Month: April 2021

The U.S. military commander keeping close watch on Russia’s massing of military forces in Crimea and along the border of Ukraine says there is only a “low to medium” likelihood that Moscow’s forces will invade. Air Force General Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command, shared the assessment with lawmakers Thursday during a hearing in Washington, where he warned that the Kremlin’s maneuvering remains of “great concern.” FILE – Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 25, 2020.”There is a very …

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President Emmanuel Macron Thursday praised the painstaking efforts to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral, two years after flames ripped through its centuries-old attic and sent its spire crashing through the vaults below.   In the hours after the blaze, Macron told a distraught nation that the cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, would be restored and later promised it would be reopened to worshippers by 2024.   More than 700 days after workers scrambled to shore up Notre Dame’s flying buttresses, save its 13th-century stained-glass rose windows and install movement sensors, the effort to make the site secure ahead of …

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The Kremlin has long sought to clamp down on opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s appeal among younger Russians — as President Vladimir Putin, 66, has struggled to maintain his popularity among members of a generation that has essentially known him as the country’s sole leader their entire lives.    That approach took a new twist on Wednesday in Moscow — when Russian authorities announced criminal charges against four editors of a university news publication — accusing journalists of the publication DOXA of “inciting minors to take place in illegal rallies” in support of jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny earlier this year.   …

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The Biden administration on Thursday announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and sanctions against nearly three dozen people and companies as it moved to hold the Kremlin accountable for interference in last year’s presidential election and the hacking of federal agencies. The actions, foreshadowed for weeks by the administration, represent the first retaliatory measures announced against the Kremlin for the hack, familiarly known as the SolarWinds breach. In that intrusion, Russian hackers are believed to have infected widely used software with malicious code, enabling them to access the networks of at least nine agencies in what U.S. officials believe …

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In Spain, only ten percent of the population lives in rural areas, placing the Spanish countryside among the emptiest regions of Europe. The COVID pandemic and the ability for many urban dwellers to work remotely appears to be reversing that.  For VOA, Alfonso Beato has this report narrated by Jonathan Spier. Camera: Alfonso Beato      …

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Russian authorities on Wednesday charged four editors of an online student magazine with encouraging minors to take part in illegal activity for a report about the nationwide protests supporting jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny.All four were ordered by a court not to leave their residences for the next two months and were banned from using the internet and communicating with anyone other than immediate family, lawyers and law-enforcement agencies.The charges, which carry a potential sentence of three years in prison, come amid heightened pressure on independent news media.Police raided the Moscow apartments of the four DOXA magazine editors as well as …

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The United States will announce sanctions on Russia as soon as Thursday for alleged election interference and malicious cyber activity, targeting several individuals and entities, people familiar the matter said.The sanctions, in which 30 entities are expected to be blacklisted, will be tied with orders expelling about 10 Russian officials from the United States, one of the people said.The White House, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The action will add a new chill to the already frosty relations between Washington and Moscow, which has tested the West’s patience with …

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Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney is expected to press his British counterpart, Dominic Rabb, this week during a meeting in London to convene an emergency British-Irish intergovernmental conference to discuss a recent outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland. But British ministers are reluctant. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the British government would “look for an appropriate time for a future meeting” but did not commit to do so as a matter of urgency, despite a growing clamor in the British Parliament for a summit, which would include Northern Irish politicians. Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland deny …

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