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Former council leader jailed for sexually assaulting young men
Jordan Linden stood down as leader of North Lanarkshire Council in 2022 after the allegations emerged.
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Three evacuated from hantavirus cruise ship as Canary Islands rejects plans for it to dock there – Europe live | Spain
Canary Islands government rejects hantavirus-hit cruise plans to dock there
In other news from Spain, the regional government of Canary Islands said it is opposed to allowing a luxury cruise ship that has been hit by the outbreak of the deadly hantavirusto dock on the archipelago, its leader, Fernando Clavijo, said.
“This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety,” Clavijo told radio station COPE, as reported by Reuters.
He added that he had requested an urgent meeting with prime minister Pedro Sánchez to discuss the issue. Clavijo leads a local coalition which includes the conservative People’s Party, the main national opposition to Sanchez’s Socialists.
Earlier today, Spanish state broadcaster TVE reported the cruise ship was set to dock at the Canary island of Tenerife, citing sources from the country’s health ministry. The ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Key events
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Evacuation of three people from hantavirus-hit cruise – in pictures
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Overall public health risk remains low, WHO chief insists, as three evacuated from virus-hit ship
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Brit among three people evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship, Dutch ministry confirms
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German tourist to be evacuated from ship to Düsseldorf for treatment, Bild reports
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Three suspected hantavirus cases evacuated from virus-hit cruise ship, WHO confirms
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Two specialist doctors set to join hantavirus-hit ship, operator says
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Hungary’s Magyar to meet with Italy’s Meloni tomorrow
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Transfer of three passengers expected Wednesday morning, ship operator says
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Three people being evacuated from hantavirus-hit ship, WHO says
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South Africa confirms Andes strain of hantavirus in two cases linked to cruise ship hit by outbreak
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Europe needs to spend 5% on defence by 2030 or ‘it may be too late,’ Poland’s defence minister warns
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One person infected with hantavirus treated in Zurich, Swiss government says
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Canary Islands government rejects hantavirus-hit cruise plans to dock there
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Morning opening: Spain’s Sánchez v Trump
Evacuation of three people from hantavirus-hit cruise – in pictures
Overall public health risk remains low, WHO chief insists, as three evacuated from virus-hit ship
The director-general of the World Health Organisaion, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has just offered a bit more detail about the medical evacuation of the three people hit by the virus, as he insisted “the overall public health risk remains low.”
In a post on X, he said the three people were “on their way to receive medical care in the Netherlands,” as part of the WHO’s mission with the ship’s operator and national authorities in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and Cabo Verde.
“WHO continues to work with the ship’s operators to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew, working with countries to support appropriate medical follow-up and evacuation where needed,” the WHO’s chief said.
“Monitoring and follow-up for passengers on board and for those who have already disembarked has been initiated in collaboration with the ship’s operators and national health authorities. WHO thanks all those involved. At this stage, the overall public health risk remains low.”
Brit among three people evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship, Dutch ministry confirms
The Dutch foreign ministry has just confirmed the nationalities of the three people evacuated from the ship, as confirmed by WHO, and they Dutch, British, and German citizens, Reuters reported.
German tourist to be evacuated from ship to Düsseldorf for treatment, Bild reports
We are getting more news about the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, with the German newspaper Bild now reporting that a German woman will be evacuated from the ship and brought to the German city of Düsseldorf for treatment.
She is believed to be one of the three people mentioned by the WHO in their report, and a close relative of one of the people who died from the virus, the paper said.
Three suspected hantavirus cases evacuated from virus-hit cruise ship, WHO confirms
Oh, that was much faster than expected: the World Health Organization has just confirmed that the three suspected hantavirus cases have been evacuated from the ship and are on their way to receive medical care in the Netherlands.
Two specialist doctors set to join hantavirus-hit ship, operator says
Back to the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, it looks like there is more support planned with two doctors specialised in infectious diseases heading to join the passengers, the ship’s operator said.
“Two infectious disease physicians, currently en route from the Netherlands, will embark m/v Hondius and remain with the vessel after its anticipated departure from Cape Verde,” said Oceanwide Expeditions in a statement.
These doctors would only board the ship following the successful transfer of three people, two of whom are suffering from “acute symptoms”, the operator added.
