Month: September 2021

Europe is being buffeted by unprecedented recovery-related energy price spikes, prompting rising alarm about whether families will be able to remain warm as the northern hemisphere’s winter approaches. Politicians are also anxious about the electoral repercussions and how spiking prices will fuel further inflation. The price jumps in natural gas are due largely to a surge in demand in Asia and low supplies of in Europe, which has seen an astonishing 280% increase in wholesale gas prices. Electricity prices are also soaring because natural gas is used across the continent to generate a substantial percentage of its electricity. Moscow’s decision …

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The top U.S. military officers from the United States and Russia held six hours of talks in Helsinki, Finland, on Wednesday, the first face-to-face meeting between them since 2019, as both nations adjust to the U.S. pullout and Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.  General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, do not typically disclose the details of their discussions, and statements from both sides were minimal.  A U.S. military statement, which included details on the length of the meeting but not the agenda, said the talks were aimed …

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Lava continued to bear down Wednesday on La Palma, one of the Spanish Canary Islands, as residents fled following Sunday’s volcanic eruption.  More than 6,800 people have been evacuated from the island, one of the archipelago’s smaller and least populated, since Sunday.  The Associated Press reported that lava has engulfed and destroyed 320 buildings so far. No fatalities or injuries have yet to be reported.  A wall of lava as high as 12 meters faced a village on La Palma on Wednesday, and experts predicted that it would continue to spread for the next few days, destroying homes and crops.  …

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U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed to meet in person next month in Europe after a Wednesday phone call in which they sought to ease tensions over a high-profile submarine deal.  A White House statement after the phone call suggested regret over the handling of the deal, in which the United States and Britain will sell at least eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. That prompted Canberra to abandon a $66 billion, 2016 contract to purchase 12 conventional diesel-electric subs from French majority state-owned Naval Group.  “The two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefited …

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol as part of his brief stop in Washington. Johnson met earlier in the day with U.S. senators.    Johson met Tuesday with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House as part of a brief stop in Washington on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York.    During a photo opportunity with reporters, Pelosi remarked that she had met with Johnson last week when she was in London for the G-7 summit of parliamentary leaders. She credited the …

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Gunmen opened fire Wednesday on a car carrying a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to national police.  Zelenskiy, who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, said in a video statement there would be a “strong response” to what a senior official described as an assassination attempt on presidential advisor Serhiy Shefir. While the official said the attack might have been a message intended for Zelenskiy, another presidential advisor, Mykhailo Podolyak, said it was in response to an effort to limit the influence of oligarchs. Zelenskiy won the presidency after vowing to confront the country’s …

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U.N. agencies are calling for an investigation into the deaths of four people whose bodies were found over the weekend near the border between Poland and Belarus. Three of the dead found on the Polish side of the border have been identified by Polish authorities as Iraqi men. The fourth person was identified by Belarusian authorities as an Iraqi woman, who they say they found within a meter of the border. Spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Safa Msehli, told VOA these are the first recorded deaths of groups of asylum-seekers and migrants who have been transiting through …

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Malawi President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera are among the world leaders scheduled to take their turn to address the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.  Johnson has highlighted in the days before his speech the need to take action to address climate change, saying a global economic recovery “must be rooted in green growth.”  Rich nations have benefitted from growth that resulted in pollution, and now “have a duty to help developing countries grow their economies in a green and sustainable way,” Johnson said in a Twitter post Monday. Johnson’s address comes a day after he met with U.S. President Joe Biden …

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