Month: March 2023

Russia’s defense minister visited Russian soldiers in Ukraine on Saturday. The ministry said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction.” Shoigu has been criticized for Russia’s poor performance in its war against Ukraine. In a video released Saturday, the defense minister was seen handing out medals to Russian military forces. Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday that “intense fighting” is underway in and around the Ukrainian Donbas town of Bakhmut. Victory in Bakhmut would be …

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U.S. President Joe Biden is focused on shoring up NATO unity in supporting Ukraine in his meeting Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House, said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, in an interview with VOA on Friday. Dismissing concerns about growing war fatigue on both sides of the Atlantic, Kirby said Biden was confident that Western allies’ unity remained “resilient, resolved and unified.” He repeated calls from the administration urging Beijing not to supply weapons to help Russia, warning of a “blow to China’s standing in the international community” should it decide to …

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Protests have intensified in Greece days after the country’s deadliest rail disaster, as thousands of students took to the streets in several cities and protesters clashed with police in Athens. At least 57 people — including several university students — died when a passenger train slammed into a freight carrier just before midnight Tuesday. The government has blamed human error, and a railway official faces manslaughter charges. Friday night’s violence was not extensive, and the protests were otherwise peaceful. Clashes also occurred in Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki. In Athens, riot police outside parliament fired tear gas and flash grenades to …

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Belgium’s Constitutional Court on Friday upheld a prisoner exchange treaty with Iran that could lead to the swap of a convicted Iranian diplomat for a jailed Belgian aid worker.  Belgian lawmakers cleared the treaty in July, but it has been held up by legal challenges from an exiled Iranian opposition group.  “The court rejects the action for annulment,” the Constitutional Court said in a press release.  However, the judges also specified that the victims of any detainee being proposed for transfer must have the right to contest the specific case in court.  “Thus, when the government takes a decision to …

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The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on six Russians it said were involved in the arrest, prosecution or abuse of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was detained last year after speaking out against the war in Ukraine. Kara-Murza was arrested by Russia in April and declared a “foreign agent.” He is currently being held on suspicion of spreading false information about the armed forces under new laws passed eight days after the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine began. “The United States reiterates its call for Kara-Murza’s immediate and unconditional release, and is committed to ensuring that Vladimir …

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Officials say the search for survivors at the site of Greece’s deadliest train crash has ended. At least 57 bodies and human remains have been removed from the wreckage, but an undisclosed number of passengers remain missing. VOA reports on the growing anger and frustration across the nation as protests come with the end of a three-day period of national mourning. Firefighters and volunteers say a final inspection of mangled passenger rail cars would be completed by the end of Friday, before fleets of cranes and heavy machinery moved to clear wreckage and restore the operation of Greece’s railway network. …

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U.S. President Joe Biden will welcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the White House Friday for discussions on continued support for Ukraine and bilateral cooperation on a range of global security and economic issues.  The leaders first met in February of last year shortly after Scholz took office, and the visit comes after marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  “We’ve closely coordinated our support to Ukraine throughout this conflict, including through joint announcements in January to provide infantry fighting vehicles and tanks,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters during a Thursday briefing.   “Germany …

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Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison by a Belarus court. Bialiatski is the founder of Viasna, a prominent human rights group in Belarus that has provided legal and financial support to protesters, following a wave of unrest in 2020, following disputed election results that returned Belarus strongman President Alexander Lukashenko back into office, a position he has held  for over 30 years. Lukashenko, a frequent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is often called Europe’s “last dictator.”    Bialiatski has said he is being persecuted for political reasons.   Bialiatski was among …

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French President Emmanuel Macron promised $52.9 million (50 million euros) to a new global scheme to reward countries for protecting their forests and biodiversity on Thursday as he called for more concrete action on global climate commitments. The pledge was announced at the end of the two-day One Forest Summit in Gabon that aimed to assess progress made since last year’s COP27 climate conference and renew targets for the preservation and sustainable management of the world’s forests. “We understood the need to have cash on the table and concrete actions,” Macron said in a speech on the first full day …

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