Month: March 2019

Moscow’s recent raids in Simferopol are part of a broader effort to suppress democratic activists in the Russian-controlled Black Sea Peninsula. That’s the assertion being made by Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body that Russia has outlawed.    Crimean Tatars, who are predominantly Muslim, confronted Russian security forces on Wednesday after 20 people were detained in what Russian officials called a sweep for suspected Islamist militants.    Ukraine’s representative to the European Union, Ambassador Mykola Tochytskyi, immediately called on European partners to “harshly and decisively” condemn the “illegal” searches of homes and arrests, triggering broad international condemnation by U.S. and …

READ MORE

“Yellow vest” activists protested across France on Saturday to support an activist injured last week in a confrontation with police and to show that they remain mobilized against the government’s economic policies.    The demonstrators were undeterred by police protest bans or repeated injuries in 20 weeks of demonstrations. So they were out marching again in Paris, Bordeaux and other cities to keep pressing President Emmanuel Macron to do more to help France’s struggling working classes or to step down altogether.    They’re also showing solidarity with Genevieve Legay, a 73-year-old anti-globalization activist who suffered a head injury in Nice last weekend. The …

READ MORE

Three teenage migrants have been charged in Malta with seizing control of a merchant ship and using force and intimidation, a crime considered a terrorist activity under Maltese law.   One of the accused was identified by the court during the arraignment Saturday as Abdalla Bari, a 19-year-old from Guinea. The other two are 15 and 16, and as minors could not be named. One is also from Guinea and the other from Ivory Coast.   They are suspects in the hijacking in the Mediterranean this week of the El Hiblu 1, an oil tanker. The captain has said that …

READ MORE

Voters in Slovakia are heading to the polls Saturday in round two of the country’s presidential election. Zuzana Caputova, a 45-year-old environmental lawyer who champions gay rights and opposes Slovakia’s ban on abortion, won over 40 percent of the ballots in the first round of the vote two weeks ago. AFP, the French news agency, reports that recent polls indicate she may gain at least 60 percent of the vote in Saturday’s race. Maros Sefcovic came in a distant second in the first round with 18.7 percent of the vote.  The 52-year-old European Commission vice president built his campaign on …

READ MORE

On Sunday Turkey holds critical local elections, with control of the country’s main cities up for grabs. With inflation soaring and recession threatening, the election may pose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan biggest challenge. A week ahead of Sunday’s polls Erdogan rallied hundreds of thousands in his hometown of Istanbul, in a bid to consolidate his voting base. Even though Erdogan is not up for election, he is leading the campaign, aware his AK Party’s more than decade-long grip on most of Turkey’s main cities is under threat. Since Erdogan won Istanbul’s mayorship in 1994, a victory that served as a …

READ MORE

On Sunday, Turkish voters go to the polls in critical local elections, in which control of the country’s main cities are up for grabs. With inflation soaring and the country in recession, this election is set to pose a big challenge for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

READ MORE

More than 3.5 million Syrian refugees migrated to Turkey since the Syrian crisis began in 2011. In January, Turkish Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu said that nearly 80,000 of those refugees have become naturalized citizens of Turkey. Roughly 53,000 of which are able to participate in Turkey’s elections Sunday. VOA’s Tan Cetin spoke to two Syrian-born Turkish citizens to find out what factors play a role in their voting decision and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. …

READ MORE

Facebook said Friday it is further tightening requirements for European Union political advertising, in its latest efforts to prevent foreign interference and increase transparency ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections. However, some EU politicians criticized the social media giant, saying the measures will make pan-European online campaigning harder. Under the new rules, people, parties and other groups buying political ads will have to confirm to Facebook that they are located in the same EU country as the Facebook users they are targeting. That’s on top of a previously announced requirement for ad buyers to confirm their identities. It means advertisements …

READ MORE

Five years after a deadly separatist conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine, the front line between government forces and Russia-backed separatists has become a de-facto border, cutting off a generation of first-time voters from Sunday’s presidential election.   Only those who left their homes in the east to live in areas under government control will be able to cast ballots for Ukraine’s new president.   Since 2014, a separatist war in Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donetsk and Luhansk has killed more than 13,000 people and has prompted many to seek the relative stability of government-controlled areas.   The mood on …

READ MORE

Agnes Varda, the French New Wave pioneer who for decades beguiled, challenged and charmed moviegoers in films that inspired generations of filmmakers, has died. She was 90. Varda’s production company, Cine-Tamaris, said Varda died early morning Friday at her home in Paris from cancer. With a two-tone bowl haircut, the Belgian-born Varda was a spirited, diminutive figure who towered over more than a half century of moviemaking. Her first film, made at the age of 27, “La Pointe Courte,” earned her the nickname Grandmother of the New Wave, even though she — the sole woman among the movement — was …

READ MORE

Europe’s centrists will be looking this Saturday to Bratislava, hoping that a 45-year-old anti-corruption lawyer running on an avowedly liberal platform will win Slovak’s presidential elections, thereby bucking the continent’s populist trend. The environmental activist, Zuzana Caputova, comfortably won the first round of the elections earlier this month with 40 percent of the vote and is facing off against European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, who’s backed by the ruling leftist populist Smer-SD party. Caputova is an icon of a new emerging generation of women leaders in Central Europe, but she is, above all, a liberal figure on a continent …

READ MORE