Month: January 2018

The U.S.-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over U.S. support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria. A senior Turkish official told Reuters the U.S. training of the new “Border Security Force” is the reason that the U.S. charge d’affaires was summoned in Ankara on Wednesday. The official did not elaborate. The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — …

READ MORE

The leader of Britain’s eurosceptic UK Independence Party faced calls on Sunday to stand down after a newspaper published racist messages sent by his girlfriend about Prince Harry’s fiancee Meghan Markle. Last year, Henry Bolton was the fourth leader in a year to be appointed to the helm of UKIP, a party which helped bring about a Brexit vote. He hit the tabloid newspapers over Christmas when they reported that he had left his wife for 25-year-old model and UKIP member Jo Marney. The Mail on Sunday published a series of messages sent by Jo Marney to a friend in …

READ MORE

Afghanistan government negotiators and Taliban officials have reportedly opened “unofficial” talks in Turkey to discuss “mechanisms” that could pave the ground for initiating a formal peace dialogue. Participants of the meeting have told Afghan media the talks have been arranged in cooperation with the Turkish government. Officials from the Taliban’s Qatar-based office and other insurgent groups are said to be among the attendees. The Afghan government has not commented on the discussions. But a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, has rejected the reports about the group’s participation in talks in Turkey. The reported peace meeting in Turkey comes as a U.N. …

READ MORE

The U.N. refugee agency is calling for more resettlement places and other legal pathways to stop the alarmingly high number of deaths of refugees and migrants along the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route from Libya to Italy. This has been a particularly deadly beginning to the New Year. The International Organization for Migration reports 176 refugees and migrants have died while making the Mediterranean crossing from Libya to Italy in the first 10 days of this month. It notes only seven people died on this route during the same period last year. IOM says the majority of survivors come from …

READ MORE

Ukraine proudly announced this year that the country was free of all monuments to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in towns controlled by the Kyiv-based government. But while Ukraine has been busy completing the tearing down of statues to Lenin and monuments to other Communist figures, Soviet heroes have never been more in vogue in neighboring Russia. Monuments to Lenin have been springing up across the country. Other Communist luminaries have received tributes, too, including Communist spymaster Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB, who was dubbed Lenin’s “willing executioner.” Dzerzhinsky once wrote: “We stand for organized terror — this should …

READ MORE

Czech President Milos Zeman has won the first round in the nation’s presidential election, and now must face Jiri Drahos, the former head of the country’s Academy of Sciences, in a runoff vote in two weeks. Eight candidates were hoping to unseat the current controversy-courting 73-year-old leader, who is seeking another five-year term. With 95 percent of ballots counted by the Czech Statistics Office, and a 61-percent turnout, Zeman was leading with 39.3 percent of the vote, followed by Drahos with 26.3 percent. A former diplomat, Pavel Fischer, placed third with 10.1 percent. None of the other candidates seeking the …

READ MORE

Thousands of Austrians are protesting their country’s new right-wing government with a march in Vienna.   Police in the capital said about 20,000 people were attending the march on Saturday.   Some protesters carried placards reading “Never Again.” Others chanted slogans such as “Refugees should stay, drive out the Nazis.”   The new governing coalition made up of the conservative Austrian People’s Party and the nationalist Freedom Party has taken a hard line against migration.   …

READ MORE

A new biography of French first lady Brigitte Macron says her husband penned a racy novel inspired by their early romance, when he was still a teenager and she his married drama teacher. President Emmanuel Macron, who turned 40 last month, fell for Brigitte during rehearsals for a school play at the Providence high school in Amiens, and defied his parents’ disapproval to pursue the relationship with a woman 24 years his senior. The book, “Brigitte Macron, The Liberated Woman”, to be published next week, quotes a family neighbor from Macron’s home town who says she typed up the 300-page …

READ MORE

Authorities say three people have died after a bus collided with a car near the Czech capital.   Prague firefighters say a total of 48 people were injured in the accident that took place Friday near the town of Horomerice, just northwest of Prague.    Authorities say the municipal bus veered off the road and into a tree after it was hit by the car. The bus driver, the driver of the car and one bus passenger died in the crash.   Prague rescue service says 12 teenagers were among the injured. …

READ MORE