Lazio football club distanced itself from some of its most hardcore supporters after a group of fans distributed leaflets demanding women sit or stand at the back of their Rome stadium.

Lazio’s ultras, a group of die-hard supporters often associated with the political Right, handed out a letter at the gates of their ground on Saturday, saying women should be banned from the front ten rows of the Curva Nord terrace at the Olympic Stadium. 

The notices, which said "in the trenches, we do not allow women, wives and girlfriends" were immediately ridiculed on social media and condemned by a number of veteran fans, including a handful of influential Italian actors and showbiz personalities. 

And on Monday the club broke its silence. "This is an autonomous initiative by some part of the Curva Nord fans. That’s not the position of the club, we are against any discrimination,” said Lazio’s spokesman Arturo Diaconale. "Lazio fans are numerous, this is an initiative by just a few of them,” he added.

The Lazio ultras have a long-standing reputation for violence, racism and anti-semitism and have long been considered politically close to far-Right and neo-fascist movements. Lazio were also associated with Benito Mussolin during his reign and wore the fascist symbol on their shirt in the 1930s.

The unofficial flyer said the Curva Nord, where the ultras congregate, was a "sacred place" where women were not allowed.

The letter called for "women, wives and girlfriends" to not sit in the first 10 rows of the stand.

“The first few rows, as always, have been experienced like the trenches. In the trenches, we do not allow women, wives and girlfriends, so we invite them to position themselves from the 10th row back,” it read.

It concluded that "those who choose the stadium as an alternative to the carefree and romantic day at the Villa Borghese [one of the main parks in Rome], should go to other parts".

The flyer was signed by "Direttivo Diabolik Pluto", which is part of a group of Lazio ultras known as the "Irriducibili", who rose to power in the 1980s adopting English chanting styles.

Lazio was fined €50,000 (£44,700) by the Italian football federation last season after some fans littered the stadium in Rome with images of Anne Frank — the young author of a famous diary who died in the Holocaust — wearing the shirt of city rival Roma, who share the ground. 

Police said on Monday that they had identified through CCTV some of the fans responsible for the latest flyers. The authors of the leaflets could face discrimination charges.

Quarreling and confusion marked the start of the Senate’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday, with Democrats trying to block the proceedings because of documents being withheld by the White House. Protesters also disrupted the proceedings.

In his opening remarks released ahead of delivery, Mr Kavanaugh sought to tamp down the controversy over his nomination, which would likely shift the closely divided court to the right. He promised to be a "team player" if confirmed, declaring that he would be a "pro-law judge" who would not decide cases based on his personal views.

But Democrats raised objections from the moment Chairman Chuck Grassley gaveled the committee to order. They want to review 100,000 documents about Mr Kavanaugh’s record being withheld by the White House as well as some 42,000 documents released to the committee on a confidential basis on the eve of the hearing, along with others not sought by Republicans on the committee.

"We have not been given an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing on this nominee," said Senator Kamala Harris. Senator Richard Blumenthal made a motion to adjourn.

Mr Grassley denied his request, but the arguments persisted.

More than a dozen protesters, shouting one by one, disrupted the hearing at several points and were removed by police. "This is a mockery and a travesty of justice," shouted one woman. "Cancel Brett Kavanaugh!"

Mr Grassley defended the document production as the most open in history, saying there was "no reason to delay the hearing. He asked Mr Kavanaugh, who sat before the committee with White House officials behind him, to introduce his parents, wife and children.

"I’m very honored to be here," Mr Kavanaugh said.

With majority Republicans appearing united, it’s doubtful the hearings will affect the eventual confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee. But they will likely become a rallying cry for both parties just two months before the midterm elections.

Mr Kavanaugh declared he would be even-handed in his approach to the law.

"A good judge must be an umpire, a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy," Mr Kavanaugh said in prepared opening remarks. "I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge. I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge."

"I would always strive to be a team player on the Team of Nine," he added.

