Ankara / AFP Turkish warplanes pounded Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq on Monday, the day after a suicide car bomb tore through downtown Ankara killing at least 36 people, the third attack on the capital in five months. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest carnage, which reduced cars and buses to charred hulks on a ...
Read More »1 in 3 Syrian children know nothing but war: UNICEF
Amman / AFP One in three Syrian children have known nothing but a lifetime of war, UNICEF said on Monday, as the country’s conflict enters its sixth year this week. Forced from their homes and schools, orphaned by violence and drafted into work or fighting, a generation of Syria’s children is being shaped by the conflict, UNICEF said in a ...
Read More »Syria aid deliveries postponed over violence
Beirut / AFP Aid groups were unable to deliver much-needed food packages to four besieged towns in war-torn Syria on Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross told AFP, citing security problems. Since an unprecedented ceasefire came into force on February 27, aid deliveries have reached thousands of people in areas blockaded by regime and opposition forces. Under an ...
Read More »EU must stand firm against Russia: Ministers
Brussels / AFP The European Union must stand up to Russia to defend core political and security interests even while trying to find common cause on issues such as the Syrian conflict, the bloc’s foreign ministers said on Monday. The ministers gathered in Brussels for a regular monthly meeting which for the first time in a year will review relations ...
Read More »â€˜Political transition mother of all issues in Syria talks’
Geneva / AFP Agreeing on political transition in Syria is the “mother of all issues,†the UN envoy for the war-ravaged country said on Monday, as a new round of peace talks was set to begin. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Staffan de Mistura stressed the importance of getting the talks quickly focused on “the real issues,†adding: “What is ...
Read More »Syria war begins sixth year as US, Russia pull the strings
Beirut / AFP The United States and Russia are pulling the strings in Syria’s five-year war, experts say, pressuring opposing sides and leveraging rival regional powers to reach a settlement. As the conflict enters its sixth year, the embattled regime and fractured opposition are in Geneva for indirect peace talks hosted by United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura. But ...
Read More »Trump rally violence bane for Republican party future
Bloomberg “Republicans in Ohio and Florida head to the polls this week to help decide who will become their party’s nominee, and whether the GOP will endure in any recognizable form in the months and years that follow. To hear those who have devoted their lives to building the party tell it, if front-runner Donald Trump prevails on Tuesday in ...
Read More »Rocket blasts off on Russia-Europe mission seeking life on Mars
Baikonur / AFP Two robotic spacecraft on Monday began a seven-month journey to Mars as part of a European-Russian unmanned space mission to sniff out leads to life on the Red Planet. Russia’s Proton rocket carrying the spacecraft launched into an overcast sky at the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 0931 GMT according to plan, the Russian ...
Read More »Japan, USA and France to team up on ‘Fukushima’
Tokyo / AFP The Japanese government will team up with experts in the United States and France to develop brand new technologies to collect melted fuel from crippled reactors at Fukushima, an official said on Monday. Removal of the melted rods at the nuclear plant, which was wrecked by a tsunami five years ago, is one of the biggest challenges ...
Read More »Germans turn to Trump-style politics in challenge to Merkel
Bloomberg If you think Donald Trump has some outrageous ideas, wait until you meet Germany’s AfD party. The Alternative for Germany, to give the party its full name, has shaken up the country’s consensus-driven politics with headline-grabbing policies that include telling Germans to have more children to avoid the need for immigration. Frauke Petry, the AfD’s co-leader, has said that ...
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