On Saturday she crossed the Grand Harbor in the capital, Valletta, in a traditional wooden boat, alighting at the spot where her father, King George VI, landed in June 1943 to present Malta with the George Cross for bravely withstanding a World War II siege. Officials say a warning message left with the bodies was signed by the pseudonym of a person who police allege is the head of a criminal group based in Orizaba, Veracruz. Catholics and Anglicans, taxi drivers and presidential hopefuls, clergy members, police officers, babies carried on backs and tiny children in tiny suits. Vendors worked through the lines, wads of Ugandan shillings in their hands, doing an excellent business selling clocks, fans, T-shirts and visors — all emblazoned with the pope’s face. Refugees on the Greek-Macedonian border attacked police with stones Saturday, enraged by the sight of Macedonian authorities erecting a fence along the border and an accident that injured a young Moroccan man. There was no official tally of injured migrants, although Macedonian police targeted them with stun grenades and plastic bullets. The leaders of five of the seven parties represented in Greece’s Parliament have failed to agree on pension reforms after a six-hour meeting, prompting the prime minister to criticize the opposition for being “irresponsible” and “unserious.” Alexis Tsipras had hoped to get the opposition parties to agree on a statement that called for no further pension cuts and present this as a bargaining chip in talks with Greece’s creditors.
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