Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
President of Lazio, Nicola Zingaretti, is tipped to win, but needs 50% of the vote
Voters took to the polls on Sunday to elect a new leader to represent Italy’s centre-left Democratic party, as the embattled group strives to re-establish itself as a credible force against the country’s rightwing populist government.
The vote is seen as a litmus test for the strength of the party and comes a year after its administration was ousted in an embarrassing defeat in general elections that led eventually to the formation of a coalition government between the far-right League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).
Critics say process Woody Johnson called ‘no-brainer’ is ‘harmful’ to nation’s health
The US ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, has come under fire from a leading food critic, a farming union and trade justice campaigners over his push to open up the UK to American farmers post-Brexit.
Jay Rayner, the BBC presenter, Observer columnist and MasterChef critic, said the UK should tell Johnson where he can stick chlorinated chicken, the US’s preferred approach for protecting consumers from pathogens such as salmonella and campylobacter.
EU negotiator frustrated at UK demands over Irish backstop but is considering adjunct to deal
Michel Barnier has told EU ambassadors that he is having to repeatedly rebut British demands for a time limit on the Irish backstop but that he is working on a legal add-on to the Brexit deal to help the prime minister.
During a meeting on Friday in Brussels, the EU’s chief negotiator expressed frustration with the British demands after the latest round of talks. “The UK side keeps on insisting on the same two things,” one EU diplomat said following Barnier’s briefing after the latest week of talks. “And we keep on explaining why it won’t happen.”
E-bikes now outsell standard bicycles in Netherlands, with quality prized more than price
In what was already a long-running purple patch for the Dutch cycle industry, domestic sales records have been broken in the last 12 months despite spiralling prices, as technological developments push the standard push-bike into the annals of history.
US sets out aims for post-Brexit trade deal amid fears about chicken and beef standards
The US has outlined its objectives for a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, demanding greater access to the food markets where products such as chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef are currently banned under EU rules.
The US laid out its aims for a trade deal to cut tariff and non-tariff barriers for US industrial and agricultural goods and reduce regulatory differences.
Vladimir Zelenskiy, whose character becomes president in hit TV show, leading polls
Vladimir Zelenskiy may just joke his way to becoming Ukraine’s next leader. A comic actor who plays a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president in a hit Ukrainian TV show after his rant against corrupt politicians goes viral, he is now pitching for the top job in real life and has a 10-point lead in some opinion polls.
It is Ukraine’s most unorthodox presidential campaign in history. After announcing his campaign on New Year’s Eve, Zelenskiy has shot into first place by contrasting his screen personality, a genial everyman who speaks in a gravelly bass, with public discontent against the country’s ruling class. His political party and TV show share the same name, Servant of the People.
Until recently Vladimir Zelenskiy was known for playing the part of an accidental president in the popular Ukrainian television show Servant of the People. Then on New Year's Eve he announced that life would be imitating art with his candidacy in this year's presidential elections, the first round of which is on 31 March. Zelenskiy has a 10-point lead in some opinion polls
Mounting weirdness descends as a mother and young son set up home in the middle of a dark and sinister forest
Here’s an Irish folk-horror that clearly drew the right conclusions from the midnight-movie pairing of The Babadook and Under the Shadow: a film operating at a suspenseful, spider-like creep that allows it to skirt your defences and get some distance under the skin.
It opens with a broadly familiar set-up. Recently separated, subtly scarred Sarah (Seána Kerslake) installs herself and young son Chris (James Quinn Markey) in the kind of countryside fixer-upper-type property that conventionally serves as a magnet for trouble. Yet its foundations are undermined in unexpected fashion, first by the discovery of a vast sinkhole in the surrounding forest, then by the neighbourhood crone (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen) who pauses her catatonic murmuring to insist that Chris isn’t who he seems. As Sarah briefs one confidante: “It’s been a funny few days.”
Agency says increase in attacks on migrants is likely before European elections in May
Italy’s intelligence agency has warned in a briefing to the Italian parliament that attacks on migrants and minorities could rise in the run-up to May’s European elections.
Racially motivated attacks have seen a sharp increase in Italy and tripled between 2017 and 2018, when the far-right League entered government in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.
Mounir el Motassadeq flew to Morrocco with envelope containing thousands of euros
German prosecutors have launched an investigation into why a Moroccan man convicted of assisting the 9/11 suicide plotters was allowed to leave Germany with an envelope containing thousands of euros in cash.
Mounir el Motassadeq who was deported from Germany in October, having served 15 years in prison for his role in the plot as a member of a terror organisation, was handed the payment of €7,000 – the wages accumulated for the prison work he did, plus a monthly allowance of around €30 – before leaving the country.
Xavier Bettel says his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some countries
Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has confronted Arab leaders over the repression of gay rights, telling them his same-sex marriage would condemn him to death in some of their countries.
The conference room at a summit of EU and Arab states fell silent when Bettel made his statement, according to a German TV journalist.
Commissioners demand hard numbers from firm ahead of European parliament elections
Facebook has repeatedly withheld key data on its alleged efforts to clamp down on disinformation ahead of the European elections, the EU’s executive has said.
Michael Cohen on Wednesday delivered a sharp warning to Donald Trump and the Republican party that the president faces legal and political peril on at least two fronts.
UN security council officials clash over ‘politicised’ aid to troubled country as peace-building chief warns of ‘grim realities’
Infant mortality in Venezuela has soared by roughly 50% during the prolonged political crisis in the country.
Briefing the UN security council, the UN’s political and peace building chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, depicted a devastating collapse in Venezuela’s health system. She warned that 40% of medical staff had left the country and said hospital stocks of medicine had dwindled to 20% of the required level.
A team of volunteer firefighters were called to the scene of an unusual emergency in the western German town of Bensheim-Auerbach on Sunday after an oversized rat was found wedged halfway through a manhole cover
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the Commons debate on Brexit next steps, and Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
The Electoral Commission has released its latest figures for political donations. In the last three months of 2018 £10.4m was given to political parties - £1.9m more than in the previous quarter. Most of it, £7.4m went to the Conservatives, who received more than four time as much in donations as Labour (£1.6m). The increase is almost certainly linked to speculation about a possible early election.
There are more details on the Electoral Commission website here.
On Sky’s All Out Politics the Labour MP Phil Wilson said Williamson should be suspended from the party for his comments. Wilson said:
I think it is just outrageous, really. And I think he should be suspended from the Labour party. I actually spoke to Tom Watson [the Labour deputy leader] about this this morning, and Tom is [of] the same view. Tom, I know, is writing to the general secretary of the Labour party to express his concerns about it. I just think it’s outrageous. There has got to be tough action taken on people like this in the Labour party. And when you have got a member of parliament expressing these views, I don’t think there is any place for them ultimately in the Labour party.
Hungarian PM’s anti-EU attitude is alienating centre-right European People’s party
Viktor Orbán could face renewed calls for his expulsion from the European People’s party (EPP) at a gathering of the powerful centre-right bloc next month.
The Hungarian prime minister and his Fidesz party will be on the agenda of the EPP political assembly on 20 March, an event intended to approve the group’s manifesto before European parliament elections in May.
Overweight rodent found itself in trouble after it tried to squeeze through a small gap in a sewer cover
A multi-agency rescue operation has taken place in the town of Bensheim in Germany after a tubby rat became stuck in a manhole cover.
The rat, still plump with winterspeck – which translates literally as winter bacon and refers to extra pounds piled on in the colder months – became stuck after it tried to squeeze through a small gap in the sewer cover.