Month: May 2022

Representatives of the United States and several other nations walked out of an Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in Bangkok on Saturday to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials said. Representatives from Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Australia joined the Americans in walking out of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, two Thai officials and two international diplomats told Reuters. The walkout took place while the Russian representative was delivering remarks at the opening of the two-day meeting of the group of 21 economies. …

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Russia on Saturday halted providing natural gas to neighboring Finland, which has angered Moscow by applying for NATO membership, after the Nordic country refused to pay supplier Gazprom in rubles. Natural gas accounts for about 8% of Finland’s energy consumption and most of it comes from Russia. Following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has asked clients from “unfriendly countries” — including EU member states — pay for gas in rubles, a way to sidestep Western financial sanctions against its central bank. Finnish state-owned energy company Gasum said it would make up for the shortfall from other sources through …

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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again said his country will oppose applications by Finland and Sweden to join NATO unless his security conditions are met. Analysts say Erdogan may be looking for more attention to his concerns from U.S. President Joe Biden. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.  …

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Violent storms buffeting western Germany on Friday killed at least one man and injured about 40 people, 10 of them seriously, when an apparent tornado raked several towns, police and local media said. Images on social media showed an apparent tornado with its distinctive spinning cyclone flinging debris through the air, though the German Weather Service did not immediately confirm a tornado had occurred. The 38-year-old man in the far-western town of Wittgert died of head injuries sustained when he fell after suffering an electric shock in a flooded cellar, local media quoted police as saying. Police said up to …

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French President Emmanuel Macron named new foreign and defense ministers on Friday as part of a government re-shuffle intended to create fresh momentum ahead of parliamentary elections next month.   France’s ambassador to London, Catherine Colonna, was picked as foreign minister, making her only the second woman to hold the prestigious job.   Sebastien Lecornu, former minister for overseas territories, was promoted to the defense ministry, Macron’s chief of staff Alexis Kohler announced at the presidential palace.  Macron decided to shuffle the portfolios despite the conflict in Ukraine, Europe’s biggest since World War II.   “It’s a government that is …

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Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Replyanchuk spent his days unearthing corruption, often among judges and law enforcement. Now the Kyiv-based journalist who works for the independent media website Slidstvo.Info uses his investigative reporting skills to expose war crimes and atrocities. Every crime has a face, Replyanchuk told VOA. “War criminals who executed civilians in Bucha, pilots who dropped bombs on Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities, artillerymen who shelled Kharkiv: those are specific people,” he said. “And my job is to reveal these people.” With the first Russian soldier standing trial for war crimes this week, and journalists interviewing …

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People suffering from eco-anxiety — the fear of environmental catastrophe — may get a boost from a green forum in Paris this week. Gathering hundreds of eco-entrepreneurs, companies and activists, ChangeNOW aims to trace a sustainable blueprint for the future. From food to fashion, technology to transport, a raft of green solutions for our resource-sucking society is parked through Saturday inside a massive events venue — made of sustainable materials — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. “It’s 35 days to reach Madagascar from Marseille. Going through the Suez Canal. And we are using the wind. It helps us …

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Theater director Mikhail Durnenkov and actor Aleksey Yudnikov are both longstanding enemies of the Kremlin. For decades, their performances have parodied the Russian government and its leader, President Vladimir Putin, testing the boundaries of expressive freedom under constant state surveillance. Durnenkov’s 2015 production, The War Has Not Yet Started, has proven eerily prescient: a tense play of 12 intertwined stories about life in modern Russia amid the undeclared war with Ukraine and endless state propaganda. Despite regular run-ins with the police and authorities, the Moscow-based Teatr.doc company managed to keep going. But, following a severe clampdown on political opposition and …

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