European companies dumping toxic ships on Bangladesh beaches, HRW says

European maritime companies are ditching their old ships for scrap on Bangladeshi beaches in dangerous and polluting conditions that have killed workers pulling them apart, says Human Rights Watch.

Bangladesh’s southeastern Sitakunda beaches have emerged as one of the world’s largest shipbreaking yards, fuelling the South Asian country’s booming construction industry and its need for cheap sources of steel.

European firms are among the shipping companies to have sent 520 vessels to the site since 2020, where thousands of workers take apart ships without protective gear.

Nationalist, populist, far-right parties eye rising support across Europe

Riding waves of fear and anger emanating from Russia’s war in Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, nationalist, populist and far-right parties are eyeing rising support across Europe.

Polls have suggested that a backlash against immigration, LGBTQ rights, abortion and support for Ukraine is unfolding across the continent.

That has political forces branding themselves “conservative” and “patriotic” eyeing next year’s EU elections as a prime test.

Coronavirus Started in China, but Europe Became the Hub for Its Global Spread

When the coronavirus began to spread, Mongolia took sensible precautions. It halted border crossings from China, with which it shares a 2,877-mile border. Mongolia also imposed travel bans on people from South Korea and Japan, the other epicenters of the pandemic at the time. Yet the virus nonetheless found its way to Mongolia, where the first infected person — known as the “index case” — was a Frenchman who had come to the country from France via Moscow.

Europe’s left looks to Jeremy Corbyn

THE HAGUE — Traditional left-wing parties across Europe are searching for a savior.

Some believe his name is Jeremy Corbyn.

The British Labour leader’s relatively bright fortunes contrast with his peer parties’ electoral decline from Italy to the Czech Republic.

France’s once mighty Socialist Party came fifth in last year’s presidential election and was forced to sell its historic Rue de Solférino headquarters in Paris to cover its debts. The Dutch Labor Party suffered an even more precipitous political death slide last year, going from junior partner in government to seventh place.

With anti-Muslim laws, Europe enters new dark age

LONDON — What has become of Europe? New laws targeting Muslims are reminiscent of a time when innocent Jewish children were abducted by masked monks and imprisoned in monasteries to “save” them from the eternal fire of hell. In our blind mistrust of religious differences, we are returning to the Middle Ages, when the only model for integration was the forced conversion of the minority religion to the majority.

Take Denmark, where the government has introduced new laws mandating that children living in “ghetto” neighborhoods must spend 25 hours apart from their parents every week. During this time, they’ll be taught “Danish values,” including Christmas and Easter traditions, and receive Danish language classes.

What Europe Can Teach America About Russian Disinformation

In 2014, United States officials encountered a new form of Kremlin disinformation in Ukraine. As “little green men” streamed into the country’s south, blatant falsehoods over anything from the history of World War II to weapon-system deployments spread across the internet and the airwaves. Propagandists disguised as professors, activists, and journalists sowed confusion about what was actually happening on the ground: soldiers bearing no flag had occupied strategic territory in eastern Ukraine. Intelligence collectors supplied propagandists with tapped calls and hacked emails containing compromising language, and the Kremlin leaked all of this to the media at key moments.

Rise of far-right in Italy and Austria gives Putin some friends in the west

Suddenly, Vladimir Putin has some useful friends in the west.

As he looks to improve relations with Europe, at a new low since the March nerve-agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, the Russian president knows he can count on the backing of at least two capitals.

Both Austria and Italy’s new governments, formed late last year and last month, include populist, far-right parties that make little secret of their sympathy for Moscow – and have even signed cooperation agreements with Putin’s ruling United Russia party.

A mysterious radiation cloud spread over Europe in September. Russia finally acknowledged it.

After weeks of denying its existence, the Russian government this week acknowledged the strange surge of radiation that billowed over Europe in September.

The French nuclear safety regulator IRSN first detected the radioactive element ruthenium 106 in the air in late September, tracing its origins to the Ural Mountains in the border region between Russia and Kazakhstan. Other European cities like Stockholm, Milan, and Budapest also began picking up radiation traces.

The Return of Fascism

On July 22, 2011, a Norwegian extremist named Anders Behring Breivik shot off an email to more than a thousand people. A self-­identified fascist, Breivik attached a 1,500-page screed attacking Islam, cultural Marxism, feminism, and immigration. Titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” the manifesto demanded the forced deportation of all Muslims from Europe. An hour and a half later, Breivik set off in a Volkswagen van to kill 77 people, first by detonating a fertilizer bomb in Oslo, then by gunning down teenagers at a summer camp on the island of Utoya. It was the bloodiest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II.

