Novelty handsets have been washing up on beaches for years – and now we know why
For 35 years, fragments of novelty Garfield telephones have washed up on the picturesque Iroise coast of Brittany almost every day.
Nobody has known why or where they come from; day after day, locals clearing up litter along the Atlantic beaches of the Finistère region, have stumbled across bright orange pieces of feline-shaped plastic.
Continue reading...MEP claims some House of European History staff subjected to ‘slave labour’
The EU-funded House of European History, a £47m museum celebrating the continent’s integration, has been accused of forcing contract staff to work seven days a week and ask for permission to drink water.
MEP Dennis De Jong has claimed that staff have endured bans on sitting, speaking or drinking during their 10-hour shifts looking after visitors.
Continue reading...The man dubbed ‘Indiana Jones of the art world’ says the paintings can ‘become a burden’
The ring at the door of the modest east Amsterdam apartment came late in the day on Thursday 14 March. On the doorstep stood two men “with contacts in the underworld”, Arthur Brand recalls, and with them a large, rectangular package.
Eagerly, Brand removed the covering and examined the contents: Buste de femme (Dora Maar), a portrait by Pablo Picasso of his mistress. Unsigned because it was never sold by the painter, it bore in its bottom-left corner the date he completed it, 26 April 1938, and was worth an estimated €25m (£21.5m).
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yemen rebel chief says foreign secretary ‘cannot be a peace broker and arms salesman’
The leader of the Houthi movement in Yemen has condemned the British foreign secretary for pressing Germany to relax its arms sales ban on Saudi Arabia, saying it was not possible for the UK to be a peace-broker in the country and an arms seller.
“Britain sending aid does not change the tragic reality of its arms sales. Jeremy Hunt cannot promote peace while at the same time acting as an arms salesman,” said Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the supreme revolutionary committee, in an interview with the Guardian.
Continue reading...Rolling updates on the fate of the withdrawal agreement on the day UK was supposed to be leaving EU
That’s all from us this evening – thanks for reading. Here’s a summary of the day’s events:
Related: May hopes to hold fourth vote on Brexit deal
Scotland Yard has now updated the arrest figures for today’s rallies:
As of 21:00hrs five arrests have been made at the demonstrations in central #London today: x2 for assault, x1 drunk & disorderly, x1 for assaulting a
police officer & x1 male arrested after being identified as wanted for an
offence in Herts. All are in custody.
Explorer Thor Heyerdahl collected many items in his effort to prove South American immigration theory
Norway has agreed to hand back thousands of artefacts removed from Easter Island by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his trans-Pacific raft expeditions in the 1950s.
An agreement was signed by representatives of Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum and officials of Chile’s culture ministry at a ceremony in Santiago as part of a state visit by Norway’s King Harald V and Queen Sonja.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including reaction to the latest Commons Brexit votes and to Theresa May’s announcement that she will quit before next stage of negotiations with EU
Theresa May is now embarked on a new strategy to get her Brexit deal through the Commons. Her new strategy seems largely driven by the decision of John Bercow, the Speaker, to declare that he will rule out repeat votes on the same proposition (a ruling that he firmed up yesterday, and again today). The details of the new approach are complicated, and at this stage not all 100% clear, and some MPs are already questioning the legality of what she is trying to do. But this is what we know.
DUP to vote against government on withdrawal agreement
For avoidance of doubt, DUP will vote against agreement tomorrow, party source says
Continue reading...Study finds that places where people have never had the diseases could see bad outbreaks if they aren’t prepared
Half a billion more people could be at risk from mosquito-transmitted diseases within 30 years as a result of the warming climate, according to a new study.
Canada and parts of northern Europe could be newly exposed to the threat. People there could come into contact with yellow fever, Zika, dengue and chikungunya, as well as other emerging diseases.
Continue reading...Protesters picket French university, which says actors were wearing masks according to ancient theatre practices
A row over alleged racism and attacks on freedom of expression has erupted in France after students prevented a Greek tragedy featuring actors using black masks from being performed at the Sorbonne, claiming it was “Afrophobic, colonialist and racist”.
Demonstrators who picketed the prestigious Paris university to stop actors entering the theatre said the play, The Suppliants by Aeschylus, was being performed with blackface and was offensive.
Continue reading...Spokesman responds to viral video of Pope Francis refusing to let his ring be kissed saying the reason was simply hygiene
Pope Francis has attempted to set the record straight after a video showed him repeatedly snatching his hand away from well-wishers who tried to kiss his ring, saying that he was worried about spreading germs.
Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said that Francis was concerned about hygiene when, after greeting dozens of people in a lengthy receiving line, he began pulling his hand away to discourage people from kissing his ring.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments, including the indicative votes debate as MPs choose from eight options
The Commons sitting has been suspended but, as my colleague Dan Sabbagh and others report, there is a bit of a row going on about the fact that the mace is still there.
