Month: July 2022

With tensions growing over the war in Ukraine and Russia’s energy cuts, the European Union’s executive arm is calling on member nations to cut natural gas consumption by 15% between August and next March to avoid what it calls energy ‘blackmail” — and its potentially catastrophic economic fallout. The EU’s executive branch wants the 15% cuts to be across the board and, for now, voluntary, but seeks the power to make the reductions mandatory if Moscow deeply or completely cuts its gas exports to the bloc.    “We have to be proactive. We have to prepare for a potential full …

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The European Union is preparing for the possibility that Russia will stop delivering natural gas needed by many member states to heat homes, generate electricity and power factories. In a statement Wednesday, the EU Commission asked countries to voluntary reduce their consumption and to grant the EU the power to impose reductions in case of emergency. The goal is to reduce demand by 15% from August to the end of March. “Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon. And therefore, in any event, whether it’s a partial, major cutoff of Russian gas or total cutoff of …

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Nearly 500 firefighters and over 100 fire engines have been deployed to fight a massive wildfire threatening several mountainside suburbs of Athens. The fire has been raging since Tuesday at the foot of Mount Pentelli, located about 26 kilometers north of the Greek capital. The fire has been fueled by strong gale-force winds that have complicated efforts by firefighting aircraft to extinguish the flames. Authorities say they have evacuated at least 600 people from several neighborhoods as a precautionary measure, as well as a hospital and the National Observatory of Athens, and have also shut down traffic leading to the …

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U.S. lawmakers are set to hear Wednesday from Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska as she delivers remarks on Capitol Hill.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of the address that Zelenska would be speaking on behalf of all Ukrainian mothers and women.  “And I really believe that it will be heard by those on whom decision-making in the U.S. depends,” the president said.  U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi encouraged all members of the House and Senate to attend, saying it would be an “important and timely opportunity to hear directly from First Lady Zelenska, to learn more about the terrible …

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The United States on Tuesday placed Russia on lists of countries engaged in a “policy or pattern” of human trafficking and forced labor or whose security forces or government-backed armed groups recruit or use child soldiers. The U.S. State Department included the lists in its annual human trafficking report, which for the first time featured under a 2019 congressional mandate a “State-Sponsored Trafficking in Persons” section. Russia appeared frequently throughout the report because of its February 24 invasion of Ukraine and what the document called the vulnerability to trafficking of millions of Ukrainian refugees in countries to which they have …

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Azerbaijan on Tuesday began the process of returning its people to land recaptured from Armenian separatists in what Baku calls “The Great Return” following a 2020 war over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. The oil-rich country has vowed to repopulate lands recaptured in the six-week war with its arch-foe and Caucasus neighbor Armenia that killed more than 6,500 people two years ago. President Ilham Aliyev had for years promised to retake lands lost in the 1990s, and the first returns marked a symbolic moment for Azerbaijan. An official said almost 60 people moved back to a village they had had to flee in …

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