Month: September 2018

The European Union sued Poland on Monday in the EU’s highest court over the ruling party’s changes to the judiciary, which the bloc believes violate the independence of the courts. “The European Commission maintains that the Polish law on the Supreme Court is incompatible with EU law as it undermines the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges,” the EU’s executive Commission said. The new Polish law lowers the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65 years, putting 27 out of 72 sitting judges at risk of being forced to retire. The mandate of the …

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A 51-year-old Russian national has been arrested in Norway on suspicion of spying after he attended a conference on strengthening cooperation between Europe’s parliamentary administrations, his lawyer said Monday. Lawyer Hege Aakre told the Norwegian news agency NTB that her client, who was not identified, was being questioned by Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, PST.   The man was arrested Friday during the event by the European Center for Parliamentary Research and Documentation, held at Norway’s Parliament, and placed on pre-trial detention for two weeks the following day. No further details were available. Aakre said her client denies any wrongdoing.   …

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Russia will supply Syria with a more modern S-300 missile defense system in the coming weeks, Moscow said Monday. Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said President Vladimir Putin ordered the upgrade after a Syrian Soviet-era S-200 shot down a Russian plane last Tuesday, killing all 15 people on board. Russia has blamed Israel, whose military was conducting airstrikes on Syria at the time, for the incident. “[Russia will] transfer the modern S-300 air defense system to the Syrian armed forces within two weeks.” Russia has said the S-200 system is not advanced enough for the Syrian military to distinguish Russian …

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The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross are partnering with technology powerhouses to launch a global initiative aimed at preventing famines. “The fact that millions of people — many of them children — still suffer from severe malnutrition and famine  in the 21st century is a global tragedy,” World Bank President Jim Young Kim said announcing the initiative. The global organization will work with Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services to develop the Famine Action Mechanism (FAM), a system capable of identifying food crisis area that are most likely to turn into a …

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Spain’s maritime rescue service said Sunday it rescued more than 400 people from 15 small boats, most of them off the country’s southern coast, while humanitarian groups lamented that the sole private rescue boat operating near the deadly central Mediterranean human trafficking route risked being put out of action by Italy’s anti-migrant leaders. While the Spaniards pulled 447 people to safety on Saturday in the western part of the sea, two humanitarian groups which operate the last private rescue vessel in the central Mediterranean, considered the deadliest route for trafficked migrants, said Panama had yanked the ship’s registration following Italian …

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Macedonia’s president says he won’t vote in a Sept. 30 referendum on whether to change the Balkan country’s name to “North Macedonia.” Macedonians will vote next weekend on a proposal to change the country’s name, ending a long-running dispute with neighboring Greece, which sees the use of the term “Macedonia ” as a claim on its own province of the same name. President Gjorge Ivanov was speaking to members of the Macedonian diaspora in Detroit on Saturday. He reiterated his position that the deal with Greece is “harmful and defeating” for Macedonia, according to a statement released by his office …

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The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday again blamed Israel for the downing of a Russian plane by Syrian government forces and said Israel appeared “ungrateful” for Moscow’s efforts to rein in Iran-backed fighters in Syria. Syrian government forces mistook the Russian Il-20 reconnaissance plane for an Israeli jet and shot it down Monday, killing all 15 people aboard. While the Russian military initially blamed the plane’s loss on Israel, President Vladimir Putin later attributed it to “a chain of tragic, fatal circumstances.” The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday presented its latest findings on the Il-20’s downing, laying the blame squarely …

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Pope Francis warned Sunday against any rebirth of the “pernicious” anti-Semitic attitudes that fueled the Holocaust as he marked the annual remembrance for Lithuania’s centuries-old Jewish community that was nearly wiped out during World War II. Francis began his second day in the Baltics in Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas, where an estimated 3,000 Jews survived out of a community of 37,000 during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation.   During Mass in Santakos Park under a brilliant autumn sun, Francis honored both Jewish victims of the Nazis and the Lithuanians who were deported to Siberian gulags or were tortured, killed and oppressed …

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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Washington would not wait to impose sanctions on any shippers helping to get fuel to North Korea, in an apparent warning to Russia days after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Moscow of cheating on the measures. North Korea continues to employ tactics to evade U.N. sanctions, Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement, adding that U.N. member states are required to prohibit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum fuel to the country. “The United States will not hesitate to impose sanctions on any individual, entity or vessel supporting North Korea’s illicit activities, regardless of nationality,” Nauert said. The …

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Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky after offering 30.6 billion pounds ($40 billion) for the British broadcaster, in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group. U.S. cable giant Comcast bid 17.28 pounds a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a 15.67 offer by Fox, the Takeover Panel said in a  statement shortly after final bids were made Saturday. Comcast’s final offer was significantly higher than its bid going into the auction of 14.75 pounds, and compares with Sky’s closing share price of 15.85 pounds on Friday. Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast, coveted Sky to …

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