Tory Brexiters say they doubt they can support any deal struck between party leaders
Theresa May’s cabinet descended into rows and recriminations before it settled on the uneasy decision to invite Jeremy Corbyn to help solve the UK’s Brexit crisis.
During seven hours of meetings on Tuesday described as tense and gruelling, the prime minister struggled to keep order among colleagues who are vying to take her job.
Continue reading...Cäcilie Albrecht excludes late son’s wife and children from future roles in the company
The late wife of one of the founders of the discount supermarket chain Aldi has plunged the family into a bitter row after declaring in her will that her grandchildren and their mother are excluded from future business decisions.
Cäcilie Albrecht, known as the grande dame of the Aldi clan, vented her anger towards the five offspring of her late son, as well as his widow, Babette, accusing them of lavish spending not in keeping with the firm’s frugal philosophy, and of siphoning millions from company funds to finance their luxury lifestyles.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s politics as they happen, including Theresa May chairing a five-hour cabinet meeting to decide what to do about Brexit
During Foreign Office questions in the Commons earlier, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said that staying in the customs union would not be seen as a “true Brexit”. Responding to a question from Greg Hands, the former international trade minister, who asked what assessment the Foreign Office had made of the customs union option, Hunt said:
I think people would see it as very curious that a country that voted to take back control is choosing to cede control in a number of areas of vital national interest.
And I think they’d also be concerned that it would not resolve the national debate on Brexit because many of the people who voted for Brexit would not see this as delivering a true Brexit.
This is from my colleague Rowena Mason.
Jeremy Corbyn tackled at shadow cabinet over why Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett still in their frontbench jobs despite defying whip on second referendum indicative votes- answer came there none, according to shadow cabinet sources
Continue reading...Campaigners say €20m EU scheme uses recruits from Eritrea’s national service, a system likened to mass enslavement
Eritreans in exile have launched legal proceedings against the EU, accusing it of financing a scheme in Eritrea that uses “forced labour”.
The Netherlands-based Foundation Human Rights for Eritreans (FHRE) has called on the EU to immediately stop a €20m (£17m) road construction project, which it says violates human rights law as well as the EU’s own charter, since it uses national service recruits.
Continue reading...Alexis Tsipras arrives in Skopje on first official visit after settling decades-long dispute
The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has begun a historic visit to his newly named neighbour of North Macedonia two months after brokering a landmark deal to end a row that spawned almost three decades of hostility between the two countries.
In the first official trip by a Greek premier since the former Yugoslav republic proclaimed independence in 1991, Tsipras touched down in the capital, Skopje, pledging to consolidate the mutual trust that for so long has eluded the two Balkan nations. He then posed for a selfie with his North Macedonian counterpart, Zoran Zaev.
Continue reading...Greek island’s famous donkeys found to have spinal injuries, saddle sores and exhaustion
Put yourself in their hooves: that is the message holidaymakers will be asked to consider before deciding to ascend the 600 steps that zigzag up the cliffs of Santorini on the back of a donkey.
After several summers of the fabled isle’s equine population being forced to bear the brunt of overweight tourists, activists, in collaboration with the cruise-line industry, have finally taken action. The result is an unprecedented initiative to sensitise travellers to the stress placed on the animals when compelled to make the vertiginous climb with perilously heavy human cargo.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the second day of Commons votes on alternative Brexit options
The indicative votes debate is now over.
John Bercow, the Speaker, is telling MPs that they have half an hour to cast their vote, on paper in the division lobbies.
MPs are now voting on four propositions for #IndicativeVotes2 on light blue coloured between 8pm-8.30pm:
(C) Customs Union - Clarke
(D) Common Market 2.0 - Boles
(E) Confirmatory Public Vote - Kyle/Wilson
(G) Parliamentary Supremacy - Cherry pic.twitter.com/550xBpSAMk
Vicky Ford, a Conservative, says she will back the custom union amendment. Being in a customs union is not the same as being in the customs union, she says. She says the UK would be out of the common agricultural policy and out of the common fisheries policy.
Continue reading...Anti-sorcery post by evangelical Catholic group widely mocked on Facebook
Catholic priests in Poland have burned books that they say promote sorcery, including one of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, in a ceremony they photographed and posted on Facebook.
Three priests in the northern city of Koszalin were pictured carrying the books in a large basket from inside a church to a stone area outside. The books were set alight as prayers were said and a small group of people watched on. A mask, various trinkets and a Hello Kitty umbrella were also visible in the pictures of the makeshift bonfire.
Continue reading...Official complaint lodged with EU says rules breached on hunting and trapping
Bird protection campaigners are to lodge an official complaint with the European Union accusing France of breaking rules on hunting and trapping and failing to protect endangered species.
The Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) is using the 40th anniversairy of the EU’s “bird directive”, which outlaws the “massive or non-selective” killing of birds to highlight what it deems cruel and illegal methods.
