Putin claims presidential vote result proves public support for policies

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Russian president Vladimir Putin has thanked Russians for casting ballots in a presidential vote in which he cemented his grip on the country for another six years after the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times. Any public criticism of Mr Putin or his war in Ukraine has been stifled, independent media have been crippled, Mr Putin’s fiercest political foe, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison last month and other opposition activists are either in jail or in exile. Western leaders denounced the election as a sham. Speaking in a video address following the announcement of the final results of the March 15th-17th election which showed him winning 87 per cent of the votes, Mr Putin argued that it reflected strong public backing of his policies. “It means support for the country’s political and economic course, our common achievements that, of course, should be even greater but even now make Russia stronger and more independent,” he said. The Central Election Commission on Thursday released the final official results of the balloting, which showed Mr Putin getting more than 76 million votes, the largest number in his nearly quarter-century rule. His three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties who backed Mr Putin’s policies each received 3 to 4 per cent of the vote. In addition to there being little choice, no independent monitoring organisations were able to observe the election and analysts said online polling meant it was highly susceptible to manipulation. While Mr Putin’s landslide victory was never in doubt, many Russians still attempted to defy the preordained outcome, heeding a call by Mr Navalny’s associates to protest against Mr Putin’s repression at home and his war in Ukraine by showing up at polling stations at noon on Sunday. Lines outside a number of polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world swelled at that time. Mr Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister since December 1999, a tenure marked by international military aggression and increasing intolerance of dissent. At the end of his fifth term, Mr Putin would be the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great, who ruled during the 18th century.

French regulators fine Google €250m in dispute with news publishers

France’s competition watchdog has hit Google with another big fine tied to a long-running dispute over payments to French publishers for their news. The French Competition Authority said it issued the €250 million penalty because of Google’s failure to comply with some commitments it made in a negotiating framework. The dispute is part of a larger effort by authorities in the European Union and around the world to force Google and other tech companies to compensate news publishers for content. The US tech giant was forced to negotiate with French publishers after a court in 2020 upheld an order saying payments were required by a 2019 European Union copyright directive.
The move is part of global efforts to force the tech giants to pay for news content
Google said in a blog post that it had agreed to settle the fine, which was imposed over how it conducted the negotiations, “because it’s time to move on”. The firm said the fine was “not proportionate” to the issues raised by the French watchdog and “doesn’t sufficiently take into account” Google’s efforts to answer and resolve the concerns. France was the first of the EU’s 27 nations to adopt the copyright directive, which lays out a way for publishers and news companies to strike licensing deals with online platforms. Wednesday’s decision by the French Competition Authority is the fourth in as many years against Google for failing to comply with the EU legal framework that aims to establish “necessary conditions for balanced negotiations between press agencies, publishers and digital platforms”. The French antitrust agency had issued temporary orders to Google in April 2020 to hold talks within three months with news publishers. In 2021, the agency fined Google €500 million for failing to negotiate a fair payment for publishers’ news.

Olympic committee labels Russia’s Friendship Games ‘a cynical attempt to politicise sport’

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has urged a boycott of Russia’s planned ‘Friendship Games’, labelling the event a “cynical attempt” by the country to “politicise sport”. Russia intends to stage the ‘Summer Friendship Games’ in the cities of Moscow and Ekaterinburg in September this year, just a few weeks after the Paris Olympics, and a winter event in Sochi in 2026. “For this purpose, the Russian government has launched a very intensive diplomatic offensive by having government delegations and ambassadors, as well as ministerial and other governmental authorities, approaching governments around the world,” the IOC said in a statement. “To make their purely political motivation even more obvious, they are deliberately circumventing the sports organisations in their target countries. This is a blatant violation of the Olympic Charter and an infringement of the various UN resolutions at the same time. “It is a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation to politicise sport. “The Olympic movement strongly condemns any initiative to fully politicise sport, in particular the establishment of fully politicised sports events by the Russian government. “The IOC strongly urges all stakeholders of the Olympic movement and all governments to reject any participation in, and support of, any initiative that intends to fully politicise international sport.” Since the military invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Russia has been banned from the Olympics, although athletes from the country who have qualified for Paris 2024 can compete in a neutral capacity.

Hamstring injury rules Lionel Messi out of Argentina friendlies

Lionel Messi will not be available for Argentina in their upcoming international friendly double-header due to injury. In a statement posted on their official X page, Argentina confirmed that the forward would not be in the squad after sustaining a “minor” injury to his hamstring. Messi sustained the injury playing for Inter Miami during their Concacaf Champions Cup clash against Nashville. The 36-year-old scored in the 23rd minute of his side’s 3-1 victory over their MLS rivals on Thursday, but was replaced five minutes after the break and was not in the squad for their subsequent league meeting against DC United on Saturday. The Argentina statement said: “The captain of Argentina, Lionel Messi, will not be able to be in the squad for the friendlies in USA due to a minor injury to the hamstring of his right leg, suffered in his team’s Inter Miami CF match against Nashville SC.” Argentina are due to play two friendlies this month, starting with El Salvador on Saturday before playing Costa Rica on next Wednesday.

