Blog
By John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau PARIS (Reuters) – France summoned the U.S. ambassador on Wednesday to explain allegations by transparency lobby group WikiLeaks of what President Francois Hollande branded “unacceptable” spying on successive French leaders. The latest revelations of espionage among Western allies come after it emerged the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on Germany and that Germany’s own BND intelligence agency had cooperated with the NSA
By Adrian Croft and Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The head of NATO said on Wednesday the alliance would not be forced into a new arms race with Russia but that what he called Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine had compelled it to strengthen its defenses. The United States announced plans this week to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO member states on Russia’s border, shortly after President Vladimir Putin
By Tom Perry and Sylvia Westall BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Kurdish militia leading an attack on Islamic State strongholds in Syria so far has no plan to extend the assault to the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa city, and such an advance should be led by Syrian rebels, a Kurdish leader said on Wednesday. The comments by Saleh Moslem, leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), indicated there is
About 40 people have been killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who torched houses and shot people as they fled in two villages in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, witnesses told Reuters on Wednesday. The attackers, who arrived on motorcycles and vehicles mounted with guns, shot residents and looted shops in the villages of Debiro Biu and Debiro Hawul late on Monday night and into Tuesday morning, the witnesses said. Details
By Yimou Lee and Donny Kwok HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong authorities began clearing away the last pro-democracy encampments near government headquarters on Wednesday, watched by a handful of demonstrators in a quiet but poignant end to nine months of street protests. The so-called Occupy Central movement kicked off on Sept. 28, when tens of thousands of protesters streamed onto major highways in a push for full democracy, demonstrations
China will add its assets and activities in space, the deep sea and polar regions to its pending national security law, state media said on Wednesday, the latest changes to the sweeping and controversial draft legislation. President Xi Jinping, who heads a newly established national security commission, has said China’s security covers a wide array of areas, including politics, culture, the military, the economy, technology and the environment. “Harmful moral
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi suffered a high-profile defection from his ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Wednesday in the latest sign that growing internal dissent could lead to a breakaway group leaving the party. Stefano Fassina, a lower house deputy and former deputy economy minister, has argued for months that Renzi is taking the traditionally center-left party too far to the right. Fassina’s departure is a fresh setback for Renzi,
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have shot dead at least 42 people in two separate attacks in northeast Nigeria, with no let-up in sight to the Islamist group’s targeting of civilians. The attacks in the remote villages of Debiro Hawul and Debiro Biu in Borno state on Monday and Tuesday came before at least 10 people were killed in a suicide attack in neighbouring Yobe. Boko Haram, which has been fighting
BRUSSELS (AP) — Even if the policy talk can be deadening, the main protagonists in the Greek bailout drama have brought their big, sometimes oversized, personalities to the negotiating table.
BIBICLAT, Philippines (AP) — At dawn every June 24th, people from Bibiclat village in the northern Philippines’ Nueva Ecija province pay homage to their patron saint, John the Baptist, by gathering in silence in a swampy field to cover themselves in mud, donning mud-drenched capes made of dried banana leaves.
