Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Stocks fall, gold and govt bonds rise after Brussels explosions

Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:54am EDT
LONDON | BY JAMIE MCGEEVER

Reuters

European stocks fell and investors rushed for the safety of gold and government bonds on Tuesday, after two explosions at Brussels airport killed several people and blasts at metro stations in the Belgian capital.

Travel sector stocks including airlines and hotels fell the most, pulling the broader indices down from multi-week highs as reports on the scale of the carnage in the de facto capital of the European Union unfolded.

Belgian media reported that at least 11 people had been killed and that one of the blasts at the airport was a suicide bomber. This came four days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

"The initial reaction in financial markets has been airline stocks all lower, and safe-haven capital flow with gold, German government bonds and the Japanese yen in demand," said Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Group.

"The news has certainly overshadowed much of the euro zone economic data this morning," she said.

At 0915 GMT the FTSEuroFirst 300 index of leading shares was down 1 percent at 1,326 points .FTEU3. Germany's DAX was also down 1 percent and Belgian stocks were down 0.8 percent .BEL20. These indices had earlier been down twice as much.

The STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure index .SXTP was the top sectoral faller, down 2.2 percent. Shares in major European airlines like easyJet (EZJ.L) and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) were down as much as 4 percent (LHAG.DE), and hotel company Accor (ACCP.PA) also fell 4 percent.

Gold rose 1 percent to $1,255 an ounce XAU=, and the yield on benchmark German government bonds fell to a two-week low of 0.18 percent EU10YT=RR. U.S. Treasury yields fell 2 basis points across the curve US2YT=RR US10YT=RR.

In currency markets the Japanese yen, often considered a something of a safe-haven asset, rose across the board, notably against the euro. The euro was last down 0.6 percent at 125.10 yen EURJPY= and the dollar was down 0.3 percent at 111.60 yen JPY=.

The single currency fell a third of a percent against the dollar to $1.1205 EUR=.

BLASTS OVERSHADOW DATA

For financial markets, the events in Brussels came in a week where liquidity was starting to dry up ahead of the Easter holiday and investors were beginning to think about cashing in on a steep rally in stocks over the last few weeks.

"Coming up to the Easter holiday, people are going to be very reluctant to put more money into these (stock) markets. If anything, they will be more likely to take money out," said Michael Hewson, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in London.

"Anything like the events we're seeing in Brussels this morning is going to weigh on risk sentiment and risk appetite," he said.

U.S. stock futures pointed to a fall of around a third of one percent on Wall Street ESc1.

Investors paid little attention to the economic data released on Tuesday which showed a slight pick up in German business morale and euro zone business activity in March

Earlier, Asian stocks seesawed as hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials clouded the monetary policy outlook less than a week after Fed Chair Janet Yellen had set out a more cautious path to interest rate increases this year.

The dollar got a mild boost from the suggestion that interest rate hikes could be on the way sooner rather than later.

Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 added 1.9 percent, closing at a one-week high, after markets in Tokyo reopened after a public holiday on Monday. A weaker yen, before the Brussels-related rebound, gave a tailwind to local shares.

Elsewhere, sterling was one of the biggest losers among the major currencies after ratings agency Moody's said Britain's credit rating will be put under pressure by a marked slowdown in fiscal consolidation unveiled in last week's budget.

The warning came amid concerns about Prime Minister David Cameron's ability to keep Britain in the European Union after leading 'Out' campaigner Iain Duncan Smith resigned from the cabinet late on Friday.

Sterling was last down 0.6 percent at $1.4281 GBP=, more than two cents off Friday's one-month high of $1.4514.

It was a rare day of stability in oil markets, with U.S. crude futures unchanged at $41.53 a barrel CLc1 and Brent crude LCOc1 also flat on the day at $41.60.

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Brussels Rocked by Deadly Attacks With Blasts at Airport, Subway


Bloomberg
By James G Neuger and  Jonathan Stearns

Explosions ripped through the Brussels airport departure hall and a downtown subway station on Tuesday morning, causing deaths and injuries and spurring fears of imminent follow-up attacks in the capital of the European Union.
Belgium’s military sent reinforcements to Brussels after two bombs went off in rapid succession at the airport around 8 a.m., the peak check-in hour for morning flights within Europe. RTL news reported as many as 13 dead and 25 injured. An hour later, an explosion hit a subway station a short walk from EU headquarters, with conflicting reports of casualties.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Turkey’s increasingly desperate predicament poses real dangers

The Washington Post
By Liz Sly February 20 at 7:09 PM
ISTANBUL — Turkey is confronting what amounts to a strategic nightmare as bombs explode in its cities, its enemies encroach on its borders and its allies seemingly snub its demands.

