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Friday, April 28, 2017

Liam Gallagher threatens 'war' with Damon Albarn and brother Noel

Liam Gallagher has threatened to reignite a "war" with Damon Albarn and his brother Noel for collaborating on a new Gorillaz album.

The former Blur now Gorillaz singer invited former rival Noel Gallagher to lend his vocals to one of the band's new tracks.

We Got The Power featuring Noel and Savages' Jehnny Beth is part of Gorillaz' latest album Humanz, released on Thursday.

Oasis and Blur were Britpop rivals in the 1990s, before the two Gallagher brothers had a high profile fallout.

"Now that d*** out of Blur and the creepy one out of Oasis need to hang their heads in shame as it's no Dancing In The Streets - as you were," Liam tweeted on Thursday, following the album's launch.

"That gobs**** out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a massive girl but believe you me, next time I see him there's gonna be war," he added.

:: Gorillaz take over the internet with new album Humanz

Noel and Albarn were asked about burying the hatchet and not inviting Liam, to which Noel answered: "Listen, nobody gives a f*** what Liam thinks about anything."

"I mean now it feels like, completely, you know, not news at all really," Albarn said.

"He's fantastic in the studio and it's nice when you see how someone goes about their business."

Last month, Liam Gallagher was announced to headline the Reading & Leeds festival with his latest album titled As You Were.

In a series of tweets, he said he would be playing old Oasis songs "bigger and better than Noel".

"Opening with Don't Look Back In Anger," he wrote.

"To all you Noel Gallagher fanboys I can and will sing any song he wrote bigger and better than him even if I was kicked in the b***** by a wood pigeon".

Paraguay's biggest-ever heist as vault targeted in £9m cash raid

Police are investigating Paraguay's largest-ever heist, following a brazen robbery involving around 50 attackers, prosecutors have revealed.

A gang stole $11.72m (£9.08m) in cash after blasting their way into a vault near the border with Brazil, where the gunmen are believed to have fled to.

Gunmen armed with assault rifles used explosives on the headquarters of the armoured company Prosegur in the city of Ciudad del Este.

Before targeting the building early on Monday, the gunmen set fire to around 20 vehicles and also used grenades at three nearby sites.

They also attacked a police station, killing one officer and injuring four others.

The vault was believed to have held $49m (£38m) before the assault.

Paraguay's police commissioner Abel Canete confirmed Brazilian organised crime organisation, known as the First Capital Command (PCC), had infiltrated the country and was operating from the capital city Asuncion.

He said: "The use of explosives with gel inside automatic rounds, assault on money transport vehicles, bank robbery, excavation of tunnels.

"Prior to this, it was a myth if they (PCC) were there (in Asuncion).

"But given the events that we have investigated we have determined and we have identified members of the PCC. That is to say they exist."

Paraguay's interior ministry has said three suspected members of the gang were killed in a shoot-out with Brazilian federal agents, about 45 miles north of Ciudad del Este.

Brazil's federal police arrested about 15 men suspected of being involved in the theft. But seven have now been released due to lack of evidence.

Ciudad del Este is in the 'Triple Border' region, where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet and where illegal drugs and arms flow across porous borders.

UK economic growth shows weakest growth since Brexit vote

The UK economy grew by 0.3% in the first three months of the year, suggesting a Brexit-linked slowdown, according to worse-than-expected official figures.

In a blow to the Chancellor ahead of the General Election, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said retail sales were the biggest drag on first quarter growth, which came in at its weakest level since the EU referendum last June.

The first estimate - which is subject to revision as more information becomes available - marked a sharp slowdown on the 0.7% expansion achieved in the final quarter of 2016 when the economy had continued to defy pre-referendum predictions of a recession in the event of a Leave win.

Economists had been expecting a growth figure of 0.4% at the start of the year amid clear evidence of a squeeze on household budgets.

Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, seized on the performance, saying: "Today's GDP figures reveal the threat to living standards under the Tories."

"This General Election is a choice between a Labour Party who will stand up for the many and a Tory party which only looks after the privileged few," he added.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said: "Britain's economy is forecast to grow at 2% this year, employment is at record highs and it's set to go higher still."

He said the choice facing the electorate was between strong and stable government under Theresa May or a Jeremy Corbyn-led "coalition of chaos".

:: Is Chancellor Philip Hammond being gagged over GDP?

Roman Polanski film to open at Cannes film festival

Fugitive director Roman Polanski's latest film has been announced as a last-minute entry to the Cannes Film Festival line-up.

The movie, Based On A True Story (D'apres Une Histoire Vraie), will be screened out of competition and stars Emmanuelle Seigner as a Parisian author who meets a mysterious woman, played by Eva Green, at a book signing.

The film marks Polanski's return to the Croisette, four years after his latest film Venus In Fur competed for the Palme d'Or.

:: Cannes 2017: Politics, TV and Adam Sandler

It also comes weeks after a Los Angeles judge rejected the director's bid to end his long-running underage sex abuse case.

Polanski's lawyers requested for the case to be closed without the French-Polish director having to appear in court or serve any more prison time.

Polanski was found guilty of raping a 13-year-old girl at actor Jack Nicholson's house in 1977, but fled the United States after serving just 42 days in jail.

The woman raped by Polanski took his side on his latest attempt to return to the US without risking jail time.