Hungary’s Magyar to meet with Italy’s Meloni tomorrow
In other news, Hungary’s incoming prime minister Péter Magyar has confirmed he will meet with Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome tomorrow.
Magyar is in Italy to attend a screening of a documentary on his Tisza party, “Spring wind”, which went viral before the final of the election campaign last month, at the Riviera international film festival in Sestri Levante.
His meeting with Meloni – who used to be close with the outgoing Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán – comes just days before his formal inauguration on Saturday.
Curiously, Magyar will be in Italy at the same time as some other leaders, including US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who are both also expected to meet with Pope Leo and Giorgia Meloni.
Transfer of three passengers expected Wednesday morning, ship operator says
The planned transfer of three passengers from the luxury cruise ship hit by a deadly Hantavirus is scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning, the ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said.
“The planned transfer of three individuals from the vessel to specialized aircraft has not yet taken place. This is scheduled to occur this morning, Cape Verde local time,” the ship operator said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
“Once aboard the aircraft, these individuals, two of whom present acute symptoms, will be transferred to medical and screening facilities,” it added.
And we are getting some pictures of one of the ambulance boats involved in the operations near the MV Hondius cruise ship.
Three people being evacuated from hantavirus-hit ship, WHO says
Separately, the World Health Organization is reporting that there is on-going evacuation of three people from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, via AFP.
Three people – two crew members and one other person – thought to be infected with the virus were being taken off the MV Hondius, anchored off Cape Verde, the WHO said.
The ship has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when the UN’s health agency was informed that three passengers had died and the suspected cause was hantavirus – a rare disease usually spread from infected rodents typically through urine, droppings and saliva.
South Africa confirms Andes strain of hantavirus in two cases linked to cruise ship hit by outbreak
South Africa has identified the Andes strain of hantavirus, which spreads human-to-human, in two people who came off a cruise ship hit by an outbreak of the disease, the health minister’s presentation to parliament showed on Wednesday.
The ship, the MV Hondius, was preparing to travel from Cape Verde towards Europe, Reuters reported.
The presentation seen by Reuters said tests done by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) revealed that the Andes strain was the cause of infection in a Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg, and a British man who is still in hospital. Both had become ill on the ship.
“This is the only strain that is known to cause human to human transmission, but such transmission is very rare and as said earlier, only happens due to very close contact,” it said.
Europe needs to spend 5% on defence by 2030 or ‘it may be too late,’ Poland’s defence minister warns
Meanwhile, Poland’s defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz urged Nato countries to increase their defence spending as quickly as possible.
Speaking at a Defence24 Days conference in Warsaw, he said:
“Europe… is capable of developing its economic potential on an unimaginable scale, but it must say directly: this is the priority today. This is our greatest task today. There is no point in waiting until 2035 with five per cent. It must be achieved by 2030, because otherwise it may be too late.”
He particularly warned the countries in southern Europe that “the threat is not only related to the border with the Russian Federation or Belarus – the threat is everywhere and in cyberspace.”
Kosiniak-Kamysz said Europe needed to take more responsibility for its safety, “not to replace the US troops, because their role, strategic capabilities and nuclear deterrence is irreplacable, but to keep the US troops [here] and save the transatlantic alliance.”
Curiously, he also hinted at potential increase in US troops based in Poland, from current 10,000.
“Regardless of the decisions made today between the States and the Federal Republic of Germany, the presence of American troops and increasing this presence is our strategic goal. And we are ready for it, to receive further American soldiers. We have been preparing for this for a long time, not just today.”
He said Poland wants to have Europe’s largest army of 500,000 by 2030, including 200,000 professional soldiers.
One person infected with hantavirus treated in Zurich, Swiss government says
Meanwhile, the Swiss government has just confirmed that one person infected with hantavirus – who was a passenger on the cruise ship – is currently being treated in Zurich.
They added that there is currently no danger to the Swiss population, Reuters reported.
Canary Islands government rejects hantavirus-hit cruise plans to dock there
In other news from Spain, the regional government of Canary Islands said it is opposed to allowing a luxury cruise ship that has been hit by the outbreak of the deadly hantavirusto dock on the archipelago, its leader, Fernando Clavijo, said.
“This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety,” Clavijo told radio station COPE, as reported by Reuters.
He added that he had requested an urgent meeting with prime minister Pedro Sánchez to discuss the issue. Clavijo leads a local coalition which includes the conservative People’s Party, the main national opposition to Sanchez’s Socialists.
