Brussels / AFP EU leaders held a summit with Turkey’s prime minister on Monday in order to back closing the Balkans migrant route and urge Ankara to accept deportations of large numbers of economic migrants from overstretched Greece. The European Union is hardening its stance in a bid to defuse the worst refugee crisis since World War II by increasingly ...

BEIRUT / AP Syria’s opposition on Monday agreed to attend a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks set for this week in Geneva after a landmark ceasefire led to a dramatic drop in fighting. The truce between President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and non-extremist rebels, brokered by Russia and the United States, has defied expectations and led to the first ...

Calais / AfP A second week of demolition was underway on Monday in the Calais migrant camp known as the “Jungle” while France’s first international-standard refugee camp was set to open further along the coast. A group of children tried to offer white roses to the line of riot police holding back migrants and volunteers as workers resumed the dismantling ...