UN says Moscow rejected five names its envoy wanted included in proposed panel The three self-appointed guarantors of the Syrian peace process – Russia, Turkey and Iran – have spurned efforts by the UN to change the composition of a committee due to write a new constitution for the country. ... Read More »
Country braces for snap election as parliament rejects minority administration Belgium’s government of four years has fallen on the issue of migration after the country’s parliament rejected an appeal from prime minister, Charles Michel, for its support for a minority administration. Michel was forced to offer his resignation to the ... Read More »
Visit comes amid growing calls from some Arab states to normalise ties with Syrian regime Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir made a surprise trip to Syria on Sunday, becoming the first Arab League leader to visit the country since war began there in 2011. The president met Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, ... Read More »
Thousands of people marched in Brussels on Sunday against a U.N. pact aimed at fostering cooperation on migration, eclipsing a smaller demonstration in support of the deal, the signing of which brought down Belgium’s government last week. Police said some 5,500 people marched in the bigger protest, organized by Flemish ... Read More »
Thousands of Hungarians thronged the streets of Budapest on Sunday in the fourth and largest protest in a week against what they see as the increasingly authoritarian rule of right-wing nationalist Viktor Orban. Braving sub-zero temperatures, setting off flares and waving Hungarian and European Union flags, about 10,000 demonstrators walked ... Read More »
President Petro Poroshenko describes the founding of church as ‘day of final independence from Russia’ For proponents of Ukrainian independence, Saturday was a long-awaited day. Inside Kiev’s St Sophia Cathedral, a unification council of 190 delegates gathered to serve the final rites on the country’s 332-year-old religious ties with Moscow ... Read More »
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party officials are gathering on Thursday for talks on a general election due by May, with their deliberations overshadowed by the party’s defeat at the polls in three heartland rural states. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the gathering, to be chaired by the ... Read More »
President takes emergency measures to placate gilets jaunes but refuses to reinstate wealth tax Emmanuel Macron has bowed to pressure from the street to announce a catalogue of emergency measures aimed at pacifying the gilets jaunes after weeks of civil unrest in France. In a long-awaited address on primetime television, ... Read More »
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday postponed a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal to seek more concessions but the European Union refused to renegotiate and lawmakers doubted her chances of winning big changes. May’s abrupt move less than 30 hours before parliament was to vote opens up a ... Read More »
Mexico will invest more than $30 billion in its poor southern states over the next five years, the foreign minister said on Monday, boosting the region economically as part of efforts to curb migration. Under pressure from the United States, Mexico is grappling to halt the northward flow of migrants ... Read More »
Lebanese Ministry of Information