Europe

    Slovakia's Prime Minister has claimed Europe will make sure leaving the European Union is very painful for the UK. Robert Fico said Britain would not be allowed to make EU workers second-class citizens while still receiving the benefits of the single market. He told Financial Times: It will be very difficult for the UK, very difficult. The EU will take this opportunity to show the public: ‘listen guys, now you will see why it is important to stay in the EU’. This will be the position. Mr Fico stressed he had personal respect for Theresa May but said he did not envy her dilemma. He added: What would you say if you were in their position? Even if it is the fifth-biggest economy in the world  I understand their financial importance  this will still be very painful for the UK....

    Channel 7 Image caption Sydney medical student Zeynab Alshelh wanted to show solidarity with Muslim women in France A Muslim woman from Australia has told how she was forced to leave a beach in France for wearing a burkini. Zeynab Alshelh, a 23-year-old medical student, told Australian media she had travelled to Europe to show solidarity with local Muslim women. Footage broadcast on Channel 7 showed local people saying they would call the police if she didn't leave. The ban on burkinis in several French Riviera towns was overruled in August by the top administrative court. Local mayors who brought in the laws said the full- body swimsuits were a symbol of Islam and potentially provocative after the July terror atrocity in Nice. Ms Alshelh said she and her family travelled ...

    The Russian government is ploughing through its foreign exchange reserves at such a fast rate that it could use up its rainy day fund by 2017, government officials have claimed. Despite being a major oil-producing nation, pension pots may have to be raided to cover budget shortfalls, on which much of the reserve funds have already been spent. Russia's economy has been in recession for nearly two years as oil prices have slumped and Western sanctions – imposed in protest at the Russian intervention in Ukraine – have bitten hard. “The Reserve Fund, as I remember, will be used up over the next year," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Lavrov told reporters. International analysts agree. "At the current rate, the fund would be depleted in mid-2017, perhaps a few months later," sai...

    Taoiseach Enda Kenny will today attend a meeting of EU heads of state, the first to not include Britain, for crunch talks that are set to be dominated by border security, rumours of an EU army, migration, the Apple tax crisis, and the Brexit fallout. He will travel to the Slovakian capital of Bratislava for the summit with counterparts from 26 EU countries, with British prime minister Theresa May a notable exception due to her nation’s decision to leave the EU. The meeting is part of a series of behind-closed-doors talks between EU members in recent months in order to address a range of issues affecting the future of Europe. A Government spokesperson last night said the event is part of a “process of political reflection about the future of Europe”. Officially the foc...

    British expats could be forced to apply for long term residency visas if they want to live in Europe post Brexit, Home Office sources have said. The changes, which will form part of the Brexit negotiations, would mean British pensioners who want to retire to Spain or Italy would have to apply for a residency permit and could be forced to prove their income in order to settle. People who already live abroad are unlikely to be affected by the changes under reciprocal agreements expected to be signed when the UK leaves the union. But Home Office sources have confirmed they expect the new system for people seeking to move abroad permanently would be similar to the one currently operating for non-EU nationals. Expats could be forced to demonstrate their income and savings in or...

    Dozens of migrants were left stranded on a border fence for nine hours after becoming stuck while attempting to cross into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, 200 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa attempted to jump the six-metre fence separating Morocco and the autonomous city in northern Africa on Saturday. At least 50 were left stranded at the top for hours in the blazing sun, before being lowered to the ground by authorities. Several had to be take to hospital with minor injuries. It is thought to be the first mass attempt to cross the border into Ceuta since 4 June, when around 150 migrants tried to break through the northern border in Benzu.

    EU chief Donald Tusk has urged Theresa May to start Brexit negotiations ASAP as top politicians meet in Downing Street on Thursday morning. The European Council president seems to be suggesting that the prime minister should trigger Article 50, the official mechanism to split from the EU, and start two years of talks with Brussels. But the Conservative premier has already ruled out making such a move this year, while Brexit Secretary David Davis has hinted Article 50 will be triggered sometime in 2017. Tusk's and May's meeting comes as the 27 other nations of the EU get together for an informal summit in Bratislava, Slovakia. The EU chief plans to update May on the talks. May and Tusk meet outside Number 10 The Conservative premier told MPs this week that her government wo...

    Edward Snowden Supporters of Edward Snowden are raising funds to try to help refugees who helped hide him when he went on the run in Hong Kong in 2013. Until now, the whereabouts of Snowden in the weeks after he leaked secret intelligence documents had remained a mystery. But it has now been revealed he was staying with refugees in cramped and impoverished flats in some of the poorer parts of the city. One of the whistleblower’s lawyers in Hong Kong, Robert Tibbo, disclosed the details in an interview with Canada’s National Post. Tibbo said Snowden had sent $1,000 to each of the people who had helped him. Other supporters of Snowden are also sending donations. The fear is that now those who helped him have been identified, they might face reprisals. The money is to try to ...

    Topless models have been sent onto the streets of Russia in an attempt to slow down speeding drivers. The bizarre idea has been launched by a Russian road safety campaign in an effort to reduce the 30,000-a-year deaths on Russia's roads, says the Daily Mirror. The female road safety assistants, dressed only in boots and knickers, hold large speed signs over their chest while walking down the roads on Russia's Novaya Zemlya island. A spokesman for the campaign, entitled Avtodrizhenia, which staged the trial, said that most speeding drivers, the majority of whom happened to be men, slowed down to admire the female road safety assistants. There were also no reported accidents due to distracted driving, the campaign added. The experiment was first trialled in 2013 and has been...

  Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday strongly defended her government's handling of the flood of migrants that crossed into Germany last year but conceded that more still needs to be done and that concerns that have led to increasing support for an anti-immigrant nationalist party need to be taken seriously. Merkel told lawmakers that since she addressed them at this time last year, Germany has managed to come a long way in dealing with the hundreds of thousands of migrants that flooded in to the country. "The situation is many times better than a year ago, but there remains a lot to do," she said. On the weekend, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union suffered an embarrassing election performance in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Merkel has her parliamentary constituency, whe...