Andy Murray says deciding when to retire ‘not an easy decision’

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Andy Murray has revealed he is still unsure exactly when this summer he will retire as a tennis player. Murray, 36, said last month that he “did not plan on playing much past this summer” and in an interview with The Times he explained why he cannot be more specific about when he hangs up his racket. He said: “I would love the chance to play in another Olympics, but also genuinely only if I felt like there was a chance of winning a medal. “I’m also very conscious that because of how amazing my experiences at the Olympics have been, I would want to be there by right and not just take one of the other guys’ spots, because it is a brilliant opportunity. “We have top doubles players (Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski are ranked inside the world’s top 10) and also Jack (Draper), Cam (Norrie) and Evo (Dan Evans) in singles as well.” Murray, a three-time grand slam winner, who held the number one spot in the men’s singles rankings for a total of 41 weeks in the same era as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, could focus on the doubles at the Paris Olympics, which will be played on his least favourite surface, clay. He reached the quarter-finals in partnership with Salisbury at Tokyo 2020 and added: “When I played with Joe, I had the conversation beforehand with him that my feeling was there was a greater chance of me winning a medal in doubles than singles.” Murray said he was “bored” of being questioned about when he will retire, saying: “It’s been happening since Wimbledon last year in most weeks. It’s something that I’ve had to talk about and entertain. “Obviously at some stage the end will come. It’s not an easy decision to know exactly when that will be or when it should be.”

Icelandic volcano erupts for fourth time in three months

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A volcano in Iceland has erupted for the fourth time in three months, sending orange jets of lava into the night sky. Iceland’s Meteorological Office said the eruption opened a fissure about two miles long between Stora-Skogfell and Hagafell mountains on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The Met Office had warned for weeks that magma — semi-molten rock — was accumulating under the ground, making an eruption likely. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, national broadcaster RUV said. No flight disruptions were reported at nearby Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport. The eruption site is a few miles north east of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people about 30 miles south west of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik. Grindavik was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town. The volcano eventually erupted on December 18, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on January 14 sent lava toward the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered after the first eruption stopped some of the flow but several buildings were consumed by the lava. Both eruptions lasted only a matter of days. A third eruption began on February 8 and petered out within hours. RUV quoted geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson as saying that the latest eruption is the most powerful so far. Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions and is highly experienced at dealing with them. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe. No confirmed deaths have been reported from any of the recent eruptions but a workman was declared missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano.

US parades cap St Patrick’s Day celebrations – a little early

People across the United States have celebrated their Irish heritage at several major St Patrick’s Day parades on Saturday. They are marking the holiday a day early at events that included a big anniversary in Savannah, Georgia, and honoured a pioneering female business leader as grand marshal in New York. The holiday was largely popularised in the US by Irish immigrants. Many parades were moved to Saturday, a day ahead of St Patrick’s Day. Manhattan’s St Patrick’s Day Parade, which dates to 1762 – 14 years before the US Declaration of Independence – is one of the world’s largest Irish heritage festivities. Megan Stransky of Houston and two relatives planned a Broadway weekend to coincide with the parade, seeing it as a prime opportunity to remember their family’s Irish roots and the traditions that helped shape their upbringing.
Bagpipers march along Fifth Avenue during the St Patrick’s Day
The event did not disappoint. “There is no comparison to any other parade or city that I’ve been to,” Ms Stransky marvelled, as she took in the bagpipers, bands, police and military contingents and more. The grand marshal, Irish-born Heineken USA chief executive Maggie Timoney, is the first female head of a major US beer company. At a pre-parade reception at New York’s mayoral residence, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee hailed the recognition for Timoney and noted some other causes for celebrating Irish American links this year, including Cillian Murphy’s best actor Oscar win last weekend. New York City has multiple parades on various dates around its five boroughs – including, on Sunday, the first St Patrick’s Day parade allowing LGBTQ+ groups to march on Staten Island. Mayor Eric Adams last month announced the plan for the new, privately organised celebration, arranged after a local group had asked for years to join the borough’s decades-old parade. That longstanding event, which does not allow groups to march under LGBTQ+ banners, happened earlier this month. The Manhattan parade began allowing LGBTQ+ groups and symbols in 2015, after decades of protests, legal challenges and boycotts by some politicians.
Attorney General of New York, Letitia James (left) and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, march during the city parade
Ahead of Chicago’s parade, thousands of people, many decked out in green with beers in hand, gathered along the Chicago River to watch the local plumbers’ union boats turn the water green. Organisers say the tradition, started by the union, uses an environmentally friendly powder once used to check pipes for leaks. vannah, Georgia, organisers expected a historic crowd to participate in the parade, which started in 1824. Ahead of the bicentennial, Georgia’s oldest city had nearly 18,000 hotel rooms booked for the weekend.

