By Renee Maltezou, Tom Perry and Lidia Kelly ATHENS/BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The United States has asked Greece to deny Russia the use of its airspace for supply flights to Syria, a Greek official said on Monday, after Washington told Moscow it was deeply concerned by reports of a Russian military build up in Syria. Russian newswire RIA Novosti earlier said Greece had refused the U.S. request, quoting a diplomatic source
By Yoruk Bahceli AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Ten suspected Islamist radicals went on trial in the Netherlands on Monday, accused of recruiting Dutch Muslims to fight with Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria. The trial, the largest against alleged jihadists in the Netherlands in a decade, is seen as a test of whether a court can convict suspects who may endorse a radical ideology but have not carried out any
Italy’s top court threw out a conviction of American Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of her British flatmate due to “glaring errors” in the case against her, a document showed on Monday. The brutal stabbing of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher prompted a zigzag of contradictory rulings which ended in March with the acquittal of Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, casting an uncomfortable spotlight on Italy’s legal system. The
Wales were dealt a hammerblow Monday when full-back Leigh Halfpenny was ruled out of the Rugby World Cup after suffering torn right knee ligaments in a warm-up match against Italy on the weekend. Toulon star Halfpenny, one of the outstanding goal-kickers of his generation, sustained the injury in Wales’ hard-fought 23-19 win over the Azzurri at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on Saturday. Halfpenny, 26, underwent a scan on Monday, Toulon president
The people of Trinidad and Tobago voted Monday in elections that had the prime minister battling both the opposition and an upstart splinter party launched by disgraced football honcho Jack Warner. Opinion polls were divided heading into the vote, with some putting the race too close to call and others giving Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her coalition the edge — albeit by a significantly reduced margin. Persad-Bissessar’s main challenger
Zimbabwe has banned the movement of cattle in the southern part of the country near the South African border after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the deputy minister of agriculture said on Monday. Zimbabwean farmers and communities living near wildlife parks are at risk of foot and mouth, which led to the country losing its quota to export 9,100 tonnes of beef to the European Union in 2001.
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s Defense Minister Csaba Hende resigned on Monday after a national security council meeting held to discuss the huge influx of refugees and migrants arriving in the country. The country, which has seen more than 100,000 people arrive, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East, last week proposed measures that would allow it to deploy the army to its borders in a bid to stem the inflow.
The president will sign an executive order Monday requiring paid sick leave for employees of federal contractors, including 300,000 who currently receive none.
British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Monday to take in up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years, responding to a growing public clamor for his government to help those fleeing civil war in the country. “We are proposing that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refuges over the rest of this parliament. Cameron has been under pressure to take in a far greater number of
After exceeding his $1 million crowd-funding goal, Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig announced today on “This Week” that he is running for president. “I think I’m running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
