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The threat of direct Russian-American confrontation in Syria escalated on Monday after Moscow said it would treat any plane from the US-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates river as a potential target.
Russia said it was responding to US planes shooting down a Syrian air force jet on Sunday. The US said its planes had acted to defend US-backed forces seeking to capture the Islamic State capital of Raqqa in north-east Syria. Read more HERE.
The French president Emmanuel Macron’s new centrist movement has won a large majority in the French parliament, according to the first official results on Sunday night.
Macron’s fledgling “neither right nor left” political movement, La République en Marche (LREM), and its smaller centrist ally Democratic Movement (MoDem) needed 289 seats to have an absolute majority in parliament; according to initial exit polls they were on track to take around 355 seats in the 577-seat national assembly. Read more HERE.
At least 60 people have been killed in huge forest fires in central Portugal, many dying in their cars as they tried to flee the flames.
Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa, described the blazes – which have injured dozens more people – as “the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in terms of forest fires”, and warned the death toll could rise. Three days of national mourning were declared. Several hundred firefighters and 160 vehicles were dispatched...Read more HERE.
A French politician and candidate in this Sunday’s parliamentary elections was left unconscious after an altercation with a protester while out campaigning.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a former government minister who unsuccessfully stood to be mayor of Paris, was approached and insulted by a passerby as she handed out leaflets in a market in the city. When the man, described as middle-aged, grabbed the leaflets and tried to throw them in her face...Read more HERE.
Talks on an informal coalition between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionists have progressed well, the leader of the Northern Irish party has said following talks at Downing Street.
The positive words in a tweet from Arlene Foster came as the former prime minister, Sir John Major, warned Theresa May against making a parliamentary deal with the DUP, saying it could risk Northern Ireland’s peace process and cause resentment in other parts of the UK. Read more HERE.