February, 2017

• 5 February

  Australia’s Turnbull says Trump isn’t chasing a refugee deal

  CANBERRA / AP Australia’s prime minister on Sunday ruled out any deal to get the United States to honor an agreement to resettle hundreds of Muslim refugees that President Donald Trump has described as “dumb.” Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull also dismissed a Nine Network television network journalist’s suggestion that he should be offended that White House spokesman Sean Spicer has ...

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• 5 February

  Afghan official: 38 killed by avalanches after heavy snow

    KABUL / AP At least 38 people have been killed over the course of three days in Afghanistan by avalanches caused by heavy snow, officials said on Sunday. Omer Mohammadi, spokesman for the Afghan state minister for disaster management and humanitarian affairs, said that more than 20 others have been injured. Mohammadi said that 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces ...

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• 5 February

  Visa holders take flights to US amid reprieve

  

    CHICAGO / AP Visa holders from seven majority-Muslim countries who were turned away from the United States due to President Donald Trump’s travel ban are rushing to try again, hoping to make it through a narrow window opened by legal challenges. The federal appeals court in San Francisco denied Trump’s effort to immediately reinstate the ban early Sunday. For ...

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• 5 February

  ‘Brexit, Trump give French reason to vote’

  

    LYON / AP Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump have given the French a “reason to vote” because it can result in real change, the top lieutenant of far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen declared on Sunday ahead of her long-awaited speech. Le Pen supporters were pouring into the ...

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• 5 February

  Israeli PM calls for unity against Iran before UK visit

    JERUSALEM / AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for international unity against Iran after Tehran’s recent ballistic missile test. Netanyahu spoke Sunday ahead of his visit to London where he will meet Prime Minister Theresa May to “deepen bilateral diplomatic, security, economic and technological ties.” He said “In the diplomatic sphere, I intend to emphasize the need ...

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• 5 February

  Serb wall in Kosovo city pulled down with no incidents

    PRISTINA / AP A concrete wall erected in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica that has provoked tensions between Kosovo and neighboring Serbia has been pulled down. The move followed an agreement between the government and the country’s ethnic Serb minority, facilitated by the European Union and the United States embassy. The wall’s destruction by two excavators on Sunday ...

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• 5 February

  Turkish police detain over 440 people in anti-IS operation

    ISTANBUL / AP Turkey’s anti-terrorism police have detained over 440 people for alleged links to the IS group, the state-run agency reported on Sunday. The Anadolu Agency said 60 IS suspects, the vast majority of them foreigners, were taken into custody early Sunday in the capital, Ankara. It said a total of 445 people were detained in simultaneous pre-dawn ...

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• 5 February

  Trump must shun ill-planned actions against Iran

  

  By putting Iran ‘on notice’ for its aggressive behaviour, President Trump has taken aim at a country that’s opposed by many US allies. But he has begun this confrontation without much preparation or strategic planning, continuing the haphazard pattern of his first two weeks in office. Iran is a convenient enemy for Trump. Israel and the Gulf Arab states share ...

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• 5 February

  Indian tech was on the edge even before Trump’s shove

  

    India’s technology outsourcing industry was facing peak pessimism even before Donald Trump. But if the new president signs into law a draft executive order to tighten the US guest-worker regime, the moment of reckoning for the likes of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Infosys Ltd. could arrive much sooner than shareholders anticipate. Since investors know very little about how ...

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• 5 February

  Guns for the mentally incompetent

  

    Of all the measures to improve gun safety, background checks are among the most reasonable and popular. House Republicans lost no time this week in voting to weaken them. A bill approved on a mostly party-line vote in the House would rescind a rule on gun background checks that was initiated by the Barack Obama administration in 2012 and ...

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