As recently as four years ago, Turkey appeared poised to become one of the biggest winners of the Arab Spring, an ascendant power hailed by the West as a model and embraced by a region seeking new patrons and new forms of governance.

All that has evaporated since the failure of the Arab revolts, shifts in the geopolitical landscape and the trajectory of the Syrian war.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Ankara blast: Turkey vows retaliation for deadly bomb attack

18-2-2016
49 minutes ago

BBC

Turkey has vowed to retaliate against the perpetrators of a powerful blast in the capital Ankara that left at least 28 people dead and 61 injured.
"Turkey will not shy away from using its right to self-defence at any time, any place or any occasion," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Officials said a vehicle full of explosives was detonated as military buses were passing by on Wednesday.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Greece's deputy finance minister gets bullet, threatening letter in post

Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:58pm EDT 
ATHENS
Reuters

Greece's deputy finance minister on Monday got a letter in the post with a bullet in it and a note comparing him to a collaborator with Germany's Nazi forces who occupied the country in World War Two, the Greek finance ministry said.

Many Greeks blame Germany, Europe's biggest economy, for the austerity programs linked to the country's 86 billion euro ($95 billion) international bailout agreed in August.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Will Pakistan’s grief force it to cut ties with Islamic militants?

By Matthew Green December 17, 2014

Pakistan’s army knew it would pay a price when it launched an offensive in the mountains of North Waziristan. But even in their worst imaginings, few officers could have foreseen the way revenge would be served: an attack on an Army-run school that cost the lives of 132 students. Many were the teenage sons of soldiers.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Greek extremist Christodoulos Xiros threatens government

20 January 2014 Last updated at 16:28 GMT
BBC
A Greek fugitive who disappeared while on prison leave has threatened the government with armed action, accusing it of ruining the country with austerity measures.

Christodoulos Xiros, who was convicted in 2003 of belonging to the far-left November 17 organisation, has vowed to return to arms.

He was serving six life sentences for bombings and shootings.

He vanished in January while on leave from prison to visit his family.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Greek Police Hunt for Convicted Terrorist Who Disappeared on Furlough

January 7, 2014
The New York Times
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
ATHENS — The Greek authorities on Tuesday began a nationwide search for a convicted member of the dismantled November 17 group, once the country’s deadliest guerrilla organization, after he failed to report to the police during a prison furlough, fueling fears of a resurgence of political violence.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Gunmen in Greece Attack German Ambassador’s Residence

December 30, 2013
The New York Times
By LIZ ALDERMAN
Assailants raked the German ambassador’s residence in Athens with gunfire early on Monday in an attack that caused no injuries, Greek police officials said.

The police found 60 spent bullet casings at the scene and detained six people in connection with the incident, which occurred around 3:30 a.m. in an affluent suburb north of Athens. The bullet casings came from two Kalashnikov assault rifles, according to the police.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, in which four bullets hit a security gate. But anti-German sentiment has been festering among many Greeks struggling with record unemployment and reduced salaries under a harsh austerity plan required for Greece’s international bailout, which Germany had a major role in selecting the terms of.

“Nothing, but really nothing, can justify such an attack on a representative of our country,” the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said in a statement in Berlin. He said Germany took the attack seriously, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the Greek authorities had reacted swiftly and assured Germany they would strengthen security in Athens.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany received a phone call from Prime Minister Antonis Samaras of Greece, according to a spokesman for the German government, Steffen Seibert. He added that Greece, which on Wednesday will take over the rotating presidency of the European Union, can count on Germany’s full support.

“The Greek government expresses its abhorrence and utter condemnation of today’s cowardly act of terrorism, the sole and obvious target of which was Greece’s image abroad just a few days before the start of the Hellenic presidency of the Council of the E.U.,” the Greek Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Germany is the largest contributor to Greece’s 240 billion euro, or roughly $330 billion, bailout. Recently, Mr. Samaras has been pressing Germany to reduce and renegotiate Athens’s delinquent debts as it grapples with a wrenching five-year recession — something Germany has refused to do.

That has also fed a persistent low-grade anger over hundreds of billions of euros in reparations that Greeks say Germany owes the country from World War II, money that some say should go toward helping to forgive Greece’s debt bill. Greek newspapers regularly run articles on how much money Germany owes Greece.

Greece has made some progress in improving its finances to meet the terms of the bailout — so much so that it is forecast to have a primary surplus before debt payments in 2014 for the first time in five years. But Greece still faces a mountain of debt that economists say is all but unpayable unless some new form of debt forgiveness is extended to Athens.

Over the weekend, Jens Weidmann, the chairman of the German Bundesbank and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, ruled out another reduction in Greece’s state debt, saying in a German newspaper interview that Athens still needed to press ahead with a number of reforms as required by the terms of its bailout.

