By Elizabeth Pineau PARIS (Reuters) – French President Francois Hollande on Monday awarded France’s highest honor, the Legion d’honneur, to three U.S. citizens and a Briton who helped disarm a machine gun-toting suspected Islamist militant on a train last week. You are the incarnation of that,” Hollande told the four men. The suspect’s lawyer said on Sunday the man named by intelligence sources as Ayoub el Khazzani, 26, of Morocco,
By Michele Kambas and Renee Maltezou ATHENS (Reuters) – A radical leftist opposed to Greece’s new bailout deal won a presidential mandate on Monday to try to form a new government but immediately admitted he would fail, pointing toward a snap election. Panagiotis Lafazanis, whose anti-bailout Popular Unity party was founded only on Friday, got three days to pull together a coalition after the main conservative opposition failed to do
By Nick Tattersall ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey and the United States will soon launch “comprehensive” air operations to flush Islamic State fighters from a zone in northern Syria bordering Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters on Monday. Detailed talks between Washington and Ankara on the plans were completed on Sunday, and regional allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, as well as Britain and France may also take part,
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is picking up momentum to survive fierce opposition from Republican and Israeli opponents with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on board.
Colombia’s FARC guerrillas admitted Monday to killing a black community leader in the country’s southwest in early August, a crime they had strongly condemned. After initially rejecting any link to the August 3 shooting of Genaro Garcia, an activist for those forced to flee their homes by Colombia’s five-decade guerrilla war, leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) admitted one of their units killed him. “After carrying out
By Alastair Sharp TORONTO (Reuters) – At least two people may have committed suicide following the hacking of the Ashley Madison cheating website that exposed the information of clients, Toronto police said on Monday. Avid Life Media Inc, the parent company of the website, is offering a C$500,000 ($379,132) reward to catch the hackers, police said. In addition to the exposure of the Ashley Madison accounts of as many as
Three young American friends on a European vacation and a British businessman who overpowered a heavily-armed man in a crowded, high-speed train to Paris were awarded France’s highest honour on Monday. Hailed as “heroes”, the foursome were handed the prestigious Legion d’Honneur by French President Francois Hollande, who told them the whole world “admires their courage and cool composure”. Another Frenchman — the first to come into contact with gunman
By Marine Pennetier and Catherine MacDonald PARIS/ALGECIRAS, Spain (Reuters) – A gunman who attacked passengers on a high-speed train in France two days ago is “dumbfounded” at having been taken for an Islamist militant and says he only intended to rob people on board because he was hungry, his lawyer said on Sunday. As details emerged of the gunman’s early adult life in Spain, lawyer Sophie David said her client
Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday it was too early to talk of reopening the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, as Britain restored its diplomatic mission four years after protesters ransacked the British ambassador’s residence. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond attended a ceremony at the opulent 19th century building in the Iranian capital where attackers in 2011 burned Britain’s national flag, slashed portraits of British monarchs and stole goods. Iran’s Foreign
By Chine Labbé and Sarah White PARIS/MADRID, France (Reuters) – A gunman overpowered by passengers on a train in France is known to European authorities as a suspected Islamist militant if the identity he has given is correct, France’s interior minister said on Saturday. Two people were wounded in the struggle to subdue the Kalashnikov-toting attacker aboard the high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday. Two U.S. servicemen, one