Earlier today, Spanish state broadcaster TVE reported the cruise ship was set to dock at the Canary island of Tenerife, citing sources from the country’s health ministry. The ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Morning opening: Spain’s Sánchez v Trump
Jakub Krupa
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez has urged the European Commission to trigger its blocking statute against US sanctions on the international criminal court, which would effectively tell European companies to not comply with the measures.
In a post on X, Sánchez said:
“Spain does not look the other way. Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk.”
In February last year, Donald Trump has signed an executive order that authorises aggressive economic sanctions against the international criminal court (ICC), accusing the body of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the US and Israel.
As Ashifa Kassam reported in March, to date, 11 of the court’s officials – including the chief prosecutor and eight judges – have been placed under sanctions, subjecting them to measures that include bans on travel to the US and fines and prison sentences for American companies who provide them services.
Ever since, campaigners called on the EU to move against the sanctions, but the bloc did not want to put at risk already fragile relations with the US administration.
Now, Spain’s Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Trump who has already repeatedly drawn his criticism, is the first one to formally request the EU to act.
He said:
“The EU cannot remain idle in the face of this persecution. That is why, today, we ask the Commission to activate the Blocking Statute, to protect the independence of the international criminal court and the United Nations, and their actions to end the genocide in Gaza.”
The EU’s blocking statute is intended to protect Europe from extraterritorial sanctions imposed by other countries. It was used against the US before, in response to its sanctions on Cuba in 1996, and Trump’s first term sanctions on Iran in 2018.
But Sánchez’s initiative comes at an already tense moment for EU-US relations, with the bloc trying to defend itself from the latest threat of new US tariffs on cars and other industries, and looming threat of pulling out some US troops from the continent.
Later today, the EU will discuss the implementation of last year’s trade deal with the US, agreed in Scotland, in the latest push to get it in place before Trump comes up with more ideas on how to affect transatlantic trade.
In other news, I will also keep an eye on Friedrich Merz’s first anniversary as the German chancellor, US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s upcoming trip to Italy, and lots of smaller defence developments expected across the continent today.
Lots for us to cover today.
It’s Wednesday, 6 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
UK News
Polanski accuses Times of ‘scraping the barrel’ over his claim to be charity spokesperson – UK politics live | Politics
Key events
Polanski claims antisemitism amongst Green candidates limited to ‘handful’ of cases – but vetting and training to be beefed up
Zack Polanski has said the Green party will introduce compulsory training to make it clear that antisemitism is “completely unwelcome” in the party.
He was speaking in his Today programme interview when asked about the multiple examples of Green party candidates in the local elections making antisemitic comment. Labour has attacked the Greens relentlessly over this, and today the Daily Mail has splashed on a report accusing 30 Green candidates of antisemitism.
When Nick Robinson quoted some of the worse examples to Polanski, Polanski replied:
Those messages are all unacceptable, and it’s important to condemn that.
The Green party are an anti-racist party, and it’s important that we stick to our values.
When it was put to him that the views of some candidates implied the Greens were not an anti-racist party, Polanski went on:
We’re an anti-racist party. And so what I’ve already committed to doing is making sure that we have a standardised vetting process in future, and also make sure that we have compulsory training of all our candidates to make it clear that antisemitism is completely unwelcome in the Green party, as it is in society.
It’s also important to say one case of antisemitism is one too many.
This is a handful of cases, and actually we have over 4,500 candidates, the vast, vast majority of which are doing amazing work in their communities right now.
Polanski also said this issue was not abstract for him. He is Jewish, and he said two people have been arrested in the past six weeks over threats against him.
Polanski defends Green party’s policy to ‘legalise and regulate’ hard drugs, ‘and the regulate is important’
Zack Polanski defended the Green party’s proposal to legalise hard drugs in his Today programme interview. He stressed that the policy was “to legalise and regulate, and the regulate is important”.
He told the programme
The war on drugs has clearly failed. It has failed in cities right across this country and more and more people are often taking dangerous drugs.
So, do we want people to buy them on the black market or on street corners? Or do we want people to go to a pharmacy or a medical health professional where, if they have an addiction to dangerous drugs, we can work with them to take a public health approach based on harm reduction?
