News in Brief

Date: 16 July 2017 - 20:55

News ID: ۴۱۷۹۸

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- The perpetrators who brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, killing all 298 aboard, may be tried in absentia, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Sunday.
Most of those on board the Boeing 777 were Dutch, but others came from 17 countries, including 38 Australians. It was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russia separatists, the Dutch Safety Board concluded in 2015. Bishop said "every legal avenue" was being pursued, and urged Russia to comply with UN Security Council resolution 2166, authored by Australia.

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LONDON (AP) -- British police have charged a teenager with a spate of London acid attacks, as authorities consider whether tougher sentences would curb a spike in assaults with corrosive liquids.
The Metropolitan Police force says a 16-year-old boy faces 15 charges, including grievous bodily harm. The boy, who can't be named because of his age, was arrested after five moped riders were attacked during a 90-minute period last week. Police say the number of reported attacks with corrosive liquids in London rose from 261 in 2015 to 454 in 2016. The government says it is considering increasing sentences for acid attacks to a maximum of life.

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PARIS (AP) -- French President Emmanuel Macron says his glamorous Paris charm offensive on Donald Trump was carefully calculated - and may have changed the U.S. president's mind about climate change.
Macron defended his outreach to Trump, whose "America first" policies have elicited worry and disdain in Europe. "Our countries are friends, so we should be too," Macron said in an interview Sunday in the Journal du dimanche newspaper. After a tense, white-knuckle handshake at their first meeting in May, Macron said they gained "better, intimate knowledge of each other" during Trump's visit to Paris last week.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -- EU officials hope the British government shows more urgency about a Brexit deal when its negotiators come to Brussels on Monday for a first full round of talks aimed at smoothing Britain's departure.
"The hard work starts now," European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Wednesday, again sounding a note of alarm that London has yet to provide detailed proposals on a range of key issues, with barely a year left for bargaining.  Prime Minister Theresa May's top team of ministers are increasingly convinced of the need for a transition period as Britain leaves the European Union, finance minister Philip Hammond said Sunday.

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BRUSSELS (Dispatches) -- NATO's Secretary General spoke to the Turkish and German foreign ministers last week to urge them to resolve their differences over visits to Turkish air bases, part of a wider row between the two allies.
German soldiers contribute to a NATO air surveillance mission at Konya, 250 km (155 miles) south of the Turkish capital Ankara, and its troops stationed at another air base, in Incirlik, have already been moved to Jordan. NATO said Jens Stoltenberg had called Sigmar Gabriel and Mevlut Cavusoglu on Friday to ask them to settle the disputes. "We hope that Germany and Turkey are able to find a mutually acceptable date for a visit," a NATO spokesman said.