World

BRUSSELS — European Union lawmakers want to tell Britons they can change their minds and stay in the EU after Prime Minister Theresa May triggers a two-year Brexit countdown on Wednesday.

The European Parliament is drafting a resolution to respond to May’s notice of withdrawal under Article 50 of the EU treaty. Senior lawmakers said it would stress London could still halt the process, as long as the other member states agreed. 

The resolution text is not yet final but the intent is to strengthen the hand of those in Britain who want to halt Brexit.

“We do not want to close the door to common sense,” Philippe Lamberts, Belgian co-leader of the Greens in the parliament, told reporters. A member of the Brexit team in the legislature, which will have to approve an exit treaty, Lamberts added: “There will be a reference to the revocability of Article 50.”

 Elmar Brok, a member of the team from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, also said there was such a reference in the draft resolution, to be agreed by party leaders on Wednesday and put to a vote in the legislature next week.

Insisting Britain can U-turn enters hazy legal territory. 

It defies May, who says the process cannot be halted despite Brexit opponents’ hopes of a new referendum or British parliamentary vote. And although EU officials disagree with May and have said the process can be stopped, with the consent of all states, they do not welcome Brussels lawmakers’ bid to revive the issue.

EU resigned to Brexit

Donald Tusk, the European Council president who will receive May’s letter on Wednesday, has said since last June’s referendum vote to leave that he was sure the other 27 member states would agree to let Britain stay if it had a change of heart. 

But he will make no mention of that this week when he gives the EU’s response to May by issuing draft guidelines for the Brexit negotiations, EU officials said. Even governments most reluctant to see Britain go have little appetite for the further upset and uncertainty a British U-turn would have.

The bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had tried to discourage lawmakers from making explicit reference to halting the exit, parliamentary officials said, and had insisted that it include a reference to any cancellation of the Brexit process requiring the unanimous approval of all 27 other member states.

Aides to Barnier declined immediate comment.

The question of whether unanimity would be needed has divided legal opinion in Brussels but EU officials said on Tuesday the prevailing view was that it was necessary.

Last month, former prime minister Tony Blair called on Britons to “rise up” and try to block Brexit if they could. 

But that may no longer be entirely in British hands. One senior EU diplomat said of Blair’s campaign: “This bus has left.”

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday welcomed a surprise state poll triumph by her party as "encouraging" for a September general election, as hype around her main rival fizzled in its first test.

With just six months to go until voters decide whether Merkel will have a fourth term, the election in the tiny southwestern state of Saarland Sunday took on outsized importance.

Voters returned Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) to power with 41 per cent of the vote, five points higher than at the last election in 2012.

"Yesterday was a great day and thus an encouraging day," she said, after presenting Saarland's victorious CDU Premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer with a bouquet of daisies.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who had been enjoying a surge in the polls thanks to their freshly-anointed standard bearer, Martin Schulz, came in a distant second with 30 percent.

Schulz, the former president of the European Parliament, admitted Monday that the result had been a bitter disappointment just a week after SPD delegates unanimously elected him party chairman.

But he tried to put a brave face on the defeat.

"Election campaigns are marathons and not sprints, and we have good stamina," he said, warning the CDU that "those who are celebrating today shouldn't count their chickens before they hatch".

Saarland is governed by a "grand coalition" government, the same right-left alliance that Merkel leads in Berlin.

For Schulz to take her job from her, he would likely need to win a majority for a leftist coalition with the far-left Die Linke and the ecologist Greens party known as Red-Red-Green. 

Commentators said the Saarland result indicated voters may be getting cold feet about that prospect.

'Stuck in the past' 

Germany's top-selling daily Bild said Merkel clearly had the wind in her sails after the Saarland vote, noting the dilemma faced by Schulz and the SPD. 

"It's a small state, but a big signal," it said of Saarland, the first of three German state polls scheduled in the run-up to the national election on September 24.

"If Martin Schulz wants to become chancellor, he is going to have to put all his eggs in the Red-Red-Green basket — a big risk."

 After weeks of breathless media coverage of the so-called "Schulz effect", credited with lifting the SPD around 10 points in national polls to pull even with the CDU, news website Spiegel Online said the election proved he had "no magic powers".

