Month: September 2017

Russia’s proposal for United Nations peacekeepers to be sent to Ukraine shows that the Kremlin is interested in negotiating a resolution to the three-year-old conflict, said the United States special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker. “I take the point of view that Russia would not have proposed anything if they weren’t prepared to get into a negotiation about it,” said Volker in an interview Monday with VOA’s Ukrainian Service chief Myroslava Gongadze. “They haven’t done anything for three years on this. They haven’t proposed a peacekeeping force before. As recently as a couple weeks ago, they were saying that they …

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Turkey’s state-run news agency says a court in Istanbul has ordered a columnist for Turkey’s main opposition newspaper released from prison pending the conclusion of his trial. Anadolu Agency reported that the court released Cumhuriyet columnist Kadri Gursel from pre-trial detention on Monday.   Anadolu says the court ruled that four other newspaper employees, including editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, would remain in custody.   The trial was adjourned until Oct. 31. Prosecutors have charged 19 Cumhuriyet employees with “sponsoring terror organizations” that include Kurdish militants and the network of the U.S.-based cleric the government blames for …

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The Alternative for Germany party has pledged to use its platform in parliament to “reclaim the country and its people.” The AfD won nearly 14 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, giving them 94 seats. Many believed the turmoil of the 20th century had immunized Germany from a return of far-right politics, but Sunday’s result proved them wrong. For the group’s opponents who gathered to protest the result in Berlin, the Alternative for Germany’s anti-migrant agenda has parallels with the Nazis’ rise to power. “It is the first time since after the war that a racist and neo-Nazi party …

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The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party has pledged to use its platform in parliament to “reclaim the country and its people.” The AfD won close to 14 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, giving them 94 seats — the first significant far-right presence in Germany’s parliament since World War II. Henry Ridgwell reports from Berlin. …

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A referendum on whether Catalonia should secede from Spain is putting intense pressure on the region’s police officers, who feel caught between their oath to the nation’s constitution and loyalty to local leaders who have vowed to create a new European state.   Francesc Vidal, a 16-year veteran of the force known as the Mossos d’Esquadra, described the referendum planned for October 1 as a “train collision” between Spanish authorities desperate to stop what they consider an illegal vote and Catalan separatists who insist that the balloting go forward.   “We only ask that they don’t put us in the …

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In the hours after the mutilated body of a 9-year-old girl was found in a forest near the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, rumors spread quickly that a local Roma man had been arrested — and violent retribution followed. A meeting of local leaders the same day in August last year denounced nearby Roma as criminals and demanded evictions, while a mob circled homes, pelting buildings with rocks and trashing a community where many Roma had lived for a decade, said rights groups. By early September, all two dozen Roma targeted, including 17 children, had fled. A year on, they …

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Swiss voters rejected raising women’s retirement age to 65 in a referendum on Sunday on shoring up the wealthy nation’s pension system as a wave of Baby Boomers stops working. Authorities pushing the first serious reform of the pension system in two decades had warned that old-age benefits were increasingly at risk as life expectancy rises and interest rates remain exceptionally low, cutting investment yields. But it fell by a margin of 53-47 percent, sending the government back to the drawing board on the thorny social issue. The package turned down under the Swiss system of direct democracy included making …

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Sunday’s national election in Germany will sound the starting gun for a renewed debate on fixing flaws in Europe’s shared currency to prevent future crises.   France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has made it clear he is willing to push for change to strengthen the euro and is expected to make proposals in a major speech Tuesday. He is pushing for, among other things, a finance minister for the eurozone to oversee a central fiscal pot of money that could even out recessions in individual members.   Even pro-euro policymakers concede their 19-nation currency union contains weaknesses that fed its …

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The Russian Defense Ministry has announced one of its generals was killed while fighting Islamic State in Syria. “Division general Valeri Assapov was killed when a shell exploded during shelling by IS fighters,” the ministry was quoted as saying by local media. He was serving as an advisor to Syrian government troops “in the operation for the liberation of the city of Deir el-Zour,” it said. Deir el-Zour province, on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, is rich with oil and gas fields that served as a key revenue stream for IS at the peak of its power. Meanwhile, Syrian media …

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