Reuters - Page 21

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

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.

SARAJEVO – After years of delay, Bosnia will officially apply in January to join the European Union, encouraged by the bloc’s positive assessment of its reform progress, the chairman of the Balkan country’s three-man presidency said on Thursday. Bosnia signed

ROME, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Some 200 mostly Eritrean migrants protested against asylum rules on the island of Lampedusa on Thursday as the European Union steps up pressure on frontline countries to enforce the regulations. A video posted on a

A French court has ordered Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to face trial over her role in a payout of some 400 million euros ($434 million) to businessman Bernard Tapie, her lawyer said on Thursday.

MPs on Wednesday voted in favour of the use of fracking to extract shale gas under national parks, weakening a decision against fracking in national parks made earlier this year and giving shale gas explorers access to more resources. Britain

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany said on Tuesday that Facebook, Google and Twitter have agreed to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours, a new step in the fight against rising online racism following the refugee crisis. The government

LONDON (Reuters) – British support for remaining in the European Union (EU) will fall significantly if Prime Minister David Cameron is not able to achieve safeguards for non-euro zone countries and curbs to welfare payments for migrants, according to a

Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians who tried to ram them with their cars during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Israeli army and police and Palestinian medical sources said. Soldiers shot and killed

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union (EU) is set to agree a six-month extension of its economic sanctions on Russia on Friday, once Italy’s prime minister has discussed the issue with his fellow leaders at a summit in Brussels, diplomats

LONDON (Reuters) – The share of Britons wanting to leave the European Union (EU) has risen to 51 per cent while 49 per cent would like to remain in the bloc, an opinion poll conducted by pollster Survation, on behalf

PARIS – French police arrested two men and a woman on Tuesday in connection with deadly Islamist militant attacks on Paris last month and in January, judiciary officials said. In a separate event that highlighted the knock-on impact of tensions

Britain should begin exploratory drilling or fracking of shale gas sites to allow the industry and government to fully assess its economic benefits for the country, a shale gas industry-funded task force said on Tuesday. Britain is estimated to have

Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposed European Union (EU) reforms would not fundamentally change Britain’s relationship with the bloc and there is no certainty anything promised would actually be delivered, a committee of lawmakers said on Tuesday. Last month, Cameron set

REUTERS— Egypt said on Monday it had found no evidence so far of terrorism or other illegal action linked to the crash of a Russian passenger plane in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board on Oct. 31. Russia

LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Union countries’ reluctance to integrate in the face of an influx of refugees and with the possible departure of Britain from the bloc could ultimately hurt creditworthiness, Standard & Poor’s said on Monday. “Indications are mounting

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday she wanted to “drastically decrease” the number of refugees coming to Germany, signalling a compromise to critics of her open-door policy from within her conservatives on the eve of a party congress. Merkel has

GENEVA (Reuters) – Two Syrian nationals were arrested in Geneva on Friday and traces of explosives were found in their car, the local newspaper Tribune de Geneve and Swiss television said. The newspaper gave no details on the identity of

The descendants of Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky are seeking compensation for a hotel casino in Cuba he built in the 1950s. Talks between the United States and Cuba regarding claims by Americans to property nationalized after the Cuban revolution opened

BERLIN (Reuters) – Under pressure to toughen their stance on migrants, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives called on Thursday for an effective ban on the burqa, saying the full body covering worn by some Muslim women should not be worn

Israel’s upgraded Arrow ballistic missile shield passed a full interception test on Thursday, hitting a target in space meant to simulate the trajectory of the long-range weapons held by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, the Defense Ministry said. The success was

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently adopted dog Kaiya has sunk her teeth into her new position, biting two visitors at an event on Wednesday, including the husband of the deputy foreign minister. At a candle-lighting ceremony to

WARSAW (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday his plans to reform Britain’s ties with the European Union before a membership referendum had become more important because of a security crisis in the bloc. Following a meeting with

IDOMENI, Greece (Reuters) – Greek police started removing hundreds of migrants stranded on the Greece Macedonia border and blocking rail traffic on Wednesday, a police official and a Reuters eyewitness said. Some 1,200 people mostly from Pakistan, Morocco and Iran,

BERLIN (Reuters) – In past years, Angela Merkel has been feted like a superstar at annual meetings of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, earning thunderous ovations for defending German interests in the euro crisis and facing down Vladimir Putin

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday against cutting the voting age for a referendum on EU membership, potentially blocking any further moves to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. Members of parliament voted 303 to

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named his top national security adviser Yossi Cohen on Monday to head the Mossad intelligence agency. Cohen, a former Mossad operative, has been Netanyahu’s top security adviser for the past two years. He will replace

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The man running negotiations with Britain to keep it in the European Union said leaders could seal a deal in February but warned David Cameron that a central demand to curb immigration may be asking too much.

BERLIN (Reuters) – The European Union is at risk of falling apart and supporters must fight to keep it, the head of the European Parliament said in a German newspaper interview. Martin Schulz (pictured above, centre) told Die Welt’s Tuesday

LONDON – Lord Janner (pictured left), an 87-year-old member of the House of Lords, is too ill to face trial on charges of serious child sex crimes, a judge ruled on Monday, after months of legal argument over the peer’s

France’s Socialist Party on Monday said it would pull its candidates out of a third regional poll, that of eastern France, adding to its efforts to create an electoral “barricade” against Marine Le Pen, the party’s chief said on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) – British detectives have charged a man with attempted murder after a knife attack at an east London Underground station on Saturday night which was described by police as a terrorist incident. Police said 29-year-old Muhaydin Mire of east

ROME (Reuters) – Italy has no intention of joining a U.S.-led coalition that is attacking Islamic State targets in Syria, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (pictured) said on Sunday, warning that the air campaign would only add to chaos in

Relations between Sweden and Israel hit a fresh low on Sunday after Israel said Sweden’s foreign minister had accused it of unlawful killings and Stockholm responded by saying that the comments had been “blown out of reasonable proportion”. Relations between