Section: Cyprus
Russia serious about solution in Syria, German minister says
By Noah Barkin Russia feels increasingly under threat from developments in the Middle East and appears to be serious about cooperating with western countries to resolve the war in Syria, Germany’s foreign minister said on Sunday. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose Social Democrats (SPD) are traditionally more friendly towards Moscow than...
State of emergency declared in Crimea after electricity pylons “blown up”
A state of emergency has been declared in Crimea after pylons carrying electricity from Ukraine were blown up cutting off power to almost two million people, media and the Russian government said on Sunday. The Russian Energy Ministry didn’t say what had caused the outages, but Russian media reported that two pylons in the Kherson region of...
Suspected mastermind of Paris attacks killed in raid, says France (Update 2)
By John Irish and Gregory Blachier The suspected Islamic State mastermind of the Paris attacks was among those killed in a police raid north of the capital, France confirmed on Thursday, bringing an end to the hunt for Europe’s most wanted man. Authorities said they had identified the corpse of Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud from...
UN denies Secretary-General Ban will visit North Korea next week
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will not visit North Korea next week, a UN spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday after China’s Xinhua news agency reported that he will visit the North on Monday and stay for about four days. The statement released by the spokesman’s office said Ban will be in New York and then travel...
G20-Obama, Putin agree on need for political transition, ceasefire in Syria (Update)
By Matt Spetalnick and Lidia Kelly U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the need for a Syria-led political transition, including U.N.-mediated talks, when they spoke at the G20 summit on Sunday, a White House official said. The Cold War superpower foes have been at odds over the future of Syrian President...
Russia faced some dissent over Syria mission, lawyer and activist say
By Maria Tsvetkova and Jason Bush In a rare act of insubordination, a small group of Russian soldiers filed a complaint with military prosecutors against plans to deploy them to Syria, a lawyer and a human rights activist who handled their case said. The dissent, in an air defence unit, was short-lived but points to growing strains on the...
Britain’s Cameron appeals to EU reform doubters at home, abroad (Updated)
By Kylie MacLellan and Elizabeth Piper British Prime Minister David Cameron appealed to doubters at home and in other EU capitals on Tuesday to embrace his attempt to reform the 28-member bloc as a chance to boost prosperity rather than writing it off as ‘Mission Impossible’. Cameron, under pressure after overseeing what critics see as a...
Crash forensics to determine whether bomb downed Russian jet
By Tim Hepher With world powers divided over the cause of a Russian jetliner crash, much rests on forensic teams as they scour a sandy trail of wreckage almost a week after 224 people died in Egypt’s worst air disaster. Britain said on Thursday it believed Islamic State may have downed the jet, but Egypt said there was no evidence of a bomb...
Cairo and Kremlin say no evidence yet that bomb brought down Russian plane
Investigators have found no evidence so far that an explosion on board brought down a Russian passenger plane that crashed on Saturday, Egypt’s civil aviation minister said. “The investigation team does not have yet any evidence or data confirming this hypothesis,” Hossam Kamal said in a statement, adding that Egypt adheres to international...
Flight recorders show crashed Russian jet not struck from outside – investigator (Update 1)
By Lin Noueihed The Russian plane that crashed in Egypt was not struck from the outside and the pilot did not make a distress call before it disappeared from radar, a source in the committee analysing the flight recorders said on Monday. The source declined to give more details but based his comments on the preliminary examination of the black...
