Military conflicts

Very few of 2,000 schoolchildren and teachers tested in the German state of Saxony showed antibodies to Covid-19, a study has found, suggesting schools may not play as big a role in spreading the virus as some had feared.

Germany began reopening schools in May, though debate continues as to the role children may play in spreading the virus to vulnerable adults at home as well as to older teachers and school staff.

The study by the University hospital in Dresden analysed blood samples from almost 1,500 children aged between 14 and 18 and 500 teachers from 13 schools in Dresden and the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz in May and June.

The largest study conducted in Germany on schoolchildren and teachers included testing in schools where there were coronavirus outbreaks.

Spain has ringfenced more than 70,000 people in Galicia in the second local lockdown ordered in as many days, as one of Europe’s worst-affected countries in the Covid-19 pandemic scrambles to contain new flare-ups.

Around 3,000 residents of public housing tower blocks in Melbourne, Australia, have also been confined to their apartments with police officers stationed on every floor, in an illustration of the difficulty countries face in keeping coronavirus curves down after they have been flattened.

The detection of more than 250 cases in Spain’s north-western region of Galicia, nearly half of them in the province of Lugo, has prompted a new lockdown until Friday, which includes a ban on people leaving or entering the coastal community of A Marina except for work.

Similar measures were imposed in Catalonia on Saturday. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told a political rally on Sunday that people should be vigilant but should feel encouraged by the swift response. “The early detection of these outbreaks shows the health system is much better prepared” than in March, he said.

More than 200,000 people are known to have been infected with the virus in Spain, and as of Sunday 28,385 had died.

Residents of nine public housing blocks in Melbourne learned on Saturday evening that they would be confined to their dwellings for at least five days, and possibly for as long as two weeks.

Around 300,000 people across the state of Victoria have been placed under less onerous lockdowns as the local government struggles to contain a second peak in cases.

Numbers continued to rise in other countries that started lifting their lockdowns weeks ago to mitigate the pandemic’s economic impact. The Philippines reported its largest single-day jump in new infections on Sunday, 2,434, taking the total to more than 44,000, the health ministry said. There were seven new deaths, making 1,300 overall. Officials attributed the growing number of cases to increasing contact between people as quarantine measures have been eased.

Infections in Saudi Arabia surpassed 4,000 a day again after dipping briefly, taking the total in the worst-hit country in the Middle East past 200,000. The neighbouring United Arab Emirates surpassed 50,000 cases on Sunday, but still plans to reopen Dubai, its commercial hub, on 7 July.

Israel’s health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said the country was facing a second wave of the virus after 977 new cases on Sunday, the highest daily number so far. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday: “We are at the height of a new corona offensive. This is a very strong outbreak that is growing and spreading in the world and also here.”

Tens of thousands of Israelis were ordered into quarantine on Thursday, and the country’s domestic spy agency has been asked to use its phone surveillance technology to assist with contact tracing. The existence of the tracking system was first disclosed when the virus reached Israel. Under challenge from civil rights groups, the cabinet said it could only be used if the spread of the virus became an emergency.

Cases are also growing at their fastest rate so far in the West Bank, where residents were ordered to stay at home on Friday. Movement between Palestinian cities and towns will be heavily restricted for at least the next five days. Palestinian authorities reported more than 500 new cases, taking the total to 3,835 since the outbreak began.

Greece said it would not let any Serbian visitors enter the country until at least 15 July, as it tries to balance controlling the virus with allowing its important and lucrative tourism industry to function. Serbia declared a state of emergency in Belgrade on Friday, reimposing some restrictions to slow Covid-19 after a surge of infections in the capital.

Iran’s health ministry said on Sunday that 163 people had died in the past 24 hours, the highest figure recorded since the outbreak was recognised in the country. More than 11,500 are known to have been killed by the virus overall. The government ordered citizens to wear face masks in public after admitting that its efforts to introduce voluntary social distancing were not working.

Europe has lost a vastly increased area of forest to harvesting in recent years, data suggests, reducing the continent’s carbon absorption capacity and possibly indicating wider problems with the EU’s attempts to combat the climate crisis.

Many of the EU’s forests – which account for about 38% of its land surface area – are managed for timber production, and thus harvested regularly. But the loss of biomass increased by 69% in the period from 2016 to 2018, compared with the period from 2011 to 2015, according to satellite data. The area of forest harvested increased by 49% in the same comparison, published in the journal Nature Research.

Brexit negotiations have resumed in Brussels in an attempt to break the deadlock over four key issues: fisheries, fair competition in trade, governance and security.

Talks started on Monday with a two-hour, face-to-face meeting between David Frost, the chief UK negotiator, and the EU’s Michel Barnier, the first since the Covid-19 outbreak halted talks in March.

As Frost and his team of a dozen-plus negotiators headed to Brussels by train on Sunday, it was being revealed that Boris Johnson had given him a new role (and a peerage) as his national security adviser.

How does Frost’s appointment affect Brexit talks?

France was swept by a green wave on Sunday as ecology candidates won a number of major victories in the country’s local elections.

