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8. April 2017, 21:58

Greece formally requests loan extension

The Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem has confirmed that Greece has formally submitted a request for a six-month extension to its loan agreement with the euro zone. Details have not been made public, but Greece is reportedly seeking an assistance package, rather than a renewal of the existing deal which comes with tough austerity conditions. Eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Friday to discuss the move. Athens is likely to run out of money at the end of the month if no compromise is reached.

Poroshenko calls for UN peacekeepers

The leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia have agreed in a conference call to make a new push to impose the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. They condemned the recent breaches and said the measures agreed in Minsk should be implemented "strictly and in their entirety". The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier called for UN peacekeepers to be deployed to the east of the country.

Obama hosts talks on extremism

President Barack Obama says the US is not at war with Islam but with the people who have perverted Islam. He was addressing representatives from 60 nations attending a three-day event on extremism at the White House which follows the attacks in Denmark and France. Obama said the world had to confront the ideologies that radicalise people head on: "Al-qaeda and ISIL and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defence of Islam and they propagate the notion that America and the West generally is at war with Islam. It is a lie. They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists."

Libya wants arms embargo lifted

Libya has asked the UN Security Council to lift an arms embargo so that it can deal with the Islamic State group and other militants. Rival militias have been battling for control of the country since 2011. Libya has been under an arms embargo since the uprising that ousted the former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Argentines stage mass rally over Nisman death

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in a march in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, to demand answers over the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman exactly a month after he was found dead in his apartment. He had been due to detail to Congress accusations that President Cristina Fernandez and leading government officials orchestrated a secret deal with Iran to shield those allegedly responsible for the bombing of a Jewish community centre in 1994 in which 85 people were killed. Fernandez has denied the allegations, but her administration has struggled to confront the growing political crisis.

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