The centre-left Sueddeutsche newspaper said the poll had been a crushing reality check for the SPD. 

"While yesterday's result hasn't ended the SPD's hopes of making it into the chancellery, it has certainly put a damper on Schulz mania," it said.

Merkel predicted further poll disappointments for the SPD as it had failed to bridge its bitter and lasting gulf between centrists and leftists stemming from a programme of labour market reforms known as Agenda 2010 that was passed by her SPD predecessor Gerhard Schroeder.

"Being stuck in the past is not what people want," she said.

Merkel's CDU had suffered a string of state poll setbacks in the wake of her decision in 2015 to open the borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees, mainly from strife-ravaged Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

However the issue has lost some of its explosive force as the number of new arrivals to Germany has dwindled.

The right-wing populist AfD Party, which had seized on voter outrage and angst over the issue, won seats in Saarland Sunday, its 11th state, but with an anaemic 6-per cent result.

Political scientist Robert Vehrkamp of the Bertelsmann Foundation noted that strong turnout of around 70 per cent had transformed what was forecast as a tight race into a show of force for the CDU.

"Many voters, particularly the centrists, are nervous about the strong results of the populist parties on the fringes," he told DPA news agency.

HONG KONG — A Beijing-backed civil servant, Carrie Lam, was chosen to be Hong Kong's next leader on Sunday amid accusations that Beijing is meddling and denying the financial hub a more populist leader perhaps better able to defuse political tension.

Lam, who will become Hong Kong's first female chief executive when she takes office on July 1, won 777 votes compared with 365 for her closest rival, former financial secretary John Tsang, who polls show is more popular.

There were several invalid protest ballots including one that carried an obscenity.

"Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness," Lam said in a victory speech.

"My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustration, and to unite our society to move forward."

 Lam also pledged to follow through on election promises including introducing a "two-tier" profits tax, reducing tax to spur research and development, tackling the high cost of housing by increasing land supply and boosting education spending.

She also promised to defend the rule of law and freedom of expression as integral to underpinning prosperity. 

"Hong Kong needs new thinking," she said. 

Tensions

Some scuffles broke out outside the voting centre between protesters and police, who used metal barricades to keep the demonstrations well away. 

The activists denounced Beijing's "interference" amid widespread reports of lobbying of voters to back Lam, rather than Tsang.

Some protesters chanted "I want universal suffrage" and unfurled yellow umbrellas, a symbol of the civil disobedience "umbrella movement", when the result was announced.

"Lies, coercion, whitewash," read one banner. A big yellow banner calling for full democracy was hung from the Lion Rock peak overlooking the city. 

"The central government has intervened again and again," said Carmen Tong, a 20-year-old student. "It's very unjust."

 Hundreds of Lam's supporters waved Chinese flags and cheered inside and outside the venue after her win. 

Many, including opposition democrats, fear Lam will stick to the tough policies of staunchly pro-Beijing incumbent Leung Chun-ying, who ordered the firing of teargas on pro-democracy protesters in 2014 and who was not seen to be defending Hong Kong's autonomy and core values. 

"She doesn't have a strong foundation, nor will she have a honeymoon after she's elected," said political scientist Ivan Choy. 

"But whether she will further divide society we still have to wait and see what she does, whether she will continue the approach of Leung."

China's Hong Kong and Macau affairs office congratulated Lam, saying she should not disappoint the people and should seek to "comprehensively unite all sectors of society", strengthen development, and "work hard to forge a new situation", the official Xinhua news agency said.

Some city residents see China's creeping interference in business, media, politics, academia and the judiciary as tarnishing the city's international business allure. 

The detention in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers who sold material critical of Beijing also dismayed many residents.

Hong Kong had been presented with a reform package, offering the possibility of a direct vote for this leadership race, though only of candidates essentially pre-screened by Beijing. The blueprint was vetoed in 2015 by pro-democracy lawmakers as "fake" Chinese-style democracy.

Political and social divisions have led to some legislative and policy-making paralysis and the stalling of major projects, including a cultural hub and high-speed rail link to China.

While Hong Kong's proximity to China has been a boon, bringing investment and spending, businesses have also faced growing competition from mainland firms in sectors like services and property. 