Samantha Gailey's lawyers revealed a letter in which she accuses prosecutors of not protecting her.

"You have treated me with contempt using a crime committed against me to further your own careers," she said.

Ms Gailey has said in the past she thinks the director's exile has been punishment enough and wants the proceedings to come to an end.

However, prosecutors insist he should return to the US to face justice and should not receive special treatment because of his fame.

Polanski had been set to preside over France's Cesar Awards in February, but withdrew after the protests of feminist groups.

The director has always been welcomed in Cannes, having both Venus In Fur and The Pianist in competition.

Based On A True Story is co-written by Polanski and director Olivier Assayas, whose latest movie Personal Shopper, starring Kristen Stewart as an American in Paris, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes just last year.

Another new addition to the festival lineup is Force Majeure director Ruben Ostlund's drama The Square, starring Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West.

EU 'to pave way for united Ireland membership' at Brexit summit

EU leaders are set to pave the way for automatic membership for Northern Ireland if it decides to reunify with Ireland in the wake of Brexit.

Dublin is expected to ask the bloc's 27 leaders to endorse the idea when they gather in Brussels on Saturday - without Britain - to adopt the EU's guidelines for exit negotiations, according to multiple reports.

"We expect Ireland to ask on Saturday for a statement to be added to the minutes of the European Council, which states that in case of a unification of the island in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, the united Ireland would be a member of the EU," an EU Council source told the AFP news agency.

"We do not expect a change of the guidelines themselves, but only a statement to the minutes" of the meeting, they added, on condition of anonymity.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has previously asked fellow EU leaders to acknowledge that Northern Ireland would, like East Germany in 1990, automatically become a member in the event of unification with an existing member state.

Irish and EU legal experts have said this is the established position in international law of such territorial changes.

Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, referenda would have to be held on both sides of the border to approve unification.

Another source told Reuters the statement would "state the obvious, i.e. that also a united Ireland would continue being a member of the EU".

They added: "The EU does of course not take a stance on the possibility of a united Ireland.

"Should this question arise, it would be for the peoples of Ireland and Northern Ireland to decide in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement."

Ahead of the summit, European Council President Donald Tusk has said Britain must honour its outstanding financial commitments to the EU before trade talks can commence.

Mr Tusk said discussions about future relations can only start once "we have achieved sufficient progress" on key exit issues:

:: Britain settling outstanding financial commitments to the EU
:: A deal on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and Britons living in the EU
:: Action to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic

Mr Tusk said: "In other words, before discussing our future, we must first sort out our past."

Obese woman to move to UAE after 'losing 250kg' in India

An Egyptian woman believed to have been the world's heaviest is to be moved to the UAE after a row over her weight loss at the Indian hospital where she was being treated.

Mumbai's Saifee hospital said Eman Abd El Aty had weight loss surgery and was free to go as she now weighed 172kg (380lbs), down from an estimated 500kg.

But her sister accused doctors of lying and pleaded for her to stay.

She will now go to Burjeel hospital in Abu Dhabi.

A statement released by Ms Abd El Aty's doctors said she would receive "secondary physiotherapy" there as the hospital is "closer to home for Eman and her family".

Saifee hospital added that it was proud of the efforts of its team of doctors, stating that "she came on a chartered cargo plane and goes back as a passenger on a flight in business class".
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Earlier, the hospital had angrily rejected the allegations by Ms Abd El Aty's sister Shaimaa Selim, who released a short video on social media alleging that her sister was still unable to speak or move and had not lost as much weight as the hospital was claiming.

Obesity surgeon Dr Muffi Lakdawala also strongly denied the allegations in a tweet.

Ridley Scott: Aliens exist and they will come for us

Film director Ridley Scott has revealed he is convinced that aliens are really out there - and one day they will come for us.

The veteran filmmaker is preparing to release the sixth film in the Alien sci-fi horror series, Alien: Covenant, next month.

He said: "I believe in superior beings. I think it is certainly likely.

"An expert I was talking to at NASA said to me 'have you ever looked in the sky at night? You mean to tell me we are it?' That's ridiculous.

"The experts have now put a number on it having assessed what is out there. They say that there are between 100 and 200 entities that could be having a similar evolution to us right now.

"So when you see a big thing in the sky, run for it. Because they are a lot smarter than we are, and if you are stupid enough to challenge them you will be taken out in three seconds."

The new film - the second prequel which is set before the 1979 original starring Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, John Hurt and Yaphet Kotto - is set in 2104 on board a spaceship carrying 2,000 cryogenically frozen colonists to a distant planet.

On their journey, they chance upon an uncharted paradise, but it soon turns into a nightmare.

Scott, 79, said he has never tired of scaring moviegoers.

He said: "When I did the first Alien I had to get a sense of responsibility because the reaction to the kitchen ('chestbuster') scene with John Hurt was beyond anything I expected - and it was not good.

"But the film was very successful because people are perverse.

"Everybody was half underneath the seat watching by the time you get to the kitchen scene. There was a woman underneath the seat with her husband holding her."

The director, however, is not so easily scared.

He said: "Nothing scares me. I have a 9mm (pistol).

"If there is a problem I tend to close down into calm. When you walk in in the morning on a film and 600 people turn and all look at you, that is scary."

Scott, who was knighted in 2003, is about to make a film about the Battle of Britain during World War II.

:: Alien: Covenant opens on 10 May.