Masterpiece by 17th-century artist Brueghel the Younger was swapped to foil heist
The heist appeared to have gone entirely according to plan. The thieves broke into the display case in an Italian church on Wednesday morning and made off with a €3m painting by the 17th-century Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
But police revealed that night there had been one hitch – the snatched artwork was a copy.
Continue reading...Government campaign to boost birth rate features pair from photo that went viral
It was meant to be a poster extolling the virtues of a strong family. But eagle-eyed Hungarians, or indeed anyone who has used social media over the past year, have noticed a small problem.
The latest advert in the Hungarian government’s campaign to boost “traditional” families and increase birth rates features a photograph of a couple who achieved fame for memes depicting infidelity, or at least a distracted partner.
Continue reading...Cities have long sought to preserve historic views of landmarks or mountainous horizons. Architect Tom Brigden maps out protected ‘viewing corridors’ in cities from London to Vancouver
Value in the View is published by Riba
Continue reading...MPs vote by 321 to 278 to rule out no deal despite government whipping Tory MPs against motion, following 312-308 win for Spelman amendment
Folks, it’s time to wrap up the blog for the night.
I’ll be back in a few hours to launch a new Politics live blog, bringing you all of Thursday’s Brexit and other political news. A reminder of what’s on the agenda for Thursday:
There have been some remarkable turns of phrase from commentators and politicians in their attempts to capture just what exactly has gone on in British politics in the last few days.
This is a turd of a deal, which has now been taken away and polished, and is now a polished turd. But it might be the best turd that we’ve got.
The House of Commons was a Benny Hill chase on acid, running through a Salvador Dali painting in a spaceship on its way to infinity.
A vague, and vain attempt to make sense of the great mad nights in British political history.
Sketch here.https://t.co/4zCw505yNv pic.twitter.com/ZENHV8wTnz
Britain is Egypt’s largest foreign investor. Yet at the recent Arab-EU summit, Theresa May was oddly quiet on rights abuses
While there may be “a special place in hell” for those who backed Brexit without a plan, regimes that execute people after fundamentally flawed trials get their own summit. Just a fortnight ago, Donald Tusk and the leaders of the EU met with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, at the Arab-EU summit in Sharm el-Sheikh – days after his regime executed nine people.
The summit was co-chaired by Tusk and Sisi. Tusk and other European leaders, including Theresa May, were curiously silent at the summit about the fate of Egypt’s political prisoners. The execution of the nine – convicted after unfair trials in which human rights campaigners say confessions were elicited by torture – was the third consecutive week of executions. In total 15 people were put to death in February in Egypt.
Continue reading...PM puts new plan to Commons as Geoffrey Cox says legal risk over backstop ‘remains unchanged’
Boris Johnson, the Brexiter former foreign secretary, is speaking in the debate now. He says he had hoped that the EU would make the wholly reasonable changes the UK wanted. But the EU refused to do that.
Like Adam and Eve, they sowed a fig leaf that failed to cover the embarrassment of the UK, he says.
This deal has now reached the end of the road. If it is rejected tonight, I hope that it will be put to bed.
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‘There was a herd instinct and they attacked him with their beaks,’ says head of farming
Chickens in a poultry farm in northeast France are suspected of killing a fox that tried to sneak into their coop.
The fox is thought to have entered the henhouse at an agricultural school at dusk last week and become trapped inside by light-controlled automatic hatch doors that close when the sun goes down.
Continue reading...Cemeteries are overcrowded and Greeks’ nearest option for cremation is Bulgaria
Greece has moved a step closer to opening its first crematorium, passing a decree that paves the way for a facility to be built in Athens despite persistent criticism from the Orthodox church.
The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, described the measure as “one of the most important and necessary reforms”, and the city’s mayor, Giorgos Kaminis, said it was a “landmark step”.
Continue reading...British PM secures ‘legally binding changes’ in Strasbourg talks with Jean-Claude Juncker
Theresa May has called for MPs to “come together” to back her deal after claiming to have secured the legally binding changes parliament wanted to ensure the EU cannot trap the UK in the Irish backstop and a permanent customs union.
