Opposition lawmakers in Albania have thrown smoke bombs inside parliament to disrupt a session for the appointment of an interim prosecutor general, which they said was unconstitutional.

Albanian opposition MPs on Monday threw smoke grenades into the parliament chamber to protest the election of Arta Marku with 69 votes out of 76 by the ruling Socialist Party.

The move to stop the election, however, was in vain as Marku was eventually sworn in as temporary prosecutor general.

Opposition legislators claimed that parliament was not entitled to elect an interim prosecutor general and should wait for the creation of a permanent commission to do that.

They also argued that a prosecutor should be installed once some 800 judges and prosecutors are vetted and elected with three-fifths of votes in parliament.

Rightwing opposition leader Lulzim Basha censured socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama before the Monday parliament session for appointing a “puppet” to follow his commands.

Basha said Marku’s appointment “is a constitutional violation and can lead to the destabilization of the country.”

During his speech in parliament, Basha also warned the Albanian prime minister against a constitutional “putsch” in an effort to protect corrupt officials, including his former interior minister.

“You have decided to violate the Constitution to protect your wealth. This is the last moment that I ask you in the name of the Constitution to withdraw. This is the command of the people. Obey it or face the consequences,” the opposition leader said.

While the 41-year-old prosecutor general was taking oath of office in front of the Albanian lawmakers, several thousand activists and supporters of opposition parties Democratic Party (DP) and Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) were protesting outside the cordoned-off parliament building.

Albanian police clashed with opposition supporters trying to force their way into the building, with local media reporting that a number of people had been injured.

Marku is due to fill the vacant position of prosecutor general for the next two or three months until a new prosecution high council has been created.

Marku’s appointment is supported by the European Union and the US, as the move paves the way for judicial reforms needed for the country’s bid to launch EU membership negotiations.

Albania was granted EU candidate status in 2014 and hopes to launch negotiations next year.

Source: Presstv

More than half of the British people now want to stay in the European Union, according to a new poll that shows “Remainers” outnumbering “Leavers” by ten percentage points.

While 51 percent of Britons prefer to keep European Union membership, 41 percent want to leave the bloc, according to the BMG Research poll of 1,400 people conducted for The Independent.

According to The Independent, the lead for “Remain” over “Leave” was the biggest in any poll so far since the Brexit referendum in June 2016.

However, BMG Research head of polling cited a shift in opinion among those who chose not to vote last year as the reason for the change.

“The last time Leave polled ahead of Remain was in February 2017, and since then there has been a slow shift in top-line public opinion in favor of remaining in the EU,” said Michael Turner.

“However, readers should note that digging deeper into the data reveals that this shift has come predominantly from those who did not actually vote in the 2016 referendum, with around nine in ten Leave and Remain voters still unchanged in their view,” Turner added.

This comes as EU President Donald Tusk said EU leaders approved the opening of the next stage of Brexit talks Friday after reaching a deal on divorce terms with Britain.

At a meeting in Brussels, members of the bloc said there has been enough progress on key issues. The next phase will involve discussions over future relations and trade ties between the UK and the EU.

Negotiations on the transition period will resume in January.

But talks on trade will not begin until March as EU members need more clarity on the UK’s post-Brexit plans.

British Prime Minister Theresa May signed the divorce deal with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on December 8 after months of negotiations. The deal covers Britain’s exit bill, the future of the Irish border and the rights of EU expatriates in the UK.

Source: Presstv

The government of British Prime Minster Theresa May has suffered a fresh blow as lawmakers voted to force changes in London’s Brexit plans, giving Parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal struck with Brussels.

May was narrowly defeated in a key vote on its Brexit bill after a rebellion by 11 Tory MPs on Wednesday. Despite a last-minute attempt to offer minor concessions in the Commons, the amendment to the bill was backed by 309 to 305 as the Conservative rebels said it was too little too late.

Amendment 7 to Clause 9 was tabled by May’s own Conservative MP Dominic Grieve, who leads a faction of “rebels” within the party. The changes call for parliament to have a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal before it is finalized and written into law.

Several lawmakers from the prime minister’s governing Conservative Party sided with the opposition to insist that any withdrawal deal with the EU requires an Act of Parliament to take effect — essentially giving lawmakers a veto on Brexit.

