Slovakia election: seismic shift as public anger ousts dominant Smer-SD party

Igor Matovic’s centre-right OLaNO party rides wave of outrage over the murder of a journalist to a stunning victory

Slovak voters have handed a resounding victory to the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO opposition party in an election dominated by an angry backlash over the 2018 murder of a journalist investigating corruption in the eurozone state.

Having vowed to immediately push through anti-corruption measures should he win office, the OLaNO party leader, Igor Matovic, galvanised voter outrage over the murder of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee and the high-level graft their deaths exposed.

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Erdoğan says border will stay open as Greece tries to repel influx

Turkish leader claims 18,000 people have crossed into EU but some are met with teargas

Thousands of migrants may be in no man’s land between Turkey and Greece after Ankara opened its western borders, sparking chaotic scenes as Greek troops attempted to prevent refugees from entering Europe en masse.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed 18,000 migrants had crossed the border, without immediately providing supporting evidence, but many appear to have been repelled by Greek border patrols firing teargas and stun grenades.

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Refugees arrive on Lesbos as Turkey opens border – video

Three boats of refugees have landed on Lesbos in the last 24 hours as the island prepares for an influx of people after Turkey announced it was opening its borders. Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered in the Turkish city of Edirne, which borders Bulgaria and Greece

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Welsh woman declares vindication after ‘guerrilla rewilding’ court case

Sioned Jones convicted of stealing logs after 20 years of felling non-native trees in Cork

Sioned Jones used to adore the landscape and wildlife of her adopted home in Bantry, a bucolic region in west Cork on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. She planted vegetables and herbs, foraged for nuts and berries and observed birds, insects, frogs and lizards.

Then, on land above her house, the state-owned forestry company Coillte planted a forest of Sitka spruce, a non-native species that Jones considered a dark, dank threat to biodiversity.

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Article by young Boris Johnson helped inspire Thatcher’s ‘No, no, no’

Papers show Telegraph article was in briefing pack before historic speech on Europe

Margaret Thatcher’s infamous “No, no, no” retort to Jacques Delors, a historic moment in the UK’s relationship with Europe, which also had the effect of precipitating her downfall, was partly inspired by an article penned by a young journalist named Boris Johnson, her newly released private papers show.

In 1990, 30 years before Johnson took the UK out of the European Union, an article he penned as the Telegraph’s EC (European Community) correspondent warning of the threat the EC posed to national sovereignty was in Thatcher’s briefing pack as she delivered the combative speech to parliament.

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Roman Polanski wins best director at French ‘Oscars’ amid protests

Activists protest against director who pleaded guilty to statutory rape in US but fled before sentencing

Police and protesters clashed briefly outside the French “Oscars” ceremony on Friday evening as the Franco-Polish film director Roman Polanski was awarded the prize for best director.

Immediately after the announcement there was shouting and booing among the audience, and the two actors who announced the award quickly left the stage.

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Refugees in Istanbul rush to board coach to reach Turkish border to Europe – video

Dozens of Syrian refugees were seen rushing to board coaches in Turkey's Istanbul on Friday after Ankara decided to open its border to Europe. The move comes after an airstrike on Thursday killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria's Idlib province. Fearing the window to leave Turkey would soon close, some of the 3.6 million Syrians living in the country have begun to vacate

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Gare de Lyon in Paris evacuated after fire outside station

Fire reportedly started by protesters opposed to concert nearby by Congolese singer

Police evacuated the Gare de Lyon in Paris after scooters and rubbish bins were set alight outside the station, reportedly by protesters opposed to a concert being given by a Congolese singer.

Photos on social media showed flames reaching several metres into the sky and a cloud of black smoke around the station, which was evacuated at the height of rush hour.

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Naomi Seibt: ‘anti-Greta’ activist called white nationalist an inspiration

German teenager spoke at an event at US rightwing conference CPAC

A young campaigner who has been hailed by climate sceptics as the right’s answer to Greta Thunberg has previously described a white nationalist who appeared to promote “white genocide” theories as one of her “inspirations”.

Naomi Seibt, a 19-year-old from Münster, Germany, who styles herself as a “climate realist”, has also had to deny she made remarks that could be seen as antisemitic following an attack on a synagogue last year.

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Luxembourg is first country to make all public transport free

Country is first to implement measure nationwide in attempt to reduce congestion

Luxembourg is to become the first country to offer a free public transport system, as the government tries to reduce particularly dense car traffic.

Some cities have taken similar partial measures but the transport ministry said it was the only time such a decision had encompassed an entire country.

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Anger as F1 teams get go-ahead to drive on Dutch nature reserve

Teams allowed to take beach route to get to Netherlands’ first F1 grand prix in 35 years

The return of Formula One to the Netherlands after 35 years has become mired in controversy after two racing teams got the green light to drive across a beach nature reserve to ensure their staff avoid traffic on the way to the circuit.

