Month: January 2023

Independent News Outlet Staff Go on Trial in Belarus

Five employees of what used to be authoritarian Belarus’s largest independent news outlet went on trial Monday in Minsk, facing several charges including tax evasion and “inciting enmity”, a rights group said. The outlet Tut.by covered large-scale protests in 2020 that erupted after President Alexander Lukashenko claimed a sixth term in office in a contested election. The new source’s editor-in-chief Marina Zolatova and the its general director Lyudmila Chekina have been in pre-trial detention since May 2021. Three other defendants in the case left Belarus before the trial started, according to rights group Viasna. A photo from court published by …

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Pope Condemns Iran’s Use of Death Penalty Against Protesters 

Pope Francis condemned Iran’s execution of protesters for the first time on Monday in his traditional New Year’s address to diplomats, and said the war in Ukraine was “a crime against God and humanity.” The pontiff made his remarks in a speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, his overview at the start of the new year which has come to be known informally as his “state of the world” address. His eight-page speech in Italian, read to representatives of most of the 183 countries accredited to the Vatican, ran the gamut of all the world’s conflict areas, including those …

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Ukraine: Russian Missile Hits Market in Kharkiv Region 

Ukrainian officials said Monday a Russian missile hit a market in the Kharkiv region, killing one person and wounding several others. The officials said the missile struck the village of Shevchenkove, located about 75 kilometers from the city of Kharkiv. “We brutally condemn this act of terror,” Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova tweeted along with a video and photos of a large crater and a building in flames. “The only proper response is more weapons for Ukraine.” Russia has repeatedly warned against Western military support for Ukraine, saying arms deliveries from the United States and Ukrainian partners in Europe would …

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Папа Франциск назвав війну в Україні «злочином проти Бога і людства»

Понтифік цитував конституцію Ватикану, сказавши, що «будь-який акт війни, спрямований на невибіркове знищення цілих міст або величезних територій з їхніми жителями, є злочином проти Бога та людства, який заслуговує твердого та однозначного засудження» …

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Унаслідок обстрілу ринку в селищі Шевченкове на Харківщині загинули двоє людей, поранені пʼятеро

За повідомленням заступника голови Офісу президента України Кирила Тимошенка, удару завдали російські війська з територію Білгородської області за допомогою зенітно-ракетного комплексу С-300 …

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Sweden Can’t Meet Some of Turkey’s Demands for NATO Bid, PM Says

Turkey, which has for months blocked NATO membership bids by Sweden and Finland, has made some demands that Sweden cannot accept, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday. “Turkey has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do, but it also says that it wants things that we can’t, that we don’t want to, give it,” Ulf Kristersson said during a security conference also attended by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. “We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don’t know when,” he said, adding that it will depend on internal politics inside Turkey as well …

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Japan’s Kishida Highlights Security Concerns on Trip to Europe, US

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida begins a weeklong trip Monday to strengthen military ties with Europe and Britain and bring into focus the Japan-U.S. alliance at a summit in Washington, as Japan breaks from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China. Kishida’s talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday will highlight his five-nation tour that also takes him to France, Italy, Britain and Canada — some of the Group of Seven nations Japan has stepped up defense ties with in recent years. His first stop is Paris on Monday evening. Kishida said …

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Climate Activists to Defend Village From Demolition by Coal Mine 

Climate activists pledged Sunday to defend a tiny village in western Germany from being bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby coal mine that has become a battleground between the government and environmental campaigners. Hundreds of people from across Germany gathered for protest training and a subsequent demonstration in the hamlet of Luetzerath, which lies west of Cologne next to the vast Garzweiler coal mine. The open-cast mine, which provides a large share of the lignite — a soft, brownish coal — burned at nearby power plants, is scheduled to close by 2030 under a deal agreed last year between …

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