Housing prices, now among the world's highest, are widely seen to have been pushed up by a wave of buying from rich Chinese, intensifying anti-mainland China sentiment.

SYDNEY — Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness on Saturday to mark Earth Hour, as global landmarks began dimming their lights to draw attention to climate change.

Millions of people from some 170 countries and territories are expected to take part in the annual bid to highlight global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas to drive cars and power plants.

The event, which originated in Sydney, has grown to become a worldwide environmental campaign, celebrated across all continents.

Conservation group WWF, which organises Earth Hour, said great strides had been made in highlighting the dire state of the planet.

"We started Earth Hour in 2007 to show leaders that climate change was an issue people cared about," coordinator Siddarth Das said.

"For that symbolic moment to turn into the global movement it is today, is really humbling and speaks volumes about the powerful role of people in issues that affect their lives."

In Sydney, many harbourside buildings switched off their lights for an hour from 8.30pm local time, as the call for action began rolling out across the world.

"I agree with the concept, 100 per cent," said student Ed Gellert, 24, in Sydney.

"I think people probably avoid the fact that climate change is happening, so it's good to see the city grouping together to support Earth Hour."

From Australia, it was moving westward through Asia, with many of the skyscrapers ringing Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour going dark in solidarity, while at Myanmar's most sacred pagoda, the Shwedagon, 10,000 oil lamps were to be lit to shine a light on climate action.

In Singapore, some 200 organisations, including buildings along the city-state's iconic skyline, went dark to mark the occasion. Organisers said about 35,000 people watched performances and participated in a "carbon-neutral run", which saw some runners in panda and tiger costumes to raise awareness of wildlife protection.

And in Japan, Tokyo's famed Sony Building in Ginza extinguished its bright lights to honour the occasion.

The event will also be marked throughout Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Monuments including the Empire State Building, the Kremlin, Big Ben, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and Egypt's pyramids are all scheduled to switch off.

Lisbon will host a concert by candlelight, Singapore a "carbon-neutral run", and Tanzania will organise a tree-planting ceremony.

Homes and businesses were also being asked to join in, and individuals could commit to the cause on Facebook.

WWF said teams around the world would use Earth Hour this year to highlight climate issues most relevant to individual countries.

In South Africa, the focus would be on renewable energy while in China, WWF said it was working with businesses to encourage a shift towards more sustainable lifestyles.

Visible proof 

Last year, scientists recorded the Earth's hottest temperatures in modern times for the third year in a row.

Nations agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit average global warming to 2°C over pre-industrial temperatures.

That is the level at which many scientists say humankind can still avoid worst-case climate outcomes in terms of rising sea levels, worsening droughts and floods, and increasingly violent superstorms.

"Climate change is visible proof that our actions can have a ripple effect beyond physical borders," Das said.

"It is up to each of us to ensure the impact we create helps instead to improve the lives of those around us and elsewhere, at present and in the future."

 Earth Hour does not collect global statistics on the energy conserved during the 60-minute blackout, with the event having a more symbolic intent.

LONDON — The attacker who killed three people near parliament in London before being shot dead was named on Thursday as British-born Khalid Masood, who was once investigated by MI5 intelligence officers over concerns about violent extremism.

The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency, but did not name Masood and gave no details. It was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the jihadist group.

Police said Masood, 52, was born in the county of Kent in southeast England and was most recently living in the West Midlands region of central England.

“Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

“However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH [grievous bodily harm], possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.”

 Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament the attacker had once been investigated by the MI5 intelligence agency over concerns about violent extremism, but was a peripheral figure.

Police said Masood had never been convicted of a terrorism offence. His first conviction was in 1983 for criminal damage and his last one was in December 2003 for possession of a knife.

During five minutes of mayhem in the heart of London on Wednesday, Masood sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, ploughing into pedestrians. He then ran through the gates of the nearby parliament building and fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman before being shot dead. 

Police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into the attack, which May said was inspired by a warped Islamist ideology.

The Enterprise rental car company said the vehicle used in the attack had been rented from its Spring Hill branch in Birmingham, which is located in the West Midlands.

