Europe

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s maritime rescue service says it has saved two underage migrants who were trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar on a truck tire.

The service says that its rescue craft took aboard the two minors on Saturday after it was alerted to their plight. The service didn’t specify their sex or nationality, but it appears they left from Morocco.

Spain has become the main entry point for migrants to Europe this year with more than 57,000 arrivals, according to the U.N. Authorities have registered more than 11,000 unaccompanied minors arriving this year.

MOSCOW (AP) — Alarmed by the growing popularity of rap among Russian youth, President Vladimir Putin wants cultural leaders to devise a means of controlling, rather than banning, popular music.

Putin says “if it is impossible to stop, then we must lead it and direct it.”

But Putin said at a St. Petersburg meeting with cultural advisers Saturday that attempts to ban artists from performing will have an adverse effect and bolster their popularity.

14 Nov 2018: AFP: Yemen's warring parties on Thursday agreed to a ceasefire on a vital port in a series of breakthroughs in UN-brokered peace talks that could mark a major turning point after four years of devastating conflict.

If implemented, the deal on the Hodeida port, a key gateway for aid and food imports, could bring relief to a country where 14 million people stand on the brink of famine.

14 Nov 2018: AFP: The gunman who killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was shot dead by French police on Thursday as the Islamic State jihadist group claimed him as one of its "soldiers".

More than 700 French security forces had been hunting for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt since the bloodshed on Tuesday night -- the latest in a string of jihadist attacks to rock France.

14 Nov 2018: AFP: France's interior minister on Friday dismissed a claim by the Islamic State group that a gunman who killed four people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was one of its "soldiers", as investigators sought to understand his motives.

Attending the reopening of the Christmas market, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a Twitter post by the IS propaganda wing saying Cherif Chekatt was one of its "soldiers" was "completely opportunistic".

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Serbia talked up the possibility of an armed intervention in Kosovo Friday after the parliament in Pristina overwhelmingly approved the formation of an army, with Belgrade calling the move the “most direct threat to peace and stability in the region.”

While NATO’s chief called Kosovo’s move “ill-timed,” the U.S. approved it as “Kosovo’s sovereign right.”

ATOWICE, Poland (AP) — The executive director of Greenpeace International says the U.S. delegation to the U.N. climate talks is putting itself in the way as the rest of the world is taking efforts to forge an agreement on fighting global warming.

Jennifer Morgan, speaking on the last scheduled day of the U.N. climate talks, said Friday that U.S. envoys were “certainly protecting representing the interests of The United States.”

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders expressed deep doubts Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May can live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and they vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic “no-deal” scenario.

May canceled a Brexit vote in the U.K. Parliament this week after it became clear the assembly would reject the deal she concluded with the EU last month. She travelled to Brussels in hope of wringing some concessions from her European partners that would help assuage doubts about the draft divorce agreement back in London.

NEW DELHI /India/, December 13. /TASS/. The level of cooperation between India and Russia in military technology transfer is ‘unprecedented’ and Moscow is ready to develop military and technical cooperation with Delhi on a long-term basis, Russia’s Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday.

"The intensity and the depth of military and technical cooperation speak about the unprecedented level of trust between our countries," Shoigu said at a meeting with his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman.

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. The negotiations between Russia and India on some military and technical cooperation deals vital for ensuring India’s defense capability and national security are at the final stage, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said on Thursday.

The diplomat who spoke at the 3rd Russia-India forum of the heads of research centers said that during the visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi in October this year a major contract had been signed for the delivery of S-400 air defense missile systems to India.