Blair quiet on Trump talks report
AFP, London
A spokesman for Tony Blair refused to be drawn on a report Sunday that the former British prime minister wants to become US President Donald Trump’s advisor on the Middle East.
According to The Mail on Sunday newspaper, Blair met with Trump’s son-in-law and key advisor Jared Kushner last week to discuss working for the Republican president.
The weekly tabloid said Blair had met Kushner three times since September.
Italy migrant rescues hit new high
AFP, Rome
The number of migrants rescued at sea this year in operations run by Italy’s coastguard topped 15,000 Friday after another 900 people were saved, including eight-month-old Syrian twins and five other babies.
The latest operations confirm the pattern of a sharp upward spike in winter departures from troubled Libya.
Finland’s FM to step down
Reuters, Helsinki
Finnish foreign minister Timo Soini said on Sunday he would step down as leader of the nationalist and eurosceptic Finns party in June, a move which could challenge the future of the country’s three-party government.
The departure of Soini paves the way for a more hard-line leadership, surveys have suggested, as many of its core voters bridled at compromises he made as part of an austerity-focused government that has cut workers’ benefits while catering for an influx of migrants.
US strike kills 2 in Yemen
AFP, Aden
A US drone strike killed two suspected members of Al-Qaeda in southern Yemen on Saturday, a security official said, as Washington steps up a campaign against jihadists.
The raid came after two days of intensive air strikes by US warplanes on jihadists in the war-torn country.
The raid in Ahwar, in the southern province of Abyan, killed two suspected jihadists on a motorbike, the security official said.