“An employee identified the vehicle after seeing the licence plate in an image online. We ran another check to verify, and immediately contacted the authorities,” said company spokesman John Davies.

About 40 people were injured in the attack, of whom 29 remain in hospital, seven in critical condition.

May visited some of the wounded in hospital on Thursday, her spokesman said. She also chaired a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee, and spoke to several leaders of countries whose nationals were caught up in the attack.

‘Lone-wolf attack’

The bloodshed in London took place on the first anniversary of attacks that killed 32 people in Brussels, and resembled Daesh-inspired attacks in France and Germany where vehicles were driven into crowds. 

The dead were Masood, two members of the public, and Keith Palmer, the 48-year-old policeman stabbed by Masood.

A minute’s silence was held in parliament and in front of police headquarters at 0933 GMT, in honour of the victims — 933 was the shoulder number on Palmer’s uniform.

“He will be deeply missed. We love him so much,” Palmer’s family said in a statement. He was married with a five-year-old daughter.

It was the deadliest attack in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by extremist suicide bombers on London’s public transport system. Police had given Wednesday’s death toll as five but revised it to four on Thursday.

The casualties included 12 Britons, three French children, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Pole, one Chinese, one American and two Greeks, May said.

“My thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by yesterday’s awful violence,” Queen Elizabeth said in a message.

US tourist Kurt Cochran was named as one of the dead in a Facebook post by family member Shantell Payne.

“With a heavy heart I must pass the sad news of our beautiful brother, father, husband, son and friend Kurt Cochran, he could not overcome the injuries he received in the London terror attacks,” Payne wrote.

Her post said Cochran’s wife, Melissa Payne Cochran, was in hospital with a broken leg and rib and a cut on her head.

US President Donald Trump paid homage to Cochran in a tweet, calling him “a great American”.

A government minister was widely praised for trying to resuscitate Palmer, walking away from the scene with blood on his hands and face.

Many have been shocked that the attacker was able to cause such mayhem in the heart of the capital equipped with nothing more than a hired car and a knife.

“This kind of attack, this lone-wolf attack, using things from daily life, a vehicle, a knife, are much more difficult to forestall,” Defence Minister Michael Fallon told the BBC.

Three French high-school students aged 15 or 16 and on a school trip to London with fellow students from Brittany were among the injured. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault travelled to London to show solidarity and met some of the other students who were on the school trip and their families.

He told reporters the lives of the three youngsters were not in danger. Ayrault later attended the session in parliament where May spoke. France has been hit by repeated deadly Islamist attacks over the past two years.

SEOUL  — A new North Korean missile test failed on Wednesday, the South and US said, two weeks after Pyongyang launched four rockets in what it called a drill for an attack on American bases in Japan.

The nuclear-armed North is under several sets of United Nations sanctions over its atomic and ballistic missile programmes.

It is on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with an atomic warhead, and staged two nuclear tests and multiple missile launches last year.

The North fired one missile from an air base in the eastern port of Wonsan on Wednesday morning, but the launch “is believed to have failed”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement, adding it was analysing what type of missile was involved.

The US military said the missile exploded shortly after launch.

“US Pacific Command detected what we assess was a failed North Korean missile launch attempt... in the vicinity of Kalma. A missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch,” said spokesman David Benham.

Earlier this month Pyongyang launched a flight of four ballistic missiles, with three landing provocatively close to Japan in what the North described, as practice for attacks on US military bases in Japan.

On Sunday, its leader Kim Jong-un personally oversaw and hailed a “successful” test of what Pyongyang said was a new rocket engine — which can be easily repurposed for use in missiles.

Seoul said that experiment showed “meaningful progress” in the North’s missile capabilities.

The developments come as Seoul and Washington hold large-scale annual joint military exercises that always infuriate Pyongyang, which sees them as a rehearsal for invasion.

Analysts’ opinions are varied on how advanced the North’s missile technologies are but many agree that Pyongyang has made significant progress in recent years. 

‘Option on the table’ 

Sunday’s engine test was apparently timed to coincide with a recent Asia trip by new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who warned that regional tensions had reached a “dangerous level”.