Early results suggested the biggest winners of the delayed vote would be the green party, Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), while the election delivered the predicted blow to Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM) party, which has failed to take root locally since it was founded four years ago.

In Paris, the current mayor and favourite, Anne Hidalgo – who has been engaged in a bitter three-way battle – emerged with a large majority, polling just under half the votes cast in the capital.

Hidalgo, a Socialist, who is supported by EELV and the Communists, made tackling climate change and pollution the key element of her election programme. After her victory was announced, Hidalgo, in charge at City Hall for the last six years, said voters had chosen to make Paris more “ecological, social and humanist”.

“You have chosen hope, teamwork, a Paris that can breathe, that is better to live in, shows more solidarity and that leaves nobody to fall by the wayside,” she said in a brief speech.

In an election marked by the coronavirus, many people stayed away from polling stations, leading to an historic level of abstention.

The first round took place on 15 March, two days before France went into a strict two-month coronavirus lockdown. The second round, due to be held the following Sunday, was postponed.

Initial figures suggested only 40% of the 16.5 million in areas holding a second round turned out on Sunday to choose the mayors and councillors whose decisions affect their daily lives. Participation in the last local elections in 2014 was 52.4%.

At many Paris polling stations, protection methods including distancing marks on the ground and glass screens seemed hardly necessary given the trickle of voters. “It’s been like this all day,” said a security guard at one in the centre of the city. “Very quiet.”

More than 60% of local mayors had been already decided in the first round, but many major cities and towns, including Paris, Marseille, Toulouse and Lyon, remained up for grabs.

Lyon, France’s third largest city, changed colour, with the protege of veteran former Socialist turned LREM mayor Gérard Collomb, losing to the EELV candidate. Bordeaux, a bastion of the centre right, was also taken by the ecologists, as were Strasbourg, Besançon, Poitiers, Annecy and Tours.

In Lille, the Socialist party’s Martine Aubry, mayor since 2001 and daughter of the “father” of the EU, Jacques Delors, won after a neck-and-neck battle with the Green candidate by just 227 votes.

Among the other main results were Le Havre, where the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, retained his mayoral seat with 59% of the vote. Speaking after his victory was announced, Philippe described the election as an “important democratic moment”. “The results are clear at Le Havre and I want to thank local people who continue to have confidence in me,” he said.

Philippe will be waiting to hear if he will return to Le Havre sooner than expected after Macron carries out his predicted government reshuffle in the next week or so.

In France’s southernmost city, Perpignan, the far-right candidate, Louis Aliot, a former partner of the Rassemblement National leader, Marine Le Pen, won in a major victory for the party.

There was another shock in Saint-Denis, the Paris banlieue run by the Communist party for the best part of a century, which elected a Socialist mayor.

Jérôme Fourquet of the pollsters Ifop said local elections were historically a way for the population to punish those in power. However, he said it would be difficult to interpret Sunday’s results because LREM, a fledgling party created to carry Macron to power in 2017, had few outgoing mayors. While Macron’s centrist party is dominating French politics at a national level, having fragmented the traditional right and left, it has little representation locally.

“LREM will score badly because it has no outgoing mayors to lose, it has to win,” Fourquet said. “And most French mayors come from the traditional right and left. This means, in terms of sanctioning those in power, it will not be easy to read.”

He added: “Nationally, there are two main forces in politics right now, the Rassemblement National and Macron. At a national level, Marine Le Pen is his main opponent. But these two forces are not present at a local level, where Les Républicains and the Parti Socialiste are most solid.”

Ireland’s next government will be formed on Saturday after the Green party voted resoundingly to enter a coalition with two larger rivals.

Members of the environmental party decided by a 76% majority to form an administration with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, a party statement on Friday evening said.

It signed up to a programme that promises radical action on climate change but will also have to shoulder the burden of leading the country’s economic recovery from Covid-19.

Its deputy leader, Catherine Martin, said: “Now we will move forward together, respecting the democratic wishes of the majority of our party at all times, listening to each other … working in unity to protect our country and our planet.”

The Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, will take over the role of Irish taoiseach from Leo Varadkar in an historic reconciliation of a political feud with Fine Gael dating back to the foundation of the state a century ago.

The two larger parties needed the support of the Greens to have a working majority in the Irish parliament, equating to about 80 seats. February’s election was inconclusive and efforts to strike an agreement were hampered as the country’s caretaker government coped with the pandemic.

A total of 1,435 Green members voted in favour and 457 against the coalition deal. It was earlier endorsed by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

The Green party’s leader, Eamon Ryan, said: “There’s a sense of responsibility on us now because we do have a job to do. We have to go in and help work with our coalition partners in government in actually getting our country out of a really severe economic crisis.

“People at home who are losing their jobs or maybe risk of that, they want a government to get up and stand up for them and get everyone back working.”

Among key concessions for the Greens is the new government’s target to achieve 7% carbon emissions cuts on average annually.

Rifkin’s Festival, the new film by Woody Allen, has been selected to open the San Sebastián film festival in Spain.

Starring Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel and Gina Gershon, Rifkin’s Festival was shot in and around the city in 2019, and according to the plot synopsis takes place during the festival itself. “It tells the story of a married American couple who go to the San Sebastián festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of the city and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there.”

