Month: October 2021

With Afghanistan facing humanitarian and economic crises, G-20 leaders are set to meet virtually Tuesday to discuss ways to meet aid needs and address security concerns following the Taliban’s August takeover.  Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is hosting the summit, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leaders from European G-20 nations among those expected to participate.  EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell pledged help Monday, saying at an EU ministerial meeting that the “humanitarian and socioeconomic situation in Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse.”  “Today we agreed on having a calibrated approach …

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The German city of Cologne says it will start allowing mosques to broadcast the call to prayer, or azan, over loudspeakers.  The city said Monday the call to prayer could be broadcast on Friday afternoons for up to five minutes. Mosques will need to apply for a permit to broadcast and must comply with volume limits. The permit will last for two years. “Permitting the call of the muezzin is a sign of respect,” Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker tweeted last week.  She said those who arrive at the city’s main train station are greeted by the sound of church bells …

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Russia, Germany and France have agreed that their foreign ministers should meet to discuss the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.  French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone Monday on the issue of Ukraine.  Both the German and Russian governments said the leaders agreed that their foreign ministers should meet soon to address the conflict. The Kremlin said that during the phone call Putin also accused Ukraine authorities of “stubbornly evading” implementing agreements reached at peace talks.  The Kremlin statement did not say if Ukraine would take part in the upcoming foreign …

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European Union officials have warned that the bloc “is at risk of collapse” unless it challenges a ruling by Poland’s top court over the supremacy of EU law, which is seen as a central pillar of European integration.  Vera Jourova, the EU commissioner from the Czech Republic, said Monday: “If we don’t uphold the principle in the EU that equal rules are respected the same everywhere in Europe, the whole Europe will start collapsing. That is why we will have to react to this new chapter which the Polish constitutional court started to draw.”  Large rallies were held across Poland …

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European Union officials have warned that the bloc ‘is at risk of collapse’ unless it challenges a ruling by Poland’s top court over the supremacy of EU law. Large rallies were held across Poland over the weekend in support of EU membership, as Henry Ridgwell reports.  Camera: Henry Ridgwell …

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Austria’s new Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg pledged on Monday to work closely with his predecessor Sebastian Kurz, who quit in the face of corruption allegations, fueling opposition assertions that the new leader will simply do Kurz’s bidding. The Greens, the junior partner to Kurz’s conservatives, had demanded Kurz’s head after he and nine others including senior aides were placed under investigation last week on suspicion of varying degrees of breach of trust, corruption and bribery. Kurz, who denies wrongdoing, has been the undisputed leader of his party until now and is taking on an additional role as his party’s top lawmaker …

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Next month, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, will get under way, setting the climate agenda for decades to come, and ahead of the summit, Western leaders have been scrambling to make promises to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Some economists, however, are warning that in the pledge-making rush, political leaders are making promises they’re unlikely to be able to keep without major economic damage and are not being honest with voters about the huge transformation that’s going to be needed, and the large costs involved, most of which are likely to be …

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British police said on Monday they would be taking no further action after conducting a review of evidence relating to sex crime allegations against Queen Elizabeth’s son, Prince Andrew, and the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein.  London’s police chief, Cressida Dick, said in August that detectives would look at the allegations for a third time although they would not start an investigation, after Virginia Giuffre filed a U.S. lawsuit accusing the prince of sexual assault, which he has always denied.  “As a matter of procedure MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) officers reviewed a document released in August 2021 as part of a …

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The mynah bird squawks from a new cage in the French ambassador’s sunlit living room in Abu Dhabi, a far cry from its life as the pet of a young Afghan woman who has since found refuge in France.  Talkative, yellow-beaked “Juji” had a brief star turn on social media, its story of survival amid the frenzied evacuations from Taliban-run Afghanistan striking a chord with a global audience.  While scenes from the American-led airlift from Kabul after 20 years of war — such as Afghans falling to their deaths after trying to cling to the wheels of a military transport …

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