Europe

    An RAF pilot rendered suddenly nearly blind by a suspected eye infection managed to land his training jet after a colleague talked him down while flying nearby. Air commanders thought about getting the unnamed pilot to eject over the North Sea, but this risked significant ejection injuries and the plane would have been lost, The Daily Telegraph reported. So Flight Lieutenant Paul Durban, an instructor at RAF Leeming who flew in Iraq and Afghanistan, was sent to help him land. A source told the Telegraph: They think he had an infection in his eye and he just couldn’t see. The other pilot flew behind him and talked him down. They got him down safely and the plane is okay. Flt Lt Durban is fine too, though I think he was pretty exhausted. The incident happened on Thursday las...

    Hundreds of masked men marched through Stockholm's main train station on Friday evening, reportedly beating up refugees and anyone who didn't appear to be ethnically Swedish. Wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, the men "gathered with the purpose of attacking refugee children," Stockholm police spokesperson Towe Hagg said. "I saw maybe three people who were beaten. That was no football brawl or something similar. They targeted migrants. I was quite scared and ran away," an eyewitness told the Aftonbladet newspaper. Before the attacks, the mob handed out leaflets with the slogan "It is enough now!" which threatened to give "the North African street children who are roaming around" the "punishment they deserve". The leaflet refers to the death of social worker Alexandr...

    Up to 40 migrants, including at least five children, have drowned in the Aegean Sea after their boat capsized off the Turkish coast. The vessel, which was en route to the Greek island of Lesbos, sank near the resort of Ayvacik - and Turkish officials have said they expect the death toll to rise, as more bodies are believed to be inside the boat. According to the Anadolu agency, 75 passengers survived and were rescued - including people from Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Some of the survivors have been hospitalised with symptoms of hypothermia, and divers are continuing to search the area. It is believed the boat hit rocks soon after leaving Canakkale, which lies about five miles north of Lesbos. Distressing pictures from the scene showed the bodies of women and children ...

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and their left-leaning Social Democrat (SPD) coali-tion partners agreed on Thursday to tighten asylum rules, reaching a compromise on how to stem an influx of migrants that topped one million last year. The new measures include a two-year ban on family reunions for asylum seekers who are granted lim-ited refugee protection and speeding up the deportations of failed applicants, said Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, announcing the deal. A dispute over tighter immigration rules has been straining the ruling coalition, which includes Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party, as well Gabriel's SPD. All three parties are eager to show voters that, despite deep divisions, t...

    Almost 1,400 civilians have died in Russian air strikes in Syria since the bombing raids began last September, it has been reported. The aerial attacks have also killed at least 965 Islamic State fighters and 1,233 others from different insurgent groups, according to UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It comes as UN-brokered peace talks are being held in Geneva, Switzerland, to try to end Syria's five-year-old civil war, which has claimed the lives of over 260,000 people and displaced more than half the population. The main Syrian opposition group heading to the discussions, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC), has demanded a halt to Moscow's bombing campaign, which is aimed at helping Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Moscow says it is targeting ...

    Up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in Sweden last year are going to be expelled from the country, its interior minister has announced. Anders Ygeman said thousands of migrants' asylum applications had been rejected. "We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000," he was quoted as saying by Swedish media. He said the expulsions would be staggered over several years. Police and authorities in charge of migrants have been asked to organise the expulsion. Migrants whose applications are rejected are normally taken out of Sweden using commercial flights. But because of the large number being rejected they would use specially chartered aircraft to take them out of the country, Mr Ygeman said. Sweden accepted more than 160,000 asylum seekers last year, p...

    The European Union blasted Athens for its handling of the migrant crisis Wednesday, saying it had seriously neglected its duty to protect the bloc's frontiers, raising the prospect of border controls with the rest of the passport free zone. The criticism came ahead of a Swedish announcement that it intends to expel up to 80,000 migrants who arrived in 2015 and whose application for asylum has been rejected. Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, with the passengers -- mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- undeterred by cold wintry conditions. Rescuers on Wednesday found the bodies of seven more drowned migrants, including two children, af-ter their boat sank near the Greek island of Kos -- just five days after 4...

    French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira has stepped down from her job, shortly before plans to strip people convicted of terrorism of their citizenship go before parliament. Ms Taubira was known to disagree with the controversial proposals, The citizenship plans were put forward after the 13 November Paris attacks in which 130 people were murdered. Sometimes staying on is resisting, sometimes resisting means leaving, she tweeted. Ms Taubira, one of France's few senior black politicians, has been replaced by Jean-Jacques Urvoas who is seen as a supporter of the constitutional change. Born in French Guiana, Ms Taubira has suffered racist taunts from the far-right during her time as jus-tice minister. Same-sex marriage A communique from the Elysee Palace said that Presiden...

    A trigger-happy warmonger who basks in public adoration at home and shrugs off the anger of the West, that Russia’s macho president is arguably the world’s most powerful man is no surprise. That Vladimir Putin may also secretly be, by far, the world’s richest man will come as a shock to many. Russia’s feared autocrat is well and truly a law unto himself and uses his unfettered power almost as he pleases. This has never been clearer than in the sinister case of Russian spy, Alexander¬ Litvinenko, whose murder in London in 2006, Sir Robert Owen’s inquiry concluded last week was probably sanctioned by Putin. The Kremlin is, of course, threatening¬ to sue the British government¬ over the claim. Sixteen years after he was first elected, 63-year-old Putin’s position as Russian p...

    A pilot was forced to land on a busy motorway after forgetting to fill up before he took off. The light plane ended up parked on the central reservation of a busy motorway in Russia, with wheels either side of the barrier. It came down after the pilot apparently forgot to put fuel into the tank, and it had to make an emergency landing in the snow. A video of the extraordinary scene has now emerged which shows the Polish-made Wilga-35 plane, fitted with skis instead of wheels, stranded. The pilot - who hasn't been name - brought the plane down "safely" without clashing with any vehicles despite landing directly in the middle of the road. There were no passengers onboard and he was said to escape uninjured from the episode. Russian media station LifeNews reported that he had...