The week at a glance...Europe
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Geneva
Pilot hijacks plane: An Ethiopian co-pilot hijacked the passenger jet he was flying from Addis Ababa to Milan and landed it in Geneva instead, saying he wanted political asylum in Switzerland. When the pilot on the Ethiopian Airlines flight went to the toilet, Hailemedhin Abera locked him out of the cockpit. Some of the 200 passengers realized what was happening when the pilot began banging on the cockpit door, but officials said others didn’t know of the hijacking until after the plane landed safely in Geneva, accompanied by French and Italian fighter jets. (The Swiss Air Force only flies during office hours.) Abera lowered himself to the tarmac on a rope from the cockpit window and surrendered to Swiss authorities. He will be charged with taking hostages and faces 20 years in prison; he is unlikely to get asylum.
Vienna
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Iran at the table: The difficult task of hammering out a long-term nuclear agreement with Iran began this week in Vienna. Representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. sat down with Iranian negotiators hoping to reach an agreement before an interim accord expires in July, but neither side has yet presented a concrete proposal. Iran, which says its nuclear enrichment program is for research and energy rather than nuclear weapons, wants to retain the ability to enrich some nuclear fuel, and above all it wants crippling economic sanctions lifted. Western officials want Iran to cap its enrichment of uranium to low fissile purity and to scrap many of its centrifuges so that it won’t be able to quickly create a nuclear bomb. “We have long and complicated negotiations ahead of us,” said Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi.
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