AP, Istanbul
Amnesty International on Friday urged the European Union to stop plans to return asylum-seekers to Turkey.
The rights group issued a 35-page briefing saying the EU-Turkey deal to curb irregular migration was “illegal” and “reckless.”
Britain will stay in EU: Austrian minister
Reuters, Vienna
Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling is sure Britons will vote against leaving the European Union when a referendum is held on June 23, he said on Friday.
“I personally am sure that Great Britain will decide to stay in the union,” he said in a speech on taxation in Europe.
ISIS greatest global threat: US report
PTI, Washington
The ISIS terror group remained the greatest threat globally in 2015, maintaining a formidable force in Iraq and Syria, including a large number of foreign terrorist fighters, a US report said today.
ISIS’ capacity and territorial control in Iraq and Syria reached a high point in spring 2015, but began to erode over the second half of 2015, the State Department said in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.
Number of terrorist attacks fell in 2015
Reuters, Washington
The US State Department said on Thursday that the number of terrorist attacks around the world declined last year for the first time since 2012, and that such attacks were becoming more decentralised and diffuse.
Terrorist attacks fell by 13 per cent compared with 2014, while fatalities caused by terrorist activity declined by 14 per cent, the agency said in its report on global terrorism, which tracks trends in political violence.
130 Iraqi troops die in ISIL attacks
Reuters, Baghdad
Islamic State is putting up a tough fight in Falluja and its recapture by the Iraqi army could take time, said Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Falluja, located 50 kilometers (32 miles) west of Baghdad, has been a bastion of the Sunni insurgency that fought both the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government.
Turkey recalls envoy from Germany
AFP, Berlin
Turkey recalled its envoy to Berlin on Thursday and threatened further measures after Germany’s lower house of parliament labelled the World War I killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as “genocide”.
The Bundestag or lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution on the 1915-16 killings, in a move touching a raw nerve in Turkish-European relations.
China to join US-hosted naval drills
Reuters, Beijing
China’s navy will send five ships to join a major U.S.-hosted naval drill this summer, even as tension mounts between the world’s two largest economies over the South China Sea.