Washington would drop the “failed” approach of “strategic patience” with Pyongyang, Tillerson said, warning that US military action was an “option on the table” if necessary — a sharp divergence from China’s insistence on a diplomatic approach to its neighbour, which it has long protected.

Beijing said it had “taken note” of reports of the failed missile launch and that the US was considering more sanctions, and urged “relevant parties” to show restraint. 

“The Korean nuclear issue has very complex dynamics and background,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.

“It lies in the differences between the North Korea and the US and stems from the lack of mutual trust,” she added. “Those who tie the knot should be the ones to untie the knot.”

 This week the North’s state news agency KCNA boasted that Tillerson had “admitted the failure” of US policy to denuclearise the nation.

Pyongyang insists that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defence against “hostile enemies” including the South and its ally the US.

But it has yet to test an inter-continental ballistic missile capable of flying across the Pacific Ocean.

The country’s long-range Musudan device has a theoretical range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres. The lower estimate covers the whole of South Korea and Japan, while the upper range would include US military bases in Guam.

The missile was tested eight times last year — but only one of those was successful, with the others exploding in mid-air shortly after launch.

A Musudan launched in June last year flew 400 kilometres off the east coast of the peninsula and was hailed by Kim as proof of the North’s ability to strike US bases across the “Pacific operation theatre”.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that under former president Barack Obama the US stepped up cyber attacks against North Korea to try to sabotage its missiles before launch or just as they lift off.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed restrictions on carry-on electronic devices on planes coming to the United States from 10 airports in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa in response to unspecified terrorism threats.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said passengers travelling from those airports could not bring devices larger than a cellphone, such as tablets, portable DVD players, laptops and cameras, into the main cabin. Instead, they must be in checked baggage.

The new restrictions were prompted by reports that militant groups want to smuggle explosive devices in electronic gadgets, officials told reporters on a conference call on Monday.

They did not provide further details on the threat.

The airports are in Cairo; Istanbul; Kuwait City; Doha, Qatar; Casablanca, Morocco; Amman, Jordan; Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates. 

Officials said the decision had nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose a travel ban on six majority-Muslim nations. DHS Spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said the government “did not target specific nations. We relied upon evaluated intelligence to determine which airports were affected”.

On March 6, Trump signed a revised executive order barring citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from travelling to the United States for 90 days. Two federal judges have halted parts of the ban, saying it discriminates against Muslims. Trump has vowed to appeal up to the Supreme Court if necessary.

The airports affected by the electronics rules are served by nine airlines that fly directly from those cities to the United States about 50 flights a day, senior government officials said.

The carriers — Royal Jordanian Airlines, Egypt Air, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Kuwait Airways , Royal Air Maroc, Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad Airways — have until Friday to comply with the new policy, which took effect early on Tuesday and will be in place indefinitely. Several of the carriers, including Turkish Airlines, Etihad and Qatar, said early on Tuesday that they were quickly moving to comply. Royal Jordanian and Saudi Airlines said on Monday that they were immediately putting the directive into place.

An Emirates spokeswoman said the new security directive would last until October 14. However, Christensen termed that date “a placeholder for review” of the rule.

The policy does not affect any American carriers because none fly directly to the United States from the airports, officials said. 

Officials did not explain why the restrictions only apply to travellers arriving in the United States and not for those same flights when they leave from there.

The rules do apply to US citizens travelling on those flights, but not to crew members on those foreign carriers. Homeland Security will allow passengers to use larger approved medical devices. 

Angela Gittens, director general of airport association ACI World, likened the move to yearslong restrictions of liquids on planes, which she said also came suddenly, in response to a perceived threat, and caused some disruption.

Airlines will adjust to the electronics policy, she said. “The first few days of something like this are quite problematic, but just as with the liquids ban, it will start to sort itself out.”

DHS said the procedures would “remain in place until the threat changes” and did not rule out expanding them to other airports.

The agency said in a statement it “seeks to balance risk with impacts to the travelling public and has determined that cellphones and smartphones will be allowed in accessible property at this time.” 

The government said it was “concerned about terrorists’ ongoing interest in targeting commercial aviation, including transportation hubs over the past two years.”

