Bulgaria’s center-right leads in first poll since EU vote
SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s center-right main opposition GERB party has a five-point lead over the ruling Socialists (BSP), according to the first opinion poll in the European Union’s poorest member state since the May European parliament elections.
Australian minister under fire for not meeting Tamil groups on Sri Lanka trip
COLOMBO (Reuters) – A Tamil group criticised Australia’s immigration minister on Thursday for visiting northern Sri Lanka without meeting Tamil leaders, days after Australia returned a boat of asylum seekers, including Tamils, under its hardline border…
Special Report: All work and no pay for thousands in the Balkans
ZITISTE Serbia 2014 (Reuters) – Complaining they had worked without pay for months late last year, employees of the Serbian farming company Agroziv staged a short strike in January. Why should they work for no money, they said. The company, a poultry p…
China’s top prosecutor orders more transparency in corruption cases
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top prosecutor has ordered greater transparency in publicising corruption cases involving senior officials, state media reported, as the government steps up efforts to win the public’s confidence in its battle on pervasive g…
China says more than half of foreign aid given to Africa
BEIJING (Reuters) – More than half of China’s foreign aid of over $14 billion between 2010 and 2012 was directed to Africa, the government said on Thursday, underscoring Beijing’s interest in the resource-rich continent to fuel its economy.
Taliban kill six de-miners in western Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban shot and killed six people working for a demining company in western Afghanistan, police said on Thursday, a day after the United Nations said the number of civilian casualties in the country jumped by a quarter in the fir…
German language rule for immigrant spouses invalid: European court
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany cannot insist the spouses of Turkish nationals living in the country speak basic German when they apply for a family reunification visa, Europe’s highest court ruled on Thursday.
Drone kills six in NW Pakistan, army seizes most of key city from Taliban
MIRANSHAH Pakistan (Reuters) – Missiles from a U.S. drone slammed into a mud house and killed six suspected militants in Pakistan’s rugged northwest on Thursday, officials said, as the Pakistani military said it had seized control of 80 percent of a ke…
‘Prime Evil’ apartheid killer up for parole in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Apartheid death-squad leader Eugene de Kock, dubbed ‘Prime Evil’ for his role in the torture and murder of black South African activists in the 1980s and early 1990s, will learn on Thursday whether he will be released on parole…
Fifty-three blindfolded bodies found in Iraq as political leaders bicker
BAGHDAD Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces found 53 corpses, blindfolded and handcuffed, south of Baghdad on Wednesday as Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders traded accusations over an Islamist insurgency raging in the country’s Sunni provinces.