Continue reading...Move by Five Star and League senators follows intervention by Matteo Salvini
Italy may scrap its requirement for parents to provide proof that their children have been vaccinated before they start nursery.
The senate’s health committee is expected to pass an amendment dropping the obligation next week, sparking further controversy over the populist coalition government’s ambiguous vaccine policy. The measure would then be put to parliament.
Continue reading...Fast-fashion giant Bestseller set to build skyscraper headquarters in Brande, a 7,000-person rural town
Until a local company announced plans to send a 320-metre skyscraper soaring over the surrounding countryside, most people in Denmark had only the haziest idea where Brande, a town of 7,000 people in rural Jutland, even was.
The Bestseller Tower, designed by star architectural studio Dorte Mandrup, will not only be the tallest building in Denmark, but the tallest in western Europe, besting the Shard in London by a crucial 10.4 metres.
Continue reading...Natalia Fileva, a co-owner of private Russian airline S7, died when her plane went down in a field south of Frankfurt
One of Russia’s richest women has died in a plane crash in south-western Germany along with two other people.
Natalia Fileva, a co-owner of private Russian airline S7, also known as Siberia Airlines, was confirmed as one of the victims of Sunday’s crash in statement issued by her company.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Survey of 14 countries show some Europeans now favour “emigration controls”
Southern and eastern European countries are more concerned about emigration than immigration, according to a wide-ranging survey of attitudes in 14 EU countries.
In Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania, six countries where population levels are either flatlining or falling sharply, more citizens said emigration was a worry than immigration, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy has 30.4% of vote, beating Petro Poroshenko and ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko
Polls in Ukraine closed on Sunday evening with actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy expected to hold a commanding lead in the first round of the country’s presidential elections.
With 11% of the ballots counted early on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy had more than 29% of the votes. The incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, was in a distant second place followed by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko with about 17% and 14% respectively, the national elections commission said. The results were closely in line with a major exit poll.
Continue reading...Zuzana Čaputová campaigned on platform of ‘humanism, solidarity and truth’
The woman who has been elected Slovakia’s first female president said her victory showed “you can win without attacking your opponents”, after fighting a positive campaign based on progressive values and political reform, and providing a rare moment of hope for liberal politics in central Europe.
Zuzana Čaputová, a 45-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner, won 58.4% of the votes in Saturday’s poll and will take office in June.
Continue reading...Grassroots campaign hopes to save city’s Litfaß columns from being destroyed by authorities
They have been an integral part of the city’s furniture for so long, Berliners admit to taking them for granted.
But concrete advertising pillars, known as Litfaßsäule – or Litfaß columns – after the man who invented them, around 3,000 of which dot the German capital, are under threat. A low-key, grassroots protest has sprung up in an effort to save them from destruction and sparked a trend involving writing messages on the pillars, as well as poems and heart felt tributes.
Continue reading...The fish market at Keratsini comes alive at night. Under floodlights, crews in rubber waders and boots wash down the decks of boats moored in the harbour, repair nets dangling from cranes, and put on ice the shrimp, calamari, mullet and hake that are their latest pickings.
Recently other things – objects that might never have been pulled from the sea – have also supplemented hauls. “We’re talking about lots of waste, lots of garbage,” says Dimitris Dalianis. “We’re finding it almost everywhere.”
Continue reading...Prosecutors said suspects arrested for allegedly plotting ‘state-endangering crime’
German police arrested 11 people in pre-dawn raids on Saturday on suspicion they were planning major attacks with stockpiled weapons and explosives, a prosecution spokesman said.
One of the 11 was confirmed as a Tajikistan national, but officials disclosed few other details about the suspects, who were detained in the early hours in western and southern parts of the country.
Continue reading...Investigation highlights failings of Dutch and UK authorities to care properly for unaccompanied minors
On a crisp winter day in a small village in the north of the Netherlands, a pile of leaves swirls around in the wind outside a brick house, an ordinary scene except for the CCTV cameras outside the front door and the occupants inside – child victims of trafficking. Many of the children are from Vietnam. They live in this protected shelter to keep them safe from gangs who want to smuggle them out of the Netherlands to the UK.
But an investigation by the Observer and Argos Radio of the Netherlands has revealed that, in the past five years, at least 60 Vietnamese children have disappeared from these shelters. Dutch police and immigration officials suspect the children end up in the UK working on cannabis farms and in nail salons.
Continue reading...Environmental and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová wins runoff election
Vocal government critic and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová was set to become Slovakia’s first female president after near complete results showed her winning Saturday’s runoff election.
The environmental lawyer got 58.01% of the ballot after results from more than 90% of polling stations were counted, while the EU energy commissioner Maroš Šefčovič garnered 41.98, the Slovak statistics office said.
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