LONDON – The United Kingdom could disintegrate if Britons vote to leave the European Union as it would give succour to the cause of Scottish nationalists, former Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday. Hague, a former leader of Prime
ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece late on Tuesday enacted a human-rights’ bill which allows civil partnership agreements between same-sex couples despite protests and opposition from political parties and the powerful Orthodox Church. A growing number of European countries have established legislation
TOULOUSE, France – Police have prevented two men from carrying out an attack on police and army personnel in the central French city of Orleans, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Tuesday. Two Frenchmen, aged 20 and 24, were being
BEIJING – More Western countries will follow Britain in improving ties with China, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted as saying on Tuesday, describing relations with London over the past year as a “bright spot” in China’s diplomacy. The
Britain said on Tuesday it had sent military personnel to the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand following reports that the district capital Sangin was on the verge of falling to Taliban forces. Helmand’s governor said on Monday Afghan police were
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Israeli lobbying was behind a new measure passed by the U.S. Congress that will prevent visa-free travel to the United States for people who have visited Iran or hold Iranian nationality. The U.S.
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – Slovenia rejected on Sunday a law that would give same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children in its second vote on gay rights in four years. About 63.4 percent of voters rejected the law in
REUTERS – Tyson Fury, the boxer at the centre of controversy over comments about women and homosexuals, made an apology at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards in Belfast on Sunday. Before tennis champion Andy Murray collected the prestigious
MACAU (Reuters) – Top Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson said on Friday he met presidential candidate Donald Trump earlier this week and that the two American billionaires broached the issue at the heart of Adelson’s political agenda: support for Israel.
The head of the European Union’s border agency has said the large number of refugees entering Europe poses a security risk, with civil war making it harder to check the authenticity of Syrian passports. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – By any measure, it has been a year from hell for the European Union. And if Britons vote to leave the bloc, next year could be worse. Not since 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell and
Austria should step up deportations of people who do not qualify for asylum, Chancellor Werner Faymann said in remarks published on Saturday, striking a tougher tone on migrants as he comes under pressure from his conservative coalition partners. Hundreds of
Spaniards vote today in a parliamentary election in which new parties are loosening the grip of the once-dominant conservatives and Socialists, raising the possibility of a new era of consensus politics – or a period of instabilty. With many people saying
BERLIN – Germany and Austria are working on a proposal for a common European asylum law, Germany’s refugee crisis coordinator said in an interview with German magazine Focus. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan
ZURICH – The Swiss attorney general has opened criminal proceedings against a director of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland on suspicion of violating a ban on groups including al Qaeda, the attorney general’s office said on Saturday. The council
Only two of the 11 refugee reception “hotpots” Europe hoped to get up and running this year are working. Less than one percent of the 160,000 migrants it agreed to relocate have been. And a recent drop in arrivals has
BRUSSELS – Prime Minister David Cameron gave his strongest suggestion yet on Friday that he hopes to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union in 2016, before a self-imposed two-year deadline. The timing of the referendum, to
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Christmas came early for Brussels lawyers and policy wonks who relish nothing better than a brain-teasing multidimensional constitutional puzzle to while away the dark days of winter. After a “make-or-break” summit dinner with Prime Minister David Cameron,
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s spy agency is working again with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s secret service to swap information on Islamist militants, the Bild daily said, despite Berlin’s opposition to Assad staying in power under any peace deal for Syria.
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary has scrapped plans to erect a statue of Balint Homan, a former World War Two government minister who supported anti-Semitism in Hungary in the 1930s and 40s, after protests from Jewish leaders. The row over honouring
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Centre-left governments should join forces to counter German influence in the European Union, Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told socialist leaders on Thursday, according to a source who attended the meeting. In the past months, Rome’s relations
PARIS (Reuters) – After hundreds of police raids on homes, mosques, restaurants and hotels in the less than five weeks since the Nov. 13 assaults in Paris, some Muslims in France are taking the government to court for committing what
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian Defence Ministry said late on Thursday that senior British military officials had met with their Russian counterparts in Moscow to discuss how best to avoid incidents between the two countries’ armed forces at sea and
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A Singapore-based court has refused a challenge by Philip Morris to Australia’s landmark plain packaging legislation passed in 2011, which the tobacco giant had brought under a bi-lateral trade treaty with Hong Kong, the company said. The
ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland’s next president has said he still hopes to strike an accord with the European Union to maintain the free movement of workers, but warned that his government’s threat to impose limits on immigration was no bluff.