The teams of Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri will be allowed to drive from their hotels along two miles of beach within the Noordvoort reserve, a popular resting spot for seals and breeding birds located between the Zandvoort racetrack and the North Sea.

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Russia and Turkey’s next moves will define the Syrian war’s end

Neither side can back down from proxy standoff, but Russia holds whip hand in Idlib

For more than three years, Russia and Turkey have been shadow boxing on the soils of northern Syria. In the past three weeks, the stalking has turned to shooting; the Turks aiming their guns at the Moscow-allied Assad regime, and the Russians increasingly swinging their turrets towards the Turkish military.

In a war fought largely through proxies, any direct conflict between main players was considered highly dangerous and, until Thursday night, unlikely. But after the deaths of at least 30 Turkish troops – most likely the consequence of a Russian airstrike – both sides are in a standoff from which neither can afford to back down.

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UK races to find extra 50,000 staff for post-Brexit paperwork

New recruits needed to process millions of extra declaration forms from 1 January 2021

A race to hire 50,000 people in the next six months to process Brexit paperwork is under way after the government confirmed they would be needed for border operations.

But experts have warned it will be a challenge to train enough people in time to be competent in the complexity of customs declarations and the second layer of red tape involving entry and exit declaration forms that are mandatory for trading with the EU.

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Greece and Bulgaria crack down on Turkish borders as refugees arrive

Move appears designed to put pressure on Europe to support Turkey’s Idlib operation

Hundreds of refugees in Turkey began arriving at the country’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday after Ankara suddenly indicated it would no longer block their passage to Europe.

The move prompted both neighbouring nations to shore up their borders as their governments insisted they would not allow anyone to enter. Greek police used smoke grenades at one border crossing, while Bulgaria sent an extra 1,000 troops to its frontier with Turkey.

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Prosecutors seize Italian Scala dei Turchi over conservation concerns

Coastline that has been up for Unesco listing has been in poor condition for years

Italian prosecutors have seized control of the famous Scala dei Turchi limestone coastline, one of the Mediterranean’s main tourist attractions, citing poor handling of the cliff’s preservation.

For years, the site of the Scala dei Turchi – meaning Turkish steps or stairs of the Turks – a candidate for Unesco heritage, has been in a state of degradation. It is subject to constant erosion and theft by visitors who detach pieces of marl, the white sedimentary rock that gives the steps their distinctive appearance.

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Coronavirus news: death toll rises in Italy and Iran as outbreak could cause 2008-level economic damage – live updates

Britain’s chief medical officer says mass gatherings could be cancelled. Meanwhile, experts say virus could trigger 2008-level economic damage

In the US, health and human services secretary, Alex Azar, on Thursday said that at least 40 public health labs can currently test specimens for coronavirus and that could more than double as soon as Friday.

Azar, speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tested 3,625 specimens for the fast-moving virus as of this morning.

He said at least 40 labs currently have test kits that were previously manufactured by the CDC that were modified to test for coronavirus.

He added that a newly manufactured CDC test can be sent to 93 public health labs as soon as Monday, and a privately manufactured test based on the new CDC test could be sent to those same labs as early as tomorrow, pending FDA clearance.

Related: Five questions Donald Trump must answer on coronavirus

Downing Street defended the response to the situation at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said:

The Foreign Office has been in contact with more than 100 British nationals who are staying in the hotel.

They are providing them with support, they are also in regular contact with local authorities and tour companies to share information.

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Plácido Domingo says harassment apology gave ‘false impression’

Spanish opera singer says his words had been misunderstood after apology triggers backlash

Plácido Domingo has rowed back on an apology he made over sexual harassment allegations just two days earlier, after his mea culpa triggered a backlash and cancellations in Spain.

The Spanish opera singer, who faces multiple allegations of sexual harassment, apologised on Tuesday for “the hurt” caused to his accusers, saying he accepted “full responsibility” for his actions. But on Thursday, the 79-year-old insisted his words had been misunderstood.

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UK to withdraw from European arrest warrant

Government document reveals plans to ditch tool that allows for fast extradition of criminals

The UK is to abandon a crucial tool used to speed up the transfer of criminals across borders with other European countries.

Acting against the warnings of senior law enforcement officials, the government said it would not be seeking to participate in the European arrest warrant (EAW) as part of the future relationship with the European Union.

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Belgian woman dies after taking sip of MDMA-laced wine

Alert issued after woman opens bottle believed to have been used to transport drug

Belgian prosecutors have issued an alert over a woman who died after taking a sip of wine from a bottle suspected of being used to transport the drug MDMA.

The 41-year-old collapsed shortly after opening the French red to enjoy with a colleague after work. She took a sip from a glass, which left an unpleasant taste, and the intake was enough to give her a fatal dose of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy pills.

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