Month: March 2023

Turkey’s right wing IYI Party has proposed that the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul serve as vice presidents if the opposition wins the May election, a spokesperson said Monday, after the party left the main opposition alliance last week. The suggestion could pave the way for IYI to return to the bloc. IYI, which was the second-biggest party in the alliance of six parties, exited the group last week after its leader Meral Aksener rejected the expected nomination of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) as the bloc’s presidential candidate. Instead she had proposed that …

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Azerbaijani troops and ethnic Armenians exchanged gunfire on Sunday in Azerbaijan’s contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing at least five people, according to reports from Azerbaijan and Armenia.  Nagorno-Karabakh was the focal point of two wars that have pitted Azerbaijan against Armenia in the more than 30 years since both ex-Soviet states have achieved attendance.  Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said two servicemen were killed in an exchange of fire after Azerbaijani troops stopped a convoy it suspected of carrying weapons from the region’s main town to outlying areas. It said the convoy had used an unauthorized road.  Armenia’s foreign ministry said three …

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Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s center-right Reform Party won Estonia’s general election by a wide margin on Sunday, according to near-complete results, beating out a far-right rival that had campaigned against further arms deliveries to Ukraine.    Reform won 31.6 percent of the vote, with right-wing runners-up EKRE taking 16 percent. In order to stay in power, Reform will again have to form a coalition with one or more of the parties in the Baltic state’s 101-seat parliament.     The Centre Party secured 14.7 percent of Sunday’s ballot, Estonia 200 got 13.5 percent, the Social Democrats received 9.4 percent and the Isamaa (Fatherland) …

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Industrial action in France over the government’s planned pensions overhaul will cause heavy disruption to public transport again on Tuesday, the transport minister and several public transport authorities said Sunday. For the sixth time since the start of the year, unions are calling for a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations, aiming to repeat the large turnout seen on the first major protest Jan. 19 when more than a million people marched against the pension reform. “There will be very strong impacts,” Transport Minister Clement Beaune said in an interview with France 3 TV, adding that he expected the strike …

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Voters in Estonia elected a new parliament Sunday with initial results suggesting the center-right Reform Party of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of Europe’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine, had won overwhelmingly with nearly all votes counted. Kallas faced a challenge from the far-right populist EKRE party, which seeks to limit the Baltic nation’s exposure to the Ukraine crisis and blames the current government for Estonia’s high inflation rate. Nine political parties in all fielded candidates for Estonia’s 101-seat parliament, or Riigikogu. Over 900,000 people were eligible to vote in the general election, and nearly half voted in advance. With …

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As Russian and Ukrainian forces intensify their fight for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, residents there are finding it harder and harder to remain. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on the challenges as Ukrainian diplomatic efforts to gain international support continue. …

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says there would be “consequences” if China sent weapons to Russia for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, but he’s optimistic that Beijing will refrain from doing so. Scholz’s comments came in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, two days after he met U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. U.S. officials have warned recently that China could step off the sidelines and begin providing arms and ammunition to Moscow. Ahead of his trip, Scholz had urged Beijing to refrain from sending weapons and instead use its influence to press Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. Asked …

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Much of Russia’s yearlong invasion in Ukraine has devolved into infantry fighting in the eastern regions of the country, in part because Moscow’s forces are short on artillery munitions, the British Ministry of Defense said Sunday. In its latest assessment, London said, “Recent evidence suggests an increase in close combat in Ukraine. This is probably a result of the Russian command continuing to insist on offensive action largely consisting of dismounted infantry.” The ministry said that late last month, Russia mobilized reservists who have described “being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only ‘firearms and shovels.’ …

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“Italy here we come!” cheered the young men, in Urdu and Pashto, as they filmed themselves standing on a boat sailing in bright blue waters. They were among around 180 migrants — Afghans, Pakistanis, Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians, Somalis and others — who left Turkey hoping for a better, or simply safer, life in Europe. Days later, dozens of them were dead. So far, 70 bodies have been recovered from the Feb. 26 shipwreck near the small beach town of Steccato di Cutro, but only 80 survivors have been found, indicating that the death toll was higher. On Sunday, firefighter divers …

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