Month: August 2021

Polish lawmakers have advanced a bill that the opposition says aims to silence a U.S.-owned news channel critical of the government, leading to a swift denunciation from the United States, one of Warsaw’s most important allies.Washington had warned that failure to renew the license of Discovery-owned news channel TVN24 could jeopardize future investments in Poland, while opposition politicians have condemned the bill as an attack on media freedoms.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply troubled” by passage of the bill by the lower house of parliament, which he said targeted the most-watched independent news station in Poland …

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The French call it La Manche, or the sleeve, while the more proprietorial British refer to the narrow arm of the Atlantic separating England’s southern coast from the northern coast of France as the English Channel. At its narrowest point it is just 33 kilometers, but when it comes to the state of Anglo-French relations these days it might as well be as wide as an ocean.For weeks now the British have been trying to arrange sit-down talks between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, but to no avail. British diplomats say Paris won’t agree to a …

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A helicopter carrying tourists plunged into a deep volcanic crater lake on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east Thursday, and rescuers were searching in the lake for up to eight people missing, officials said. At least eight others reportedly survived.The helicopter crashed in the Kronotsky nature reserve, and the regional administration said workers were searching for survivors in Kurile Lake, which was formed in a volcano caldera and crater.Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 13 tourists and three crew members were aboard the Mi-8 helicopter and eight people survived, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency. It said two of …

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After all the turmoil of the last week, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya finally feels safe. The Belarusian Olympic sprinter who found refuge in Poland to avoid punishment at home after criticizing team officials at the Tokyo Games says she now hopes to focus on how to keep up a world-class running career. Speaking in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press at the Olympic Center in Warsaw, the 24-year-old runner said she has already asked Polish officials to help her resume training. “Life changed in one day, and now we are starting it from scratch in a new country,” she said, speaking with her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, …

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Poland’s parliament passed a law on Wednesday that would prevent former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from regaining property expropriated by the country’s communist regime.Israel condemned the legislation, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid saying it “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims.”Meanwhile, Gideon Taylor, the chair of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, an advocate for property restitution, said the group was “outraged,” and called the bill “equally unfair for both Jews and non-Jews.”The adopted amendment to Poland’s administrative law would prevent property ownership and other administrative decisions from …

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German authorities said Wednesday that they had arrested a British citizen and accused him of spying for Russia while working at the British Embassy in Berlin.The man, identified only as David S., is suspected of passing documents to Russia for money since at least November. He reportedly worked as a local hire.The British government confirmed the arrest but said in a statement it would “not be appropriate to comment further as there is an ongoing police investigation.”German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said the German government was monitoring the incident.”We take the indications that the intelligence activity of the arrested …

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Afghan clothes and Iranian SIM cards litter fields under the mountains that stand between Turkey and the Iranian border. A wisp of smoke rises out of what was a small fire, abandoned many hours before.  As the Taliban swept through villages and cities in Afghanistan over the past few months, families have fled in droves, many traveling across Iran and into Turkey.  In the past, this route was flooded with refugees trying to get to Europe to seek safety and freedom. Now it’s packed with people making a last-ditch effort to stay alive in Turkey, where they find no humanitarian aid …

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