UK to start issuing post-Brexit blue passports
AFP, London
Britain will issue blue passports next month for the first time in almost three decades following its departure from the European Union, the government said on Saturday.
The new blue cover passports will be issued and delivered early next month, said the interior ministry, replacing the burgundy passports that were introduced in 1988. They are ironically being made in Poland after the contract was controversially awarded to French multinational Thales.
France begins shutting down oldest
nuclear plant
AFP, Fessenheim
French state-owned energy giant EDF on Saturday began shutting down the country’s oldest nuclear power plant after 43 years in operation.
EDF said it had disconnected one of two reactors at Fessenheim, along the Rhine near France’s eastern border with Germany and Switzerland, at 2:00 am (0100 GMT) in the first stage of the complete closure of the plant.
Terrorists are ‘generally Muslims’, says
Ryanair CEO
AP, London
Muslim men should be profiled at airports as terrorists will “generally be of a Muslim persuasion,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said in an interview published Saturday, sparking accusations of racism.
“Who are the bombers?” the budget airline’s controversial chief executive said while discussing airport security in the interview with the Times newspaper.
Number of US troops wounded in Iran attack now at 110: Pentagon
AFP, Washington
The number of US troops who sustained traumatic brain injury when Iran launched missiles at their base in Iraq last month has risen to 110, the Pentagon said Friday.
The figure is one higher than the last toll, which was announced on February 10. All of the wounded were diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that 77 had already returned to duty.
