediately started to work on their line of olive trees. It would take the team several weeks to harvest them.
Spaniards eat later and stay up longer than their European neighbours because of the siesta. But now that’s under threat
Midweek in Madridon a summer’s evening, it’s 25C and at 10pm the bars, cafes and squares are full of Madrileños, chatting and drinking. They’re still there at midnight, only now some are eating too. Not until 2am do the bars start to close as the crowd thins out. Most of these people will have to go to work in the morning, so the question is: when do they sleep?
The answer is, later. According to Eurostat, the average Spaniard’s day starts 90 minutes later than a German’s. When the Spaniard eats lunch the German has been back at work for two hours and when the German knocks off at 4.30pm, the Spaniard is heading back to work for another three hours. And finally, when the German is in bed at 10pm, the Spaniard is having supper before hitting the sack some time between midnight and 1am.
David Ibbotson, who was flying light aircraft that crashed in Channel, has not been found
The family of the missing pilot of the plane carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala have set up a fundraising page for donations to restart a search for him.
Sala’s body was recovered and formally identified earlier this week but David Ibbotson, who was flying the light aircraft, has not been found.
The sale of the artworks has sparked outrage with one landscape attributed to the Nazi leader expected to fetch at least €45,000
Five paintings allegedly by Adolf Hitler will be auctioned off on Saturday in the German city of Nuremberg, sparking anger that the Nazi memorabilia market is alive and well.
The city’s mayor, Ulrich Maly, has condemned the upcoming sale as being “in bad taste,” speaking to Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Although there is a cloud over economy, the silver lining is central banks are more dovish
After the synchronised global economic expansion of 2017 came the asynchronous growth of 2018, when most countries other than the US started to experience slowdowns. Worries about US inflation, the US Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory, trade wars, Italian budget and debt woes, China’s slowdown and emerging-market fragilities led to a sharp fall in global equity markets toward the end of the year.
The good news at the start of 2019 is that the risk of an outright global recession is low. The bad news is that we are heading into a year of synchronised global deceleration; growth will fall toward – and, in some cases, below – potential in most regions.
Derman Tamimou from Togo found lying unconscious on side of road between Piedmont and Hautes-Alpes
French magistrates have opened an inquiry into “involuntary manslaughter” after a man died of hypothermia after trying to cross into France from Italy.
A truck driver found Derman Tamimou from Togo on Thursday morning, lying unconscious on the side of a highway that links the northern Italian region of Piedmont with France’s Hautes-Alpes. He was taken to hospital in the French town of Briançon, but it is unclear whether he died there or was already dead at the scene. He was found between Briançon and Montgenèvre, an Alpine village about 6 miles from the Italian border.
New home for Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service took 12 years and €1bn to build
No mobile phones. No private laptops. No checking personal emails or social media. And at the end of the day, all access cards must be locked in a safe.
More than €1bn (£870m) and 12 years after construction began, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has officially opened its new Berlin home, the world’s biggest intelligence headquarters.
The French ambassador’s recall ought to remind Italy’s populist leaders that they need some friends in Europe
Diplomatic etiquette would normally classify the recall of an ambassador for “consultations” as a middle-order symbol of displeasure. During the cold war, the summoning, or withdrawal, of an ambassador was mundane. More recently, Hungary pulled its ambassador from the Netherlands in 2017, in response to criticism by the outgoing Dutch ambassador in Hungary.
Goods dispatched in coming days may not arrive until after 29 March deadline
British exporters sending goods to far-flung destinations in the coming days risk being locked out of harbours around the world as a no-deal Brexit looms, business leaders have warned.
Independent trade experts and the UK’s biggest business groups said exporters could be dispatching goods from UK ports imminently that would not arrive until after the 29 March deadline. This raised the prospect of goods being stuck in ports or facing hefty additional costs in the event of a disorderly Brexit.
Move comes after Italian deputy PM met leaders of the anti-Macron gilets jaunes
Paris has taken the extraordinary step of recalling its ambassador from Rome, in the worst crisis between the two neighbouring countries since the second world war.
France blamed what it called called baseless verbal attacks from Italy’s political leaders, which it said were “without precedent since world war two”.
Theresa May clashed with Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk during Brexit talks in Brussels but has secured agreement for a fresh round of formal negotiations to break the impasse.
A meeting with the European commission president was described as “robust”, with Juncker resolutely rebuffing May’s demand for a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement.
Former chancellor makes comments ahead of important elections for Andrea Nahles’ party
The former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been out of office for more than 13 years, but he is still capable of causing mischief at the highest levels of his beleaguered Social Democrat party (SPD).
