Politics

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened Europe that unless it provides Turkey more money to tackle the migrant crisis, Turkey would be opening the floodgates for migrants to enter Europe. “In the past we have stopped people at the gates to Europe, in Edirne [in northwest Turkey] we stopped their buses. This can happen once or twice, and then we’ll open the gates and wish them a safe journey,” Erdogan said during an address to the Young Businessmen Confederation of Turkey.

“Forget it.”

That’s Turkish ambassador to the EU Selim Yenel’s message to Europe in response to a Dutch plan that would resettle 250,000 refugees per year directly from Turkey if Ankara can manage to close off the Aegean sea route to Greece.

A gunman has killed at least 6 people in an attack on an education department in southern Saudi Arabia, multiple sources confirm. 

The attacker has been arrested. From Arab News:

A teacher armed with an automatic weapon stormed a Ministry of Education office in the southern region of Jazan and shot dead at least six people on Thursday, local media reported.

 

Three other office staff were injured, online news site 3alyoum.com said, quoting Jazan police.

 

 

The United States has announced plans to double its military presence in Europe as part of a move to support NATO against increasing “Russian aggression”. The plans are part of the European Reassurance Initiative outlined in the 2017 defense budget, which has been sent to congress for approval. Theepochtimes.com reports: “We’re going to move to a so-called heel to toe basis, where we’re over there consistently on the ground exercising,” said Under Secretary of Defense Mike McCord in a Feb. 9 briefing, according to a transcript.