Polanski said this policy would allow the police to spend more time on other problems.
A lot of police time is spent on stop and search for cannabis use, for instance. It doesn’t escape people’s notice that that is often in the politics of racism. If you’re a young black person, I think it’s something like you’re 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched than your white peer, despite the fact there’s no evidence that they’re more likely to to be dealing or using drugs.
And so I think it’s important that we make sure the police time is spent properly, which I think is about community prevention, about cohesiveness and bringing communities together.
Polanski defends being concerned about how suspect in Golders Green attack was treated by police
Zack Polanski defended expressing concern about the way the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings was treated when he was arrested last week.
The Green leader has apologised for reposting a social media message implying the police used excessive force during the arrest. He said he should not have raised this issue in that way.
But, when he was interviewed on the Today programme, he said it was important for people to be treated properly, even if they had done horrific things.
When Nick Robinson, the presenter, put it to him that by reposting the controversial tweet, he was implying that he emphathised with the attacker, not the police officers, Polanski said he did not accept that. He said:
My very first response to the attack was to be horrified, as everyone was, I’m sure, and the first thing I posted was solidarity to the victim, to the family, and indeed, to people who are suffering right now.
Polanski said that he was Jewish himself, and that for Jewish people safety was not an “abstract” issue.
He went on:
Two things can be true at the same time: officers are incredibly brave when they run towards scenes of crimes that most people, including myself, will want to run away from.
At the same time, I think it is accurate, and that I was also traumatised by seeing someone handcuffed and repeatedly kicked in the head …
I think the sign of a compassionate society is how we treat people, even people who have done horrific things, because actually the way we do justice in this country is in court.
Polanski accuses Times of ‘scraping the barrel’ over his claim to be charity spokesperson, saying he just ‘used wrong word’
Good morning. Zack Polanski was largely unknown until he became the Green party leader in September last year and since then, as his party has soared in the polls, there has been intense scrutiny of his pre-politics career. The best-known embarrassing revelation about his past is the fact that he once told a woman he could enlarge her breasts if she listened to his hypnotherapy spiel. Nigel Farage, who also leads a dispruption party enjoying spectacular success, has scandals in his past too, and Polanski’s allies would argue that they are worse. Farage took a £5m donation from a political supporter which he did not declare, he still has not provided as good explanation as to how his partner was able to afford to buy a home in Farage’s Clacton constituency and arguably he told 30 million women that he could enlarge the size of their bank balances if they listened to his spiel on Brexit. Guardian readers can decide for themselves who is more dodgy.
But, as we tell our children, life isn’t fair. And it certainly isn’t fair for leftwing politicians campaigning in an environment where the rightwing media have considerable influence. Polanski discovered that again last night when the Times printed a story with various claims about him, of which the main one related to an allegation about his embellishing his CV. Here is our version by Jessica Elgot.
So it was not hard to guess what the first question would be when Polanski was interviewed by Nick Robinson on the Today programme a few minutes ago.
Asked why Polanski in the past said he was a spokesperson for the British Red Cross when the charity said he wasn’t, Polanski replied:
I hosted various fundraisers for the British Red Cross, and indeed I would go on stage and speak for them about the amazing work they do tackling humanitarian crises, on the climate crisis and indeed for refugees all around the world.
I used the wrong word and I accept that.
But I would essentially take words on stage with me and speak.
It’s important, though, and I accept this, [British Red Cross] don’t support any political party, and I’ve made sure [that claim has] been taken down.
Polanski attacked the Times for publishing what he described as an antisemitic cartoon of him last week. They should apologise for it, he said. And he went on:
It feels some of these stories feel like scraping the barrel to go back 10, 15 years.
I’ve had so many friends – I’m literally talking maybe 20 or 30 in the last few weeks – who have phoned me and said a Times journalist has been phoning and they’ve been desperately trying to find things about your past. They asked me lots of questions and seem disappointed that I didn’t have some juicy, dirty gossip.
There was a lot more in the interview, and I will post more from it soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is campaigning in London.
10am: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, holds an election rally.
Lunchtime: Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, is campaigning in Llandudno.
Afternoon: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Surrey.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
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Spain’s health ministry said the MV Hondius is expected to arrive within three to four days.
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Three evacuated from hantavirus cruise ship as Canary Islands rejects plans for it to dock there – Europe live | Spain
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