Section: Cyprus Mail (Cyprus)
Islamic State prime suspect after suicide bombers kill 36 at Istanbul airport
Turkish investigators pored over video footage and witness statements on Wednesday after three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers opened fire and blew themselves up in Istanbul’s main airport, killing 36 people and wounding almost 150. The attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport was one of the deadliest in a series of suicide...
Kremlin dents Turkish hopes for quick restoration of ties (Updated)
The Kremlin sought to dampen Turkey’s hopes for a swift restoration of normal relations on Tuesday, a day after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expressed regret over the downing of a Russian warplane last year. The Russian jet was shot down, with the loss of the pilot, in November while taking part in the Kremlin’s military campaign...
Putin says Russia must strengthen as ‘aggressive’ NATO approaches
Russia must boost its combat readiness in response to NATO’s “aggressive actions” near Russia‘s borders, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Addressing parliament on the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, Putin berated the West for being unwilling to build “a modern, non-bloc collective security...
EU envoys extend economic sanctions on Russia until end-January – sources
The European Union’s Brussels envoys agreed on Tuesday to extend until the end of January the energy, financial and defence sanctions on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, diplomatic sources said. The bloc’s ministers have yet to formally approve the six-month roll-over but diplomats said there was no doubt they would. France and...
NATO says Ukraine ceasefire barely holding, scolds Russia
Russia is violating an internationally-agreed ceasefire in Ukraine “again and again”, NATO’s chief said on Wednesday, accusing Moscow of continuing to arm separatists in the conflict at the centre of East-West tensions. Some European governments are eager to lift the economic sanctions that the West has levied on Russia over its role in the...
Nervous Baltics on war footing as NATO tries to deter Russia
Leaders in the Baltic countries and Poland fear the force NATO plans to deploy on their territory is too small and symbolic to deter an attack by Russia, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea is fresh in the memories of the former Soviet-bloc states. They will this week press other ministers of the western military alliance to help them build an air...
‘Remain’: Yes to change, but from the inside
By Steve Cawood “An analogue union in a digital age” was the headline under which Brian Lait set out his arguments for a so-called Brexit (Sunday Mail, March 20) and he has since gone on to write further columns. He began in intellectual, even scholarly, style – but in the end the arguments are just simplistic generalisations. That’s not a...
Russia: We will respond to entry of U.S. naval vessel into Black Sea
The Russian Foreign ministry said Moscow would respond to a U.S. naval ship’s entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures, saying it and other deployments were designed to ratchet up tensions ahead of a NATO summit, the RIA news agency reported. Russian state media reported that the USS Porter, a U.S. naval destroyer, entered the...
Ukraine says detained man planned attacks on Euro 2016 in France
Ukraine’s state security service said on Monday a French citizen detained in late May on the Ukrainian-Polish border had been planning attacks in France to coincide with the Euro 2016 football championship it is hosting. On Saturday the Ukrainian border guard service reported the unnamed 25-year-old had been arrested with an arsenal of...
Passengers and crew injured in turbulence on Malaysia Airlines flight from London
Malaysia Airlines said on Sunday that passengers and crew on a flight from London to Kuala Lumpur suffered minor injuries because of severe turbulence. Malaysia Airlines flight MH1, carrying 378 passengers and crew, experienced “a brief moment of severe turbulence” over the Bay of Bengal, the company said in a statement. A “small number” of...
