Month: October 2018

Dozens of migrants clashed with Bosnian police Wednesday while trying to cross from Bosnia into Croatia and enter the European Union. Shouting “Open borders!” the migrants surged through one Bosnian police cordon before being stopped by another outside a border crossing in northwestern Bosnia. Several people appeared to have been hurt amid the skirmishes as the migrants refused to leave and blocked traffic. “We are refugees,” one man from Iran said. “We want to leave this country.” Croatian police said they put up a fence on their side of the border to block the migrants from entering. They said two …

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that allies blame Russia for violating an important Cold War-era missile treaty but he does not expect them to deploy more nuclear warheads in Europe in response. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, saying Russia is violating it. The European Union says the pact is a cornerstone of European security and is urging Russia and the United States to uphold it, but Stoltenberg did not encourage the U.S., the biggest and most influential member of NATO, to stay in the treaty. “I don’t foresee that …

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The figures tell one story; gay activists fear another. But nobody disputes that Paris has suffered a string of homophobic attacks in recent months, with gay men set upon in a chic inner-city neighborhood and a trans prostitute shot dead in a popular cruising spot in the French capital. Yet police say their data show a strong drop in homophobic attacks, so the mood among activists has turned angry, fear of the what-next jostling with frustration at perceived inaction by authorities in a city with a reputation for tolerance. Sitting in the lounge of Paris’s LGBT Centre, 68-year-old activist Arnaud Rault …

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European leaders have urged the United States not to abandon a landmark Cold War-era agreement prohibiting the U.S. and Russia from possessing ground-launched tactical nuclear missiles; but, they have tempered their reaction to President Donald Trump’s threat to do so by supporting his call for the Kremlin to be more transparent about its new missiles. The U.S. leader’s announcement of his plan to withdraw from the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 has prompted a flurry of disapproval in Europe with predictions that quitting the pact will trigger an arms race and return Europe to the danger of …

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A prominent nuclear weapons expert says White House threats to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty are diplomatically shortsighted, potentially dangerous and politically risky for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections. Calling the landmark 1987 missile treaty a key part of European and international security for over 30 years, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said while there have been concerns about Russia’s compliance with the agreement, U.S. withdrawal would shift blame for the collapse of the treaty from Moscow, “where it belongs,” to Washington. His comments came shortly after U.S. National Security …

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The Trump administration appears determined to pull out of a key 1987 arms control agreement with Russia, in the wake of talks Tuesday between national security adviser John Bolton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by deploying missiles in Europe. Bolton called Russian violations “long and deep.” “The threat is is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed,” Bolton said. “The American position is that Russia is in violation. Russia’s position is that they are not in violation. So, …

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At least 20 people were injured when an escalator in the Rome metropolitan system collapsed Tuesday night.  A video shown on Sky TG24 showed the escalator accelerating suddenly, and the people riding down on it collapsing onto one another. The dramatic footage showed people on the parallel escalator trying to pull others to safety. The cause was not immediately known. The metropolitan station at Piazza Repubblica near the main Termine train station was closed by investigators.  “The scene that we found was people piled up at the bottom of the escalator,” said Rome provincial fire chief Giampietro Boscaino. “People one …

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the United States had “identified at least some” of the Saudi officials involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and was revoking their visas. “These penalties will not be the last word on this matter from the United States. We will continue to explore additional measures to hold those accountable,” Pompeo said. “We’re making very clear that the United States does not tolerate this kind of ruthless action to silence Mr. Khashoggi, a journalist, through violence.” The visa revocations were the first punitive actions the U.S. has taken against Saudi Arabia …

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The European Union set up a high-stakes battle with Italy, one of the bloc’s biggest economies, over who has final control over a member state’s budget after the executive Commission took the unprecedented step of ordering the country to revise its public spending plans. In a move that escalates a monthlong standoff, the EU said the populist government’s budget for next year is out of line and breaks earlier promises to lower public debt.  Italy’s debt load is the second-highest in Europe, after Greece, and there are worries that losing control of spending could rekindle financial turmoil in Europe. The …

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