Islamic State (ISIS) theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when “owners” of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured
VIENNA – Austria has sent hundreds of migrants back to neighbouring Slovenia in the past three days for lying about their nationality in an apparent attempt to improve their chances of being granted asylum, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.
BERLIN – Germany should limit the social benefits foreigners from within the European Union are entitled to receive, German Labour Minister Andrea Nahles told a newspaper on Tuesday. “There is clearly a need for legislative action. We need to spare
ROME – Italy has expelled a Moroccan man after investigations revealed he wanted to commit acts of terrorism and planned to travel to Syria, the interior minister said on Tuesday. The 40-year-old, who had briefly acted as a Muslim cleric
A man died on Christmas Day in Germany after he was hit in the head by a flying piece of metal from a condom machine that he and two accomplices blew up in an apparent robbery attempt, police said on
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies will support British Prime Minister David Cameron if he wants to address Europe’s weaknesses but do not want a British Europe, an EU conservative leader told a German newspaper. Britain is due to hold
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A bill that would impose new regulations on Israeli non-profit groups that receive funds from foreign governments won ministerial approval on Sunday, a move critics said targets pro-Palestinian organisations. Dubbed a “transparency bill” by its sponsor, far-right
Israel’s missile defense director has been dismissed for a “grave breach of information security”, his ministry said on Sunday, a setback for U.S.-backed projects the country deems crucial for any future war with Iran or its allies. In a statement,
BERLIN – Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (pictured above) and a senior Bavarian politician criticised Greece on Sunday over the way it is managing its role in Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War Two. Schaeuble, who has clashed repeatedly
BERLIN (Reuters) – German business leaders fear that deep divisions over how to handle the refugee crisis and growing nationalism among member states could break up the European Union, according to five of the country’s biggest industry bodies. The arrival
Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians who stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the West Bank on Sunday, the army said, the latest attack in 12 weeks of heightened violence. Almost daily Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shooting attacks have
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A police commission is interviewing staff at a Brussels college after education authorities failed to act on concerns that a student who later became one of the Paris suicide bombers had been radicalised, two Belgian newspapers said
BERLIN (Reuters) – Europe needs to regain control of its borders, Germany’s foreign minister was quoted on Saturday as saying, after reports that forged Syrian passports are in the hands of Islamic State militants. More than a million refugees, many
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli border police shot dead a Palestinian woman who tried to ram them with her car in the West Bank on Friday, the police said, as a 12-week surge in street violence showed no sign of abating.
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Fire crews battled into the night on Friday after raging bushfires reduced at least 53 homes to ashes in a famous Australian beauty spot on Christmas Day, sending hundreds of residents fleeing for their lives. Water bombing
ROME – Italy is not getting enough respect from the European Commission or its partners and it is determined to convince the European Union to adopt bolder, more growth-friendly policies, Rome’s top EU affairs official said on Thursday. “We hope
SOFIA, Dec 24 (Reuters) – The leader of Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish party has been ousted from his post and expelled from the party, apparently for declaring support for Turkey in its row with Moscow over the downing of a Russian
A record number of French Jews moved to Israel this year, an immigration official said on Thursday, citing anti-Semitic violence and economic insecurity in the European country as causes. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, having grown by
KOH SAMUI, Thailand (Reuters) – A Thai court sentenced two Myanmar migrant workers to death on Thursday after convicting them of the 2014 murders of two young British tourists on a holiday island in a case mired in controversy and
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel’s ambassador to the United States used the embassy’s annual holiday gift to make a political point this year, sending items made in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights to counter a divestiture movement aimed at
Germany encouraged illegal immigration to Europe with its humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, the Czech prime minister was cited as saying by a German newspaper on Wednesday. Around 1 million refugees and migrants, many fleeing war and poverty in
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.