The government argues that the changes could endanger the chances of delivering a smooth departure from the European Union, noting however that the “minor setback” would not prevent the UK leaving the EU in 2019.

Earlier on Wednesday, European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said there will be “no turning back” for Britain on commitments made during an initial divorce deal between the two.

10-Downing Street expressed disappointment with the vote, with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn calling it “a humiliating loss of authority” for the government.

Stephen Hammond, one of the Conservative MPs who voted against the government, was sacked as Conservative vice chairman in the aftermath of the vote. “Tonight I put country and constituency before party and voted with my principles to give Parliament a meaningful vote,” he tweeted.

The setback comes nearly five months after May’s conservative Party lost its majority in the 650-seat parliament following snap elections.

Sir Desmond Swayne told the Commons that the amendments are simply aimed at delaying Brexit, dismissing them as “sanctimonious guff” and their Conservative backers as “idiots,” and Senior Tory Bernard Jenkin said, “To dress this attempt to reverse Brexit as an argument in favor of parliamentary sovereignty is nothing but cant.”

The European Parliament’s chief Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt tweeted, “British Parliament takes back control. European and British Parliament together will decide on the final agreement. Interests of the citizens will prevail over narrow party politics. A good day for democracy.”

EU leaders will hold a two-day summit as of Thursday during which they are scheduled to agree that there has been “sufficient progress” for the talks to move to the second phase of future relations and trade, a subject London wants to open as soon as possible.

Following the vote, May was on her way to Brussels to push European leaders to begin discussing the EU’s future trade deal with Britain.

A leaked draft of a text to be considered by the EU 27 leaders on Friday suggests that trade talks may not start until after a subsequent summit in March.

Britain is due to leave the bloc in March 2019, but a Brexit deal will have to be agreed by the fall of 2018 to give national parliaments time to approve it.

Source: Presstv

Britain and the EU reached a historic deal on Friday on the terms of the Brexit divorce after Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to Brussels for early morning talks.

The European Commission said it “recommends sufficient progress” had been made by Britain on separation issues including the Irish border, Britain’s divorce bill, and citizens rights.

The agreement paves the way for EU leaders at a summit on December 14-15 to open the second phase of Brexit negotiations, covering trade talks and a transition period.

Britain voted in June 2016 to become the first state to leave the EU, after more than four decades of membership, but the talks have been slow moving and often acrimonious so far.

“The Commission is satisfied that sufficient progress has been achieved in each of the three priority areas,” the European Commission said in a statement.

Negotiators worked through the night to seal an agreement on the terms of Britain’s departure from the bloc.

The EU had set a deadline of Sunday after the last talks on Monday broke down when May’s Northern Irish allies objected to terms for future arrangements for the Irish border.

Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff Martin Selmayr tweeted a picture of white smoke — the sign used by the Vatican to signify the election of a new pope — shortly after May’s arrival.

Juncker spoke first with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar then with May on Thursday night in a bid to break a deadlock over the wording of a deal on future arrangements for the Irish border.

Border quandary

Britain agreed to pay a divorce settlement amounting to between 45 and 55 billion euros and to protect the rights of some three million European citizens living there after Brexit as part of the deal.

But Ireland’s demands that Brexit should not lead to the return of checkpoints on the border with Northern Ireland, which it said could jeopardise the peace process in the north, proved the biggest stumbling block at the end.

“In Northern Ireland we guarantee there will be no hard border,” May told a press conference with Juncker.

The pro-British DUP party which props up May’s government refused Monday’s draft deal over a phrase suggesting there would be “regulatory alignment” with the EU after Brexit — effectively putting Northern Ireland under EU law.

DUP leader Arlene Foster told Sky News there had now been changes following talks with May.

“We’re pleased to see those changes because for me it means there’s no red line down the Irish Sea and we have the very clear confirmation that the entirety of the United Kingdom is leaving the European union, leaving the single market, leaving the customs union,” she said.

On Thursday, EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas had dismissed British newspaper reports that the Sunday deadline could be extended into next week as “not correct”.

