LONDON (Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned on Wednesday of a Sunni-Shi’ite divide that he said could pitch the Muslim world back into the “darkness of the middle ages.”

Gul said in a speech to a British foreign policy thinktank that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on opposition could “drag the whole region into turmoil and bloodshed.”

LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah
Gul warned on Wednesday of a Sunni-Shi’ite divide that he said
could pitch the Muslim world back into the “darkness of the
middle ages”.

Gul said in a speech to a British foreign policy thinktank
that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on opposition
could “drag the whole region into turmoil and bloodshed”.

LONDON/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned on Wednesday that President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on an eight-month-old revolt in Syria threatened to “drag the whole region into turmoil and bloodshed.”

Gul’s fears for regional stability followed a searing attack by Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan the day before when he accused Assad of “cowardice” for turning guns on his own people, evoking comparisons with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Erdogan bluntly told his former friend to quit.

LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Latin American countries
must act together to defend themselves from the “economic
hurricane” sweeping the industrialised world, Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday.

“If we are facing a problem today it’s not that the markets
don’t trust us but quite the contrary, international capital
(is) seeking safe havens in our countries and this has caused
revaluation pressures on our currencies,” Santos said in a
speech in London hosted by Canning House, an institute that
promotes stronger ties between Britain and Latin America.

LONDON, Nov 16 (Reuters) – A British cabinet minister
criticised Germany’s position on a European Union financial
transactions tax as “completely unjustified” on Wednesday,
raising tension between Britain and Germany days before their
leaders meet to discuss the euro zone debt crisis.

Business Secretary Vince Cable responded sharply to a senior
member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc
who accused Britain on Tuesday of selfishness over its rejection
of a EU-wide financial transactions tax, which Germany backs.

LONDON (Reuters) – Business Secretary Vince Cable slammed Germany’s position on an EU financial transactions tax as “completely unjustified” on Wednesday, raising tension between Britain and Germany days before their leaders meet to discuss the euro zone debt crisis.

Cable responded sharply to a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc who accused Britain on Tuesday of selfishness over its rejection of a European Union-wide financial transactions tax, which Germany backs.

LONDON (Reuters) – A union leader dismissed as a “media stunt” on Saturday the British government’s suggestion that public sector unions stage a token 15-minute stoppage later this month instead of a planned national strike over pension reform.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said in an interview with Saturday’s Financial Times that public sector workers would not lose a day’s pay if they limited planned industrial action on November 30 to a quarter of an hour.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain denied a newspaper report on Saturday that it was considering making deeper cuts to its army than previously announced and that soldiers wounded in Afghanistan could be among those losing their jobs.

The Daily Telegraph said it had seen a leaked memo sent to senior commanders in Afghanistan that said cuts in army numbers would be more than double the figure originally announced, and wounded soldiers would not be exempt.

LONDON (Reuters) – A euro zone breakup would be challenging for British exporters but there would be still be export opportunities both in Europe and in emerging markets, the head of Britain’s trade and investment promotion agency said on Friday.

The British government is making contingency plans for a possible split in the currency bloc, including a study of its impact on private companies, Nick Baird, chief executive of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), told Reuters in an interview.

LONDON (Reuters) – The standoff over Iran’s nuclear program is entering a more dangerous phase and the risk of conflict will increase if Iran does not negotiate, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned on Wednesday.

He said Britain was considering further sanctions on Iran’s financial and energy sectors after a U.N. nuclear agency report that he said “completely discredited” Iran’s assertion that its nuclear program was peaceful.