Month: October 2022

Millions of Ukrainian schoolchildren are returning to the classroom despite air sirens that are still interrupting lessons. With more than 2,000 school buildings around the country destroyed, educators are working hard to rebuild and bring normality to children’s lives. VOA Eastern Europe Chief Myroslava Gongadze visited the village of Bohdanivka near Kyiv where Russian occupiers destroyed the local school and kindergarten. Camera: Eugene Shynkar …

READ MORE

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has won the prestigious Nansen Award from the U.N. refugee agency, for providing a haven for more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution in Syria. Angela Merkel welcomed the desperate people at the height of the Syrian conflict in 2015 and 2016, when other countries were turning their backs on them. In announcing the award, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Merkel displayed great moral and political courage by helping more than a million refugees survive and rebuild their lives. UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh says Merkel has helped …

READ MORE

Turkish journalists groups on Tuesday protested a draft law the government says is aimed at combating fake news and disinformation but which critics denounce as yet another attempt to stifle freedom of expression. Parliament was set to debate a 40-article piece of legislation that amends multiple laws governing press, advertising and social media. The most controversial change is an amendment to the press law that would criminalize the spreading of “fake news” with a sentence of up to three years in prison. Critics, including opposition lawmakers and nongovernmental organizations, say the law is too vague and could potentially be abused …

READ MORE

Afghanistan’s National Institute of Music has performed its first concert in its new home of Lisbon, Portugal. Members of the exiled school are determined to keep Afghan music alive even though they can’t play in their homeland. VOA’s Farkhunda Paimani and Munaza Shaheed attended the concert in Lisbon and filed this report narrated by Amy Katz. Camera: Nawid Orokzai …

READ MORE

A Russian court on Monday set October 25 as the date for American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession.  Griner, an eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted August 4 after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.  The Moscow region court said it will hear her appeal.  Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage but testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. …

READ MORE

Albanian authorities Monday denied the country’s police system was hacked after local media reported that data on people being investigated for crimes was released from an Iranian hacking group. Albanian media reported a leaked file with a list of suspected people, from allegedly the police database, who are being probed on different crimes. Ervin Karamuco, a criminology professor, was quoted in social media as saying a channel called Homeland Justice had published 1.7 gigabytes of criminal data from the Memex police system. State police denied its Memex system was damaged but urged local media not to publish data from hackers. …

READ MORE

Prominent Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak faces a criminal investigation over a story that police suspect was “fake,” state news agency TASS reported on Monday, citing an unidentified source in law enforcement.  Sobchak, whose late father was the mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s and worked closely with Vladimir Putin, hosts a YouTube channel with over 3 million subscribers. She also founded a popular Telegram account which regularly shares stories critical of Russia’s mobilization efforts.  TASS reported that Sobchak’s story related to “state funding of festivals” and that she could be charged under an article of Russian law that provides …

READ MORE