‘Totally and utterly incompetent’ 

Scotland’s nationalist leader showed little patience, accusing the British government of being “totally and utterly incompetent” on Brexit.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said “the real lesson” of the past week was that Scotland “will always be at the mercy of reckless decisions taken by Tory governments at Westminster” unless it becomes independent.

“The sooner we are in control over our own future here in Scotland the better, and this week has proved it,” she added.

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem offered some calming words, saying Britain’s City of London financial hub “will not fall apart” after Brexit even if it loses the right to allow banks to trade freely across the bloc.

Dijsselbloem, the Netherlands finance minister who chairs meetings of his counterparts in the 19-country eurozone, said that some businesses would nevertheless have to relocate.

“I don’t believe that the City will fall apart and that everyone will flee. I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work,” he told a European Parliament committee.

His reassurances come at a time when Britain’s finance sector is anxious about losing the “passporting” rights which allow large international banks to trade throughout the EU while being based in Britain.

(Source: AFP)

A judge in the Spanish Supreme Court has withdrawn European and international arrest warrants issued for leaders of an independence movement in northeastern Catalonia region.

A Supreme Court spokesman said Tuesday that former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and four members of his former cabinet will no longer need to fight extradition in Belgium, where they have stayed since a crackdown began in Catalonia against the region’s push for independence late in October.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the five were still subject to domestic warrants and they would be arrested if they return to Spain to contest a fresh regional election slated for December 21.

Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena said that new evidence had been found suggesting that alleged crimes of rebellion by Puigdemont and allies were a group action, leading to the withdrawal of individual warrants issued against them.

Llarena said the domestic warrants stayed because the five had to still face rebellion, sedition and embezzlement among other charges. He added that diminished charges would be a “distortion” for other suspects already facing the probe in Spain.

Puigdemont, the main engineer of a controversial referendum of independence in Catalonia in early October, read an independence declaration on October 27 only to give Madrid the pretext to sack his government and launch a sweeping crackdown on those involved in the secession push.

There has been no indication that he will return to Spain from Belgium, where judges had been reviewing his extradition request.

“For the moment he stays in Belgium,” his lawyer Paul Bekaert said, adding that the new statement by Spain’s Supreme Court could mean that the extradition process against the five would be ended in Belgium.

Belgian prosecutor’s office, which had announced December 14 for a decision on the case, said it was assessing the new situation.

Source: Presstv

The Republic of Ireland has threatened to veto Brexit trade talks unless Britain provides guarantees over Dublin’s border with Northern Ireland.

The Irish EU commissioner, Phil Hogan, said on Sunday that the border problem can easily be solved if British Prime Minister Theresa May drops her plans to take Britain out of the European Union customs union and the single market when it departs the 28-nation bloc in 2019.

 “If the UK or Northern Ireland remained in the EU customs union, or better still the single market, there would be no border issue,” he said. “That’s a very simple fact.”

Britain’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, quickly rejected Hogan’s solution. He told Sky News that the resolution of the border issue between the two Irelands will have to wait until details about future trade relations with the EU have been worked out.

“We don’t want there to be a hard border, but the UK is going to be leaving the customs union and the single market,” he said.

A hard border would make passport and customs controls mandatory, hampering business ties between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The EU has required sufficient progress on the border issue as a pre-condition to launch the Brexit trade talks next year before officially leaving the bloc in 2019.

In an interview with the Observer, Hogan (pictured above) also warned there was “blind faith” from some UK ministers that Britain would secure a comprehensive Brexit free trade deal. He warned that Ireland would “continue to play tough to the end” over its threat to veto trade talks until it had guarantees over the border.

The Irish government wants a written guarantee that there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland, something Dublin emphasizes can only be achieved, in effect, by keeping the region within the single market and customs union. However, May has repeatedly made clear that Britain will leave the single market and customs union, regardless of the border implications.

Ireland’s approach has also been rejected by Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionists, a Northern Ireland party that is using its votes in the parliament to prop up May’s minority government.

Foster told her party conference Saturday that the party would not back any agreement that “creates barriers” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, in effect ruling out special status for Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit era.

Source: Presstv

Tens of thousands of people have staged a protest rally in the Spanish city of Valencia, calling on the central government in Madrid to allocate more funding to the autonomous community of the same name.