Deadly heat wave, nicknamed ‘Lucifer,’ engulfs Europe

A summer of record-breaking heat continues around the world, as Europe sweats under a heatwave so intense locals have dubbed it “Lucifer.”

The heat wave, which stretches from Eastern Europe to parts of France, Italy, and Spain, has already caused at least six deaths, slowed traffic, and sparked wildfires. Over the weekend, temperatures in southern Spain reached high as 111°F, while the south of France saw temperatures near 104°F.

Britons living in Europe could lose right to live in another EU country

British people living in the European Union could lose the right to live in another EU member state after Brexit, it emerged at the end of talks in Brussels.

British officials raised the issue with their European counterparts during three-and-a-half days of intense technical talks. The EU made clear it would not move without a reciprocal offer for European nationals living in Britain that would allow them to move to another EU country and return to the UK.

Netanyahu Tells European Leaders Concern for Palestinian Rights Is “Crazy”

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was caught on tape on Wednesday urging four European leaders to help him undermine a provision of a European Union trade agreement that imposes an obligation on Israel to respect the rights of the millions of Palestinians it rules in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Beijing’s Balkan backdoor

BELGRADE — In the thick of a discussion about the future of the Balkans, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić jumped from his chair, unfurled a wall-sized map and spread it across the thick mauve carpet in his private receiving room.

“You’ll see what my real passion is,” he said, kneeling next to a multicolored map of Serbia criss-crossed with planned highways and rail lines. “It’s roads and economy.”

Serbia is in the midst of a physical transformation that Vučić has promised his compatriots will end their isolation and open the door to the European Union. To turn his “passion” into reality, the Serbian president is relying not just on Europe, but on an old ally farther east — China.

Defend Europe boat tries to block migrant rescues

Far-right activists have set sail in a boat with plans to prevent the arrival of Europe-bound boats carrying refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, sparking criticism from an anti-racism monitor.

Defend Europe, the group behind the journey which began Sunday, said on its fundraising page that its members would set sail in a 422-tonne vessel with a 25-member crew after receiving more than $115,000 in donations in recent weeks.

China Sees Opening Left by Trump in Europe, and Quietly Steps In

LONDON — Much of the world’s attention at the Group of 20 economic summit on Friday and Saturday will be on President Trump’s first meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, with strenuous efforts to decipher the nature of the long-distance bromance between them.

But the leader of the world’s other superpower, Xi Jinping of China, will also be in Hamburg, Germany, ready to slip quietly into the widening gap between Mr. Trump and longtime European allies and to position Beijing as the globe’s newest, biggest defender of a multilateral, rules-based system.

Central Europe’s flagging effort to derail Gazprom deal

Central and Eastern European countries are firmly opposed to a proposed settlement between Gazprom and the European Commission that spares the Russian company from paying a cent in fines on charges that it abused its market power.

But there’s little chance that Gazprom’s main victims — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — will be able to derail the draft deal.

Europe’s elite put on grand show of unity in Rome

ROME — Europe’s prominence descended on the Italian capital Saturday to celebrate their Union’s 60th anniversary with a single aim: fare bella figura.

After a year in which the EU has had to stomach the Brexit vote, bitter fights over refugees and the resurgence of far-right populism, failure was not an option. Yet for a club riven by division over matters large and small, keeping up appearances was no small order.

Putin is a bigger threat to Europe’s existence than Isis

The leaders of the US and the EU are making a grievous error in thinking that president Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a potential ally in the fight against Islamic State. The evidence contradicts them. Putin’s aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood Europe with Syrian refugees.

Russian planes have been bombing the civilian population in southern Syria forcing them to flee to Jordan and Lebanon. There are now 20,000 Syrian refugees camped out in the desert awaiting admission to Jordan. A smaller number are waiting to enter Lebanon. Both groups are growing.

Russian Hackers May Now Be Mucking With European Elections

When the US intelligence community released a report in early January laying out the evidence for Russian meddling in the US election, US officials warned that this wasn't a one-off attack, and that Russia could soon set its hacker corps loose to disrupt elections in other countries. "Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future efforts worldwide," the report said, "including against US allies and their election processes."

Over 70 Years Ago, Nazis Victimized This Community. They Still Struggle For Acceptance.

BERLIN ― They were demeaned, stripped of their rights, forced into labor, sent to extermination camps, murdered. Theirs is a story of the Holocaust that often goes untold, and even so many years later, this community remains socially marginalized.

The Roma, also known as Gypsies, a term some consider insulting, are believed to have come from India to Europe between the 8th and 10th centuries. Before the Second World War, it is estimated that there were nearly 1 million of them in Europe. The precise number who perished during the Holocaust remains unknown, but historians say about a quarter of the European Roma population was murdered by Germans and their allies, while the Council of Sinti and Roma suggest the figure is about half a million.