The start of production on the film was marked with a press conference in the city during which Allen said he “never thought of retiring”.

A prosecutor investigating crimes committed during Kosovo‘s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia has indicted Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The indictment was announced as Thaçi was on his way to Washington for a White House meeting with Serbia’s president organised by Richard Grenell, Donald Trump’s controversial ambassador to Germany who was also appointed as the administration’s Balkan peace envoy.

The meeting had been scheduled for Saturday, but Grenell announced on Twitter on Wednesday evening that Thaçi had cancelled his visit following the announcement. “I respect his decision not to attend the discussions until the legal issues of those allegations are settled,” Grenell wrote. Kosovo’s new prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will represent the country at the White House meeting.

Hoti’s predecessor, Albin Kurti, accused Grenell of helping to bring down his government because it had resisted a US-backed deal with Serbia.

Trump is hoping to gain a diplomatic victory by brokering a deal between the two countries, which have not normalised relations since Kosovo broke away from Serbia following a Nato bombing campaign in 1999. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but this is not recognised by Serbia. Nor is Kosovo a member of the UN or other major international bodies.

The surprise announcement on Wednesday by the prosecutor’s office at the Kosovo specialist chambers in the Hague appeared designed to scupper chances for a White House deal that could make Thaçi politically untouchable.

The prosecutor’s statement said Thaçi and nine other former commanders in the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought a guerrilla campaign against Serb forces before the Nato intervention, had been indicted in April.

The indictment is for a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance, persecution and torture. It says the group is criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders, and notes that the victims were Serbs, Kosovo Albanians and other ethnicities, and included political opponents.

Wednesday’s statement makes it clear that the pre-trial judge had not yet confirmed the charges, but the prosecutor’s office said it was taking the unusual step of making the charges public before that point because of Thaçi’s repeated efforts to “obstruct and undermine” the court’s work.

“I assume the prosecutor got permission from the court to do this,” said Clint Williamson, a former US special envoy on war crimes who led the Kosovo investigation which formed the basis for the charges.

“When I released the preliminary investigative findings back in 2014, I cited concerns about witness intimidation and other efforts to obstruct the investigation, and there is every indication that this has continued,” he said. “The release of the public announcement of the indictment seems to reflect the ongoing concerns about that.”

The Kosovo specialist chambers were established in 2015 through an amendment to the Kosovo constitution and the passing of a special law to establish its jurisdiction. It came after the EU special investigation that Williamson led found “compelling” evidence of systemic war crimes carried out by the KLA leadership.

Thaçi did not immediately comment on the indictment, but a spokesman confirmed that he had been on his way to Washington at the time it was made public. In an interview with the Guardian in 2018, Thaçi said: “We believe the special court was unnecessary and unfair, but because of our relationship with the EU and the US we decided to support it.”

The prosecutor’s statement accuses Thaçi and Kadri Veseli, the former speaker of Kosovo’s parliament, of carrying out a secret campaign to overturn the law setting up the court in an attempt to obstruct its work and evade trial. “By taking these actions, Mr Thaçi and Mr Veseli have put their personal interests ahead of the victims of their crimes, the rule of law, and all people of Kosovo,” it said.

There has been uneasiness in the international community at the length of time the specialist chambers has taken to produce indictments, and concern that Thaçi could be more amenable to signing a deal with Serbia brokered by Trump in order to lessen the chance of being summoned by the court.

“I think Thaçi is hoping he can deliver something to the administration so they will give him some kind of pass on the prosecution,” a former US diplomat who was based in the region said before the news that the talks had been cancelled. “But I just don’t know how that would work.”

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, wrote a formal letter to Thaçi in March supporting the work of the Kosovo court and telling him not to try to obstruct its work.

“The abolishment or undermining the work, structure or locations of Kosovo specialist chambers and specialist prosecutor’s office in any way would seriously infringe Kosovo’s credibility in the world,” Pompeo said, according to a leaked copy of the letter. “Any such claim would leave a permanent spot on Kosovo, its commitment to the rule of law would be under question, justice for victims would be denied and Kosovo’s future would be blurred.”

The former diplomat said that even if the Trump administration were to give Thaçi license to ignore the indictment, that stance would be likely to be reversed if Joe Biden were to win the US presidential election in November. When Biden was vice-president he wrote a letter to Thaçi telling him the US required him to cooperate with the Kosovo chambers.

Fashion is following the example of football by restarting its season behind closed doors.

Christian Dior announced on Monday that a major show that had been scheduled to take place in May will go ahead on 22 July.

Models, makeup artists and musicians will be flown to Puglia in southern Italy for a blockbuster cruise show, for which a catwalk will be erected in Lecce’s Piazza del Duomo, with the city’s baroque cathedral as a backdrop.

Last year’s cruise show in Marrakech was staged in front of an audience of thousands and included the singer Diana Ross and the actors Shailene Woodley and Lupita Nyong’o, but this event will be played largely to camera – “like a beautiful movie”, according to Pietro Beccari, Dior’s chief executive.