Month: September 2021

Євросоюз

Pope Francis: Bishops Should Show ‘Compassion’ to Politicians Who Support Abortion

Pope Francis said Wednesday that Catholic bishops should minister to politicians who support abortion rights, such as U.S. President Joe Biden, with “compassion and tenderness,” not condemnation.The pontiff, returning to Rome from Slovakia, warned that Catholic Church leaders should not let politics enter into questions about whether observant Catholics like Biden should be refused the right to receive Communion when they attend Mass.But Francis declined to give a direct “yes” or “no” answer to whether Biden should be denied Communion, as some U.S. Catholic bishops have demanded. Francis said he did not know the U.S. case well enough to give …

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Євросоюз

Polish Media Furious Over Belarus Border Ban

Dozens of Polish news outlets have expressed anger over a media ban at the border with Belarus, part of a state of emergency imposed by Warsaw following an influx of migrants.    Thousands of migrants — mainly from the Middle East —  have crossed or tried to cross the border from Belarus into the eastern EU member states of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent months.    The EU suspects the influx is being deliberately engineered by Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko in retaliation against increasingly stringent EU sanctions on his regime.    Poland has responded to the influx by sending thousands …

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Євросоюз

EU Pledges 200 Million Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines to Low-Income Nations

The European Union is pledging to donate 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries by mid-2022. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the pledge Wednesday in Strasbourg, France during her annual State of the European Union speech before the European Parliament. Von der Leyen said the 200 million doses the EU plans to contribute is in addition to an earlier promise of 250 million doses, which she described as “an investment in solidarity, and it is an investment in global health.” Von der Leyen said “the scale of injustice and the level of urgency is obvious” with less …

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Євросоюз

US Accuses Russia of Stonewalling on Cybercrime

U.S. warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over shielding cybercriminals holed up in Russia appear to have made little impact, according to top U.S. law enforcement and cyber officials. “There is no indication that the Russian government has taken action to crack down on ransomware actors that are operating in the permissive environment that they’ve created there,” Paul Abbate, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Tuesday at an intelligence summit just outside Washington.  “We’ve asked for help and cooperation with those who we know are in Russia, who we have indictments against, and we’ve seen no action,” Abbate …

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Євросоюз

During Visit, Pope Reaches Out to Slovakia’s Roma

In a message of inclusion, Pope Francis is reaching out to the Roma people of Slovakia, where he has condemned Central Europe’s historic marginalization of communities including Jews.On his second day in Slovakia, the pope travelled to the town of Presov in the eastern part of the country where he celebrated mass in the Byzantine rite in the city’s sports stadium. The highlight of the day was a visit to the Roma community in the nearby town of Kosice — a gesture analysts see as a sign of inclusion.The impoverished Lunik neighborhood, which the pope will visit, is home to …

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