171/2018 • 28 JULY, 2018 WEEKEND ISSUE
DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Carles Puigdemont to return to Belgium after German stay He dismissed suggestions that Russia supported his movement as fake news
The Catalonian separatist leader has appeared before the press to announce plans to move to Brussels to fight for his regionʼs independence. He dismissed suggestions that Russia supported his movement as "fake news." Catalonian separatist leader Carles Puigdemont is to return to Brussels to rejoin his exiled government on Saturday after a German court refused to extradite him to Spain on charges of rebellion. At a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday, the former Catalonian president thanked Germany, and the German lawyers who sat alongside him, and declared that the question of Catalonian independence was a European matter, not a domestic Spanish matter, "and this European view must be taken into account during the search for solutions." Puigdemont said he had been treated with respect during his brief detention and four-month stay in Germany after he was arrested on a European warrant while passing through the countryʼs north en route to Belgium in March. He fled Spain last year when the Madrid government removed him from office after he unilaterally declared Cataloniaʼs independence. The 55-year-oldʼs extradition order waslifted by the Supreme Court in Madrid last week after a court in Schleswig-Holstein ruled that Puigdemont could only be extradited on the lesser charge of embezzling public money – a charge that Puigdemont comprehensively denies. That means the Catalan leader is now free to travel
around Europe, though his arrest warrant in Spain is still valid. Puigdemont spent much of Wednesdayʼs press conference batting away suggestions that his actions had undermined the European Union at a time when the bloc was being destabilized by US and Russian actions. In May, Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germanyʼs domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, said that the Catalonian separatist movement was being supported by Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns – though not financially. Puigdemont did not address the BfV charge directly, but he said there were a lot of "fake news" about ties between his movement and Russia. "There is not a single concrete sign that this is true," he said, through a translator, before adding, "there were bots on the internet that were responsible for that." Separatists undermining Europe Another reporter brought up Donald Trumpʼs former advisor, and far-right ideologue, Stephen Bannon and his plans to open an anti-EU think tank in Brussels ahead of next yearʼs European elections, and suggested it was "highly dangerous" to undermine the EUʼs unity with separatist movements. "First of all I would like to emphasize that the Catalonian question, whether independent or not, is more than anything a European question," Puigdemont said. "We have always tied our project for Catalonia in cooperation with Europe and the unity of Europe. "
Swedish student faces consequences of plane deportee protest
Pakistan election hit by violence
Top EU court rules new breeding tech counts as GMOs
As passengers know, a plane cannot take off until all on board have taken their seats and buckled their seat belts. On Monday, a young Swedish activist named Elin Ersson used that rule to keep a flight carrying a 52-year-old Afghan manbeing deported to Kabulfrom taking off in Gothenborg. The flight was scheduled to travel to Istanbul where the man was to be transferred to another plane to Afghanistan. With everyone else on the plane seated, the young Swede took out her cellphone and began livestreaming video on Facebook.
Dozens of people were killed on Wednesday in a suicide bombing near a polling station the in the city of Quetta in western Pakistan. The militant "Islamic State" (IS) group and the Taliban threatened to target votersduring Pakistanʼs national election. What we know so far: At least 30 people were killed, including a child, and over 30 people were wounded when the suicide bomber detonated outside a crowded polling station in Quetta.Several of the wounded are in critical condition and the death toll could rise further.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Wednesday that a new set of genetic engineering techniques pioneered by biotechnology firms is subject to bloc regulations ongenetically modified organisms (GMOs). The breeding techniques had been given an exemption for organisms created by mutagenesis, a process in which some gene sequences are removed, but no foreign ones are introduced. These exemptions were challenged by small-scale French farmers, and the suit went all the way to Europeʼs top court.
The Catalonian separatist leader has appeared before the press to announce plans to move to Brussels to fight for his regionʼs independence. He dismissed suggestions that Russia supported his movement as "fake news."
Novichok came in ʼexpensiveʼ looking perfume bottle Amesbury poisoning survivor Charlie Rowley gave the bottle which contained Novichok nerve agent to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess as a gift, believing it to be perfume, according to interviews he gave to the UKʼs ITV and the mass-circulation paper The Sun. Rowley said he had picked up the bottle, which "looked expensive" and was labeled as perfume, before giving it to his partner. However, he said he was unable to remember where he had found the poison, telling The Sun it was "still a blur."