Bertrand Cantat was sentenced to eight years in prison for killing his girlfriend and love affair Marie Trintignant after beating her to death
Happy Friday, dose up on all your news here before the weekend.
French resistance - A music festival in France have controversially resisted calls to cancel a performance by a French musician who was previously jailed for beating his girlfriend to death. More than 65,000 people have signed a petition demanding that Bertrand Cantat, former frontman of Noir Desir, be removed from the programme of the Papillons de Nuit festival in the Normandy town of Saint-Laurent-de-Cuves. ‘By putting Bertrand Cantat in the spotlight you are normalising violence against women and even condoning it,’ the petition on Change.org reads. The organisers of the festival, however, said in a statement: ‘We consider that our only criteria should be artistic.’
NRA fires back - America’s National Rifle Association’s chief lobbyist has claimed Donald Trump has already reversed his position on gun control, just a day after he held televised meeting with lawmakers to call for increased background checks for gun buyers. Chris Cox tweeted that he had met Trump and the vice-president, Mike Pence, and they ‘don’t want gun control’. They also ‘-support strong due process’, he added.
Divided Britain - Theresa May will urge British people to put their differences aside on Brexit on Friday as she promises to deliver a deal with Brussels that will keep Britain an ‘open, outward-looking, tolerant, European democracy’, according to The Guardian. The prime minister will make a deliberate appeal to anxious remain voters who want to stay in the EU. ‘We must bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about this issue, from both sides of the debate’, she will say. May will insist that the EU referendum result in 2016 was ‘not a vote for a distant relationship with our neighbours’.
‘Ignore human rights’ - Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the country’s police and soldiers not to cooperate in any investigation into his bloody war on drugs, as international world leaders demand an external probe. Western countries have expressed concern over the murder of over 4,000 Filipinos since Duterte took office in June 2016, plus hundreds more killings of drug users by unknown gunmen. ‘When it comes to human rights, or whoever rapporteur it is, my order to you: do not answer. Do not bother,’ Duterte said in a speech before armed police units. ‘And who are you to interfere in the way I would run my country? You know very well that we are being swallowed by drugs,’ Duterte added.
Trump's stab at partners - Important trading partners of the US have reacted with anger to President Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Canada and the EU said they would bring forward their own countermeasures to the steep new tariffs. Mexico, China and Brazil have also said they are considering such steps. Trump tweeted that the US had been ‘decimated by unfair trade and bad policy’. He said steel imports would face a 25% tariff and aluminium 10%.
Diabetes by five - Scientists say diabetes is five separate diseases, rather than just two, and treatment could tailored to each strand and patient. Diabetes - or uncontrolled blood sugar levels - is normally split into type 1 and type 2. Researchers in Sweden and Finland however think the more complex nature of the disease could usher in an era of personalised medicine for diabetes.