But within minutes of the start of a late-night joint press conference in Strasbourg, those words rang hollow, as Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, conceded the EU had not agreed to the prime minister’s central demand.
Continue reading...Judges said alleged victim’s story was not credible enough because she was unattractive
About 200 people protested outside a court of appeal in the Italian city of Ancona after it was revealed that two men were cleared of rape charges partly because the alleged victim looked “too masculine” to be a target of attraction.
The reasons behind the 2017 ruling came to light only on Friday, when Italy’s highest appeal court scrapped the lower court’s verdict and ordered a retrial.
Continue reading...Revellers celebrate Ash Monday by participating in a colourful flour war, a traditional festivity marking the end of the carnival season and the start of the 40-day Lent period until the Orthodox Easter, in the port town of Galaxidi, Greece
Continue reading...Tourism industry wakes up to the rapidly growing earning potential of the Islamic economy
It’s a magnet for sun-deprived tourists from northern Europe, drawn to its long sandy beaches, pretty coves and ancient sites. Along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast, holidaymakers down exotic cocktails and ice-cold beers between dips in the sparkling Mediterranean and snoozing on the sun-lounger.
But an increasing number of hotels in and around Antalya are turning away from the traditional resort fare of booze and bare flesh in order to attract a new and growing clientele: Muslim tourists.
Continue reading...Eurosceptics could move against the PM if Commons defeat leads to Brexit delay
Theresa May was battling on Sunday night to save her Brexit deal and prolong her premiership, amid signs Eurosceptics could move against her if there is a delay to leaving the EU.
The prime minister’s position looked precarious as she was unable to announce any progress in talks with the EU less than 48 hours before her House of Commons vote on the deal.
Continue reading...The government’s top brass put their best feet forward
Continue reading...Alleged killers and woman, 64, arrested after discovery of man’s body in cement wall
A 64-year-old woman allegedly hired four Sicilian mafia henchmen to murder her ex-lover who had stolen her jewels, according to police. The killers, all Sicilians, carried out their order by walling the man in cement while he was still alive.
Related: Is this the end for the Sicilian mafia?
Continue reading...Men went missing almost a fortnight ago while ascending mountain in Pakistan
The bodies of Tom Ballard and Daniele Nardi, the British and Italian climbers who went missing a fortnight ago, have been found on the mountain Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
Italy’s ambassador to Pakistan, Stefano Pontecorvo, said on Saturday that the search team had confirmed that silhouettes spotted on the mountain “through telescope and pics beyond reasonable doubt” were the bodies of the two men.
Continue reading...Prime minister rebuffed as she pleads for last-ditch EU concessions before MPs vote
Theresa May appears set for a second humiliating defeat when she brings her Brexit deal back to parliament next week, after the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, rebuffed her pleas for last-minute concessions.
The prime minister urged MPs to “get it done” and back her deal, in an impassioned speech at a dockside warehouse in the leave-voting town of Grimsby.
Continue reading...Open letter hits back at demand for more gender-neutral nouns
A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.
In an open letter published by the Dortmund-based German Language Association, signatories including the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, novelist Peter Schneider, comedian Dieter Hallervorden and the former head of the country’s domestic intelligence Hans-Georg Maassen, hit back against calls for more gender-neutral generic nouns.
Continue reading...Athens’ tourism boom capitalises on building regulations relaxed in the economic crisis
The 10-storey hotel at 5 Falirou street in Athens was always going to stand out. Built to impress, its handsomely modernist wood-panelled facade added a contemporary touch to the streetscape of the otherwise lacklustre popular Makriyanni area beneath the Acropolis.
But as local residents watched it go up over the winter, they became ever more concerned. By February, when it had reached 31.5 metres, the hotel was the tallest building in the neighbourhood and had started to impede what had once been uninterrupted views of the Parthenon and the 5000BC monument’s fortified walls.
Continue reading...Man, 44, reportedly undergoes emergency operation after attack with ‘large blade’
A Manchester United fan is being treated in hospital in France for a stabbing injury shortly after the English side knocked Paris Saint-Germain out of the Champions League on Wednesday evening.
The Foreign Office said it was in touch with the French authorities over the incident, with reports suggesting the man is undergoing emergency surgery.
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