News in English

8. April 2017, 21:58

Belgium arrests six over terror

Police in Belgium have arrested at least six people in Brussels in connection with Tuesday’s terror attacks in the city, as a massive search continues for at least two other suspects. Prosecutors have yet to reveal the identities of those arrested.

Kerry: Islamic State losing ground

United States secretary of state John Kerry is in Brussels for counter-terrorism talks with top Belgian and European Union officials. Speaking in Brussels, Kerry said the recent attacks in Europe by Islamic State or Daesh are linked to progress in defeating the terror group in Iraq and Syria: “The very reason that Daesh is resorting to actions outside of the Middle East is that its fantasy of a caliphate is collapsing before their eyes. Its territory is shrinking every day, its leaders are being decimated, its revenue sources are dwindling.”

France arrests terror suspect

French authorities have detained a man near Paris suspected of planning a major attack. Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the suspect was a French national and that the terror plot was at an advanced stage. He has been named as Reda Kriket who had been convicted in absentia in Belgium for recruiting fighters for IS.

Syria constitution “by August”

Russia and the United States have set a target date of August for a new constitution to be drawn up for Syria, after talks in Moscow between President Vladimir Putin and US Secretary of State Kerry. Meanwhile Syrian peace talks in Geneva have adjourned, and are meant to resume next month.

Top Turkish journalists on trial

The trial has opened in Turkey of two prominent journalists charged with revealing state secrets. The journalists Can Dundar and Erdem Gul from Cumhuriyet, newspaper deny the charges - which relate to a report they published alleging that the Turkish government had tried to ship weapons to Islamists in Syria. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally filed a criminal complaint against them. Supporters of the journalists say their prosecution is politically motivated. The judge has ordered the trial to be held behind closed doors.

Karadzic convicted of genocide

The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been convicted of genocide over the murder of 8000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 – as well as nine other counts of war crimes - at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Karadzic’s conviction ranks as the most serious handed down in Europe since the postwar trials at Nuremberg of the Nazi leadership.

The weather

Generally cloudy with rain. Drier in the east and south with a few sunny spells. Top temperatures 4 to 12 degrees.

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