While financial markets have calmed recently, he told the newspaper Bild, “this could be some misleading safety. The crisis could be fanned again like a fire.”

His remarks echoed those of the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who is widely reviled in Greece. During a visit to Athens this summer, the police locked down the center of the city to pedestrian and car traffic as helicopters flew overhead, leaving the streets in a ghostly state of quiet. The scenes were reminiscent of when Ms. Merkel visited Greece in 2012.

Representatives of the so-called troika of lenders — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — are scheduled to return to Athens in January to resume talks over a fresh 4.9 billion euro tranche of aid.

The same building as the one struck on Monday was targeted in a rocket attack in May 1999 claimed by the terrorist group November 17, which has since been dismantled.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, the incident follows an apparent rise in violent episodes by both far-right and far-left groups in Greece.


Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting from Athens, and Alison Smale from Berlin.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Greece's Golden Dawn gains support after members killed-poll

ATHENS Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:01pm EST
(Reuters) - Support for Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party has grown since two members were gunned down by unknown assailants this month, an opinion poll released on Saturday showed.

The party, Greece's third most popular, had shed almost a third of support following the fatal stabbing in September of an anti-fascism rapper blamed on a Golden Dawn sympathizer.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Previously Unknown Group Says It Shot Greek Extremists

By Alkman Granitsas
The Wall Steet Journal
Urban Guerrillas Say They Killed Two and Injured One in Retaliation for Rap Artist's Murder
A previously unknown urban guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for the shooting of three alleged members of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party earlier this month outside local party offices in a suburb north of Athens.

Friday, November 1, 2013

At least two killed in shooting outside Athens Golden Dawn office

ATHENS | Fri Nov 1, 2013 2:24pm EDT
(Reuters) - At least two people were killed in a drive-by shooting outside the offices of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party in Athens on Friday, police sources said.

The attack comes amid a crackdown by the government on the party after a self-proclaimed Golden Dawn sympathizer stabbed an anti-fascism rapper to death in September.

Golden Dawn, Greece's third most popular party according to opinion polls, said on its website that the victims were aged 20 and 23 years old. Police had not yet verified their identities and details on the shooting were not immediately available.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Hooded assailants start fire at Greek minister's office


ATHENS | Wed Oct 9, 2013 4:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - Six hooded assailants doused the office of Greece's merchant marine minister with gasoline on Wednesday and set it on fire, causing only minor damage to the entrance, police said.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Three men charged with undermining Boston bombing probe



3:26pm EDT
By Scott Malone, Tim McLaughlin and Mark Hosenball
BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Wednesday charged three men with interfering with the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing, accusing two students from Kazakhstan of hiding a laptop computer and backpack belonging to one of the suspected bombers.
The third man, a U.S. citizen named Robel Phillipos, was charged with making false statements to investigators.

Friday, April 19, 2013

With Boston Manhunt, Media Is Part of a Story It Is Covering


The New York Times
April 19, 2013
By BRIAN STELTER
Reporters, camera crews and ordinary citizens with cellphone cameras were squarely in the middle of the manhunt in Boston that gripped the nation on Friday, and the result was some of the most startling, and at times unnerving, news coverage in years.

Police officer shot to death at MIT campus near Boston


By Scott Malone
WATERTOWN, Massachusetts | Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:28am EDT
(Reuters) - A police officer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shot to death on Thursday night at the school's Cambridge campus, touching off a manhunt in a community on edge just days after the Boston Marathon bombing.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Boston bomb suspect identified on video, no arrest made


By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Scott Malone
BOSTON | Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:35pm EDT
(Reuters) - Investigators believe they have identified a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing from security video, a law enforcement source said on Wednesday, but no arrest had yet been made.

Police may make an appeal to the public for more information at a news conference scheduled for later on Wednesday, a government source said.

Earlier, CNN reported a suspect was in custody, citing Boston and law enforcement sources, but later retracted its report.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Makeshift bomb injures two at Greek shopping mall


By George Georgiopoulos
ATHENS | Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:48am EST
(Reuters) - A makeshift bomb lightly injured two security staff at a large shopping center near Athens on Sunday, in escalating political violence in the crisis-hit country.

Explosive device at shopping mall near Athens injures two


ATHENS | Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:29am EST
(Reuters) - An explosive device went off on Sunday at a shopping centre near Athens causing damage and lightly injuring two security employees, police said.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Gun attack on PM's party HQ escalates Greek violence


By Dina Kyriakidou and George Georgiopoulos
ATHENS | Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:21am EST
(Reuters) - Unidentified attackers opened fire on the headquarters of Greece's governing New Democracy party with a Kalashnikov assault rifle early on Monday, in what the government said was a worrying escalation in political violence.