 Reuters reported Monday that the move had been under consideration since the US government learned of a threat several weeks ago. 

US officials have told Reuters the information gleaned from a US commando raid in January in Yemen that targeted Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) included bombmaking techniques.

AQAP, based in Yemen, has plotted to down US airliners and claimed responsibility for 2015 attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. 

The group claimed responsibility for a Dec. 25, 2009, failed attempt by a Nigerian Islamist to down an airliner over Detroit. The device, hidden in the underwear of the man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, failed to detonate.

In 2010, security officials in Britain and Dubai intercepted parcel bombs sent from Yemen to the United States.

The Homeland Security Department stepped up security of US-bound flights in July 2014, requiring tougher screening of mobile phones and other electronic devices and requiring them to be powered up before passengers could board flights to the United States. 

LONDON/BRUSSELS — Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Britain’s divorce proceedings with the European Union on March 29, launching two years of negotiations that will reshape the future of the country and Europe.

May’s government said her permanent envoy to the EU had informed European Council President Donald Tusk of the date when Britain intends to invoke Article 50 of its Lisbon Treaty — the mechanism for starting its exit after a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the bloc.

The EU said it was ready to begin the negotiations and within 48 hours of the trigger on March 29, Tusk will send the other 27 member states his draft negotiating guidelines, which means that talks could start at the earliest in May.

Sterling slipped from a three-week high against the dollar on what Brexit Minister David Davis described as a move taking Britain to “the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation”.

May said she would negotiate for “everyone across the United Kingdom and all parts of the UK”.

“We’re going to be out there, negotiating hard, delivering on what the British people voted for,” she told reporters.

The 60-year-old leader hopes to negotiate terms that keep trade, financial and political relations with EU member states as close as possible after Brexit, but also satisfy eurosceptics in her Conservative Party who demand a complete break from an institution they say has stolen British sovereignty.

It will be a difficult and ambitious balancing act. Talks on departing the prosperous club Britain joined in 1973 are likely to be the most complex London has held since World War II, with other EU leaders saying they will not give May an easy ride.

With nationalism and anti-establishment, anti-immigrant sentiment spreading across Western Europe, the EU leadership in Brussels is anxious to avoid encouraging others in the 28-member bloc to bolt.

At the same time, May faces threats by Scottish nationalists to call a new independence referendum that could splinter the United Kingdom and fears in Northern Ireland that a “hard border” with EU member Ireland will return after Brexit.

May has revealed little of her strategy for securing what she calls “the best possible deal” for the world’s fifth largest economy and making Brexit as painless as possible. 

Although she succeeded David Cameron as prime minister soon after the June 23 Brexit referendum, she delayed triggering Article 50 to give herself time to work on her strategy for talks that are likely to determine her political legacy.

Future relations

Article 50 allows for two years of talks to decide an EU member state’s divorce terms, “taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”. May says that clause means the two sides can set out deals to cover future trade and other ties.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU also had two tracks to work on over the next year.

“The first track is Britain’s exit, including what all this means in terms of future relations with Britain when the exit terms are known,” she told a news conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a technology fair in Hanover. 

“The second track is how we can strengthen and invigorate cooperation between the EU27 and make them weatherproof in the 21st century.”

 Britain’s referendum exposed geographical and social divisions in the country that have deepened over arguments about its future relationship with the EU.

Nationalists in Scotland, which voted to remain in the bloc, have accused the May government of pressing for a hard Brexit by committing to departing the EU’s lucrative single market of 500 million consumers. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has called for a new independence referendum.

In Northern Ireland, which also voted to stay in the EU, the largest Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, has said it wants a referendum on splitting from the United Kingdom and uniting with the Republic of Ireland “as soon as possible”.

Against the backdrop of trying to keep the UK together, May has a long wish list for the EU — the closest possible trading ties, security cooperation, regaining control over immigration and restoring sovereignty in various policy areas.

The EU has baulked at her demands, saying they amount to “having your cake and eating it”. May’s government acknowledges its opening position is bold, and is also preparing for the possibility of crashing out of the bloc with no deal.

While the government has signalled areas for compromise and is keen to remind EU leaders of the benefits of cooperation, government departments are still awaiting the final word from May’s office on which economic sectors to prioritise.

