March, 2016

• 7 March

  Electric supercar wins young Croatian global fame

  

  AFP He’s the name behind the world’s first electric supercar, winning international plaudits for his ingenuity. But for Croatia’s 28-year-old Mate Rimac, it all started as a hobby in his garage. A keen techie since high school, Rimac was racing an old BMW when he blew the engine and decided to turn the car into an electric one starting with ...

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• 7 March

  Clinton faces down Sanders, blasts Trump’s ‘bluster’

  

  Flint / AFP With the Democratic presidential nomination in sight, Hillary Clinton sought to repel sharp attacks from party rival Bernie Sanders, while training some fire on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. “Donald Trump’s bigotry, his bullying, his bluster are not going to wear well on the American people,” Clinton said in a sometimes testy debate with Sanders sponsored by CNN ...

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• 7 March

  Brussels for overhaul of EU asylum system

  London / AFP Brussels is to propose centralising claims for asylum in the European Union as it struggles to address Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War II, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The European Commission will make the proposal as part of a radical overhaul of its refugee policy to be announced at a summit of EU leaders ...

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• 7 March

  Indonesian leader holds talks with Sudan’s Bashir

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia’s leader on Monday held talks with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, with Jakarta defending having invited him to a summit of Muslim countries. Bashir met President Joko Widodo and the Indonesian foreign minister briefly on the sidelines of an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit ...

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• 7 March

  Slovak leader begins struggle to keep power after majority lost

  

  Bloomberg Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico started coalition talks after Saturday’s inconclusive elections, which cost him his majority in parliament, saw two nationalist groups win seats in the assembly, and raised the potential of a repeat vote. Fico’s Smer party won 28.3 percent, below the 44 percent he scored in a 2012 ballot. Voters elected seven other parties into the ...

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• 7 March

  N Korea threatens to nuke South-USA military drills

  

  Seoul / AFP North Korea threatened pre-emptive and “indiscriminate” nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States on Monday, as the two allies kicked off their annual, large-scale military exercises. The drills always raise tensions on the divided Korean peninsula and the situation is particularly volatile this year, given the North’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch and ...

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• 7 March

  EU-Turkey summit to declare Balkan migrant route closed

  

  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 ...

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• 7 March

  Syria opposition agrees to attend Geneva talks

  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 ...

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• 7 March

  Demolition resumes in Calais as new refugee camp to open

  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 ...

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• 7 March

  Tunisia kills 21 extremists after attack near Libya border

  

  Zarzis / AFP Tunisian forces killed 21 extremists who attacked police and army posts near the Libyan border on Monday in a new spillover of violence that also saw four civilians killed. It was the second deadly clash in the border area in less than a week. The defence ministry said that a soldier was also killed in the fighting ...

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