Bloomberg Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny pleaded for time and space to examine options to create a stable government, as the nation’s two biggest parties opened the door for an unprecedented grand coalition. Kenny’s Fine Gael secured 25 percent in Friday’s election, according to a poll for broadcaster RTE. Traditional rival Fianna Fail secured 21 percent. Under Ireland’s electoral system, ...

Bloomberg The U.K. Treasury has netted 15 percent more tax on home purchases worth more than 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) since reforming the levy on property transactions, analysis by the tax authorities showed. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne introduced the change in December 2014 and since then more than 780,000 homebuyers saved about 657 million pounds on so-called ...

Frankfurt / AFP As Germany’s banking capital, Frankfurt has long established itself as one of Europe’s leading financial hubs. But the city, which has a rather staid and strait-laced image, is now vying with hipper and trendier centres around Europe to woo financial start-ups known as FinTechs which want to revolutionise the way the world of money does business. FinTechs ...

Bloomberg Hillary Clinton scored a dominating victory over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina’s Democratic primary with the overwhelming support of black voters, helping solidify her path to the party’s nomination heading into Tuesday’s 11-state round of contests that represent the biggest prize of the 2016 primary campaign. “Tomorrow, this campaign goes national,’’ Clinton said in her victory speech in Columbia. ...

Los Angeles / afp Three people were stabbed, one of them critically, and 13 others were arrested in California when a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally erupted into clashes with counter-protesters, witnesses and police said. Around midday, half a dozen members of the white hate group, whose ranks still number several thousand in the United States, arrived at the protest ...

Dublin / AFP Ireland waited for the final results on Sunday of an election that has left the eurozone country in limbo, ejecting Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s governing coalition but offering no clear alternative. First results from Friday’s vote indicated Kenny’s Fine Gael party and its junior partner, Labour, will no longer have a parliamentary majority—but neither will any other ...

Athens / AFP Some 6,500 people were stuck at the Idomeni camp on Greece’s northern border with Macedonia after four Balkan countries announced a daily cap on migrant arrivals. The build-up began in earnest last week after Macedonia started refusing entry to Afghans and imposed stricter document controls on Syrians and Iraqis, slowing the passage of migrants and refugees to ...

Damascus / AFP Key players in Syria’s war traded accusations on Sunday over violations of the first major ceasefire in the five-year conflict, but the truce remained largely intact on its second day. Aid groups hope to use the lull in fighting that has claimed 270,000 lives and displaced more than half the population to deliver desperately needed supplies. A ...

Istanbul / AFP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he has “no respect” for a decision by the Constitutional Court to order the release of two Turkish journalists held in jail for three months on charges of revealing state secrets. “I am not in a position to agree with this decision. I am saying this very clearly: I ...

Jerusalem / AFP Palestinians have been barred from entering one of the largest Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for five days after an attack that critically wounded a security guard, an official said on Sunday. The Israeli police ban on entry to the Maale Adumim settlement is to last until Thursday and affects some 500 Palestinian labourers, a ...