Category: Євросоюз

In the humble backyard of a destroyed house, a 13-year-old chops firewood to get ready for winter. His mother, Tetiana Yarema, has been preparing for months as she remembers last winter’s Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure that plunged Ukraine into darkness. “Those were dark days. I didn’t want anything. I just wanted to pack my things and go abroad,” said Yarema, 48, who says she ended up staying because of her son’s insistence. For the Yarema family, like millions of other Ukrainians touched by Russia’s war on Ukraine, winter is an especially challenging time. The mother and son live …

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Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside the United Nations on Sunday demanding the release of hostages seized by Hamas during the Islamist group’s bloody attack on Israel. The protest on the square outside the U.N.’s Palais des Nations headquarters in Geneva was organized by the Voice for Freedom coalition, bringing together several Christian Zionist organizing committees.   The gathering therefore had a religious tone, with chants and slogans intermingled with prayers and psalms.    The demonstration was the culmination of a visit to Geneva by the families of several of those missing since the Hamas attack. They met with Mirjana Spoljaric, …

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At least six people were killed, and 16 others were injured in a Russian missile strike on a mail depot in the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said. “Russian missiles hit the Nova Poshta center — an ordinary civilian object,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app. He shared a video showing a building with blown out windows, and trucks with Nova Poshta written on them, parked in front of the building. Nova Poshta means New Post in Ukrainian. All the victims were employees of the private Ukrainian postal and courier service, …

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The Ukrainian president says Turkey plans to join a peace process this week aimed at bringing an end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The announcement came as a missile strike on a Ukrainian post office killed a handful of peole and injured several more. It also follows a week in which Russia’s top diplomat traveled to North Korea. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed Sunday to stamp out anti-Semitism at the opening of a new synagogue, amid a spike in anti-Jewish incidents in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict. “There must be zero tolerance for anti-Semitism in Germany,” Scholz said at the synagogue in the eastern city of Dessau. Germany will “defend and protect” Jewish life, Scholz said, voicing his shock at anti-Semitism spreading “around the world and, shamefully, also here in Germany” since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. Germany has seen a spate of anti-Semitic incidents since the attacks and Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign. Jewish …

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Spain’s Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior congratulated the Sevilla team for quickly moving to report and eject a fan for allegedly making a racist gesture toward him during Saturday’s football game. The fan was handed over to local authorities. Sevilla said in a statement that it “condemns any racist and xenophobic behavior.” Vinicus said he had also seen video reported to be from Saturday’s game with a child making racist gestures. Media outlets did not detail what the gestures were. However, many Black football players playing in Europe have been subjected to monkey chants, people calling them monkeys and people …

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“Ordain women priests!” Not far from the Vatican, where hundreds of Catholics have gathered to debate the future of the Church, purple-clad activists make their voices heard against the “patriarchy”. The place of women in the Catholic Church — led for 2,000 years by a man, which outlaws abortion and female priests and does not recognize divorce — is one of the hot topics at the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops taking place over four weeks. Women campaigning for change have come to Rome to make their case, from Europe and the United States but also South Africa, …

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Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched Saturday through a rainy London to demand Israel stop its bombardment of Gaza, and similar calls were heard in cities around the world as the Israel-Hamas war entered its third week.  On the day a trickle of aid entered Gaza, where more than 1 million people have left their homes because of the conflict, protesters gathered in at Marble Arch near London’s Hyde Park before marching to the government district, Whitehall.  Police estimated the crowd that wound its way through the city for three hours at “up to 100,000.”  Waving Palestinian flags and …

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Bobby Charlton, an English soccer icon who survived a plane crash that decimated his Manchester United team and became the heartbeat of his country’s 1966 World Cup-winning team, has died. He was 86.  A statement from Charlton’s family, released by United, said he died Saturday surrounded by his family.  An extravagantly gifted midfielder with a ferocious shot, Charlton was the leading scorer for both United (249 goals) and England (49 goals) for more than 40 years until being overtaken by Wayne Rooney.  “Sir Bobby was a hero to millions, not just in Manchester, or the United Kingdom, but wherever football …

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 Russian forces bolstered their offensive in the east and pummeled swaths of Ukraine, killing at least three civilians and injuring others.    Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian-held town of Nikopol from their stronghold near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Ukrainian local Governor Serhii Lysak said emergency services in Nikopol were working to assess the damage.   Russian forces captured the nuclear plant early in their February 2022 invasion, prompting fears at times of a radiation incident because of shelling in the area.  On Friday night, a Russian missile struck an industrial facility in Kryvyi Rih, the central Ukraine hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, killing …

