A court challenge over the legality of the EU’s Brexit negotiations brought by a 97-year-old war veteran and 12 other emigrant Britons has been rejected by the European court of justice in Luxembourg. Harry Shindler, who lives in Italy, and others who reside in various EU member states had argued that the referendum in 2016 was invalid because they and more than… Read more »
Russian authorities have announced new charges against the US-born British financier William Browder – another twist in a highly politicised case that has seen the Kremlin tirelessly go after one of its most vocal international critics. On Monday, prosecutors in Moscow accused Browder of organising a “transnational criminal group” and claimed he may have poisoned Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who… Read more »
Moscow has named a square after Kim Philby, the British double agent who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, near the headquarters of Russia’s foreign intelligence service. The move comes as relations between the UK and Russia are at lows not seen since the cold war over the poisoning of the former double agent Sergei Skripal, allegedly by Russian spies. Sergei Sobyanin, the… Read more »
The UK will sink to the bottom of the European economic growth league next year to join Italy as the slowest-growing economy in the EU, before falling further the year after to anchor the table alone, according to European commission forecasts. The EU’s gloomy predictions are based on a soft Brexit – meaning Britain is expected to lag behind all its EU peers even if… Read more »
Pressure is mounting on Sri Lanka’s president to allow parliament to decide between two men claiming to be the country’s lawful prime minister, amid warnings that the constitutional dispute could lead to a “bloodbath”. President Maithripala Sirisena announced on live TV on Friday that Ranil Wickremesinghe, with whom he had governed in a fragile coalition since 2015, had been dismissed. In… Read more »
Traffickers should no longer be allowed to determine who comes to Europe, the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has said, as he suggested thousands of police officers could be on standby in the Mediterranean ready to guard the continent’s borders. “There are 700,000 illegal migrants – they need to go home,” said Babiš. Last year, 618,780 non-EU citizens were found to… Read more »
Italy’s populist government will cut its budget deficit targets from 2020, after investors sold off Italian assets and European Union ministers criticised its plans to jack up spending next year. The ruling coalition last week said it planned to run a deficit of 2.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) next year, tripling the previous government’s target. It also said that the deficit would stay… Read more »
Vladimir Putin has called the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal a “scumbag” and a “traitor”, as he angrily denied allegations that the Kremlin ordered his poisoning with a nerve agent. Speaking at an energy forum in Moscow, the Russian president accused the west of portraying Skripal, who was poisoned with novichok in Salisbury, as an innocent victim. “I see… Read more »