World News Roundup

INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2017

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II receives a posy from Tilly Beau Wildish during a reception following The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery 70th parade in London on Oct 19. (AP)

EU leaders back May

Trump links jump inUK crimes to terrorWASHINGTON, Oct 21, (Agencies): US President Donald Trump linked a jump in report-ed crime in Britain to terrorism Friday, again wading deep into a sensitive political debate on the other side of the pond.

“Just out report: ‘United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of Radical Islamic ter-ror.’ Not good, we must keep America safe!” Trump said.

The early morning tweet came as Britain’s statistical office reported a rise in reported crime in England and Wales in the first six months of the year.

The report stated that much of the increase may be due to changes in the way crime statistics are recorded.

Trump has repeatedly pointed to terror attacks in Europe as evidence of the risk from jihadist groups in the United States.

At home he has championed a ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries.

But his pronouncements on terrorism in Britain have strained ties with London and put a planned state visit to Britain on ice.

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EU leaders threw British Prime Minister Theresa May a lifeline in Brexit talks on Friday, agreeing at a Brussels summit meeting to start preparations for the next stage of negotiations.

EU President Donald Tusk said reports the talks were in deadlock were “exaggerated”, hail-ing a speech May made in Florence, Italy, last month for breaking the impasse.

As expected, the other 27 leaders agreed there had been insufficient progress on the divorce talks to officially move on to the future relationship, delaying the decision to a December summit.

But they took just 90 seconds to approve the start of internal preparations for post-Brexit trade and a transition deal, work that Tusk said would take Britain’s proposals on future relations into account.

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Storm Brian battered towns in Ireland and along the western coast of England and Wales on Saturday, with gusts and high seas causing heavy damage to buildings.

Less than a week after Tropical Storm Ophelia killed three people, Ireland’s weather office issued an warning that winds were likely to aver-age 55 to 65 km per hour in western regions, with gusts topping 100 kph.

In Tenby, a picturesque seaside town in Wales, waves tore through a wall of the harbourmaster’s offices, leaving debris strewn across the prome-nade.

Britain Europe

Munich knife attack hurts 8: German police ruled out a political or religious motive behind a knife attack in the city of Munich on Saturday and said a detained man suspected of injuring eight people had mental health problems.

The arrest of the suspect in his 30s brought calm back to the streets of the Bavarian capital after a tense morning.

Police had asked residents to stay home until they find the attacker who had fled on a bicycle.

Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae told a news conference that eight people have been lightly injured in the attack and that the suspect was known to police from previous offences, including burglary. (RTRS)

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Plan to block jihadist content online: G7 coun-tries and tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter on Friday agreed to work together to block the dis-semination of Islamist extremism over the internet.

“These are the first steps towards a great alliance in the name of freedom,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said after a two-day meeting with his Group of Seven counterparts, stressing the role of the inter-net in extremist “recruitment, training and radicalisa-tion.”

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the goal was to ensure pro-jihadist content “is taken down within two hours of it going online”.

“Our enemies are moving at the speed of a tweet and we need to counter them just as quickly,” acting US Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said. (AFP)

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Norway gets 1st woman FM: Norway’s prime minis-ter has presented three new government ministers in a minor reshuffle of her two-party coalition following a gen-eral election last month.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said Friday that Ine Eriksen Soereide has been reassigned from defense minis-ter to foreign minister. The move makes the 41-year-old Eriksen Soereide the first woman to be Norway’s top dip-lomat.

Three women — Solberg, Eriksen Soereide and Finance Minister Siv Jensen — now hold top jobs within the Norwegian government.

Eriksen Soereide takes over the Foreign Ministry from Borge Brende, who stepped down to lead the World Economic Forum. (AP)

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Greek police arrest Syrian: Greek police said Friday they have arrested a Syrian over suspected links to the Islamic State, after his wife lodged a complaint of domes-tic violence and said he was a jihadist supporter.

The 32-year-old, who denies everything, was arrested on Thursday in Alexandroupoli in northeastern Greece, where he had registered with asylum authorities.

“There is an investigation into whether (the suspect) par-ticipated in terrorist acts outside Greece in the past, and at what level,” a police statement said.

Police searched the couple’s home in Thessaloniki in northern Greece after the woman filed a complaint.

Officers found data on his phone that they said support the allegations of IS links, a police official told AFP. (AFP)

Rajoy seeks senate approval

Spain to sack Catalan govt, call electionsMADRID, Oct 21, (AFP): Spain announced Saturday that it will move to dismiss Catalonia’s separatist government and call fresh elections in the semi-autonomous region in a bid to stop its leaders from declaring independence.

The drastic escalation of Spain’s worst political crisis in decades will see separatist leader Carles Puigdemont and his administration stripped of their jobs, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told reporters after a crisis meeting of his cabinet.

Puigdemont’s threat to declare independence “has been unilateral, contrary to the law, and seeking con-frontation,” said Rajoy, adding that he will seek approval from the Senate — where his conservatives hold an absolute majority — for permission to dis-solve the Catalan parliament and call elections within six months.

In the meantime, the jobs of Puigdemont and his team will be carried out by Spain’s national ministers, Rajoy said.

Puigdemont was due to respond at 9:00 pm (2100 GMT). In Barcelona, independence supporters took to their balconies banging their pots and pans in protest at Rajoy’s decision.

Autonomy is a highly sensitive issue in wealthy Catalonia, which saw its powers taken away under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

Home to 7.5 million people, the northeastern region fiercely defends its language and culture and enjoys control over its policing, education and healthcare.

In a crisis that has rattled stock markets and worried a European Union that is already struggling with Brexit, Catalonia held a banned independence refer-endum on Oct 1, with Puigdemont threatening to declare a breakaway state based on its results.

Also:MADRID: Spanish police said Friday they had identi-fied around 800 British tourists suspected of having made fake food poisoning claims after going on holi-day in the Balearic Islands to try to win compensation.

Police have listed 77 law firms allegedly used by the tourists to file their complaints as part of their investigation, a statement said.

The law firms “orchestrated a possible criminal network based on fake claims that have generated significant economic damage to the Balearic and Spanish tourism sector,” it added.

Spain

Andrae