More than 60,000 demonstrators took to the main streets of the city on Saturday, expressing discontent with what they called the unfair distribution of budget to Valencia.

Waving Valencia’s regional flags, the protesters demanded that the Spanish government revise the country’s financial system in order for a fairer distribution of funding to autonomous communities.

“We came to this demonstration to ask and to demand that the financial distribution to the autonomous communities become fairer and more balanced with the population and with the investments we have,” said Cloti Iborra, a participant at the peaceful rally.

“We are an autonomous region that… [is] underfunded; we pay more than what we receive. We pay as a rich community, when in reality we are poor; we have higher unemployment, lower wages,” she added.

The Saturday demonstration enjoyed the support of all political parties in Spain except the ruling conservative People’s Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The Spanish prime minister’s government has already had to cope with a secession bid in Catalonia, which is also an autonomous region and which neighbors Valencia in northeastern Spain.

Madrid has had to sack the regional government in Catalonia over its defiant bid to gain independence from Spain following a referendum that was held illegally on October 1.

Anti-government sentiments still run deep in Catalonia as people favoring independence stage back-to-back rallies on the streets and urge Madrid to free jailed leaders and activists.

Source: Presstv

German political factions have failed in their initial efforts to form a three-way coalition because of disagreements over environment, business, and migration policies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had set Thursday as the deadline for exploratory talks about forming a coalition government following elections on September 24.

Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc won 246 seats; the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), 80 seats; and the left-leaning environment-friendly Green Party, 67 in those elections. There are currently 709 seats in the German legislative body, or the Bundestag.

The coalition government being negotiated is referred to as “Jamaica” because the parties’ colors match those of the Caribbean island country’s flag.

The exploratory talks of the three parties continued into the early hours of Friday. Later in the day, they announced that they had failed to find common ground to begin formal coalition negotiations.

The three parties said further talks would be postponed to Friday noon.

“We’ll continue at noon today,” said Winfried Kretschmann, a Greens negotiator and premier of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, early on Friday.

The main sticking points between the groups are their different perspectives over climate, migration, and finances.

Conservative participants said some of those differences might not be resolved at all.

“I don’t know if we can resolve all the discrepancies, all the disagreements,” said Joachim Herrmann, a senior member of the CSU, the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

Failure to clinch a deal could lead to new elections.

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), criticized the would-be coalition partners for failing to reach a deal, telling daily Die Welt, “If the (conservative) Union, FDP, and Greens don’t reach an agreement soon, there should be new elections.”

This is a scenario none of the negotiating parties would want, for fear that the far-right AfD could make further gains after already entering the parliament in the September 24 elections.

While Merkel is perceived as a skilled negotiator, the failure to form the coalition government has already been described as her loss.

“A failure of Jamaica would be her failure,” wrote the mass-circulation German daily Bild.

Culled from Presstv

Nearly 40 Conservative MPs have agreed to sign a letter of no confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May, according to The Sunday Times.

A vote of no confidence means that May could be forced from office and replaced by another Conservative.

There is a need for eight more MPs to trigger a party leadership contest. That is not unlikely as the number of parliament members, who want to oust May, has increased in recent weeks.

One minister told the paper, “It’s a horrible thing to say… but we are getting closer and closer to the point whereby we need some time in opposition to regroup.”

Divided over how to pull Britain out of the European Union and hit by several sex scandals involving ministers, May’s government has been getting weaker in asserting control over the country’s chaotic political situation

On Friday, EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier handed Britain a two-week ultimatum to make concessions on a divorce agreement if it wants to unlock the next phase of talks in December.

Frenchman Barnier said it was “vital” for Britain to increase its offer on its exit bill — a figure senior EU officials put at up to 60 billion euros — to open up talks on a future trade deal.

Tory Brexiteers, however, warned May over the ultimatum, advising the premier against giving in to the EU demands.

One Conservative former cabinet minister called the demands “unacceptable,” while another prominent backbencher said any more concessions would be a “sign of weakness.”

May has also come under criticism after two lawmakers from the Labour Party and two from the Conservative Party were accused of harassing and propositioning young women inappropriately.

UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has also resigned from his position after accepting his misconduct toward a female journalist in the past.

Source: Presstv