Month: November 2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed Tuesday that his country would become a member of the European Union. His remarks came a day before a report is scheduled to be published Wednesday on the progress of the country’s candidacy to the EU. The progress of candidate countries Moldova and Georgia will also be addressed in the report by the European Commission. The EU granted Ukraine candidate status in June 2022 and outlined several conditions for admittance, including addressing widespread corruption and judicial reforms in the country. Zelenskyy pointed to the strides Ukraine has made and acknowledged that more work was needed …

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 As a child growing up in Malta, Paul Caruana Galizia didn’t think much about how his mother regularly checked under the car for bombs.   Such precautions were just part of being Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son. The investigative journalist was so well known in Malta — beloved and disliked — that everyone just called her Daphne.   But such precautions were warranted.  On October 16, 2017, a car bomb killed the journalist near her home in Bidnija.  The fallout from the targeted killing has reverberated far beyond Malta’s rocky shores, but full justice remains elusive.  “Everything is still a fight,” Caruana …

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As political rhetoric over immigration heats up ahead of next year’s European elections, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz outlined plans Tuesday to toughen migration laws and deport more failed asylum-seekers in a sharp reversal of policies under his predecessor Angela Merkel. In the first nine months of this year, 230,000 people claimed asylum in Germany, more than the total for 2022. With migrant shelters filling up, regional authorities have complained that the costs are unsustainable. Migrant deal Scholz said recently that too many migrants were coming to Germany. After hosting the country’s 16 state governors in Berlin on Monday evening for …

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European astronomers on Tuesday released the first images from the newly launched Euclid space telescope, designed to unlock the secrets of dark matter and dark energy — hidden forces thought to make up 95% of the universe. The European Space Agency, which leads the six-year mission with NASA as a partner, said the images were the sharpest of their kind, showcasing the telescope’s ability to monitor billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away. The images spanned four areas of the relatively nearby universe, including 1,000 galaxies belonging to the massive Perseus cluster just 240 million light years …

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NATO has suspended operations for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, a key Cold War era security pact, in response to Russia pulling out of the agreement. The CFE includes many of NATO’s 31 member countries and was aimed at limiting the size of Cold War rivals’ forces at or near mutual borders. Russia formally withdrew from the treaty and blamed the United States, alleging that the U.S. undermined post-Cold War security by expanding the NATO military alliance.  NATO responded by freezing operations for the agreement on Tuesday, saying it wouldn’t be feasible for the treaty to exist …

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Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday it thwarted attacks by Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula. Russian air defenses destroyed nine of the drones, while eight others were intercepted using electronic means, the ministry said. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russia-installed governor of Sevastopol, said on Telegram that falling debris from a downed drone injured one person. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly video address it was “utterly irresponsible” to discuss holding elections in Ukraine during a time of war. He called for unity to avoid pointless political discussions. “We need to recognize that this …

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Nearly half a century after José Ignacio Fernández Guaza disappeared into thin air after being suspected of killing a student in Spain, two journalists tracked him down in Argentina.      Like the discoveries of Nazi war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann who hid in South America, the suspected killer was discovered living under a false identity decades later.    At first, Guaza denied he was the chief suspect in the shooting of Arturo Ruíz at a left-wing rally in Madrid in 1977.      But when the 76-year-old agreed to meet two journalists from the Spanish newspaper El País, …

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