Month: January 2019

Turkish prosecutors are seeking an international arrest warrant for New York Knicks player Enes Kanter, accusing him of membership in a terror organization. Sabah newspaper says the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office had also prepared an extradition request for the NBA player. Officials at the prosecutor’s office could not be reached for comment.   Sabah says prosecutors are seeking an Interpol “Red Notice” citing Kanter’s ties to Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed for a failed coup in 2016, and accusing him of providing financial support to his group.   Earlier this month, Kanter refused to travel to London for a regular-season …

READ MORE

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday suffered the biggest parliamentary reversal ever handed a sitting government, with lawmakers — including more than 100 rebels from her own ruling Conservative party — refusing to endorse a highly contentious Brexit deal. The government’s defeat plunges into greater disarray Britain’s scheduled March 29 divorce from the European Union. The much anticipated historic vote by the House of Commons of a draft deal, which took two years of ill-tempered haggling with European leaders to conclude, now throws up in the air the whole Brexit project, with major questions remaining unanswered about when Britain …

READ MORE

The British parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan for Britain’s departure from the European Union, leaving in doubt how it would depart the continent’s 28-member bloc of nations by the planned March 29 date. The House of Commons, on a 432- 202 vote, rejected May’s call to approve what she said was the “democratic decision” of voters in a referendum 2-1/2 years ago to leave the EU. Opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbin called the vote a “catastrophic defeat” for May’s Conservative Party rule and demanded a vote of no confidence on Wednesday in what …

READ MORE

More than 3,200 government, business, academics and civil society leaders will address issues of globalization, climate change and other matters of world importance next week at the annual World Economic Forum in the plush Swiss Alpine village of Davos. The list of participants reads like the Who’s Who of the most powerful, successful and inventive movers and shakers in the world. They will be rubbing shoulders during hundreds of formal sessions and workshops, as well as in private bilaterals on the sidelines of the meeting. They will discuss and seek solutions to some of humanity’s most vexing problems. The theme …

READ MORE

Russia and the United States said Tuesday there was no progress in talks over Washington’s intention to withdraw from a 1987 nuclear arms treaty because it says Moscow is violating its terms. “On the whole, we are forced to state that there is no progress. The U.S. position is frozen in its uncompromising and peremptory demands,” state news agency Tass quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying after talks with U.S. Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson in Geneva. The U.S. side described the meeting as “disappointing.” The three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans production, testing and deployment …

READ MORE

Authorities in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia said 17 people, including five alleged members of an extremist Islamist cell, were arrested Tuesday as part of an ongoing anti-terror operation. As well as having terror links, the suspects also allegedly participated in theft, drug trafficking and other crimes, according to the Mossos d’Esquadra regional police. More than 100 agents took part in the operation, which was ongoing as of mid-afternoon, a spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said six venues had been searched in and near Barcelona. She declined to be identified by name in line with the police force’s standard practices. …

READ MORE

Greek officials predict Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will survive a no-confidence vote in parliament later this week. Tsipras called for the vote Monday after defense minister Panos Kammenos resigned and pulled his nationalist ANEL party from the ruling coalition.  Kammenos quit to protest the deal with neighboring Macedonia over the use of the name Macedonia. ANEL leaving the coalition leaves Tsipras’ ruling leftist Syriza Party without a majority of seats in parliament, opening the door to possible early elections. But a government spokesman says the party is confident of winning the no-confidence vote, set for Wednesday, and completing its four-year …

READ MORE

Britain appears set for a full-blown constitutional crisis, with a cross-party group of senior lawmakers conspiring to sideline embattled Prime Minister Theresa May by seizing control of Brexit negotiations. They want to reduce the power of the government to control legislative business in parliament, boosting the chances of lawmakers being able to table a series of motions to stop Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, or even offering legislation for a second referendum on British membership in the EU that could lead to the country not leaving at all. Ahead of Tuesday’s crucial vote in the House …

READ MORE