Politics

Berlin / AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition agreed on Thursday on tough measures to spur the integration of migrants and refugees, including sanctions for failing to take part in programmes such as language classes. The deal, hammered out in six hours of late-night talks between Merkel’s conservative Christian Union bloc and the Social Democrats (SPD), also included plans ...

  Beijing / AFP China slammed the US for its human rights record on Thursday, state media said, denouncing it for police brutality and civil rights violations a day after Washington criticised Beijing’s own performance. In a report sourced mainly from US media, China said “the US government refuses to hold up a mirror to look at itself, it has ...

Brazil / AFP Brazilian President DilmaRousseff took off the gloves, branding her vice president a traitor and coup-plotter ahead of an impeachment vote in Congress, with a party once in the ruling coalition set to cast a ballot against her. In a blistering speech, Rousseff, 68, charged: “If there were any doubts about my reporting that a coup is under ...

  BERLIN / AP A European Parliament faction that includes Britain’s governing party has ejected a lawmaker from the nationalist Alternative for Germany, which has drawn criticism over members’ remarks suggesting that police could shoot refugees trying to enter Germany. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won seven European Parliament seats in 2014. Five lawmakers left for a new and more moderate ...

  Mali / ap A mine explosion in Mali has killed three French soldiers, in an unusually deadly incident for French anti-terrorist forces in the region. The French Defense Ministry says that soldiers had been approaching Tessalit in northern Mali in a convoy of about 60 vehicles when the lead armored vehicle was hit Tuesday. The Defense Ministry initially reported ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Belgian air traffic controllers continued strike action on Wednesday, forcing the cancellation of flights at Brussels airport as it struggles to get back up to capacity after the March 22 suicide bombings. Belgian flag carrier Brussels Airlines said that around 50 of its flights to and from the main international Zaventem airport were canceled. The strike action ...

Baghdad / AFP Dozens of Iraqi lawmakers held an overnight sit-in at parliament to protest efforts by powerful political blocs to maintain control of key government posts, MPs said on Wednesday. The demonstration followed Tuesday’s postponement of a vote on a new lineup for the cabinet, which Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has said should include technocrats instead of the ...

  Ukraine / AFP Ukraine’s bickering parliament resumed horse-trading on Wednesday over the makeup of a new pro-EU government headed by the chamber’s speaker VolodymyrGroysman that could be voted on the following day. A senior member of President Petro Poroshenko’s party said that “according to my information, all the agreements have been reached and no further questions remain.” “We will ...

Sudan / AFP Among the sprawling thatch huts of Darfur’s Zamzam Camp for displaced civilians, there is little feeling a referendum on administrative status might remedy years of suffering caused by the conflict. The vote on whether Sudan’s restive west should unite its five states into a single region has been touted by Khartoum as proof of stability returning to ...

Bloomberg President Barack Obama assembles on Wednesday his top national security officials at the CIA to discuss options to increase pressure on the IS in Syria. With each additional step, he risks drawing the US further into the conflict he has spent five years trying to avoid. The meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee brings together some of ...