Europe

Family and football the driving forces for Pochettino

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – Mauricio Pochettino tries to switch off from football and read a book or watch a film but the Tottenham Hotspur manager has confessed it is a losing battle as the ‘Beautiful Game’ is his life. The 45-year-old Argentinian — whose much-praised stewardship of Spurs with his policy of blooding young players and their free-flowing football has attracted apparent interest from Real Madrid — told the BBC it is just as well that […]

EU seeks to give millions better access to drinking water

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — The European Union proposed Thursday giving millions of people in the 28-nation bloc better access to safe tap water and reduce water consumption via wasteful plastic bottles. The legislation proposed by the European Commission, the EU executive, aims to make safe drinking water a citizen right in line with social rights adopted at a summit in Gothenburg, Sweden in November. The commission was responding to a petition signed by 1.6 million […]

Europe claims 100 million users for Galileo satnav system

PARIS, France (AFP) — The Galileo satellite navigation system, Europe’s rival to the United States’ GPS, has nearly 100 million users after its first year of operation, the French space agency CNES said Thursday. The system, seen as strategically important to Europe, went live in December 2016, having taken 17 years at more than triple the original budget to get there. Initial services offered only a weak signal, and some of the atomic timekeepers on […]

Polish PM defends Holocaust bill that upset Israel, Ukraine

by Anna Maria Jakubek Agence France-Presse WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday defended a controversial Holocaust bill intended to safeguard his country’s image abroad but which has instead drawn dismay from Israel, the US, the EU and Ukraine. The head of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party government spoke after the senate approved the legislation, which sets fines or a maximum three-year jail term for anyone who refers to Nazi German […]

Abdeslam: from pot-smoking delinquent to key terror suspect

by Mehdi Cherifia and Clare Byrne Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – In the Brussels neighborhood where he lived until his capture, Salah Abdeslam was known as a pot-smoking petty criminal whose former lawyer described him as having “the intelligence of an empty ashtray.” But the sole survivor of the jihadist team that wrought carnage in Paris in November 2015 — who goes on trial in Belgium on Monday over the shootout — remains something of an […]

Britain’s Suffragettes: five things to know

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The Suffragettes were instrumental in securing the vote for British women 100 years ago, at a time when women had few rights and no role in national politics. The name Suffragettes was the derogatory name given in 1906 by the Daily Mail newspaper to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), one of the groups that had been pushing for women’s suffrage for decades. The organization was formed three years […]

British MPs vote to move out of Westminster for repairs

by Rosie Scammell Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – British MPs on Wednesday voted in favor of moving out of their historic Westminster home, to make way for major renovation work of the iconic Houses of Parliament. Lawmakers backed the decision for a “full and timely decant” of parliament by 234 votes to 185, paving the way for a multi-billion-pound revamp of the dilapidated complex. “This debate arguably should have taken place about 40 years ago,” […]

May arrives in China eyeing post-Brexit trade links

by Ben Dooley Agence France-Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May arrived in China on Wednesday as she seeks to bolster her country’s global trade links ahead of its contentious divorce with the European Union. May began her visit in the central industrial city of Wuhan and will be in China until Friday in what the Chinese foreign ministry has touted as a “historic visit.” Later on Wednesday, May will head to […]

Poland to post Chopin collection online

WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — Poland’s Fryderyk Chopin Institute (NIFC) on Tuesday said it would make its entire collection devoted to the 19th-century composer available online for free by 2020. “Chopin will be the first great composer to have all of his musical scores digitised” and openly accessible by all, NIFC deputy director Maciej Janicki told reporters. Nearly 40,000 Chopin items from the UNESCO world heritage collection — including photographs and paintings of the Polish-French romantic […]

Catalan separatists split as Puigdemont’s comeback bid delayed

by Diego Urdaneta with Marianne Barriaux in Madrid © Agence France-Presse BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — Divisions in Catalonia’s separatist bloc burst into the open Tuesday after the region’s parliamentary speaker postponed a crucial vote to reappoint ousted president Carles Puigdemont. Roger Torrent, who like Puigdemont is pro-independence but hails from a different party, announced last minute he had delayed the parliamentary session to ensure it could later go ahead in an “effective” way after Spain’s Constitutional Court […]

London attack accused hoped to kill Corbyn

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — A man accused of deliberately driving a van into a group of London Muslims told his trial on Tuesday that he wanted to kill the British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. Darren Osborne said killing the leftist Labour leader would have been “one less terrorist off our streets,” while killing Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan as well “would have been like winning the lottery.” Osborne is accused of murdering 51-year-old Makram Ali and […]

Ousted Catalan leader’s comeback bid delayed

by Diego URDANETA (Agence France-Presse BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – The speaker of Catalonia’s parliament postponed a crunch vote Tuesday to formally re-elect ousted president Carles Puigdemont into office, delaying his controversial comeback bid. But Roger Torrent defended Puigdemont’s right to be re-elected by Catalan lawmakers despite a court ban after separatist parties won a majority in December elections and the former regional leader was officially nominated as candidate for the presidency. “Today’s plenary session… is postponed,” he […]