Britain’s commitment to payments into the EU budget — which officials in the bloc estimate to reach around 60 billion euros — are shaping up to be one of the first, and possibly most contentious, parts of the divorce talks.

Any argument over money would underline the challenges May will face. She wants to show goodwill in the talks but will also be under pressure from pro-Brexit lawmakers for a total break — something that could harden the case for independence movements.

MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday welcomed the prospect of the International Criminal Court (ICC) putting him on trial over his bloody war on drugs, saying he would not be intimidated and his campaign would be unrelenting and "brutal".

A self-confessed assassin who testified to being in a "death squad" under Duterte is expected to file a case at the ICC this month or in April, accusing the president of crimes against humanity, his lawyer said recently.

But Duterte has said he is on the right track regarding human rights and has never instructed security forces to kill suspects who were not resisting arrest. More than 8,000 people have died since he took office last year and began his anti-drugs campaign, a third in raids and sting operations by police who say they acted in self-defence. 

"I will not be intimidated and I shall not be stopped just by what? International Criminal Court? Impeachment? If that is part of my destiny, it is my destiny to go," Duterte told reporters shortly before leaving for Myanmar.

"The drive against corruption, criminality and drugs will resume and it will continue and it will be brutal." 

Rights groups say many of the deaths were assassinations of drugs users with police complicity. The authorities reject that and blame vigilantes and drugs gangs.

Duterte said he would never "condone the killing of a criminal person arrested with outstretched arms, begging for his life, or what is popularly known as extrajudicial killings".

 "Follow the law and we are alright. Drop shabu and nobody will die tomorrow," Duterte said. Shabu is the street name for the highly addictive crystal methamphetamine that the government blames for most of the serious crimes in the Philippines.

But Duterte warned: "If you place the guys lives in jeopardy... my order is to shoot you." 

He said he would rather see "thousands or millions of criminals go first", than see security forces killed in the anti-narcotics war.

Two men, including the one who is expected to file the ICC case, have testified before the Philippine senate saying they were part of an alleged "death squad" in Davao that killed at Duterte's behest. But legislators found no proof of extra-judicial killings and death squads. 

The "death squad" and allegations of drugs-related extrajudicial killings were among the reasons for an impeachment complaint filed by an opposition lawmaker in congress against Duterte on Thursday.

Duterte said he was not ruling out the possibility that "scalawags in government who are trying to silence guys dealing with them" were behind these extrajudicial executions. 

PARIS — Security forces shot dead a man who seized a soldier’s gun at Paris Orly airport in France on Saturday soon after the same man shot and wounded a police officer during a routine police check, the interior minister said.

The man was known to police and intelligence services, Interior Minister Bruno le Roux told reporters. A police source described him as a radicalised Muslim but did not identify him by name.

The anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation.

The busy Orly airport south of Paris was evacuated and security forces swept the area for bombs to make sure the dead man was not wearing an explosive belt, but nothing was found, interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told Reuters.

“The man succeeded in seizing the weapon of a soldier. He was quickly neutralised by the security forces,” Brandet said.

No one else was injured at the airport. 

Flights were suspended from both terminals of the airport and some flights were diverted to Charles de Gaulle airport north of the capital, airport operator ADP said.

Earlier, a police officer was shot and wounded by the same man during a routine traffic check in Stains, north of Paris.

The incidents came five weeks before France holds presidential elections in which national security is a key issue.

The country remains on high alert after attacks by the Daesh terror group militants killed scores of people in the last two years — including coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed. A state of emergency is in place until at least the end of July. 

The attacks would have no impact on a trip to Paris by Prince William, second-in-line to the British throne, and his wife Kate, who are due to end a two-day visit to the French capital on Saturday, a British spokesman said.

The soldier whose gun the man tried to seize was a member of the army’s “Sentinelle” operation responsible for patrolling airports and other key sites since January 2015 when attackers killed 12 people at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. It was reinforced after the Paris attacks.

Around 3,000 passengers were evacuated fromjavascript:void(0); the airport, the second busiest in the country. 

In March 2016, Daesh claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train in the Belgian capital which killed 35 people, including three suicide bombers.