The EU could offer Britain a limited Brexit extension until May 22 if Parliament supports UK Prime Minister Theresa May's twice-rejected divorce deal.
Draft conclusions from a Brussels summit to consider London’s request for a short delay to Britain’s departure say it would not be possible to push back the Brexit date after the bloc's parliamentary elections, due on May 23.
Mrs May is hoping to convince EU leaders to agree to an extension of three months to the original departure date of March 29.
Any request to delay would have to be agreed to by the other 27 member states in the bloc.
Earlier on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Macron said a “no" vote in the UK Parliament for Mrs May’s Brexit plan would “directly guide everybody to a no deal, for sure”.
He was speaking as EU leaders gathered in Brussels for the high-stake summit.
MPs from Mrs May’s Conservative Party and the opposition, business leaders and hundreds of thousands of members of the public have vocally shown their fury at the prospect of no deal.
Mrs May has refused to support a long delay to Brexit, perhaps as much as two years, to the fury of many colleagues who believe she is caving into Conservative hardliners.
An online petition urging the government to cancel Brexit has gained more than 1 million signatures and crashed earlier in the day when it attracted so much traffic.
The petition went viral after a late-night speech by Mrs May contained a harsh warning to MPs to stop impeding the process.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We must proceed with caution and, above all, until the last hour, do everything possible to ensure that Britain can leave the EU in an orderly way.”
Britain’s opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was also in Brussels, for talks with the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier where they discussed looking for a “constructive alternative” to Mrs May’s deal.
She is seeking a delay until June 30 so she can obtain acceptance of her deal and pass it into law.
It marks an embarrassing U-turn by Mrs May, who has always insisted that Britain would leave the EU on March 29, until it became clear that her deal in its current form would not make it through Parliament.
"A short extension gives us that opportunity to decide to leave the EU, to deliver on that result of that referendum and I sincerely hope that will be with a negotiated deal,” she said on arrival in Brussels.
Mrs May attracted the fury of MPs on Wednesday night during a speech to the public when she turned against parliamentarians, accusing them of holding up Brexit and being to blame for any no-deal repercussions.
It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Kerala Knights 103-7 (10 ov)
Parnell 59 not out; Tambe 5-15
Sindhis 104-1 (7.4 ov)
Watson 50 not out, Devcich 49
The five pillars of Islam
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESmartCrowd%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2018%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESiddiq%20Farid%20and%20Musfique%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%20%2F%20PropTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%24650%2C000%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2035%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EVarious%20institutional%20investors%20and%20notable%20angel%20investors%20(500%20MENA%2C%20Shurooq%2C%20Mada%2C%20Seedstar%2C%20Tricap)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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China
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UAE
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Japan
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
The specs
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