- Trio wins chemistry Nobel for protein design, prediction
- SE Asian summit urges end to Myanmar violence but struggles for solutions
- Wimbledon replaces line judges with electronic system
- Record-breaking Root hits hundred as England power to 351-3
- Record-breaking Root hits hundred as England's power to 351-3
- Sabalenka relishes 'much-needed' tennis rivalry with Swiatek
- Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson set for six weeks out
- Taylor Swift got police escort to London gigs after Austria terror plot
- Cook tips Root to break Tendulkar's all-time runs record
- British skull auction sparks Indian demand for return
- Joe Root: England's elegant Test record-breaker
- Braving war: Lebanon's 'badass' airline defies odds
- Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Hezbollah strikes Israel, says it foiled Israeli incursions
- Jurgen Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Record-breaking Root guides England to 232-2 in reply to Pakistan's 556
- Japan PM dissolves parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
Fugitive Catalan separatist leader Puigdemont in Belgium
Fugitive Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont said Friday he had left Spain for Belgium after briefly addressing supporters in Barcelona, sparking a row over how he evaded arrest again.
"Today I am in Waterloo after an extremely difficult few days," he wrote in Catalan on X, formerly Twitter, referring to the Belgian town where he has spent most of the past seven years.
Puigdemont, who fled abroad after leading a failed 2017 independence bid for Catalonia, defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain on Thursday.
He delivered a speech to thousands gathered at the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona before slipping away.
The 61-year-old had been expected to try to enter the parliament building for a vote to pick a new leader for the wealthy northeastern region. Instead he disappeared into the crowd.
His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, and the secretary general of Puigdemont's hardline separatist JxCAT party, Josep Turull, had both told Catalan radio earlier Friday that he had headed back to Belgium.
But Eduard Sallent, head of Catalonia's regional police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, said Friday he had not ruled out that Puigdemont might still be in Barcelona.
- Police manhunt -
Catalonia's regional police launched a manhunt for Puigdemont after Thursday's appearance, insisting in a statement issued after he evaded them that there had been no collusion with him.
Officers had planned to arrest him "at the most opportune time so as not to generate public disorder", the force said.
Two officers were arrested on Thursday, including one who owned the car he had used to leave the scene. Released after a few hours, they are still accused of having helped Puigdemont.
The force told AFP on Friday that a third officer had now been arrested over the incident.
Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, who issued the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, on Friday demanded the names of the officers who approved the operation to arrest Puigdemont.
He also wanted the names of those "entrusted with its execution or operational deployment", according to a court document.
Sallent said his force had been ready to arrest Puigdemont near the regional parliament, but he did not go there as had been expected.
"The events unfolded very quickly," he said, adding Puigdemont was "surrounded by a crowd of people and authorities" with the "aim of obstructing the action of the police".
Puigdemont led the regional government in 2017, when it carried out an independence referendum despite a court ban.
A short-lived declaration of independence sparked Spain's worst political crisis since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Puigdemont fled Spain shortly after the failed independence bid to avoid prosecution and has since lived in Belgium and more recently France.
While Spain's parliament passed an amnesty law in May for those involved in the secession bid, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.
- 'Unspeakable' -
Puigdemont's latest escape has brought political recriminations,
The head of Spain's main opposition Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said the interior and defence ministers should be dismissed for the "police negligence" that allowed Puigdemont to evade arrest.
"What happened yesterday is unspeakable and cannot go unpunished," he wrote on social network X.
But Justice Minister Felix Bolanos said the operation to arrest Puigdemont "was the responsibility of the Mossos", whose job it was to enforce court orders in Catalonia.
"In Spain the law must be respected and court orders must be complied with," the minister said.
Catalonia's parliament on Thursday elected Salvador Illa of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists as Catalonia's first head not from the pro-independence movement since 2010.
Ch.Kahalev--AMWN