Category: Євросоюз

A teenager has cut down a world-famous tree in northern England. The 16-year-old boy has been arrested and released for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree that stood alone along Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland county. The tree, which was several hundred years old, was cut down Wednesday, in what Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness said “looks like a deliberate act of vandalism.”  Photographs of the fallen tree show that it was cut at its base.   Fans of the tree posted on various internet sites photographs of the tree that they had taken, along with comments about what the …

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More than 2,500 migrants died or went missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2023, a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees official said Thursday. “By September 24, over 2,500 people were accounted as dead or missing in 2023 alone,” Ruven Menikdiwela, director of the UNHCR New York office, told the U.N. Security Council. That number marked a large increase over the 1,680 dead or missing migrants in the same period in 2022. “Lives are also lost on land, away from public attention,” she added. The land journey from sub-Saharan African countries, where many of the …

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Sweden’s prime minister on Thursday said that he’s summoned the head of the military to discuss how the armed forces can help police deal with an unprecedented crime wave that has shocked the country with almost daily shootings and bombings. Getting the military involved in crime-fighting would be a highly unusual step for Sweden, underscoring the severity of the gang violence that has claimed a dozen lives across the country this month, including teenagers and innocent bystanders. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that he would meet with the armed forces’ supreme commander and the national police commissioner on Friday to …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in October on the sidelines of China’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The trip will be Putin’s first known travel abroad since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in March over alleged war crimes, but the second time the two have met in person this year. Analysts say the meeting will be an opportunity for the two leaders to bolster their countries’ relationship and to voice their shared grievances about U.S. leadership in global affairs. “They’ll complain [about the U.S.], …

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Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh continue to cross into Armenia by the thousands, with more than half the population of the enclave evacuated since Monday. New arrivals say the roads are packed 100 kilometers behind them. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Goris, Armenia, on the road leading from Nagorno-Karabakh. …

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Three people are confirmed dead after a gunman shot into a classroom at a university hospital campus and a nearby house Thursday in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. The suspect, a 32-year-old university student, killed a 39-year-old woman who lived in his neighborhood and seriously injured her 14-year-old daughter. The girl later died in the hospital, according to Dutch police. The suspect then set a fire to their house before going to the Erasmus University Medical Center, where he fatally shot a 46-year-old teacher inside a classroom. He also set a fire at the hospital after the fatal shooting. …

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Israel finalized a $3.5 billion deal on Thursday to sell its cutting-edge Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany as the nation seeks to protect itself from the types of air assaults that have ravaged Ukraine. “We see from the daily Russian attacks on Ukraine how important air defense is in general,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. “Air defense is essential, and particularly for us here in the center of Europe.” Pistorius hailed the Arrow 3 as “one of the best systems, if not the best.” Berlin plans to implement the anti-missile technology in late 2025 and integrate …

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Sweden’s bid to join NATO is heading for a delay as Turkey’s parliament starts a new session this Sunday without the NATO enlargement vote on the agenda. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, delaying a vote on Sweden’s NATO membership puts Turkey on a collision course with the U.S. …

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Seven Australian lawmakers have toured a refugee camp in Armenia, as thousands of ethnic Armenians flee their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. Forces from Azerbaijan took control of the contested region last week. A delegation of seven Australian lawmakers is visiting Armenia this week and toured a camp for those fleeing the unrest. The lawmakers have described a shortage of humanitarian relief and a sense of fear among those who have been displaced. They are urging Australia and other countries to send more aid and medical supplies and have called on the United Nations to send observers to monitor the situation. Nagorno-Karabakh …

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Ukraine’s military said Thursday its air defenses downed 34 of 44 Shahed drones that Russia used to attack the country overnight. The areas targeted in the attack included Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kirovohrad. Oleh Kiper, the regional governor of Odesa, said on Telegram there were no casualties there. He said there was no destruction, only a few small grass fires from falling debris. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday that his country’s fighters “need more means of destroying Russian missiles, Shaheds and other combat drones, as well as Russian aircraft.” Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to “everyone in the …

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At least 50,000 people have fled from their homes in Nagorno-Karabagh into Armenia this week. The exodus comes after the long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan appears to have ended swiftly in Baku’s favor. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Armenia, near the border with Nagorno-Karabakh. …

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European maritime companies are ditching their old ships for scrap on Bangladesh beaches in dangerous and polluting conditions that have killed workers pulling them apart, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. Bangladesh’s southeastern Sitakunda beaches have emerged as one of the world’s largest shipbreaking yards, fueling the South Asian country’s booming construction industry and its need for cheap sources of steel. European firms are among the shipping companies to have sent 520 vessels to the site since 2020, where thousands of workers take apart ships without protective gear. “Companies scrapping ships in Bangladesh’s dangerous and polluting yards are making a profit …

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Slovakia is due to hold parliamentary elections Saturday amid fears in Kyiv and Western capitals that the result could jeopardize unity on support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. Robert Fico The populist Smer, or Direction, party, led by former prime minister Robert Fico, is leading the polls with around 18% of the vote. He has campaigned on a platform of ending military support for Ukraine and blocking the country’s path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia. Speaking at a campaign rally September 6 in the town of Michalovce, close to the Ukrainian border, Fico called …

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New Delhi’s bid to expand its economic and diplomatic clout beyond Asia received a major boost with the announcement at this month’s G20 summit of ambitious plans to develop a new trade route running from India through the Middle East to Europe. The so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, is backed by the United States and is widely seen as a challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has already developed major infrastructure projects in some of the same countries. But the proposal, involving a network of new shipping and rail lines, stands to shake up the existing …

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Robert Fico — whose party appears tied for the lead in Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday — says he would end military support for Ukraine and block the country’s path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Ukraine’s Western allies fear a Fico victory could prompt other countries to question their support for Kyiv following Russia’s 2022 invasion. …

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Russia Wednesday accused the United States and Britain of helping Ukraine carry out an attack last week against the headquarters Russian Black Sea fleet in Russia-occupied Crimea. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the attack was “planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets, and reconnaissance planes.” Zakharova also said U.S. and British intelligence helped coordinate the missile strike. While the U.S. and other Western partners have provided military equipment and training to Ukraine, U.S. officials have previously denied playing a direct role in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. When Russia accused …

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France’s ambassador to Niger left the country early on Wednesday morning, around one month after the military government ordered his expulsion and days after President Emmanuel Macron said the diplomat would be pulled out and French troops withdrawn. Relations between Niger and France, its former colonial ruler which maintained a military presence in the country to help fight Islamist insurgents, have broken down since army officers seized power in Niamey in July. The junta had ordered French ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country within 48 hours at the end of August in response to what they described as actions …

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Six young people from Portugal will argue that governments across Europe aren’t doing enough to protect people from the harms of climate change at the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday, in the latest and largest instance of activists taking governments to court to force climate action. The lawyers representing the young adults and children claim that the 32 European governments they’re suing have failed to adequately address global warming and therefore violated some of their fundamental rights. “We’ve put forward evidence to show that it’s within the power of states to do vastly more to adjust their emissions, …

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The United States government ramped up its diplomatic efforts and humanitarian assistance for thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh region. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how the crisis is evolving, after Azerbaijan regained control last week of the breakaway territory. …

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Forty-two thousand women serve in the Ukrainian military, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently officially approved a female uniform. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. VOA footage by Yevhenii Shynkar. …

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