Europe

Azerbaijan opposition vow to boycott snap presidential vote

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AFP) – Leaders of Azerbaijan’s main opposition parties pledged Monday to boycott a snap presidential election which is expected to extend the autocratic rule of President Ilham Aliyev. “The Popular Front party and the National Council of the Opposition took a decision to boycott the snap presidential election,” the Popular Front chairman, Ali Kerimli, told AFP. “The conditions for a democratic and competitive election in Azerbaijan are not in place, and there is no independent […]

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Investigators hunt for clues over Russian passenger plane crash

  by Anna Malpas with Thibault Marchand in Moscow Agence France Presse STEPANOVSKOYE, Russia (AFP) — Investigators will examine Monday numerous possible causes of one of Russia’s worst ever aviation accidents that saw a passenger plane carrying 71 people crash near Moscow minutes after take off, killing everyone on board. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it would consider explanations including human error, technical failure and weather conditions, as the country has experienced record snowfall in recent […]

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Gerry Adams: pariah turned peacemaker

by Julien LAGACHE Agence France-Presse DUBLIN, Ireland (AFP) – Gerry Adams went from being the political voice of the Irish Republican Army, reviled by the British government and Northern Ireland’s Protestants, to playing the peacemaker in bringing the province’s Troubles to an end. As he hands over the reins of power of Sinn Fein to Mary Lou McDonald, Adams has more recently become an anti-austerity figurehead and an opponent of Brexit while cultivating an avuncular image […]

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Airbus to pay 81 mn euros to end German corruption probe

by Michelle FITZPATRICK Agence France-Presse FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany (AFP) — European aircraft manufacturer Airbus on Friday said it had agreed to pay a fine of 81.25 million euros ($99 million) to end a German corruption probe into the 2003 sale of Eurofighter jets to Austria. Prosecutors in Munich said in a statement that their investigation did not find evidence of bribery to secure the lucrative contract. But they said Airbus management had failed in […]

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France hikes defense spending to hit NATO target

by Daphné Benoit Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – France on Wednesday announced plans to boost defense spending by more than 40 percent, bringing it into line with NATO targets after complaints from US President Donald Trump that Europe is not pulling its weight. European NATO members have come under pressure from Trump to relieve the burden on the US, which currently accounts for about 70 percent of combined NATO defense spending. The French government unveiled a bill […]

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Poland’s president signs controversial Holocaust bill into law

by Mary Sibierski  © Agence France-Presse VARSOVIE, Poland (AFP) — President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday signed into law a controversial Holocaust bill intended to safeguard Poland’s image abroad but which has instead triggered an unprecedented diplomatic row with Israel and tensions with the US and Ukraine. Duda also said he would send the legislation, which now comes into force, to the Constitutional Tribunal to rule on whether it conforms with guarantees for freedom of speech. The law sets […]

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Snow shuts Eiffel Tower as winter blast hits France

PARIS, France (AFP) — The Eiffel Tower turned away tourists on Tuesday as snow swept across northern France, causing traffic chaos in Paris during the French capital’s first real dose of wintry weather this season. The Meteo France weather service put the greater Paris region on alert for snow and black ice on roads, among 27 departments it expected to be on alert across the country until midday Wednesday. The weather caused major gridlock across the city, […]

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Merkel ready for ‘painful compromises’ to seal govt deal

by Deborah COLE and Michelle FITZPATRICK in Frankfurt Agence France-Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was prepared to make “painful compromises” as she headed in a final round of talks Tuesday to seal a coalition deal for her fourth term and end months of political limbo in Europe’s top economy. As negotiators from Merkel’s CDU party, her Bavarian CSU ally and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) gathered for one last push to […]

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100 years of women’s suffrage: How one group changed British history

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British women won the right to vote 100 years ago after an intense struggle marked by a violent fringe campaign that shocked the country but helped to change the world. On February 6, 1918, the Representation of the People Bill became law and added to the voting roll around eight million women who were aged over 30 and met other conditions. It was not until 1928 that British women gained […]

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Moscow authorities struggle to clear record snowfall

  MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Moscow authorities battled to clear streets and told children they could skip school, and scores of flights were delayed as the city was blanketed by its heaviest snowfall in 100 years. The city hall said that 44 centimeters (17 inches) of snow had fallen between Saturday and Monday morning, or 20 percent more than the average for the whole month. Up to 20 centimetres more was expected to fall on […]

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Puigdemont or plan B? Catalan separatists divided

by Daniel Bosque © Agence France-Presse BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — Catalonia’s separatist parties have to decide in the coming days whether to set their differences aside and back ousted, exiled leader Carles Puigdemont or seek an alternative. Unlike other major independence movements in Scotland and Quebec, concentrated in one party, three different groupings make up Catalonia’s separatist camp, united in their will to break with Spain but often at odds with each other. These quarrels burst into […]

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Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan charged with rape: legal source

by Benjamin LEGENDRE Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been charged with rape, a judicial source said, following claims by two women that he assaulted them in French hotel rooms in 2009 and 2012. Ramadan, who was arrested by French police on Wednesday, was charged on Friday with connected charges of rape and rape of a vulnerable person, the source said. The accused is a Swiss citizen whose grandfather founded […]

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