The Supreme Court is more often thought of as nine separate judges, rather than a team. And on the most contentious cases, the court tends to split into two sides, conservative and liberal. But the justices often say they seek consensus when they can, and they like to focus on how frequently they reach unanimous decisions.

Mr Kavanaugh, 53, has served for the past 12 years on the federal appeals court in Washington, DC, which is considered the second most important court in the country after the Supreme Court. His conservative record includes a dissenting opinion last year that would have denied immediate access to an abortion for an immigrant teenager in federal custody.

Mr Kavanaugh worked in key White House positions when George W. Bush was president and was a member of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s legal team that investigated President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s, leading to Clinton’s impeachment.

As a young lawyer, Mr Kavanaugh worked for Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom he would replace on the high court. Mr Kennedy retired at the end of July. Mr Trump’s successful first nominee, Neil Gorsuch, also was a Kennedy law clerk the same year as Mr Kavanaugh.

When he was sworn in as an appellate judge in 2006, Mr Kavanaugh called an independent judiciary "the crown jewel of our constitutional democracy."

Questioning of the nominee will begin on Wednesday, and votes in committee and on the Senate floor could occur later in September. If all goes as Republicans plan, Mr Kavanaugh could be on the bench when the court begins its new term on October 1.

Grassley has called Mr Kavanaugh "one of the most qualified nominees ever picked for the court." The American Bar Association has given Mr Kavanaugh its highest rating, well qualified.

Monday night, some 42,000 documents pertaining to Mr Kavanaugh’s work with previous administrations were released to the committee. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer complained it was impossible to go through them in time. Democrats have also complained that they have not received all relevant documents.

Rebuffed in their request to delay the hearing, Democrats are planning to shine a light on Mr Kavanaugh’s views on abortion, executive power and whether Mr Trump could be forced to testify as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Many Democratic senators already have announced their intention to vote against Mr Kavanaugh and many Republicans have likewise signaled their support. A handful of Democrats seeking re-election in states Mr Trump carried in 2016 could vote for Mr Kavanaugh.

If no Democrat ultimately supports the nomination, the Republicans have no margin for error in a Senate they control by 50-49. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the only two Republicans even remotely open to voting against Mr Kavanaugh, though neither has said she would do so.

Abortion rights supporters are trying to appeal to those senators by focusing on concerns that Mr Kavanaugh could vote to limit abortion rights or even overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973 that first established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

Democrats have been under intense pressure from liberal voters to resist Mr Trump, and many remain irate, even two years later, over the treatment of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, who was denied so much as a hearing last year by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mr Kavanaugh, in his statement Tuesday, gave a shout-out to Garland, "our superb chief judge." Mr Garland is the chief judge of the appeals court on which Mr Kavanaugh has served.

But Democrats are powerless to delay a vote on Mr Kavanaugh since Mr McConnell led Republicans, during the Gorsuch nomination, in eliminating the 60-vote filibuster threshold that had been in place for Supreme Court nominations.

The filibuster rule required 60 of the 100 votes to advance a bill or nomination. That’s in contrast to the simple 51-vote majority that applies in most cases.

Australia’s new prime minister Scott Morrison, a staunch conservative and devout evangelical Christian, yesterday pledged to heal the ruling Liberal party after  a week of infighting that outgoing leader Malcolm Turnbull said left his nation "dumbstruck and so appalled”.

Following a brutal party brawl, Mr Morrison emerged victorious as leader in a 45-40 party-room vote against Peter Dutton, a hardliner who led a coup against Mr Turnbull.

Mr Morrison, formerly the treasurer, equivalent to Chancellor of the Exchequer, was sworn in on Friday by the Governor-General, the Queen’s representative, to become Australia’s sixth prime minister in eight years.

"There has been a lot of talk this week about whose side people are on in this building," he said. 

"As the new generation of Liberal leadership… we are on your side. Our job … is to ensure that we not only bring our party back together, which has been bruised and battered this week, but that … we bring the parliament back together.”

