JERUSALEM — Spoiled by sunshine for about 520 days a year, Jerusalemites are strangely phobic about cloudy weather, as if a grey day could infect them with Nordic melancholy. Sunday was one such day: the streets empty, the air quiet and chill. So…
Browsing: prime minister
Libya’s General National Congress on Tuesday failed to agree on what action to take about the embattled government of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, a member said. His administration has been under fire for failing to tackle security problems and end an…
Former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to four years in jail on Monday for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to appoint a businesswoman to a senior government post. Nastase, 63, was found guilty of receiving bribes…
Turkey’s embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday he would favour retrials for hundreds of military officers jailed for coup-plotting. In the latest sign of the turmoil that has gripped Turkish politics since the government was hit…
Bangladesh votes Sunday in a violence-plagued election that will end in certain victory for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the opposition boycotted the “farcical” contest. Around 150 people have been killed since the opposition launched a campaign…
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hit out against a corruption probe that has dragged down members of his government, calling it an “attempted assassination” and a “judicial coup”. At a luncheon in Istanbul with generally pro-government…
US President Barack Obama played golf with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key in Hawaii, in a rare vacation encounter with a foreign official. The statesmen hit the green at a US Marine Corps base on the northeastern coast of the island of Oahu. Obama…
Israeli former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s health was in “slow, gradual” decline on Friday, according to the hospital where he has been in a comatose state for eight years. “Tests show a slow, gradual deterioration in the functioning of his vital…
Knife-wielding protesters have stormed the headquarters of Libya’s largest telecoms provider and forced an eight-hour shutdown of Internet access in the south and west of the country. Dozens of protesters calling for Prime Minister Ali Zeidan to resign…
Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday expressed Britain’s “unconditional admiration” for the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing on the attack’s 25th anniversary. Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December…
Britain’s military is at risk of becoming a “hollow force” with first-rate equipment but not enough troops to use it, the head of the armed forces has warned. General Nicholas Houghton, the chief of the defence staff, made the unusually outspoken criticism…
An Egyptian court has acquitted Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister and presidential candidate, and two sons of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak, of corruption charges. Shafiq fled to the United Arab Emirates shortly after he narrowly lost to the Islamist…
The Bank of England is to issue plastic banknotes for the first time in its history, it announced Wednesday, with Winston Churchill gracing the first run. The polymer note, carrying a value of £5 ($8.2, 6.0 euro), is to be released in 2016 — and as…
Australian combat troops have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday, marking the end of the nation’s longest war which left 40 of its soldiers dead. Abbott announced that more than 1,000 troops would pull…
A week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly chose to miss Nelson Mandela’s memorial service because of travel costs, Israeli ministers voted Sunday to consider buying an Israeli equivalent of “Air Force One.” They approved creating a committee…
The Central African Republic needs foreign financial assistance as well as troops, its prime minister told AFP Monday as French forces deployed in a bid to halt spiralling violence. Speaking in Bangui before flying to Paris for a 40-nation France-Africa…
The prime minister of Somalia was ousted by parliament Monday amid a bitter power struggle within the internationally-backed government that could undermine efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation and tackle Islamist rebels. Abdi Farah Shirdon, prime…