TURKEY: A Syrian passenger plane intercepted by Turkey’s air force was carrying military communications equipment, Turkish media has reported as Damascus branded the incident piracy amid growing tensions between the two countries.
Turkish state-run television TRT and newspaper Yeni Safak said there were 10 containers aboard the plane, some containing radio receivers, antennas and “equipment that are thought to be missile parts”.
SWEDEN: Chinese writer Mo Yan has been named the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the prestigious award, today praised Mo’s “hallucinatoric realism” saying it “merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”.
NETHERLANDS: Nigerian farmers are suing Shell in a Dutch court, asking judges to order the oil giant to clean up environmental damage they claim is caused by leaking pipes.
Today’s case in The Hague Civil Court is a legal landmark in the Netherlands as it is the first time a Dutch company has been sued for alleged environmental mismanagement caused by an overseas subsidiary.
FRANCE: A network of French Islamists who carried out a grenade attack on a kosher market also planned to join jihadists fighting in Syria, a French prosecutor said today.
He said the group was potentially the most dangerous established in France in over a decade.
PAKISTAN: Ten militants have died in a US drones strike on a compound of a Pakistani militant commander in a north-western tribal region, officials say while a pair of bombings in another part of the country killed 10 civilians and three security personnel.
Fifteen insurgents were also wounded in the drone attack near Biland village bordering the North Waziristan tribal region.
SPAIN: Standard & Poor’s is downgrading Spain’s credit rating two notches to the agency’s lowest investment-grade level.
S&P says it is lowering its rating on debt issued by Spain from BBB+ to BBB-. It also assigned a negative outlook to the rating, meaning it could be further downgraded.
ASIA: Asian stock markets fell today after Spain credit downgrade and the US earnings season opened with a whimper.
JAPAN: The head of the International Monetary Fund called today for urgent action to tackle Europe’s debt problems and an approaching fiscal crisis in the US, warning that ripple effects from the global slowdown are being felt around the world.
