Month: January 2023

Croatia Switches to Euro, Enters Borderless Europe Club

Croatia on Sunday switched to the euro and entered Europe’s passport-free zone — two major milestones for the country after joining the EU nearly a decade ago. At midnight local time (2300 GMT Saturday) the Balkan nation bid farewell to its kuna currency and became the 20th member of the eurozone. It is the 27th nation in the passport-free Schengen zone, the world’s largest, which enables more than 400 million people to move freely around its members. Experts say the adoption of the euro will help shield Croatia’s economy at a time when inflation is soaring worldwide after Russia’s invasion …

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Believers in Bavarian Pilgrimage Town Mourn Pope Benedict

Mourners lined up quietly in the gold-adorned Collegiate Church of Altoetting in Pope Benedict XVI’s Bavarian homeland to pay condolences to one of this German region’s most famous sons, who died Saturday. Parents held their children’s hands tightly, older couples and nuns looked on in sorrow as they waited for their turn to write down their thoughts in a book of condolences, which was laid out next to a black-framed picture of the smiling pope in front of the altar. The emeritus pope died after a long illness at age 95 in Rome, but many Catholic Bavarians have always felt …

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Putin Tells Russia: ‘Sanctions War Was Declared on Us’

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address to the nation usually is rather anodyne and backed with a soothing view of a snowy Kremlin. This year, with soldiers in the background, he lashed out at the West and Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine cast a long shadow as Russia entered 2023. Cities curtailed festivities and fireworks. Moscow announced special performances for soldiers’ children featuring the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. An exiled Russian news outlet unearthed a video of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now the Ukrainian president despised by the Kremlin, telling jokes on a Russian state television station’s New Year’s show …

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Despite Rhetoric, Greek-Turkish Armed Conflict Seen Remote

Even by the standards of Turkey’s and Greece’s frequently strained relations, it was a remarkable escalation. Speaking to youths in a Black Sea town, Turkey’s president directly threatened his country’s western neighbor: Unless the Greeks “stay calm,” he said, Turkey’s new ballistic missiles would hit their capital city. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comment on an otherwise unremarkable December weekend followed repeated threats and warnings in recent months: Alleged violations of international treaties by Greece could throw the sovereignty of many inhabited Greek islands into doubt. Turkish troops, Erdogan warned on several occasions, could descend on Greece “suddenly one night.” The striking …

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