Vladimir Putin “Anyone who does not regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart...”

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Archive for the Category ‘EUROPE’

France captures 35 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden

France captures 35 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden

PARIS: The French Navy has captured 35 suspected pirates in three days of operations off the coast of Somalia — the biggest haul in the two years since EU naval ships started patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. In operations over the weekend the Nivose, a French frigate, seized four mother ships and [...]

A strong earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale shooks eastern Turkey

A strong earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale shooks eastern Turkey

ANKARA: Rescuers struggled to dig survivors from under the rubble after a strong quake struck eastern Turkey early Monday, killing at least 41 people and injuring dozens more, officials said. The quake, 6.0 on the Richter scale, struck at 04:32 am (0232 GMT) at a depth of five kilometres, with an epicentre near the Karakocan town [...]

Turkey recalls its Ambassador after US vote on 1.5 million Armenians ‘genocide’

Turkey recalls its Ambassador after US vote on 1.5 million Armenians ‘genocide’

ANKARA: One of the worst massacres of the 20th-century came back to haunt international politics yesterday when a powerful Washington panel voted to call the murder of about 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey “genocide”. After more than three hours of debate, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs narrowly approved a resolution calling on President Obama [...]

Big gains for Dutch far-right anti-immigrant maverick Geert Wilders amid polls

Big gains for Dutch far-right anti-immigrant maverick Geert Wilders amid polls

AMSTERDAM: Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right anti-immigrant maverick, scored big gains in yesterday’s local elections in the Netherlands, according to projections last night, indicating he may dominate the political scene in the run-up to the general election in three months. Yesterday’s poll, 10 days after the centrist coalition government collapsed, was seen as a gauge [...]

Death toll hits 53 and millions without power as as storms lash western Europe

Death toll hits 53 and millions without power as as storms lash western Europe

PARIS: Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain lashed western Europe on Sunday, leaving at least 53 people dead and more than a million households without power, reports AFP. President Nicolas Sarkozy was on Monday to visit France’s storm-battered Atlantic coast where some 45 people were killed in flooding and violent winds. Dubbed Xynthia, the [...]

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) releases message from kidnapped Italian

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) releases message from kidnapped Italian

ROME: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has released an audio message from one of two Italians kidnapped in Mauritania in December, US-monitoring agency SITE said on Sunday. The message is a plea from Italian captive Sergio Cicala and is entitled “Call from the kidnapped Italian to the Berlusconi government,” said SITE, which monitors Islamist [...]

UK: Huge rise in unresolved asylum cases revealed, Labour facing election unable to fix asylum issue

UK: Huge rise in unresolved asylum cases revealed, Labour facing election unable to fix asylum issue

LONDON: Labour’s record on tackling asylum faces a fresh onslaught today over figures that show a new backlog of 30,000 cases and a warning by the government’s immigration watchdog that its targets are currently “unachievable”. John Vine also makes clear that a special five-year exercise which began in 2006 to clear the legacy of 450,000 [...]

Turkey interrogates 52 military officers allegedly planning to overthrow the govt

Turkey interrogates 52 military officers allegedly planning to overthrow the govt

ANKARA: Once they were untouchable. Some were members of Turkey’s elite military class known as “pashas,” a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times. For decades, Turkey’s senior officers, self-appointed guardians of the country’s secular tradition, called the shots. But Monday, the balance of power in this EU candidate appeared to have undergone a [...]

Thousands protest across Spain at José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s pension reforms

Thousands protest across Spain at José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s pension reforms

MADRID: Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Spain last night in the biggest test of the country’s Socialist Government, which is under pressure. With a general strike threatened in the summer, the two biggest Spanish unions staged protests in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. The Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) and [...]

British PM Gordon Brown to testify before Iraq war inquiry on March 5

British PM Gordon Brown to testify before Iraq war inquiry on March 5

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will appear before the Iraq war inquiry on March 5, the inquiry said in a statement Monday. Brown was Britain’s finance minister at the time of the 2003 US-led invasion, and is being called to give his account of the conflict several weeks after then prime minister Tony Blair [...]

