Month: May 2019

U.N. agencies are expressing anger and sadness at the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including children, hit by airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Thursday night. This is just the latest tragedy to hit Yemen, which has been at war for more than four years.The U.N. human rights office reports nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed and 10,800 wounded as of November 2018. Most of the deaths and injuries are due to aerial bombardments by the Saudi-led coalition, it reports. Saudi Arabia entered the civil conflict in March 2015 in support of the Yemeni government, which is locked …

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Britain’s tumultuous divorce from the European Union was again in disarray Friday as last-ditch cross-party talks over breaking the Brexit impasse “have gone as far as they can go,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May, because of the instability of the government. Corbyn said the Conservative Party’s moves toward selecting a new leader mean the government has become “ever more unstable and its authority eroded — undermining confidence in the “government’s ability to deliver any compromise agreement.” Nearly three years after the United Kingdom unexpectedly voted in a referendum to leave the EU, it is …

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Ukraine’s ruling coalition broke up Friday after the People’s Front party quit outgoing President Petro Poroshenko’s faction, potentially paving the way for incoming President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call a snap election.  “We declare our withdrawal from the current coalition, the cessation of its activities … and the initiative to form a new coalition with a new agenda,” Maksym Burbak, the People’s Front faction leader, told parliament. Parliament now has one month to form a new coalition or else the president can dissolve parliament and call snap parliamentary elections. Zelenskiy won a landslide against Poroshenko last month but his newly formed …

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Russia on Thursday presented a draft resolution to the Security Council accusing the UN’s chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, of politicization just before a new probe begins of chemical attacks in Syria. The draft text, seen by AFP, states that the Council — where Russia holds veto power — is the only international body that can impose measures on countries that violate the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) agreed last year to set up a mechanism that would identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks, a move bitterly opposed by Russia and Syria. Russian …

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The EU on Thursday defended its push to reform the European defense industry in a retort to U.S. accusations that the overhaul would shut out allies such as Washington from European projects. The skirmish over military spending comes as transatlantic ties are at a long-time low with fears running high that cooperation at NATO could be endangered. In a letter seen by AFP, two senior officials said that the European Union “remains fully committed to working with the U.S. as a core partner in security and defense matters” despite the planned changes. However, the EU officials also insisted that the …

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The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Chechen group and five people, including at least three Russians, over allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and the torture of LGBTI people.  The sanctions against the Terek Special Rapid Response Team in the Chechen Republic and the five were announced by the U.S. Treasury under the Magnitsky Act. They included suspects in the deaths of Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky and Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.  The 2012 Magnitsky Act is named after the 37-year-old Russian auditor and imposes visa bans and asset freezes on officials linked to his death in prison 2009.  Those targeted on Thursday included Elena Anatolievna Trikulya and …

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Cossack region is a hotbed of Russian conservatism and nostalgia for an imperial past. …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for a compromise to ease tensions over a plan to build a cathedral in a popular park in the nation’s fourth-largest city that has sparked protests and drawn nationwide attention. Unsanctioned protests in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg were held for four consecutive days near a central park where two local tycoons are planning to build a new cathedral. Several dozen have been detained, and 21 of them have been handed jail terms ranging from 2 to 10 days for disobeying police, according to local authorities. The protests reflected outrage over authorities …

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The winners and losers in European Parliament elections next week are likely to be determined in the suburbs of the continent’s cities, which are turning into three-way electoral battlegrounds. The elections are being seen as a moment of truth for an array of anti-migrant nationalist populist parties, which hope to reverse European integration. Establishment Conservatives are hoping they can shore up their support in the suburbs in the face of strong challenges from left-wing progressives and nationalist populists, who have been campaigning against EU integration and for a “Europe of Fatherlands.” Populists are forecast to make significant gains in the …

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A longtime chief of the Basque militant separatist group ETA was arrested Thursday on the streets of a French Alps town after being on the run for 17 years, Spain’s Interior Ministry said. Jose Antonio Urruticoetxea Bengoetxea, known by the alias Josu Ternera, has been the most wanted ETA member since 2002. Interpol, the global police body, had issued a red alert against him. Spanish authorities accuse him of crimes against humanity, multiple killings and belonging to a terrorist organization. ETA, whose initials stand for “Basque Homeland and Freedom” in the Basque language, killed more than 850 people during its …

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Spain this week withdrew a frigate assigned to a U.S. navy task force ordered into the Persian Gulf. The decision is widely seen as reflecting persistent fears of Spain’s socialist government about getting involved in a possible war with Iran.   The government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made the decision despite the risk of further straining frayed relations with the United States that could endanger major U.S. defense contracts with Spain’s expanding naval industry. Spain’s newest Class-100 frigate, the Mendez Nunez, was being showcased with the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group under a cooperation agreement signed with Washington two years …

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