Austria doesn’t need emergency cap on refugees now: minister
LUCERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) – Austria does not need to implement an emergency cap on asylum seekers at the moment because the number of refugees entering the country has waned, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said on Monday.
Trump poses daunting new challenge for Germany’s Merkel
BERLIN (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s victory has been a shock for America’s major partners around the world. But perhaps nowhere has the blow been more painful than in Germany, a country that under Angela Merkel has come to see itself as a bastion of open…
EU criticises Turkey but not ready to halt membership talks
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers on Monday criticised Turkey’s crackdown on alleged supporters of a failed military coup in July but Austria’s call to suspend Ankara’s EU membership bid failed to garner enough backing.
Shaves at barber’s, corpses in streets as Islamic State retreats in Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The only shop to open so far after the army fought its way into the Intisar district of eastern Mosul is Ali Bashar’s barbershop. Inside, men were lining up to shave off the long beards they had been forced to wear under Islamic…
Amid crisis, Venezuelan president turns to music
CARACAS (Reuters) – Struggling to contain an economic crisis and an opposition push to remove him, Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolas Maduro has launched a radio show devoted to salsa music in an effort to cheer the nation and boost his faltering ima…
Russia says MiG-29 jet fighter crashed in Mediterranean: agencies
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian MiG-29 fighter jet from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, news agencies cited a defence ministry statement as saying on Monday.
Islamic State ousted from Yazidi villages west of Mosul -Kurdish-Yazidi force
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – A mixed Kurdish and Yazidi armed force said on Monday it had dislodged Islamic State (IS) militants from five Yazidi villages west of Mosul in an offensive that began on Saturday.
Steinmeier to swap German foreign ministry for presidency
BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives agreed on Monday to back Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Germany’s next president, creating a vacancy at the foreign ministry at a critical moment in relations with Russia and the U…
In phone call, China’s Xi tells Trump cooperation is only choice
BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the world’s two largest economies, with Trump saying the two had established a “clear sense of…
Lavrov and Kerry agree to continue consultations on Syria
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Syria by phone on Monday and agreed to continue experts’ consultations to try to resolve the crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