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In his daily address Friday, the president of Ukraine thanked military personnel in southern Ukraine “who are holding their ground and destroying the occupier day after day.” “These days,” Volodomyr Zelenskyy said, “Russian losses are really impressive, and it is exactly the kind of losses of the occupier that Ukraine needs.” Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that Russia will begin conducting fighter patrols in the eastern Black Sea with interceptor aircraft armed with Kinzhal air-launched missiles is in reaction to an increased …

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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. Venezuela Receives First Group of Deported Migrants From US The U.S. has not carried out regular deportations to Venezuela since 2019, but at an airport in Harlingen, Texas, Venezuelan men and women arrived on buses in shackles, underwent pat-downs and were escorted onto a charter plane. The 135 Venezuelan migrants were deported from the United States on Wednesday to Caracas, Venezuela. Immigration reporter Aline Barros has the story. Pilot Program Could Allow Some Work Visa Holders to …

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Three people died in Scotland and England and families were trapped in flooded homes Friday as Storm Babet moved east after pounding Ireland and headed for Scandinavia. The U.K.’s Met Office issued a rare red severe weather warning for parts of eastern Scotland with “exceptional rainfall” of up to 22 centimeters (8.6 inches) forecast for Friday and Saturday. Police said the body of a 57-year-old woman had been recovered after she was swept into a river in the county of Angus on Thursday afternoon. A second person also died in Angus on Thursday evening after a falling tree hit the …

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The Israel-Hamas war and efforts to ensure continued support for Ukraine dominated a Friday summit between U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, and European Council President Charles Michel. The conflicts overshadowed efforts to resolve long-running disputes between the United States and the European Union over Trump-era tariffs on European steel and aluminum and U.S. green subsidies. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports. …

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Russia’s top diplomat shrugged off U.S. claims that North Korea transferred munitions to Russia, saying Washington had failed to prove the allegation.  Russian state television broadcast Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s comments on Friday. Lavrov made a two-day trip to Pyongyang this week for talks on ways to boost the two countries’ ties following a September summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  The White House said last week that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and weapons to Russia. It released images that it said showed the containers had …

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U.S. President Joe Biden released a $61.4 billion request for funding to support Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The request includes billions of dollars to replenish the Pentagon’s military equipment to Ukraine, as well as providing economic and security aid and support for refugees in the United States. “The world is closely watching what Congress does next,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Friday. It is unclear whether Congress will approve Biden’s sweeping budget request, however, which along with additional funding for Israel and the U.S. border, is pegged at slightly more than $105 billion. …

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An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation or NBI said on Friday. Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators said may have been sabotage, though they have yet to conclude whether it was an accident or a deliberate act. On Tuesday, Sweden said a third link, connecting Stockholm to Tallinn, had been damaged at roughly the same time as the other two. “The police …

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Ukrainian forces “likely” scored hits on Russian air defense equipment and helicopters earlier this week at the Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields, the British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine. The ministry’s report said nine helicopters at Berdyansk and five at Luhansk were “likely” destroyed. Ukraine says it used U.S.-provided long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time in the attacks. If the report about the helicopters is confirmed, the British Defense Ministry said, “it is highly likely these losses will have an impact on Russia’s ability to defend and conduct further offensive activity” in the affected …

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A court in Amsterdam sentenced a Polish-Canadian national to two months in prison on Thursday for projecting a message alluding to an antisemitic conspiracy theory onto the Anne Frank House museum. Robert Wilson was charged with insulting a group and inciting discrimination for using a laser projector in February to display the words “Ann (sic) Frank invented the ballpoint pen” on the side of the canal house where the Jewish teenager hid with her family during the Holocaust. The text refers to a debunked claim that Frank’s famed diary is a forgery. “Given the great symbolic significance of Anne Frank’s …

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The sumptuous Palace of Versailles was forced to evacuate visitors for the fourth time in less than a week for a security check after a bomb alert. Airports and schools around France also fell victim to bomb alerts and forced evacuations after similar warnings a day earlier. Even a nuclear research institute received a threat Thursday. Pranksters or plotters? No bombs have been found, but authorities can’t take risks with the lives of travelers, students or workers. Still, the government is growing impatient, threatening prison terms and heavy fines for those making fake bomb threats. A rash of false alarms …

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