By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The U.S. and Russian navies met this week for the first time since the Ukraine crisis began to discuss how to avoid an accidental clash at sea or in the air, a U.S. naval commander said on Friday. Russia has stepped up its probing of NATO’s defenses since Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region last year caused the worst crisis in East-West relations since
By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter met a top Chinese general on Thursday and repeated a U.S. call for a halt to land reclamation in the South China Sea, while stressing that the Pentagon remained committed to expanding military contacts with China. In the meeting with General Fan Changlong, a deputy head of China’s powerful Central Military Commission, Carter stressed his commitment to developing “a
Italy’s immigration crisis intensified Friday after a build-up of asylum-seekers at two major train stations resulted in clashes with police, an outcry from the right and fresh calls from Rome for EU help. Milan Central and Rome’s Tiburtina station were left looking like refugee camps at times this week as hundreds of migrants heading to northern Europe saw their progress delayed or halted by a temporary reintroduction of border controls
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis says he may add a stop in Kenya on his trip to the Central African Republic and Uganda in November.
Celebrated Burundian singer Khadja Nin added her voice on Friday to the chorus of critics of President Pierre Nkurunziza, whose bid for a third term in office has sparked protests and fears of a return to ethnic conflict in the east African nation. Speaking on the sidelines of an African Union (AU) summit in South Africa, Nin called for greater regional diplomatic pressure on Nkurunziza to step aside before protests
Russia’s negotiator said Friday that there has been a “very worrying” slowdown in progress in nuclear talks between Iran and six major powers ahead of a June 30 deadline to finalise an historic accord. “The rate of progress… is progressively slowing down,” Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying as he arrived for the latest round of talks in Vienna. In April Iran and the five permanent members
A female prison worker “provided some form of equipment or tools” to two escapees from an upstate New York correctional center whom authorities are hunting for a seventh day, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN on Friday. Joyce Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor in the tailor shop at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, was being questioned about her possible role in the prison break of convicted
President Barack Obama made an unusual, personal 11th-hour appeal to dubious Democrats on Friday in a tense run-up to a House vote on legislation to strengthen his hand in global trade talks.
South Korea on Friday reported three more deaths from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), but health officials urged people to go about their normal daily activities, saying the rate of new cases was slowing. In what has become the largest outbreak of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, a 72-year-old woman died Friday after being infected by a MERS patient at a hospital, the health ministry said. Two more fatalities were
By Roxanne Nelson (Reuters Health) – Height-adjustable desks are growing in popularity in office settings, but there’s still no hard evidence that they improve the health of office workers, according to a new review of existing research. Indeed, there has been very little research testing whether people using the desks spend less time sitting, or if they do, whether that improves their mental or physical health, researchers say. “There was