Europe

CHELMSFORD, England (Reuters) - The driver of a truck in which 39 people were found dead appeared in a British court via video link on Monday charged with manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people.

The discovery of 39 bodies in a refrigerated truck on an industrial estate east of London has shone a spotlight on the illicit global trade in people which sends the poor of Asia, Africa and the Middle East on perilous journeys to the West.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday agreed a 3-month flexible delay to Britain’s departure from the bloc as Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushes for an election after opponents forced him to request an extension he had vowed never to ask for.

Just three days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31 at 2300 GMT, Brexit is hanging in the balance as British politicians are no closer to reaching a consensus on how, when or even if the divorce should take place.

ROME (Reuters) - League leader Matteo Salvini led the opposition center-right to a crushing victory in the Italian region of Umbria, results on Monday showed, raising questions about how long the national government in Rome can survive.

Parties in the ruling coalition, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and center-left Democratic Party (PD), stood together on a joint ticket for the first time in the Umbrian vote, but were crushed by a resurgent Salvini.

LUGANSK, October 27. /TASS/: Remarks by Ukraine’s chief negotiator at the Minsk talks Leonid Kuchma that the Steinmeier formula is absurd and harmful for Ukraine are total nonsense, Vladislav Deinego, foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), said on Sunday.

"Such escapades are total nonsense for a serious politician who is responsible for talks on fulfilling the Minsk agreements, which he had signed," Deinego said, according to the LuganskInformCenter.

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/: The talks between US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and diplomats from Russia, China and Pakistan held in Moscow on Friday were "positive and constructive," the US Embassy in Russia said on its website.

TASS, October 27: Twenty people were involved in a shootout in Kazan, Russia’s Tatarstan Republic, and 14 of them have been hauled off, the local Interior Ministry’s press service said on Sunday.

The incident occurred at around midnight on October 25. According to eyewitnesses and CCTV footage, the shootout’s participants were traveling in eight vehicles. "At some moment, one of the conflict’s participants fired several shots, and after that everyone fled the scene."

GROZNY, October 27. /TASS/: The killing of leader of the Islamic State (terror group, outlawed in Russia) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is unlikely to bring any crucial changes if the world continues dividing terrorists into "good and bad guys," Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Sunday.

"Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is again killed?" Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel, commenting on media reports that the US had conducted an operation to kill "the high-value target."

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/: Il-76 military aircrafts have delivered several armored vehicles to the Khmeimim base in Syria in order to assist the units of the Russian military police tasked with patrolling the Syrian-Turkish border, the Russian Defense Ministry informed.

TASS, October 27: The Syrian Democratic Forces coalition, led by the Kurdish militias, has fully supported the terms of a deal that Russia and Turkey reached in Sochi, and has started withdrawing forces from the Syrian-Turkish border, Firat News Agency has reported.

The SDF coalition said in a statement that it "agrees to implement the Russian initiative" on halting the Turkish military operation in northeastern Syria. The decision was made after intensive consultations with Russia, it noted.

PARIS (Reuters) - France wants clarity from Britain before it can consider extending the deadline for Brexit negotiations with the European Union, French European Affairs Minister Amelie de Montchalin said on Sunday.

“We cannot give extra time based on political fiction. We need to have certainty in order to decide (on an extension), certainty about ratification, about elections or about a second referendum,” she said on TV5Monde television.