POLITICS
Snowden or Merkel? Betting hot on 2015 Nobel Peace Prize contenders
Nobel watchers are holding their breath as the 88th Peace Prize recipient is to be named within hours. Speculations are mounting as this year’s award candidates range from whistleblower Edward Snowden to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nobel Prize Committee set to name a winner at 09:00GMT Friday Peace Prize...
Ukraine to open debt talks with Russia — Reuters
Ukrainian finance officials will open talks with Russian counterparts on a maturing $3 billion Eurobond that Russia holds on the sidelines of IMF-World Bank meetings in Peru, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday. "My understanding is that the Ukrainian government is now approaching the Russian government and...
What Russia wants and what it will get in Syria
The start of Russian intervention in Syria expanded configuration of forces in the Middle East and highlighted the Kremlin’s tasks in this country. Russia’s air group stationed in Latakia (Syria) performed its first airstrikes in the provinces of Hama and Homs. According to statements by the Russian Defense...
Russian jets hit IS targets in Palmyra
Russian jets hit Islamic State targets in the Syrian city of Palmyra and the northern province of Aleppo, Syrian state television and a monitoring group said on Tuesday, in some of the heaviest Russian attacks on the hardline Islamist group, according to Reuters. The strikes destroyed 20 vehicles and three weapons depots in...
Forbes: Poker player Putin raises stakes on Syria, Ukraine. Can European Union call his bluff?
Russian President Vladimir Putin is strengthening his negotiating power with the European Union, and the United States, in the standoff around Ukraine by backing Bashar al-Assad in Syria and bombing rebel militants there, even if they do not belong to Islamic State. Not only is Russia now setting the pace in the conflict in...
Russia violates Turkish airspace twice
A Russian warplane violated Turkish airspace on Sunday, a Turkish foreign ministry official said, the second such breach over the past three days, prompting Ankara to once again summon Moscow's ambassador, Reuters reports. Turkey, a NATO member with the alliance's second biggest army, scrambled two F-16 jets on Saturday...
Ukraine continues pulling back tanks in Luhansk region
There were no cases of the violation of the ceasefire by illegal armed groups in the Donbas conflict zone in the last day, which allows Ukrainian troops to continue pulling back military hardware from the contact line, according to the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). "The long-awaited ceasefire allows...
Two Ukrainian soldiers killed, five wounded in landmine blast in Donbas
Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another five were wounded in a landmine blast on Sunday evening while patrolling their sector in the Donbas conflict zone, representative of the Donbas Battalion Yevhen Shevchenko said on Monday, according to Ukrainian TV Channel 112. "The soldiers who came to their rescue also got...
Donbas militants observing full ceasefire on Sunday
The enemy was observing a full ceasefire and did not open fire on Ukrainian positions in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone in Ukraine's east on Sunday, October 4, according to the ATO press center. The truce has allowed Ukraine to start scheduled withdrawals of military hardware and weapons whose caliber is under...
25th German Unity Day: Protests, clashes mar celebrations in Frankfurt (VIDEO)
A quarter of a century has passed since 'East' and 'West' Germany reunited. The country’s financial capital, Frankfurt, saw hundreds of people protesting in the city during the visit of Chancellor Merkel. The annual celebration of a German national holiday, the 25th anniversary of the reunification of...
Russia says to increase air strikes in Syria
Russia said on Saturday it would increase its air strikes in Syria and was willing to cooperate with all interested countries after carrying out more than 60 sorties in 72 hours there, according to The Daily Mail. "We will not only continue strikes… we will also increase their intensity," said Andrei Kartapolov...
Nine dead after U.S. air attack on Afghan hospital
The U.S. military on Saturday acknowledged it may have bombed a hospital run by medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres in the Afghan city of Kunduz in an air strike that killed at least nine people and wounded 37, according to Reuters. "U.S. forces launched an air strike at 02:15 a.m. (17:45 ET), the spokesman, Col....