Hello, I am Jerry Smit with the BBC news.
Euro zone leaders have given the Greek government until Thursday to present new proposals on finding a way out of its debt crisis. The German chancellor Angela Merkel
told a news conference in Brussels that the proposals would be put forward for European Union summit on Sunday. The president of the European Council Donald Tusk said
it was the final deadline, and perhaps the most critical moment in the EU’s history.
“The situation is really critical, and unfortunately, we can’t exclude this black scenario. I mean no agreement until Sunday. It means, of course, that we need to
discuss also the consequences for the whole European Union, not only for the Euro zone.”
The president of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said the EU had prepared for every outcome including a possible Greek exit from the single currency. The
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he would submit detail proposals in the next few days.
“A discussion has put place in a positive mood. From now on, the process will be quick very fast. It would start in the next hours with the aim of reaching an
agreement by Sunday at the latest.”
President Obama has held talks at the White House with the head of the Vietnamese Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong, the first such meeting since the two countries
normalized relations 20 years ago. This month marks 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War. From Washington, here is Aleem Maqbool.
“At the White House President Obama talked of the progress that has been made in US Vietnam relationships after what he politely called a difficult history. General
Nguyen Phu Trong said such a meeting would be unimaginable in the past.
Indeed the two leaders have come together partly to celebrate 20 years since President Clinton announced the beginning of the normalization of relations, ties were cut
following the Vietnam War. But there are those who expressed their discomfort at the thought of leader of the single-party communist state being fitted here.
Two deadly car bombs have exploded in Yemen, at least 4 people were killed and many injured in an explosion in the southern city of Al Ghaydah. In the capital Sanaa, a
car bomb went off outside a Shiite mosque killing at least 1 person and wounding 5.
Spanish police have arrested a woman in the Canary Islands on suspicion of recruiting adolescent girls to travel to Syrian territory controlled by Islamic State
militants. Spanish officials say once the girls reach Syria, they were sexually exploited and made to carry out domestic and hospital work.
The world’s largest Cruise shipping company Carnival Corp says it has received approval from US government to offer trips to Cuba from Miami. The company said it was
still seeking clearance from the Cuban government.
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The Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has approved a bailout of more than 2 billion dollars to help the country’s bankrupt states. Hundreds of thousands of state
employees have not been paid for months. The money will come from the state-owned natural gas company.
A plan vote on a draft UN resolution to mark the 20th anniversary of the mass killings in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica has been delayed until Wednesday after Russia
threatened to use its veto. Eight thousand Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces who overran the UN protected town. Nick Bryant reports from UN in New
York.
“To mark the 20th anniversary the Srebrenica massacre, the British drafted a resolution that would be the first United Nation's text to formally recognize the
killings as a crime of genocide. But its run-up against fierce opposition from Russia. The Russian’s described the British draft as divisive and circulate its own
term form of words, which doesn’t mention Srebrenica or genocide. Moscow has come under strong pressure from the Serbian government which has called the British draft
unbalanced, unnecessary, and detrimental to Bosnia’s fragile peace process.”
The FBI and US has appealed more than 250 victims of online pedophile to come forward to receive counselling. Using various personas, the 26-year old predator Lucas
Chansler posed as a 15-year old boy to get teenage girls to expose their breast from webcam and then blackmailed them into sending him more explicit images. He has
been sentenced to more than 100 years in jail.
The newly elected left-wing council in the Spanish capital Madrid has announced plans to change the names of dozens of streets which pay tribute to the former military
leader General Francisco Franco. In the past, there has been stiff resistance from the political right to the removal of the symbols related to General Franco’s rule.