Scott Morrison: Who is Australia's new Prime Minister

Mr Turnbull, a former investment banker who became leader after toppling Tony Abbott in 2015, was ousted by a group of right-wing MPs who mistrusted his progressive views, even as he  veered rightward on issues such as climate change, the republic and same-sex marriage. 

“Australians will be just dumbstruck and so appalled by the conduct of the past week,” Mr Turnbull said after resigning.

“To imagine that a government would be rocked by this sort of disloyalty and deliberate insurgency… That’s why this week has been so dispiriting. It’s been vengeance, personal ambition and factional feuding.”

The toppling of Mr Turnbull means that no Australian leader has served a full term since John Howard after the 2004 election. He joins Labor’s Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and Mr Abbott, a Liberal, in the succession of ousted leaders.

Warren Entsch, a Liberal MP,  said after the vote: “This revolving door of prime ministers has got to stop”.

Adding to the turmoil, Mr Turnbull said he planned to leave parliament, which would require a by-election that could threaten the ruling Liberal-National Coalition’s one-seat majority. This could force an early general election, which is currently due by May.

Mr Morrison, a father of two and faithful member of an American-style mega-church, did not support the move to topple Mr Turnbull. He was elected after a three-way contest against Mr Dutton and Julie Bishop, the foreign minister, who was defeated in the first round of voting.

WATCH: Outgoing Australian PM’s grandson boos the media

On Friday night US President Donald Trump congratulated Mr Morrison.

Trump tweeted, "There are no greater friends than the United States and Australia!"

Mr Morrison soon responded, writing on Twitter: "Had a great discussion with @realDonaldTrump this morning. We affirmed the strength of the relationship between the US and Australia…"

Known as a shrewd political operator, Mr Morrison developed a reputation as a tough but capable minister after overseeing Australia’s efforts to stem the flow of asylum seekers by boat.  This involved detaining refugees on remote offshore islands and towing boats back to Indonesia, measures condemned as unlawful and inhumane by the United Nations.

Mr Morrison grew up in the beachside suburb of Bronte in Sydney, where his father John was a policeman and church elder. 

A devout Christian who opposes same-sex marriage, he met his wife Jenny Warren at their church and they married at age 21.   In his Who’s Who biography, he lists one of his interests as “church”.

Before entering parliament in 2007, Mr Morrison was manager of Australia’s tourism body and oversaw a notorious campaign in which a bikini-clad model asked “Where the bloody hell are you?”. The advertisement was banned on television in Britain in 2006.  

Australian leaders: A decade of turmoil

"It’s a bit of a PR dream," Morrison said at the time.

In his first press conference as leader, he pledged to assist farmers struggling with a crippling drought and to lower the nation’s soaring electricity prices. He said he did not plan to call an early election.

But his larger problem will be healing a battered party that has endured days of bitter combat.

After losing the ballot, Mr Dutton promised not to undermine the new leader.

 "My course from here is to provide absolute loyalty to Scott Morrison, and make sure we win the election," he said.

ends

On the face of it, this week’s break in diplomatic relations between tiny Taiwan, population 23.5 million, and even tinier El Salvador, population 6.3m, did not herald a dramatic shift in global politics. But the Central American nation’s sudden switch in allegiance to China has clearly rattled its US neighbour. 

Accusing China of destabilising cross-Strait relations, the White House said: "This is a decision that affects not just El Salvador, but also the economic health and security of the entire Americas region."

It reiterated that the US would reevaluate its ties with the Central American country as a result.

Reacting to the news earlier, high profile US Senators Marco Rubio and Cory Gardner,…

Italy will pull out of the European Union’s search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean unless other EU countries agree to allow rescued migrants to land at their ports rather than just Italian ones.

Matteo Salvini, the interior minister, said Rome was “assessing” whether to continue with the anti-human trafficking Sophia Mission after a meeting of EU defence ministers in Vienna, Austria.

