Governments in joint session

BALKANS: The Bosnian and Serbian governments held their first joint session in Sarajevo yesterday since their conflict started 25 years ago during the division of Yugoslavia.

The meeting will produce co-operation agreements on finding missing persons, telecommunications, protection of cultural heritage and sustainable development.

Both countries aspire to join the EU, convincing them that their interests lie in repairing bilateral relations and improving their economies together.

Nationalists mark Unity Day

RUSSIA: Tens of thousands of people took part in a pro-government march in central Moscow yesterday to mark Unity Day.

Unity Day marks a popular uprising that drove Polish forces from Moscow in 1612, heralding the end of the Time of Troubles. It replaces the Soviet Union’s November 7 celebration of the October revolution.

Activities were scrapped in St Petersburg as the city mourns the victims of Saturday’s plane crash in Egypt that killed 224 people.

Taliban blamed for stoning

AFGHANISTAN: Ghor provincial spokesman Abdul Hai Khateby blamed the Taliban yesterday for the apparent stoning to death of a 22-year-old woman accused of adultery.

A video posted online purported to show the woman, identified only as Rokhshana, forced to stand in a deep hole in the ground during an October 24 attack on her village and being stoned by six men while a larger group of men watched.

Gay men blood ban to be phased out

FRANCE: The ban on blood donations by gay men will be phased out from spring 2016, Health Minister Marisol Touraine said yesterday, hailing the end “of a taboo and discrimination.”

Henceforth, no blood donors may be rejected based on their sexuality.

Ms Touraine said that lifting the blood donor ban would proceed in stages to allow the government to study whether and how risks change.

Parties bid to halt indy declaration

SPAIN: Catalan branches of three anti-independence parties filed complaints before the Constitutional Court yesterday against moves by the Catalonian parliament to announce a formal start to secession.

Spain’s ruling conservative Popular Party, together with the Socialist and Citizens opposition parties, filed the appeals, two of them calling on the court to issue a restraining order.

Pro-independence parties in the Catalan parliament want to vote on a secession announcement on Monday.

Separatists held over Modi protests

INDIA: Security forces announced the detention of key separatist leaders and hundreds of their supporters to prevent them protesting during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s planned visit to Jammu and Kashmir this weekend.

They had called for a march by a million people near the site of Mr Modi’s public meeting in Srinagar on Saturday, challenging Indian sovereignty.

Leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Shabir Ahmed Shah are under house arrest.

Yameen declares emergency

MALDIVES: President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom declared a 30-day state of emergency yesterday following an explosion on his speedboat and subsequent discoveries of a homemade bomb near his residence and a weapons cache.

“Because these would be a threat to the public and the nation, the National Security Council has advised to take immediate steps to protect the people of Maldives,” said Attorney General Mohamed Anil.

36 killed as cargo plane crash-lands

SOUTH SUDAN: Thirty-six people were killed yesterday when a reportedly overloaded cargo plane crashed on the bank of the River Nile after taking off from the capital Juba.

A baby and an elderly woman were pulled alive from the fuselage.

An unnamed source at the Russian aviation agency was quoted as saying that the plane, which was made in the Soviet Union in 1971, appeared to have been overloaded.