Month: March 2018

Turkey’s president on Saturday criticized anti-war students at a top university, calling them terrorists following a fight there. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “communist traitor youth” tried to mess up a student stand opened by “religious nationalist local youth” at the public Bogazici University. Erdogan announced an investigation and said “we won’t give these terrorist youth the right to study at these universities.” On Monday, a group of students opened a stand distributing sweets dubbed “Afrin delight” to commemorate fallen soldiers in Turkey’s cross-border operation in Syria. Another group protested against them, holding anti-war banners. Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency said a fight broke out …

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Thousands of Croatian far-right supporters marched Saturday in Zagreb to protest an international convention they said indirectly legalizes gay marriages and gives rights to transgender people. The protesters sang patriotic songs and chanted slogans against Croatia’s center-right government, which last week approved the Istanbul Convention that was adopted by the Council of Europe in 2011 but still hasn’t been ratified by Croatia’s parliament. Croatia’s conservative opposition and the Catholic Church — the organizers of the protest — said they support combating violence against women and domestic violence, which is the main point of the convention, but are against its alleged introduction …

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U.S. President Donald Trump has denounced Friday’s attack in France that claimed four lives, including that of a police officer who exchanged himself for a hostage the gunman was holding captive in a supermarket in the southwestern town of Trebes. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the horrible attack in France yesterday, and we grieve the nation’s loss,” the president posted on Twitter. He added, “We also condemn the violent actions of the attacker and anyone who would provide him support. We are with you @EmmanuelMacron!” Earlier Saturday, France’s interior minister said Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, the police …

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European Union leaders have given their unqualified backing to Britain over its accusation that Russia used a nerve agent to try to kill a former double agent and his daughter in Southern England earlier this month. At a two-day summit in Brussels that ended Friday, EU leaders also demanded a permanent exemption from proposed U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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Serbia has canceled a women’s World Championship qualifier handball match with Kosovo over security concerns after nationalists announced they would protest the game. Serbia’s Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told local media Friday he called off the match to avoid any clashes between nationalist fans and police. In response, the European Handball Federation (EHF) said it was expelling the Serbian team from the tournament. Match moved The game would have been the first documented sporting encounter between Serbia and its former province, Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a nation. “Could we have organized for …

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Britain’s opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sacked his shadow Northern Ireland minister Friday after he called for a second referendum on Brexit, a move that exposes deep divisions in the party over whether to leave the European Union. Owen Smith, who challenged Corbyn for the party leadership in 2016, wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper Friday urging his party to reopen the question of whether Brexit was the right decision. Smith said he was sacked for voicing his opinion that Brexit will damage the economy and threaten the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which ended decades of …

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British investigators have entered the London offices of the data research firm Cambridge Analytica, which is at the center of controversy over the alleged use of millions of people’s personal data from the Facebook social network. About 20 investigators arrived at the firm’s central London offices late Friday, soon after a judge granted a search warrant that Britain’s Information Commissioners Office had requested. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is investigating claims the research firm illegally acquired the personal data from Facebook.  The research firm is alleged to have illegally used the data of an estimated 50 million Facebook users to build …

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European Union leaders have given their unqualified backing to Britain over its accusation that Russia used a nerve agent to try to kill former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in southern England earlier this month. The two victims remain hospitalized in critical condition. A policeman first on the scene, who also was infected with the nerve agent, was discharged from the hospital Thursday. WATCH: EU Backs Britain in Russian Spy Standoff; Europe Demands Full US Tariff Exemptions Speaking Friday at the EU summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister Theresa May offered gratitude for the bloc’s solidarity against …

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