Sophia currently lands all rescued migrants in Italian ports but Italy’s coalition government has demanded more support from other EU countries after bearing the brunt of the 2015 migration crisis. After a day of talks no agreement was reached on changing the port of landing rules in Operation Sophia.

“I…

A juror in the trial of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman has revealed a lone holdout prevented the jury from convicting Paul Manafort on all 18 charges.

Manafort was convicted on eight charges of financial crimes, but the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 charges after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Jurors repeatedly tried to persuade the holdout to "look at the paper trail" but she insisted there was reasonable doubt, juror Paula Duncan told Fox News.

"We didn’t want it to be hung, so we tried for an extended period of time to convince her," Ms Duncan said. 

"But in the end, she held out and that’s why we have 10 counts that did not get a verdict."

She revealed that the discussions became so heated during the four days of deliberations that there were "tears" at times among the 12 men and women.

The Manafort trial was the first to stem from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Ms Duncan, who says she is an ardent Trump supporter, referred to the probe as a "witch hunt" – a frequent refrain from the president.

However, she said the charges brought by Mr Mueller’s team were legitimate and considered the evidence "overwhelming".

“Every day when I drove [to court], I had my Make America Great Again hat in the backseat,” said Ms Duncan, who said she plans to vote for Mr Trump again in 2020. “Just as a reminder.”

"I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was," Ms Duncan said. "And no one is above the law."

Ms Duncan said the Trump administration did come up during deliberations because of testimony that Manafort had tried to secure a White House position for a banker who authorised millions of dollars in loans for him and had lobbied Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"The charges were legitimate but the prosecution tried to make the case about the Russian collusion right from the beginning and, of course, the judge shut them down on that," she said. 

Ms Duncan also said she would have liked to have heard more from Manafort’s defence team. The political consultant did not testify at his trial and his lawyers conducted mostly limited questioning of the government’s witnesses.

The juror’s comments came the same day that the Judge TS Ellis, who presided over the trial, unsealed several transcripts of closed bench conferences. 

Read more | Trump's legal woes

One transcript showed that the defence had privately sought a mistrial because of comments a juror was quoted as making about the weakness of Mr Manafort’s defense.

Mr Ellis denied Manafort’s motion, saying he was confident a mistrial was not warranted after considering the circumstances carefully and questioning each juror about their ability to be impartial.

After the jury’s verdict, Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing took care to praise Mr Ellis for a fair trial and the jury "for their very long and hard-fought deliberations". 

Brazil will send troops to its border with Venezuela on Monday after residents of the Brazilian border town of Pacaraima drove out Venezuelan immigrants from their improvised camps, amid growing regional tensions.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed the border into Brazil over the past three years as they seek to escape the economic, political and social crisis gripping their country.

The latest show of tensions began early Saturday, hours after a local merchant was robbed and severely beaten in an incident blamed on Venezuelan suspects, in Pacaraima, where an estimated 1,000 immigrants are living on the streets.

Dozens of locals then attacked the two main immigrant makeshift camps and burned their belongings, leading Venezuelans to cross the border back into their home country.

Shots were fired, stores were shuttered and debris littered the streets.

"It was terrible, they burned the tents and everything that was inside," said Carol Marcano, a Venezuelan who works in Boa Vista and was on the border returning from Venezuela. "There were shots, they burned rubber tires."

Marcano said that some Venezuelans reacted to the attack by destroying a car with Brazilian license plates. She and her companions were among many who took refuge at checkpoints on the Venezuelan side of the border.

Three Brazilians were hurt in the clashes, a spokesman for military police said. No information was immediately available on the state of the Venezuelans involved.

The merchant who was attacked "is known, he is a neighbor, and there was indignation when it was learned that he had been robbed," a local told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"People began to expel Venezuelans who were in the center of the city, forcing them to return to their country."

Roraima state Governor Suely Campos made a plea to temporarily close the border and asked Brazilia to send security reinforcements to "face the increase in crime" she links to Venezuelans in the region.

In turn, the public security ministry vowed to send a contingent of 60 troops due to arrive Monday to join teams in the area.