Met PC found guilty of neo-Nazi group membership

BBC News says a Met Police officer has been convicted of being a member of a banned neo-Nazi terrorist organisation.

Benjamin Hannam, of Enfield, north London, was found guilty of membership of the banned right-wing extremist group National Action (NA).

He was also convicted of lying on his Met Police application and having terror documents detailing knife combat and making explosive devices.

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Brussels riot police use horses and water cannon to disperse crowd gathered in response to April Fools’ joke

The Independent says riot police in Belgium have used horses and water cannon to disperse crowds of revellers gathered in defiance of coronavirus rules, apparently in response to a fake festival created as an April Fools’ joke.

In recent weeks, some 70,000 people had expressed an interest on Facebook in attending a festival dubbed “La Boum”, which according to The Brussels Times had advertised “eight stages, a hundred DJs and zero coronavirus rules”.

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Twenty years since the first gay marriages, the fight for rights in Europe goes on

Euronews says Amsterdam has marked 20 years since the world’s first gay marriages by floating an inflatable pink cake with candles spouting rainbow flames down the canal.

Twenty years ago on April 1, the city was host to a historic event when the mayor married four couples in the city hall and the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legally recognise same-sex marriage.

But,  according to Evelyne Paradis, Executive Director of ILGA, the emergence of authoritarian and populist politics and leaders in some European countries in the last few years has come hand-in-hand with pushback against LGBT rights.

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Egypt opens Mideast’s biggest pharma city

Arab News says Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated Egypt’s Gypto Pharma City, the largest pharmaceutical city in the Middle East.

Gypto Pharma, also known as Medicine City, has been set up to produce safe and effective medicines at reasonable prices, and will manufacture coronavirus remedies and drugs for chronic diseases. Production of some vitamins will also be given priority.

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Taiwan train derailment: 36 killed in tunnel crash as rescuers report ‘no signs of life’

The Mirror says at least 36 people have been killed with many more injured after a train in Taiwan derailed inside a tunnel after striking a truck.

The country’s Transport Ministry said 36 people had “no signs of life” after the disaster in the east of Taiwan on Friday, while a further 72 are believed to be injured.

Rescuers are still battling to reach crushed carriages with the train understood to have been carrying 350 passengers.

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Mother tried to save 9-year-old boy in California mass shooting

Aljazeera says one of the four fatal victims in a shooting rampage in suburban Los Angeles on Wednesday was a nine-year-old boy who may have died in his wounded mother’s arms as she tried in vain to save him, officials said.

“Our hearts today go out to the victims, and I’m here to tell you that we’re going to do everything in our power in the Orange County District Attorney’s office to get justice for these families,” Spitzer said. He said he will consider seeking the death penalty.

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UN strongly condemns deaths of hundreds of protesters in Myanmar

TRT World says the UN Security Council has “strongly condemned” the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Myanmar, in a unanimous statement watered down by China after two days of tough negotiations.

“Members of the Security Council expressed deep concern at the rapidly deteriorating situation and strongly condemned the use of violence against peaceful protestors and the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including women and children,” read the statement, initiated by former colonial power Britain.

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