In an interview with the German news magazine Der Spiegel published on Friday, Schröder criticised the SPD leader, Andrea Nahles, saying she had made “amateur mistakes” and did not have the key qualifications he considered necessary for serving as chancellor.
Not only were the Brexiters clueless: they didn’t give a stuff about Ireland. But this will come back to haunt the Tories
Donald Tusk should be criticised not for his malice, but his moderation. The European council president triggered a tsunami of confected outrage from leavers today when he observed, with some justice, that there should be a special place in hell for those who promoted Brexit without a plan. But he should have said far more. He should have added that, within that special place, there should be an executive suite of sleepless torment for those politicians who promoted Brexit without ever giving a stuff about Ireland.
Man, 27, held over Antwerp bank raid as details emerge of thieves making off hastily after alarm sounded
Burglars who broke into a bank in Antwerp’s diamond quarter by crawling through tunnels and a sewage pipe left gold bars strewn across the floor of the main vault after apparently being disturbed during the raid.
They also left behind vital clues including a mattress, extension cables, pneumatic hammers and a grinding wheel that has been traced through its serial number to a shop in the Netherlands.
Warren Entsch demands investigation after German convicted kidnapper boasts about new shipment
A government MP has said it “beggars belief” that more endangered Australian birds have been exported to a German organisation headed by a convicted kidnapper and extortionist, after a Guardian investigation revealed there had been multiple warnings that the birds could be sold to collectors at a huge profit.
Warren Entsch repeated calls for an independent investigation into how the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots was able to receive hundreds of rare and endangered birds from Australia, after its founder, Martin Guth, used a social media post to say more endangered species had arrived at its facilities in January.
Prosecution may appeal the acquittal by ICC on charges of crimes against humanity
Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has been released on bail to Belgium following his acquittal by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, the court said Tuesday.
Belgium said on Saturday that it had agreed in principle to host Gbagbo pending a possible prosecution appeal against his acquittal, but that final arrangements were being made.
Police treating blaze in French capital’s 16th district as possible arson attack
Police have arrested a woman suspected of starting a fire that swept through an eight-storey apartment building in Paris, killing at least eight people and injuring 30 others, including six firefighters.
The woman, who lived in the building, was taken into custody as flames swept rapidly through the block in the French capital’s 16th arrondissement, not far from the Parc des Princes stadium, home to the Paris Saint-Germain club.
Turning back to Marin Selmayr for a moment, Mina Andreeva, the European commission’s deputy chief spokeswoman has posted a tweet that seems intended to mollify Brexiters upset by the tone of his intervention earlier. She was responding to Fraser Nelson, editor of the pro-Brexit Spectator.
Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist party leader who won a Nobel peace prize for his role in the Good Friday agreement, has announced that he and others “are planning to take the government to court over the protocol on Northern Ireland - which includes the so-called “backstop” - as it breaches the terms of the Good Friday agreement.”
The announcement came in a three sentence press statement from Global Britain, a pro-Brexit thinktank. It said:
The Nobel peace prize winner and architect of the Good Friday agreement plans to initiate judicial review proceedings to ensure that the protocol is removed from the withdrawal agreement.
Lord Trimble says that alternative arrangements - as outlined in A Better Deal And A Better Future - should be put in place instead.
Address comes after EU countries and US throw weight behind challenger Juan Guaidó
Nicolás Maduro has hit back at the “cowardly” and “disastrous” decision of a succession of European countries to recognise his rival, Juan Guaidó, as interim president, as Venezuela enters what many observers believe could be a critical week in its fast-escalating political crisis.
Addressing a military rally in the northern state of Aragua, Maduro said he was the target of a “gringo” plot to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution he had inherited from his political mentor,Hugo Chávez, after his death in 2013.
Prominent writers including Leila Slimani have spoken out against the Salon du Livre in Paris’s use of phrases including ‘young adult’, a ‘bookquizz’ and ‘le live’
A celebration of the “Scène Young Adult” at the Salon du Livre in Paris next month has drawn the condemnation of dozens of French authors and intellectuals, who have described the adoption of English terminology as an “unbearable act of cultural delinquency”.
The proliferation of English words on display at the book fair, where the “scène YA” was set to feature “Le Live”, a “Bookroom”, a “photobooth” and a “bookquizz”, spurred around 100 French writers into action, among them three winners of the country’s Goncourt prize – Lullaby author Leïla Slimani, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Marie NDiaye – and the bestselling writers Muriel Barbery and Catherine Millet. Together they have issued a scalding rebuke to organisers over their use of that “sub-English known as globish”.