Aleksandar Vučić brands opposition leaders as ‘fascists, hooligans and thieves’
Serbia’s president has pledged to defend the country’s law and order a day after opposition supporters stormed the national TV station protesting what they said is his autocratic rule.
As Aleksandar Vučić held a news conference in the presidency building in downtown Belgrade, thousands of opposition supporters gathered in front, demanding his resignation.
Continue reading...Celebration of World Cup win is ruled ‘contrary to child’s interest’ as pair settle to call boy Dany Noe instead
A football-mad couple in south-west France have been barred from naming their son “Griezmann Mbappe” after two of the stars of France’s World Cup-winning team.
A family judge in the central town of Brive-la-Gaillarde stripped the infant of his two first names, nearly five months after his birth, the local town council told Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Anti-corruption campaigner secures 40% and will face run-off with ruling Smer party candidate
An anti-corruption campaigner with no experience of public office has won the first round of Slovakia’s presidential election, as voters spurned the ruling Smer party a year after the murder of an investigative journalist.
Environmental lawyer Zuzana Čaputová won 40.5% of the vote, with 99.4 of the ballots counted on Sunday, far ahead of the Smer candidate, Maroš Šefčovič, who had 18.7%.
Continue reading...An 18th weekend of gilets jaunes protests erupted once more into violence and looting on Saturday as masked demonstrators smashed their way into luxury stores on the Champs-Élysées and destroyed one of the street’s most celebrated restaurants.
Demonstrators fought running battles with police who responded with water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets.
Continue reading...Party’s leader in European parliament says it must be prepared to field candidates
The Conservative party has contacted all its MEPs to ask them to consider running for election in May if the prime minister’s Brexit deal is defeated on Tuesday.
Ashley Fox, the party’s leader in the European parliament, contacted MEPs to ask them to think about their options in the event that Theresa May’s deal fails again.
Continue reading...Imane Fadil, who attended Berlusconi parties, told lawyer she had been poisoned
Italian magistrates have opened an investigation into a possible murder after the mysterious death of a Moroccan model who was a regular guest at Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” parties.
Imane Fadil, 33, died on 1 March, a month after being admitted to a Milan hospital with severe stomach pains. At the time she told friends and her lawyer that she had been poisoned. Her death was only reported on Friday.
Continue reading...Robson Wade and James Safechuck, who in HBO documentary accuse Jackson of child sex abuse, face legal action in France
Three Michael Jackson fan groups are suing his alleged victims in France for “sullying his memory” by taking part in the Leaving Neverland documentary, the fans’ lawyer told Agence France-Presse on Friday.
The Michael Jackson Community – which claims to be the “official fan club forum” – and the MJ Street and On The Line groups accuse Robson Wade and James Safechuck of “lynching” Jackson.
Continue reading...Voters rally to presidential frontrunner whose pro-LGBT stance has fuelled rightwing conspiracy machine
Disbelief and a hint of fear flashed across Zuzana Čaputová’s face as the news broke.
After explaining to the Guardian how she would bolster the rule of law in Slovakia if elected president, Čaputová, a 45-year-old lawyer and the frontrunner in Saturday’s presidential poll, suddenly stopped short as an aide read out a headline from his phone: Marian Kočner, a multi-millionaire businessman, had been charged with ordering the murder of Ján Kuciak, a journalist who was investigating organised crime.
Continue reading...French intervention likely to add weight to criticism of UK’s reluctance to do likewise
France has repatriated five orphaned children of French jihadists from camps in north-east Syria, where a five-year offensive against Islamic State is drawing to a close.
Among the children repatriated were the three sons of a French woman who died under Isis rule. Officials retrieved them from a camp in northern Syria where they were being held with as many as 3,000 other children of Isis families.
Continue reading...Pile-up of meats, fries and cheese sauce has become a fast-food phenomenon
At lunchtime on a street near the Gare du Nord in Paris, queues were forming at a fast-food restaurant. Construction workers jostled with schoolchildren for what has become a business phenomenon: the hefty, cheesy slab of indulgence known as the French taco.
France has always had a huge market for takeaways, from kebabs to McDonald’s, and fast food accounts for more than half the nation’s restaurants. Now the homegrown French taco is challenging the burger’s imperialist success and plotting its own global expansion.
Continue reading...Majority of 211 for government motion means Theresa May will now seek extension from EU for departure date
The Irish premier, Leo Varadkar, has said London needs to tell the EU about what purpose an extension would serve and how long it would last.
Varadkar said he welcomed Westminster’s vote to extend Article 50 as it reduces the likelihood of a cliff edge, no-deal Brexit at the end of the month.
There seems to be two emerging options – ratification of the withdrawal agreement followed by a short extension into the summer, or a much longer extension that would give the UK time and space to decide what they want to do, including considering options that had been taken off the table like participation in the customs union and single market.
I think we need to be open to any request they make, listen attentively and be generous in our response. This matter will be now discussed further at next week’s European Council meeting and hopefully we will have more clarity from London in the meantime about their intentions.
Why EUCO should allow an extension, if the UK gov and her majority in the House of Commons are not ready for a cross-party approach to break the current deadlock ? https://t.co/lj1Tm4kmIg
Cable has now released a statement on his impending departure:
I indicated last year that, once the Brexit story had moved on and we had fought this year’s crucial local elections in 9,000 seats across England, it would be time for me to make way for a new generation. I set considerable store by having an orderly, business-like, succession unlike the power struggles in the other parties.
So I wanted you, our members, to know that, assuming Parliament does not collapse into an early general election, I will ask the party to begin a leadership contest in May.
Continue reading...Leo Varadkar, who is openly gay, spoke on the changes for Ireland and called out various forms of discrimination
The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, who is openly gay, brought his partner to a meeting on Thursday with the US vice-president, Mike Pence, a conservative Christian once dubbed “the face of anti-LGBTQ hate in America”.
Varadkar, who is in Washington this week to reaffirm the longstanding shared history between the two countries, brought his partner, Matt Barrett, to a St Patrick’s Day breakfast at the vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory.
Continue reading...US politicians say ban will last through April, as data from Ethiopian Airlines flight arrives in France
Boeing’s 737 Max 8 and 9 planes will remain grounded for weeks at a minimum, US politicians said on Thursday, as flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines plane arrived in France.
After a briefing with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), congressman Rick Larsen said the planes, which have been involved in two fatal crashes in the last five months, would be banned from flying “at least through April” while new software is installed and investigations continue.
Continue reading...Gender-specific “Frauenticket” will be 21% cheaper than usual and available on 18 March in stunt to flag German pay gap
Women travelling on Berlin’s metro, buses or trams will pay 21% less than men next Monday in a stunt to boost the visibility of Germany’s gaping gender pay gap.
The city’s public transport operator, BVG, said its “Frauenticket” will be available on 18 March only, to mark Equal Pay Day in Germany. Under the slogan “Mind the pay gap”, it said its cut-price ticket was intended to flag the 21% difference between men and women’s average earnings, one of the biggest gender pay gaps in Europe.
Continue reading...Health minister calls protest about lack of medical insurance ‘taking women hostage’
A French gynaecologists’ union has threatened to halt pregnancy terminations in an attempt to force the country’s health minister to meet disgruntled doctors.
The Syngof union wrote to its 1,600 members calling them to be prepared to stop carrying out abortions to “make ourselves heard” and force the government’s hand.
Continue reading...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...