India announces multi-phase general elections starting on April 19

India has announced its six-week-long general elections will start on April 19, with most surveys predicting a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Voting in the world’s largest democracy will stretch over seven phases, with different states voting at different times and results will be announced on June 4. Nearly one billion voters — more than 10% of the world’s population — will elect 543 members for the lower house of Parliament for a term of five years. Mr Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term, faces little challenge as the main opposition alliance of over two dozen regional parties led by the Indian National Congress party appears to be cracking, riven by rivalries, political defections and ideological clashes. Analysts say the elections are likely to cement Mr Modi as one of India’s most enduring most consequential leaders who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation. Each election phase will last one day and several constituencies — spread across multiple states, densely populated cities and far-flung villages — will vote that day. The staggered polling allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence and transport electoral officials and voting machines. India has a first-past-the-post multiparty electoral system in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins. Ahead of the polls, Mr Modi has been travelling across the country inaugurating new projects, making speeches and engaging with voters. Support for the leader surged after he opened a Hindu temple in northern Ayodhya city in January, which many saw as the unofficial start of his election campaign because it fulfilled his party’s long-held Hindu nationalist pledge. The 73-year-old first swept to power in 2014 on promises of economic development, presenting himself as an outsider cracking down on the political elite. Since then, he has grown increasingly popular and mixed religion with politics in a formula that has resonated deeply with the country’s majority Hindu population even if it undermines India’s secular roots. The elections come as India’s clout on the global stage has risen under Mr Modi, thanks to its large economy and partly because it is seen as a counterweight to a rising China. Critics say that nearly a decade of Mr Modi’s rule has been marked by rising unemployment even as its economy swells, attacks by Hindu nationalists against the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media. The opposition says a win by Mr Modi’s party could threaten India’s status as a secular, democratic nation. A victory for Mr Modi’s BJP would follow a 2019 electoral triumph, when it secured an absolute majority with 303 parliamentary seats against 52 held by the Congress party.

Former Czech president Milos Zeman in stable condition after blood clot surgery

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Former Czech president Milos Zeman is in a serious but stable condition after undergoing surgery for a blood clot in his leg, hospital officials said. Motol University Hospital in Prague said Mr Zeman had an insufficient blood supply in one of his legs because of the blood clot. The supply of blood was restored during the operation, it said. It was not clear how long Mr Zeman would remain in hospital. The 79-year-old used to be a heavy smoker and drinker and suffers from diabetes and neuropathy. He has been admitted to hospital several times. He has trouble walking and has been using a wheelchair. Mr Zeman’s second and final term in the largely ceremonial post of president ended in March last year. In office, he sought closer ties with China and was a leading pro-Russian voice in EU politics. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Mr Zeman condemned the “unprovoked act of aggression”. He opposed initial EU sanctions against Russia after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Actor Pierce Brosnan fined for walking in Yellowstone park thermal area

Pierce Brosnan pleaded guilty to stepping off a trail in a thermal area during a visit to Yellowstone National Park. Brosnan was fined $500 and ordered to make a donation of $1,000 to Yellowstone Forever — a non-profit organisation that supports the park — by April 1st, court records said. A second petty offence, for violating closures and use limits, was dismissed by US Magistrate Judge Stephanie Hambrick. Brosnan’s attorney, Karl Knuchel, was not immediately available for comment. Brosnan (70) walked in an off-limits area at Mammoth Terraces, in the northern part of Yellowstone near the Wyoming-Montana line, on November 1st, according to the citations. He was in the park on a personal visit and not for film work, the US Attorney’s Office for Wyoming has said. Mammoth Terraces is a scenic spot of mineral-encrusted hot springs bubbling from a hillside. They are just some of the park’s hundreds of thermal features, which range from spouting geysers to gurgling mud pots, with water at or near the boiling point. Going out-of-bounds in such areas can be dangerous. Some of the millions of people who visit Yellowstone each year get badly burned by ignoring warnings not to stray off the trail. Getting caught can bring legal peril, too, with jail time, hefty fines and bans from the park handed down to trespassers regularly. In addition to his four James Bond films, Brosnan starred in the 1980s TV series Remington Steele and is known for starring roles in the films Mrs Doubtfire and The Thomas Crown Affair.