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      Northern Ireland faces court case over £300m north-south power pylon plan

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 8 April

    Campaigners claim NI is being used as a ‘whipping boy’ to feed Irish republic’s energy-hungry datacentres

    An ambitious €350m (£300m) plan to connect electricity grids across the island of Ireland is heading for the high court after a challenge brought by campaigners claiming Northern Ireland was being used as a “whipping boy” to feed the republic’s energy-hungry datacentres.

    An estimated 150 landowners representing 6,500 residents have called on the Northern Ireland minister for infrastructure, Liz Kimmins, to suspend the construction of more than 100 towering pylons in Armagh and Tyrone until a judicial review, due to start on 9 April, has been completed.

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      Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy speaks of military presence in Russia’s Belgorod region for first time

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 8 April • 3 minutes

    Ukraine president makes first explicit mention of ‘active operations’ on ground in Russian border region close to Kursk. What we know on day 1,140

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy said for the first time Monday that Ukrainian forces were operating in Russia’s Belgorod region , where Moscow reported attacks in March. Belgorod is regularly the target of Ukrainian air attacks and is close to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been desperately trying to hang on to territory since launching a surprise incursion last year. Zelenskyy said in his daily address that General Oleksandr Syrsky had reported on “our presence in Kursk region and our presence in Belgorod region”. He added: “We continue to conduct active operations in the border areas on the enemy’s territory, and this is absolutely right – the war must return to where it came from.” It is the first time since the full-scale invasion began that Zelenskyy has explicitly mentioned a Ukrainian presence in Belgorod, a border region with a population of about 1.5 million people. The Russian military acknowledged facing Ukrainian land attacks in the region in March. According to the DeepState military blog, which is considered close to Ukraine’s army, Ukrainian troops have occupied a 13 sq km (five square mile) area in the Russian region , near the border village of Demidovka. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have said the incursion into Kursk and other Russian territory is to divert Russian forces attacking the Ukrainian regions of Sumy and Kharkiv.

    Anger and outrage gripped Zelenskyy’s home town on Monday as it held funerals for some of the 20 people, including nine children, killed by a Russian missile that struck apartment buildings and a playground. More than 70 were wounded in the attack on Kryvyi Rih last Friday evening. The children were playing on swings and in a sandbox in a tree-lined park at the time. Bodies were strewn across the grass. “We are not asking for pity,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city administration, wrote on Telegram as Kryvyi Rih mourned. “We demand the world’s outrage.” The UN Human Rights Office in Ukraine said it was the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was also one of the deadliest attacks so far this year.

    Teacher Iryna Kholod remembered Arina and Radyslav, both 7 years old and killed in Friday’s strike, as being “like little suns in the classroom” . Radyslav, she said, was proud to be part of a school campaign collecting pet food for stray animals. “He held the bag like it was treasure. He wanted to help,” she told the Associated Press. After Friday evening, “two desks in my classroom were empty forever,” Kholod said, adding that she still has unopened birthday gifts for them.
    “How do I tell parents to return their textbooks? How do I teach without them?” she asked.

    Donald Trump has accused Russia of “bombing like crazy right now” even as the US president claimed the parties were “sort of close” on a deal. On Monday he reiterated his opposition to Russia’s bombing of Ukraine as his administration participates in talks seeking an end to the fighting. “I’m not happy about what’s going on”, he told reporters in the White House. “So we’re meeting with Russia, we’re meeting with Ukraine, and we’re getting sort of close, but I’m not happy with all the bombing that’s going in the last week or so,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing.”

    Trump’s Monday remarks came hours after the Kremlin said it supported the idea of a truce in Ukraine but had many “questions” about how such a deal would work, pushing back at US and European suggestions that it was playing for time. Russia has kept up its strikes on Ukraine unabated despite the US president’s promise to bring peace within “24 hours” of returning to the White House in January.

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      Belgian prince loses legal battle to receive social security benefits on top of royal allowance

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 8 April

    Prince Laurent had argued that his work entitled him to the same benefits as independent entrepreneurs but a court in Brussels disagreed

    A Belgian prince has lost a legal battle to claim social security benefits on top of his royal allowance, with a court ruling his claim – the first of its kind in the country’s nearly 200-year history – “unfounded”.

    Prince Laurent, the youngest of three children of the former king and queen, had argued that his work entitled him to the coverage granted to independent entrepreneurs – and that he was acting out of “principle” rather than for money.

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      Couple who ran Swedish eco-retreat fled leaving behind barrels of human waste

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 7 April

    Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, now in Guatemala, had racked up large tax debt at Stedsans forest retreat

    A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

    Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

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      EU offered ‘zero-for-zero’ deal to US weeks before tariff announcement

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 7 April

    Cars and other goods were to be included, according to EU trade commissioner, who says offer is still on table

    The EU has said it offered the US a “zero-for-zero” tariff deal on cars and industrial goods weeks before Donald Trump launched his trade war , but that it would not wait to defend itself.

    Maros Šefčovič, the EU commissioner for trade, said he had proposed zero tariffs on cars and a range of industrial goods, such as pharmaceutical products, rubber and machinery, during his first meeting with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, on 19 February.

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      ‘Incompatible with the symbolism’: Yorgos Lanthimos denied permission to shoot new film at the Acropolis

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 7 April

    The country’s best-known director was refused by Greece’s culture ministry when he applied to shoot scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at iconic Athens site

    Greece’s leading contemporary director has had a request to shoot footage for his new film at the Acropolis in Athens denied by his country’s culture ministry.

    Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because “the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents”.

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      La conduite autonome de Tesla réussit à déjouer la jungle de cyclistes d’Amsterdam

      news.movim.eu / Numerama • 7 April

    La conduite autonome n'est pas encore autorisée en Europe pour des questions de régulations. Cela n'empêche pas Tesla de la mettre à l'épreuve à Amsterdam, dans une vraie jungle urbaine. Elle arrive particulièrement bien à gérer les nombreux cyclistes sur son trajet.

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      ‘We made everything bear-proof’: the Italian village that learned to love its bears

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 7 April

    By learning to live with its ursine neighbours, mountainous Pettorano sul Gizio has drawn tourists and new residents, bucking a trend of rural decline

    Pettorano sul Gizio is a medieval mountain town full of alleys, watchful cats and wooden doors locked sometime in the last century. In the lower parts of town, rustic charm turns into abandonment – branches grow out of walls and roofs have fallen in. The only bar closed at Christmas, after the owner died. Some “For Sale” signs have been up so long the phone number is illegible.

    The town, with its faded ochre and orange hues, is listed as one of Italy’s I Borghi più belli (an association of historic towns). In 1920, about 5,000 people lived here, now the population is 390 . It resembles many others in Italy’s south-central Abruzzo region, home to a shrinking, ageing population. One nearby town has been almost completely abandoned, and is home to just 12 people.

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      EU ministers to meet to consider response to Donald Trump’s tariffs – Europe live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 7 April

    Meeting in Luxembourg follows EU trade commissioner’s meetings with US counterparts last week as Trump signals no intention to back down

    US president Donald Trump have signaled no intention to back down on his tariffs policy over the weekend, as he urged reporters to “forget markets for a second” and insisted “we have all the advantages.”

    “I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said amid continuing slumps on global markets.

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