May, 2016

• 9 May

  Trial of ‘terror cell’ begins in Belgium

  

    Brussels / AFP Belgium on Monday began the trial of seven alleged extremists accused of links to the terror cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks. The men were arrested after a deadly raid in the Belgian town of Verviers in January 2015 which exposed an alleged plan to kill police officers. A further nine people who are still ...

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• 9 May

  Firebrand Duterte poised to win Philippine presidential elections

  

    Manila / AFP Anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte was heading on Monday for a huge win the Philippine presidential elections, according to a poll monitor, after an incendiary campaign dominated by his profanity-laced threats to kill criminals. Duterte, the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, had hypnotised millions with his vows of brutal but quick solutions to the nation’s ...

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• 9 May

  3 Afghans arrested over Romanian soldiers’ shootings

    BUCHAREST / AP Romania’s defense minister says three Afghan citizens have been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of two Romanian soldiers and the injury of a third. Defense Minister Mihnea Motoc said on Monday that the Romanians were training Afghan police officers on Saturday morning near Kandahar when two men wearing Afghan police uniforms who were “probably ...

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• 9 May

  4 killed as extremists attack Somalia police headquarters

    MOGADISHU / AP A suicide car bomber struck the entrance of Somalia’s traffic police headquarters in the capital on Monday , killing four people and injuring nine others, said a police official. Two police officers were among the dead and two armed extremists who tried to storm the traffic police premises in Mogadishu’s Abdiaziz district were also shot dead, ...

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• 9 May

  Spain: 44 migrants rescued off Western Sahara

    MADRID / AP The maritime rescue service says it has picked up 44 sub-Saharan African migrants that set off in a boat from the west coast of Africa in a bid to reach Spain. The service said the 42 men and two women were taken to the port of Arguineguin in Spain’s Canary Islands late Sunday after being rescued off ...

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• 9 May

  Cameron evokes war, Churchill memory in bid to avoid Brexit

  

    Bloomberg Prime Minister David Cameron made a patriotic appeal to Britons not to vote to leave the European Union next month by evoking the memories of wartime leader Winston Churchill. “The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were at each others’ throats for decades,” Cameron said in a speech at the British Museum in central London on Monday. ...

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• 9 May

  Weather aids firefighters battling Canada blaze

  

    Fort McMurray / AFP Authorities battling a forest fire in Canada looked to Mother Nature for more help on Monday, as cooling temperatures and rain slowed the spread of the blaze that had forced the evacuation of an entire city. There was more good news too, with the amount of land charred less than originally feared and the last ...

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• 9 May

  Australia turns back 3 asylum-seeker boats

    Sydney/ AFP Australia has intercepted three asylum-seeker boats so far this year, including one carrying women and children from Sri Lanka, the country’s immigration minister revealed on Monday. Under Canberra’s hardline measures, asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia by boat are either sent back to where they departed or to remote Pacific island camps, where living conditions have been criticised. ...

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• 9 May

  The economy’s real drag – Consumers

  

    American consumers aren’t what they used to be — and that helps explain the plodding economic recovery. It gets no respect despite creating 14 million jobs and lasting almost seven years. The great gripe is that economic growth has been held to about 2 percent a year, well below historical standards. This sluggishness reflects a profound psychological transformation of ...

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• 9 May

  Brexit could be UK’s undoing

    Countdown for the historic June 23 UK vote on whether to stay or leave the EU is causing regional and international anxiety. Half of Europeans feel Brexit could spark a domino effect, as other states would follow suit. Britain first joined the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, and in a referendum two years later, the public backed ...

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