AP, Moscow
Russian lawmakers on Friday set the presidential election for March 18, a move that sets in motion campaigning for a race that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win.
Putin declared his intention to run for another six-year term last week, ending months of speculation about motives behind the delay. He enjoys approval ratings above 80 percent, while his most visible adversary, anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, has declared his intention to run but a criminal conviction bars him from doing so.
Cancer-battling McCain hospitalized
AFP, Washington
US Senator John McCain, who is fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer, was in a military hospital Wednesday to treat “normal side effects” of his therapy, his office said.
The 81-year-old former prisoner of war and 2008 Republican presidential nominee was diagnosed in July with a brain tumor known as a glioblastoma, after doctors found a blood clot over his left eye during a routine checkup.
EU leaders clash over refugees
Reuters, Brussels
Two years after the Mediterranean migrant crisis shook the European Union, a tentative effort by the bloc to patch up differences over refugee policy has stumbled, revealing enduring rifts among the bloc’s leaders over the contentious question.
A candid discussion over a Brussels summit dinner that began on Thursday night and spilled into the wee hours of Friday was intended to clear the air and see if there was a way to reconcile opposing views on how to reform defunct asylum rules.
Three die in Germany plane crash
AP, Berlin
Prosecutors say two Austrians and a German have been killed in a crash of a small plane in southwestern Germany.
The Cessna 510 crashed late Thursday in a wooded area near the city of Ravensburg. The plane had taken off in Frankfurt and was heading to Friedrichshafen, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the crash site. Konstanz chief prosecutor Wolfgang Angster said Friday that two of the dead were the plane’s Austrian pilots, a 45-year-old from the Voralberg region and a 49-year-old from Vienna. Also killed was a 79-year-old German passenger living in the Lake Constance region.
Israel PM faces new questions in graft probe
AFP, Jerusalem
Fraud squad detectives questioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Jerusalem residence on Friday, the seventh time in a nearly year-long corruption probe, reports said.
Public radio and two privately-owned TV channels said that investigators arrived at the house shortly before 9:00 am (0700 GMT).
Police policy is not to comment until the day’s questioning has been completed.