Germany arrests 3 suspected of helping extremists planning attacks on US targets

Germany arrests 3 suspected of helping extremists planning attacks on US targets

BERLIN: German police have arrested three people suspected of helping a radical Islamist group whose followers have confessed to planning attacks on US targets in Germany, prosecutors said on Monday. The federal prosecutor’s office said it suspected two men whom it identified only as Alican T. and Fatih K., and one woman, Filiz G., of [...]

Dubai hit Mossad squad used British and other EU diplomatic passports

Dubai hit Mossad squad used British and other EU diplomatic passports

The hit squad that killed a senior Hamas official in Dubai may have entered the country using diplomatic passports, officials in the Emirates said yesterday as they called on Britain and other European countries whose documents were forged to launch a full inquiry. “There is still information that Dubai police will not make public for [...]

42 Dead, 120 injured as rescue teams search flooded Portuguese island of Madeira

42 Dead, 120 injured as rescue teams search flooded Portuguese island of Madeira

FUNCHAL (Portugal): Rescue workers dug through heaps of mud, boulders and debris on Sunday on the Portuguese island of Madeira, searching for victims buried by flash floods and mudslides that had already killed at least 42 people in the popular tourist area. More than 120 others were injured and an unknown number were missing, possibly [...]

David Cameron calls for inquiry into British PM Gordon Brown bullying claims

David Cameron calls for inquiry into British PM Gordon Brown bullying claims

LONDON: David Cameron today called for an inquiry into allegations that Gordon Brown bullied staff at Downing Street. The Conservative leader said that Sir Philip Mawer, Downing Street’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, should look into the allegations made by the Observer journalist Andrew Rawnsley and subsequently amplified by the National Bullying Helpline charity. However, [...]

Dutch confirm pullout from Afghanistan after coalition government collapse

Dutch confirm pullout from Afghanistan after coalition government collapse

AMSTERDAM: NATO was left in fear of further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan yesterday after the Dutch Prime Minister conceded that he could not prevent his forces being pulled out this year after the collapse of the Government in The Hague. The Dutch coalition government collapsed Saturday over whether to extend the country’s military mission in [...]

UK Police claims MI5 was complicit in Shaker’s torture at Guantánamo Bay

UK Police claims MI5 was complicit in Shaker’s torture at Guantánamo Bay

LONDON: The Metropolitan police is ­investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture of Shaker Aamer, the last ­remaining British resident in Guantánamo Bay, it was revealed today. Investigating officers have applied to the high court for the release of classified government documents relating to the case. They are already investigating claims of MI5 [...]

UK denies knowledge of Mossad’s murder plot calling it an ‘effort to deflect blame’

UK denies knowledge of Mossad’s murder plot calling it an ‘effort to deflect blame’

LONDON: Britain has flatly denied any foreknowledge of a Mossad plan to assassinate a top official of the Palestinian group Hamas, in Dubai, amidst angry accusations in Whitehall that Israel is seeking to deflect blame from itself by implicating others. British government sources dismissed as “nonsense” a report claiming the Israeli secret service had given [...]

Britain summons Israeli diplomat to seek answers as Dubai killing row escalates

Britain summons Israeli diplomat to seek answers as Dubai killing row escalates

LONDON: Britain last night fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country’s ambassador to explain the use of faked British passports by a hit squad who targeted a Hamas official in Dubai. The Israeli ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office to “share information” about [...]

Gordon Brown pledges inquiry as Israel refuses to rule out Mossad plot in Dubai

Gordon Brown pledges inquiry as Israel refuses to rule out Mossad plot in Dubai

LONDON: Gordon Brown stepped into the growing international row over the alleged use of fake passports by the assassins of a Hamas leader in Dubai by promising a full investigation. As demands were made for the Israeli ambassador to be summoned to the Foreign Office to answer allegations that the Mossad security service was behind [...]

Police waiting to interview the Belgium train crash driver who leapt to safety

Police waiting to interview the Belgium train crash driver who leapt to safety

BRUSSELS: Police are waiting to interview the driver of the train blamed for the Belgian rail disaster who survived the crash by jumping from his cab moments before the collision, which claimed at least 18 lives. The driver was said to be in a serious but not life-threatening condition in hospital after apparently trying to [...]

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