Europe

    When American-trained Tajik special forces commander Col. Gumurod Khalimov defected to the Islamic State a few weeks ago, he issued a clarion call for hundreds of thousands of his countrymen working as migrant laborers in Russia to follow him. “Stop serving the infidels,” he said in a video that appeared online, prompting the Tajik government to block access to Facebook, YouTube and other social networks for several days. But local migrants and religious advocates say that if the Islamic State is recruiting from Tajikistan, it is driven more by economics than ideology. Since the start of the year, a new Russian migration law has required foreign workers from countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union customs bloc to pass Russian language and history tests, acquire ...

    Traffic along the Channel Tunnel has been disrupted overnight after migrants tried to enter restricted areas in Calais, according to reports. "From 10.30pm (local time), around 150 migrants attempted to enter the platforms," an official for the Pas-de-Calais prefecture told the AFP news agency. The spokesman said traffic was interrupted with long queues of lorries and cars forming, but an AFP journalist said the incident was resumed a few hours later. However, the disruption has had a knock-on effect on traffic. Police in Kent say they have put into action what is known as phase two of Operation Stack - where freight traffic is queued on sections of the M20 - closing parts of the road to other traffic. Last week, lorry drivers faced days of misery as they were held ...

    San Gimignano Ask almost anyone and they'll tell you that Italy is on their bucket list: the art, the culture, and the food is world famous for a reason. But Italy is big, and it can be overwhelming for first timers, who inevitably, bowled over by choice, fall into overpriced tourist traps. Here are the places you should avoid, and the often cheaper, always more authentic alternatives you should hit instead.  1. Instead of getting disappointed by the Leaning Tower of Pisa, check out the medieval towers in the town of San Gimignano. If we told you to go see a tilting old tower that wasn't Pisa would you? Probably not, and you should avoid the surprisingly small and devastatingly disappointing Leaning Tower of Pisa too. Want to see old towers? Visit San Gimignano, a mo...

    European financial markets, including the FTSE 100, have fallen sharply as Greece teeters on the brink of financial collapse and a messy exit from the euro. Greek banks and the Athens stock market were ordered to remain closed, while holiday-makers and savers found cashpoint machines empty as they flocked to withdraw money in the hours after the announcement of a snap referendum on austerity measures put forward by creditors. David Cameron said the public poll on July 5 was essentially an "in/out" vote on whether the deeply-indebted country should leave the single European currency. It was "hard to see" how the No vote recommended by prime minister Alexis Tsipras could be compatible with Greece remaining in the euro, said Mr Cameron. The Prime Minister was chairing a m...

    The typical British household would be almost £1,000 a year better off if Britain is forced to leave the European Union, a new analysis has shown. British businesses trading with the EU would also be no worse off outside the EU’s free-trade agreement because the Government would save enough money on membership fees to compensate exporters for the higher tariffs they might face. The conclusions were made in Change, or Go, a major assessment of Britain’s place in the EU and its future in Europe.  The report says that without fundamental overhaul of Britain’s EU membership terms, the national interest will lie outside the union: There would be significant potential financial advantages to the UK leaving the European Union. But what could this equate to in terms of the...

    Following talks with Mr Cameron in Berlin, the German Chancellor said that European leaders "shouldn't be saying that changing the treaties is totally impossible". The Prime Minister is demanding major changes to Britain's relationship with Brussels before the in-out referendum he has promised to hold by the end of 2017. A number of EU countries, including Poland, have suggested that Mr Cameron's demands to change welfare rules will be blocked. The Prime Minister wants to stop EU migrants from claiming benefits in the UK for four years and has said treaty change will be necessary to achieve his reforms. A series of EU leaders have said that treaty change will be blocked by Brussels. However, Mrs Merkel said: "We have the desire to work very closely together. We would...

    Two tourists have managed to break off a piece of a priceless Italian statue which smashed to the floor after they tried to climb it and take a selfie. The ‘Statue of the two Hercules,’ which sits in the northern Italian town of Cremona, shows the city’s emblem being held by two depictions of Hercules, the mythological demi-God who is said to have founded the city. A large crown is shown sitting on top of the city emblem in the statue. It is part of the crown which broke off when the tourists tried to climb it, the Local reports. The incident happened on Friday night and by Sunday police had identified two perpetrators, according to the Corriere della Sera. Technicians have since visited the site to assess the damage caused to the statue. The statue dates back to 1700 a...

    EU leaders are due to hold an emergency summit on ways to stem the number of migrants risking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. BBC Europe editor Katya Adler says draft proposals include a push for a military mandate to destroy boats used by people traffickers. More than 800 people drowned off Libya's coast on Sunday, bringing the number of deaths this year to 1,750. Italian PM Matteo Renzi has called for direct action against people smugglers. He described them as "the slave traders of the 21st Century". A draft statement for Thursday's meeting in Brussels, seen by AFP news agency, says leaders will commit to "undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers". It says EU foreign policy chief Federica Mo...