Month: February 2019

The British Broadcasting Corporation asked the White House for a review of security arrangements on Tuesday after a BBC cameraman was assaulted at a Donald Trump rally. BBC cameraman Ron Skeans was attacked by a Trump supporter yelling anti-media slogans during the U.S. president’s rally in El Paso, Texas, Monday night. Skeans was unhurt and the man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat was restrained and removed from the riser where the media had assembled. Paul Danahar, the BBC’s Americas Bureau Editor, said in a tweet that he had asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders for a “full …

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Russian lawmakers backed tighter internet controls on Tuesday to defend against foreign meddling in draft legislation that critics warn could disrupt Russia’s internet and be used to stifle dissent. The legislation, which some Russian media have likened to an online “iron curtain,” passed its first of three readings in the 450-seat lower chamber of parliament. The bill seeks to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by state authorities and proposes building a national Domain Name System to allow the internet to continue functioning even if the country is cut off from foreign infrastructure. The legislation was drafted …

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg cautioned Tuesday the military alliance will respond to “more Russian missiles” following the collapse of a key Cold War-era arms treaty but will not deploy more nuclear missiles in Europe. Stoltenberg called on Russia to return to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which the alliance insists Russia violated by developing a new missile system Moscow calls Novator 9M729. The U.S. began the six-month process of withdrawing from the treaty on Feb. 2, claiming Russia’s missile system violates the treaty’s range requirements. The U.S. believes Russia’s new missile system could enable Moscow to launch …

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Slovakia Tuesday following his visit to Budapest – another stop on a trip focused on Russia and China’s growing influence in the central Europe region. As Henry Ridgwell reports, alongside the warm overtures towards America’s NATO allies in Central Europe, there were noticeable tensions on issues such as freedom of the press and relations with Russia. …

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When France last recalled its ambassador from Italy it was 1940 and Benito Mussolini had just used the opportunity of the Germans marching into Paris to declare war on his northern neighbor. The backdrop to the withdrawal last week by the Élysée Palace of its ambassador to Rome following months of slurs traded between the country’s leaders, amid disputes over migration policy and Libya, was not accompanied by the thump of artillery shells. Nonetheless, it has prompted rising fears that the recent public bickering between two of the European Union’s founding members is only just getting started and could spark …

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The European Court of Human Rights has dealt Turkish human rights activists a significant blow in its refusal to hear a pivotal case stemming from a Turkish military operation that left more than 100 civilians dead. The military campaign took place in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast between December 2015 and February 2016 as the security forces sought to oust PKK separatist fighters from towns and cities across the region. The European Court cases focused on Cizre, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Turkish security forces “deliberately and unjustifiably killed about 130 people — …

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Hungary is facing “many interconnected human rights challenges,” including laws targeting civic groups, backsliding on women’s rights and the systematic detention of asylum-seekers, the Council of Europe’s human rights chief said Monday. Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic, who visited Hungary last week, also expressed concerns about the independence of Hungary’s media and judiciary.   “The space for the work of NGOs, human rights defenders and journalists critical of the government has become very narrow and restricted,” Mijatovic said in a statement, calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to “reverse its worrying course” on human rights.   Orban’s government said Mijatovic’s criticism …

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Battling a sharp rise in food costs, Turkish authorities opened their own markets on Monday to sell cheap vegetables directly to shoppers, cutting out retailers who the government has accused of jacking up prices. Crowds queued outside municipality tents to buy tomatoes, onions and peppers in Istanbul’s Bayrampasa district, waiting for an hour for items selling at half the regular shop prices. The move to set up state markets follows a 31 percent year-on-year surge in food prices in January and precedes local elections next month in which President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party faces a tough challenge to maintain support. …

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Serbian opposition parties said on Monday they had started to boycott parliamentary sessions in protest against what they see as the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Aleksandar Vucic and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Opposition parties and their backers accuse Vucic and the SNS of stifling media freedoms and carrying out attacks on political opponents and journalists in Serbia, a country seeking to join the European Union. They deny the accusations. The boycott move comes amid weekly protests by thousands of people that began in December and have spread from the capital Belgrade to a dozen other towns and …

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