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Russia is preparing to mount what could be one of its biggest military exercises since the cold war, a display of power that will be watched warily by Nato against a backdrop of east-west tensions.
Western officials and analysts estimate up to 100,000 military personnel and logistical support could participate in the Zapad (West) 17 exercise, which will take place next month in Belarus, Kaliningrad and Russia itself. Moscow puts the number significantly lower. Read more HERE
Police using water cannon and batons have clashed with refugees who had occupied a small Rome square in defiance of an order to leave a building where they had been squatting.
Television images showed people screaming and trying to hit police, who were dressed in riot gear, with sticks. The square, one block from Rome’s main train station, was strewn with mattresses, overturned rubbish bins and broken plastic chairs. Read more HERE
South Africa plans to grant diplomatic immunity to Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, after she was accused of assaulting a model at a hotel in Johannesburg, government sources have said.
Mugabe is accused of attacking Gabriella Engels, 20, with an electrical extension cord after Engels went to see the Mugabes’ sons Robert and Chatunga at the Capital 20 West hotel in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton district. South African police have put border posts on “red alert” to prevent Mugabe fleeing... Read more HERE.
The terror cell that killed 15 people and injured more than 130 in north-east Spain last week had created a suicide vest packed with viable explosives and were in the process of making several more when a blast ripped through their bomb factory, police have said.
A search of the rubble at the factory in a disused house in southern Catalonia resulted in the discovery of the vest, which had gone unnoticed on Thursday last week when the blast was initially dismissed as an accidental gas explosion. Read more HERE.
Spanish police have intensified their hunt for a 22-year-old Moroccan man believed to be the driver of the van used in the Barcelona attack that killed at least 13 and injured more than 130 last Thursday. Younes Abouyaaqoub, understood to be the chief suspect in the attack on Las Ramblas, is thought to be a key member of a 12-strong jihadist cell responsible for the attacks in Barcelona and later in nearby Cambrils.
Police say a man previously reported as a suspect was killed in the Cambrils attack. Read more HERE.