Month: January 2018

Next month’s Winter Olympics is the immediate focus for Sweden but the country is already training its next generation of winter sports athletes in special high school programs that combine sports and education for ambitious teenagers. At the Jamtlands Gymnaisum high school in Ostersund, some 550 kilometers (340 miles )north of Stockholm, promising young skiers and biathletes are put through their paces four mornings a week by highly-qualified coaches at a local ski stadium. They return to school at lunchtime, piling their plates high with pasta and salad in the cafeteria before heading to the classroom to catch up on …

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Bosnia’s security agencies are investigating a Serbian right-wing group that the national government said Tuesday was a paramilitary unit formed to create “a problem” for those opposed to Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik. Members of Serbian Honor caused an uproar when they marched in full combat gear in the Bosnian Serb capital, Banja Luka, during a January 9 military parade to mark a national holiday in one the country’s two autonomous regions. The parade was staged as a challenge to a ruling by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court to ban the holiday because it discriminated against the country’s other ethnic groups. Bosnia …

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The World Bank has joined the International Monetary Fund in criticizing a Ukrainian draft law to create an anti-corruption court, the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported on Monday, citing a letter from the lender to the presidential administration. In response to international pressure to speed up the process, President Petro Poroshenko submitted a new draft law to parliament in December, but the IMF and now the World Bank say the legislation is not in line with recommendations from the Venice Commission, a European rights and legal watchdog. Ukraine’s Western backers have long called for the authorities to establish an independent court …

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Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ minority government lost a confidence vote Tuesday, forcing him to try to build a coalition with opposition parties as he battles allegations of subsidy fraud. Promises to spearhead a cleanup of Czech politics helped Babis’ ANO party win nearly 30 percent of the vote in a national election in October. But he has become caught up in allegations he manipulated ownership of one of his companies a decade ago to win a 2-million-euro subsidy, mostly from European Union funds, meant for small businesses. He denies wrongdoing. Babis was investigated and charged with fraud before the …

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Pope Francis begged for forgiveness Tuesday for the “irreparable damage” done to children who were raped and molested by priests, opening his visit to Chile by diving head-first into a scandal that has greatly hurt the Catholic Church’s credibility here and cast a cloud over his visit.   Speaking to Chile’s president, lawmakers, judges and other authorities, Francis said he felt “bound to express my pain and shame” that some of Chile’s pastors had sexually abused children in their care. He was interrupted by applause from the dignitaries at La Moneda palace when he pronounced the words.   “I am …

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Russia’s main independent polling agency has stopped publishing results of opinion polls on the upcoming presidential election, fearing legal repercussions.   Levada Center was listed as a foreign agent in 2016 under a new law aimed at curbing alleged foreign influence on public life in Russia. Authorities insist that the law does not aim to target critics of the Kremlin.   Levada is not a foreign company, but Russian authorities are able to list it as a foreign agent because it has received foreign funding.   Levada’s director, Lev Gudkov, told the Russian daily Vedomosti on Tuesday that the agency …

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The head of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats lobbied party members Tuesday to vote in favor of opening coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, amid strong opposition from grassroots members. Martin Schulz made the rounds in the populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia, talking with party members to push for their approval at a party convention Sunday to open formal negotiations with Merkel’s Union bloc. A rejection of talks would be a setback for both Schulz and Merkel, who has already failed to forge a coalition with two smaller parties. The Social Democrats and the Union bloc, who have governed Germany …

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The new U.S. Embassy in London, denigrated last week by President Donald Trump as too expensive and poorly located, opened its doors to the public Tuesday for the first time.   The gleaming embassy, in the formerly industrial Nine Elms neighborhood in south London, replaces the embassy in Grosvenor Square that had for decades been associated with the U.S. presence in the United Kingdom. That building has been sold to a Qatari government investment fund planning to turn it into a luxury hotel.   U.S. officials say it would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade security at …

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European Union chief Donald Tusk is urging Britain to change its mind about leaving the bloc next year and says the EU would welcome the country back. Tusk said Tuesday that “if the U.K. government sticks to its decision to leave, Brexit will become a reality, with all its negative consequences, in March next year unless there is a change of heart among our British friends.” Addressing EU lawmakers, Tusk quoted U.K. Brexit envoy David Davis as saying that “if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.” Tusk said that “we here on the continent …

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