Month: March 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday at the White House to discuss potential sanctions against China amid concerns that Beijing is preparing to send weapons to Russia, and Europe’s frustration over Washington’s plans to subsidize American companies under the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden and von der Leyen also will discuss U.S.-EU coordination to combat the climate crisis through investing in clean technology based on secure supply chains, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. The meeting is the latest in a flurry of high-level diplomacy with European leaders …

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Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and several people were killed or wounded, police said. The shooting took place in the Gross Borstel district, a few kilometers north of the downtown area of Germany’s second-biggest city. “We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said. He said he had no information on the severity of the injuries suffered by the wounded. Police did not confirm German media reports — which named no sources …

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Rights groups are warning that independent Turkish media face fines and arrests over critical reporting of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s handling of February’s deadly earthquakes. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

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Russia said on Thursday that a landmark deal to ensure the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was only being half-implemented, raising doubts about whether it would allow an extension of the agreement set to expire next week. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports. The deal was extended for 120 days in November and will renew on March 18 if no party objects. However, Moscow has …

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Is the fight for democracy at a turning point? Freedom House documents a global decline for the 17th consecutive year. One of the biggest concerns: media freedom. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains. VOA footage by Saqib Ul Islam. …

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A federal court in New York authorized the seizure of a $25 million Boeing 737 owned by a Russian energy company, citing U.S. sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.  The aircraft is owned by PJSC Rosneft Oil Co., headquartered in Moscow and led by sanctioned oligarch Igor Ivanovich Sechin.  The court found probable cause that the aircraft, which has not been in the U.S. since 2014, could be seized by the U.S. based on violations of the Export Control Reform Act.  “Today’s enforcement action demonstrates there is a price to pay for …

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Georgia’s ruling party announced Thursday it is withdrawing a proposed foreign agent law after the legislation sparked two days of massive protests.  The measure would have required media and nongovernmental organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.”  Opponents of the bill compared it to a 2012 Russian law that has been used to suppress or shut down organizations critical of the Russian government.  The ruling Georgian Dream party said Thursday the bill was presented in a negative way and that a portion of the public was misled.  Georgia’s President …

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Ukrainian officials reported Russian missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country that killed at least six people. Ukraine’s military said it shot down 34 of 81 missiles that Russia fired, and that it downed four Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces. “The occupiers can only terrorize civilians,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram.  “That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.” The governor of the western Lviv region said five people were killed there when a missile hit a residential area. In the Dnipropetrovsk, officials said …

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