Russian President Vladimir Putin's confrontation with the West is "artificial" and aimed at protecting Russia's ruling elite and distracting attention from a corrupt system, a former Russian oil tycoon said on Wednesday.
FIFA's embattled president, Sepp Blatter, and his second-in-command have hired high-powered lawyers to represent them, two sources said as a corruption probe engulfs soccer's global governing body with Swiss authorities identifying suspicious bank transactions.
Police on Tuesday began hauling away mostly African migrants from makeshift camps on the Italy-France border as European Union ministers met in Luxembourg to hash out plans to deal with the immigration crisis.
Russia accused NATO on Wednesday of reviving the ghost of the Cold War by encroaching close to its borders and seeking to change the strategic balance of power, as Germany denounced Moscow's nuclear weapons build-up as a Soviet-style reflex.
