Politics

  Brussels / AFP EU negotiators said on Thursday they have resolved an internal row that had delayed visa-free travel to Europe for Ukrainians and Georgians. The European Commission and the bloc’s 28 members will be able to reimpose visa requirements more quickly and more easily under a compromise deal amid fears over immigration and terrorism. The deal struck between the ...

  Moscow / AFP Russian prosecutors on Thursday demanded a five-year jail sentence for a 21-year-old female student accused of trying to join the IS group in Syria. Varvara Karaulova is on trial in the high-profile case after she was detained last year as she tried to cross into war-torn Syria while still a philosophy undergraduate at the renowned Moscow State ...

Brussels / AFP The EU recommended on Thursday that member states resume sending asylum seekers back to Greece from March next year, after transfers were halted for five years because of poor conditions there. Brussels said it was a key step towards restoring the European Union’s migration policies and the passport-free Schengen zone, which nearly collapsed under the pressure of the ...

Athens / AFP A Greek appeals court on Thursday ruled against the extradition of two Turkish coup suspects demanded by Ankara, after electing to protect another three and send back three others. The Athens court accepted a prosecutor’s arguments that the two military officers — out of a total eight seeking asylum in Greece—would be at risk if sent back ...

  Yangon / AFP At least 11 people have died this month in northern Myanmar in escalating clashes between security forces and armed insurgents that have undercut Aung San Suu Kyi’s bid for peace. Thousands have fled their homes in northern Shan state since the fighting erupted in late November, with many crossing the border into China. In response, Beijing ...

  Accra / AFP Ghanaians faced an anxious wait on Thursday for the results of a nail-biting presidential election tainted by sporadic outbreaks of violence, with no clear favourite emerging from the early provisional results. The high-stakes race between incumbent John Mahama and rival Nana Akufo-Addo is seen as a litmus test of stability for one of Africa’s most secure democracies. ...

  Aleppo / AFP President Bashar al-Assad said victory for his forces in Aleppo would be a “huge step” in ending Syria’s war, as government troops battled on Thursday to retake more rebel ground. Despite pleas from increasingly cornered opposition fighters, Western countries and the United Nations, Assad also rejected talk of a ceasefire in Aleppo. Repeated diplomatic efforts this week ...

  Hamburg / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov failed to make progress on a Syria truce in talks in Germany early Thursday, an American official said. Kerry and Lavrov met twice Thursday on the margins of a foreign ministers’ meeting of the 57-member Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said a US ...

  Beirut / AFP Nearly 150 civilians, many disabled or sick, were evacuated overnight from a health facility in Aleppo’s Old City after the army retook the area, the Red Cross said on Thursday. The bodies of 11 people who died at the facility after being caught in crossfire or failing to receive medication were also retrieved, the humanitarian organisation said. ...

  Seoul/ AFP South Korea’s parliament on Thursday introduced an impeachment motion against President Park Geun-Hye, ahead of a vote seeking her ouster over a corruption scandal that has riveted the country and paralysed her administration. The motion, which accuses Park of constitutional and criminal violations ranging from a failure to protect people’s lives to bribery and abuse of power, will ...