Month: October 2017

Russia’s top domestic security agency says one Russian border guard has been killed in a shootout with two men who tried to cross into Ukraine.   The FSB said in a statement Monday the two men on Saturday opened fire when the officer who approached them in a Russian village that borders northeast Ukraine. One of the men blew himself up and the other was detained. The border guard died of gunshot wounds.   The FSB did not provide any other details on the attackers, although unnamed security sources told Russian news agencies the men were militants traveling from the …

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It took more than 24 hours before the European Commission spoke out about Sunday’s violence during an independence referendum in Spain’s northeast province of Catalonia, where a violent crackdown in a bludgeoning show of force, by Spain’s national police and Civil Guard, left more than 800 people injured. The statement Monday did not please Catalan separatists. “We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue,” Europe’s top body announced. “Violence can never be an instrument in politics,” it said. To the anger of secessionists, the commission added a supportive note for Spain’s embattled center-right …

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Muslim women in Austria were forced by police to remove their face coverings, as a law banning religious and other coverings came into effect Sunday. Under the ban, wearing a ski mask off the slopes, a surgical mask outside hospitals and party masks in public is now also prohibited. Those who defy the ban could face a fine of nearly $180.  Police are authorized to use force if people resist showing their faces. The government says the law, which says faces must be visible from the hairline to the chin, is about protecting Austrian values. Muslim groups have condemned the …

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They emerged early Sunday with helmets, masks and flak jackets from temporary overnight accommodation, cheap boarding houses and chartered cruise ships painted with huge Warner Bros. cartoon figures, Tweetie Pie and Daffy Duck, docked at Barcelona’s port. But as the day unfolded, Barcelona was far from being Disney World. Soon after polling stations opened, police, many drafted from outside Catalonia, moved in under orders from the national government in Madrid to block an independence referendum they and the country’s constitutional court said is illegal under the 1978 constitution that declares Spain indivisible. For Catalan separatists, Spain’s current constitution isn’t free …

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Catalonia’s government said early Monday that preliminary results show that 90 percent of voters in Sunday’s referendum want the region to declare its independence from Spain. Regional government spokesman Jordi Turull said 2.02 million of the 2.26 million votes cast were for independence. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said earlier he would unilaterally declare independence from Spain if the outcome of showed more than 50 percent of voters want to secede. “We have gained the right to have a state constituted in the form of a republic,” Puigdemont said in a televised address after polls closed. The government of Spain, however, …

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Turkey no longer needs to join the European Union but will not unilaterally abandon the stalled EU accession talks, President Tayyip Erdogan told parliament on Sunday. “We will not be the side which gives up. To tell the truth, we don’t need EU membership any more,” Erdogan said. Turkey’s 12-year-long accession talks have ground to a halt, with the EU especially critical of Ankara’s crackdown following a failed coup last year. Tens of thousands of people including teachers and journalists have been detained. Erdogan’s government says EU states failed to appreciate the gravity of the threat which Turkey faced, and …

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Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an apparent terror attack in which two women were stabbed to death at a train station in Marseille, France, Sunday. The extremist group made the claim through its official news agency. A man shouting “Allahu Akbar,” (God is great) stabbed the two women before French soldiers gunned him down. Police shut down and sealed off the station and French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb immediately went to Marseille. French prosecutors have opened a counterterrorism probe, but Collomb has not yet formally declared it a terror attack. Police video is said to show the suspect stabbing …

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Poland lowers its retirement age Sunday, a costly election promise by the ruling conservatives that goes against a European trend of gradually increasing the pension age as people live longer and stay more healthy. Lowering the age to 60 for women and 65 for men is popular in particular among supporters of the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, and reverses an increase to 67 approved in 2012 by the former centrist government. It is seen as having a limited immediate impact on the economy, which is booming, but might put pressure on state budgets in the future. Unemployment …

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Catalans were defying rain and police orders to leave designated polling stations Sunday ahead of a banned referendum on the region’s secession that has challenged Spain’s political and institutional order. The country’s Constitutional Court has suspended the vote, and the Spanish central government says it’s illegal. Regional separatist leaders have pledged to hold it anyway and ballot boxes have begun arriving at polling stations. Catalonia is home to 5.3 million eligible voters. Voters line up before dawn Defiant crowds gathered before dawn Sunday in Barcelona and towns across Catalonia at schools and some of the other 2,315 facilities designated as …

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