European cities join hands to stay afloat in migrant crisis
BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As hundreds of asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere make the risky journey across the Aegean Sea each day to reach Europe, the Greek island of Lesbos faces the problem of what to do with th…
Azerbaijan frees dissidents in amnesty
BAKU (Reuters) – Azerbaijan pardoned 148 prisoners including journalists, rights activists and political opponents on Thursday, state media said, in an apparent move to deflect Western criticism of the ex-Soviet republic’s human rights record.
French public sector gets pay rise as government courts angry unions, students
PARIS (Reuters) – France’s Socialist government sought to dispel anger at its pro-business labor reforms with a modest pay rise for public sector workers on Thursday as riot police clashed with students demonstrating against the changes for a second da…
Ukraine tears down giant Lenin statue, live on YouTube
KIEV (Reuters) – Exhaustive efforts to tear down Ukraine’s largest remaining monument to Vladimir Lenin bore fruit on Thursday when workers prised the late Soviet leader’s statue from its plinth in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhya.
Sudan threatens to close border with South Sudan again
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan threatened on Thursday to close its recently reopened border with South Sudan, accusing its neighbor of supporting rebel groups.
Small militant faction joins Afghan peace process, Taliban still refuse
KABUL (Reuters) – A small but significant militant faction on Thursday joined Afghanistan’s fledgling peace process, a rare positive for an initiative that has been fraught with false starts and publicly rejected by the main Taliban insurgency.
Iraq’s Sadr spurns calls to drop planned sit-in over ‘bastion of corruption’
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Influential Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rejected calls to cancel a planned sit-in on Friday at the gates of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which he called “a bastion of support for corruption”.He published a…
With Gambia move, China ends diplomatic truce with Taiwan
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) – China resumed ties with former Taiwan ally Gambia on Thursday, ending an unofficial diplomatic truce between China and Taiwan following January’s landslide election of the leader of a pro-independence party as the self-ruled …
Morocco asks U.N. to remove 84 staffers from West Sahara mission: source
RABAT (Reuters) – Morocco has asked the United Nations to remove 84 international staff members from its Western Sahara mission after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon made what it called unacceptable remarks about the territory, a Moroccan official source said o…
German intelligence worker sentenced for passing secrets to CIA
MUNICH (Reuters) – A German court sentenced a former intelligence worker to eight years in prison on Thursday for treason and betraying state secrets by giving the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) over 200 secret documents.
