EU official: Ultimatum not given to Greece
ELMAU, Germany – A top European Union official said Sunday that Greece’s creditors didn’t deliver a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to end the standoff over the country’s international bailout, disputing how the latest proposal has been presented in Greece.
The comments from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker came after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told Parliament on Friday that the creditors’ proposals for a deal on the country’s debt were “a negative surprise” and termed the suggestion “irrational.”
Athens, which faces pressure to agree to painful deficit-cutting measures, wants any deal to lighten its crushing debt load.
Italian leaders get tough on immigration
ROME – Heartened by recent election successes by an anti-immigrant party, Italian politicians based in the north vowed Sunday not to shelter any more migrants saved at sea, even as thousands more were being rescued in the Mediterranean from smugglers’ boats in distress.
Elsewhere in the country, however, corruption investigations have revealed that some local officials gleefully see a cash cow in the shelters.
Over the weekend, nearly 6,000 migrants were rescued by an array of European military vessels, including 2,371 who were saved on Sunday from 15 boats that ran into difficulty shortly after smugglers set off with them from Libyan shores, the Italian coast guard said.
Mayors of Sicilian and other southern towns have warned for months they’ve run out of room for migrants.
Turkish ruling party suffers defeat at polls
ANKARA, Turkey – In a stunning rebuke of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions to expand his powers, Turkish voters stripped his party of its simple majority in parliament, preliminary election results showed Sunday.
With 99.9 percent of the vote counted, Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, had the support of around 41 percent of voters, state-run TRT television said. According to projections, that would give it some 258 seats – 18 below the minimum needed to keep its majority.
The unexpected setback for AKP likely puts an end, for the time being, to Erdogan’s hopes of passing constitutional changes that would have greatly boosted the powers of his office. Instead, he faces struggles to retain his pre-eminent place in Turkish politics without the obvious levers to steer the government through his party in parliament.
Saudi-led airstrikes kill 22 in Yemen
SANAA, Yemen – Saudi-led airstrikes before dawn Sunday targeted the headquarters of Yemen’s armed forces in the rebel-held capital, killing at least 22 people, officials said.
They said the dead were mostly soldiers and that the airstrikes damaged several nearby homes, shaking Sanaa. Residents said at least three airstrikes hit the headquarters, a short distance from the city’s center.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
Tropical storm nears Baja California
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico – Hurricane Blanca was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday as it neared the Baja California Peninsula, where residents boarded up home and storefront windows in preparation for the heavy rains and high winds that were forecast to lash a wide area including the resorts of Los Cabos.
After building into a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Saturday, Blanca quickly lost strength Sunday.
Associated Press