Speaker has walked out suspending proceedings until the indicative votes are counted. But Tories are furiously pointing to the mace, still in its place, and trying to encourage deputy speaker Eleanor Laing to take the chair. Which would be a parliamentary take over...
The mace is still in place which I think is the cause of the uproar. It’s not meant to be there if we’re not sitting, but I don’t know if a brief suspension counts. It’s not normal for the Chamber to be occupied without anyone in the chair.
Speaker suspends sitting & vacates chair while we wait for results of this evening’s votes - as he had said he would do.
Tory MPs object that the mace is still there.
They object by trying to raise points of order to an empty chair.
What a total shambles of a parliament.
John Bercow, the Speaker, says he is not able to announce the results of the indicative votes ballot yet because they have not all been counted. But he says he hopes to be able to announce them soon.
So he suspends the house.
Continue reading...Vote by MEPs paves way for law to come into force by 2021 across EU
The European parliament has voted to ban single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers as part of a sweeping law against plastic waste that despoils beaches and pollutes oceans.
The vote by MEPs paves the way for a ban on single-use plastics to come into force by 2021 in all EU member states. The UK would have to follow the rules if it took part in and extended the Brexit transition period because of delays in finding a new arrangement with the EU.
Continue reading...The 108 people picked up by Elhiblu 1 reportedly hijacked it when they learned they were being returned to Libya
A merchant ship has been hijacked by refugees and migrants that it had rescued off the coast of Libya, and is now heading towards Malta, the Italian deputy prime minister and Maltese authorities have said.
Corriere della Sera and Italian news agencies reported that 108 people were picked up by the tanker Elhiblu 1, and hijacked the vessel when it became clear that it planned to take them back to Libya.
Continue reading...Health agency advises no more than two glasses a day to cut down alcohol-related disease risk
“Quoi, just two glasses?” asked the headline on the English page of the rolling news station France 24.
It was the incredulous reaction to a campaign launched this week by French health officials seeking to persuade the public to drink no more than two glasses of wine per day – and not every day either.
Continue reading...Daniel Forestier had been investigated over alleged plot to assassinate opposition figure
The body of a former French intelligence agent linked to an assassination plot has been found riddled with bullets in a layby in the Alps.
Daniel Forestier was discovered in a pool of blood in a parking area off a little-used road in Haute-Savoie near Lake Léman. Police said the killing was a “professional job”, and a postmortem revealed he had been shot five times.
Continue reading...Donald Tusk has said the EU cannot betray an 'increasing majority' of British people who want to cancel Brexit and remain in the bloc. The European council president hailed those who marched on the streets of London and the millions who were petitioning the government to revoke article 50. Tusk finished his speech by saying: 'They may feel that they are not sufficiently represented by the UK parliament, but they must feel that they are represented by you in this chamber. Because they are Europeans'
Continue reading...Cheollima Civil Defence says it carried out daring raid on Madrid building in February
A secretive dissident group seeking to overthrow the regime in North Korea has claimed responsibility for last month’s raid on the country’s embassy in Madrid, as a court in Spain prepared to seek the intruders’ extradition.
Cheollima Civil Defence said in statement posted on its website that the 22 February raid on the embassy was “not an attack” and claimed that its members had been responding to an “urgent situation” inside the embassy. The intruders fled with computers, hard disks and other items after a failed attempt to persuade an embassy official to defect.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including reaction to the Commons voting to try to take control of the Brexit process
The government has responded to the “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU” petition and has announced that it will debate it in Westminster on Monday.
The petition has so far garnered more than 5.7m signatures.
This government will not revoke article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union.
It remains the government’s firm policy not to revoke article 50. We will honour the outcome of the 2016 referendum and work to deliver an exit which benefits everyone, whether they voted to leave or to remain.
A motion Conservative MP Nick Boles will table tomorrow has appeared. Here the full text from The Telegraph’s Anna Mikhailova, for those who fancy a headache:
Here it is:
The Nick Boles Common Market 2.0 motion for tomorrow pic.twitter.com/9UTgr9HcPc
One of 10 people who entered consulate by force in February contacted FBI, high court says
The details of how mysterious intruders raided North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month, tricked the Spanish police and made off with a stash of stolen intelligence which they offered to the FBI have been laid out by a Spanish judge.
Spanish police were called to the embassy in the middle of the raid, but were warded off by the Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang who pretended to be a diplomat, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.
Continue reading...Illegally built and ‘delusional’ Tuscan-style property must be destroyed within 18 months
A court has ordered the owner of a €57m (£49m) chateau in the south of France to tear it down after declaring the building illegal.
Related: La Mothe-Chandeniers - the French chateau now with 7,400 owners
Continue reading...