Saudi Arabia to halt fighting in Yemen
PARIS – Saudi Arabia declared a unilateral cease-fire in Yemen that would start May 12 and urged Shiite rebels and their allies to stop fighting. It was unclear if the Iran-backed Houthis were prepared to lay down their arms.
At a news conference Friday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the halt in fighting would start next Tuesday at 11 p.m. local time.
The so-called humanitarian pause is renewable, depending on compliance by the rebels who have chased Yemen’s internationally recognized government out of the country.
Europe to mark end of World War II
PARIS – With quiet moments of memory or military pomp, leaders and ordinary citizens across Europe are marking 70 years since the Nazi defeat and the end of a war that ravaged the continent. But the East-West alliance that vanquished Hitler is deeply divided today.
Russia is celebrating Soviet wartime feats in a ceremony Saturday that is causing diplomatic tensions because of the country’s role in Ukraine’s conflict. Poland held a ceremony meant as an alternative to Moscow’s.
“The victory of May 8th wasn’t the supremacy, the domination, of one nation over another. It was the victory of an ideal over a totalitarian ideology,” President François Hollande said in a speech before arriving at the Arc de Triomphe, site of France’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Associated Press
