Month: May 2022

Qantas announced Monday it will launch the world’s first non-stop commercial flights from Sydney to London and New York by the end of 2025, finally conquering the “tyranny of distance.” After five years of planning, the airline said it was ordering 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft to operate the “Project Sunrise” flights to cities including London and New York. Non-stop flights will start from Sydney by the end of 2025, it said, with the long-haul flights later planned to include Melbourne. “New types of aircraft make new things possible,” said Qantas chairman Alan Joyce, according to a statement. “The A350 and …

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected official to visit Ukraine’s president in Kyiv. She led a U.S. congressional delegation that promised more support for Ukraine and unwavering solidarity in its fight against Russian aggression. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

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Harrison Jozefowicz quit his job as a Chicago police officer and headed overseas soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. An Army veteran, he said he couldn’t help but join American volunteers seeking to help Ukrainians in their fight. Jozefowicz now heads a group called Task Force Yankee, which he said has placed more than 190 volunteers in combat slots and other roles while delivering nearly 15,000 first aid kits, helping relocate more than 80 families and helping deliver dozens of pallets of food and medical supplies to the southern and eastern fronts of the war. It’s difficult, dangerous work. But Jozefowicz …

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Citizens and trade unions in cities around Europe were taking to the streets on Sunday for May Day marches, and to put out protest messages to their governments, notably in France where the holiday to honor workers was being used as a rallying cry against newly reelected President Emmanuel Macron. May Day is a time of high emotion for participants and their causes, with police on the ready. Turkish police moved in quickly in Istanbul and encircled protesters near the barred-off Taksim Square — where 34 people were killed In 1977 during a May Day event when shots were fired …

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Germany said Sunday it has made progress in sharply reducing its reliance on Russian energy, a strategic shift Europe’s biggest economy has embarked on since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian supplies now make up 12 percent of Germany’s oil imports compared to 35 percent previously, the economy ministry said in a statement. Coal from Russia has also been slashed to eight percent compared to 45 percent of Germany’s purchases previously. Dependence on gas remains substantial, but Europe’s biggest economy had also reduced its Russian sources to 35 percent of the total compared to 55 percent before Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The …

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Turkish riot police detained dozens of protesters trying to reach Istanbul’s main Taksim Square for May Day demonstrations against economic hardship caused by raging inflation. The Istanbul governor’s office had allowed May Day celebrations to be held in another district and deemed gatherings in all other locations as unauthorized and illegal. A Reuters journalist saw riot police brawling with and handcuffing protesters, images of which were shown on television by domestic broadcasters. Police also detained 30 people in central Besiktas and 22 others in Sisli districts, the Demiroren News Agency reported. A statement from the Istanbul governor’s office on Sunday …

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Russian “cyber soldiers” have launched a new offensive against foreign leaders, targeting social media platforms with a large-scale disinformation campaign that seeks to legitimize the invasion of Ukraine, according to research funded by the U.K. Paid operatives working from a factory in St. Petersburg use the Telegram messaging app to recruit and coordinate supporters who then flood the social media accounts of Kremlin critics with comments supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, the U.K. Foreign Office said Sunday. The so-called troll factory has developed new techniques to avoid detection by social media platforms, posting comments and …

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Learning to identify and defuse explosives is something Anastasiia Minchukova never thought she would have to do as an English teacher in Ukraine. Yet there she was wearing a face shield, armed with a landmine detector and venturing into a field dotted with danger warnings. Russia’s war in Ukraine took Minchukova, 20, and five other women to Kosovo, where they are attending a hands-on course in clearing landmines and other dangers that may remain hidden across their country once combat ends. “There is a huge demand on people who know how to do demining because the war will be over …

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Prices for Russian credit default swaps — insurance contracts that protect an investor against a default — plunged sharply overnight after Moscow used its precious foreign currency reserves to make a last-minute debt payment Friday. The cost for a five-year credit default swap on Russian debt was $5.84 million to protect $10 million in debt. That price was nearly half the one on Thursday, which at roughly $11 million for $10 million in debt protection was a signal that investors were certain of an eventual Russian default. Russia used its foreign currency reserves sitting outside of the country to make …

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