Berlin / AFP Germany is open to providing protection for Turks who have been “politically persecuted” by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in its widening crackdown following a failed putsch, a senior German official said on Tuesday. “Critics in Turkey should know that the German government stands in solidarity with them,” Michael Roth, state secretary at the foreign ministry, told Die ...

  Paris / AFP French investigators have identified a Moroccan-Belgian extremist based in Syria as a key plotter of attacks in Paris and Brussels, sources said on Tuesday, announcing a breakthrough in their multi-country probe. Oussama Atar, a 32-year-old believed to be a member of the IS group, was already a suspect in the March 22 attacks on Brussels but ...

  Goma /AFP A young girl was killed and 31 Indian peacekeepers were injured Tuesday in a grenade explosion in Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said. “A grenade exploded regretably killing a girl of roughly eight-years-old… another civilian was injured,” said Bilamekaso Tchagbele, the information chief for the UN’s force in the country. The blue helmets ...