The number of Ukrainian citizens seeking to adopt children has increased dramatically since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lesia Bakalets reports from Kyiv, Ukraine. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets. …
New York — Among those in New York City for the 79th United Nations General Assembly is exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. On Monday, Tsikhanouskaya and Evgenia Kara-Murza, the Russian human rights activist and wife of former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, received the annual human rights prize awarded by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, founded by the late Tom Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that same day via video link, Tsikhanouskaya said she was speaking on behalf of the more than …
Former U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Trump repeated claims that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine by making a deal with Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. …
BRUSSELS — s the war in Ukraine enters a critical period, the European Union has decided that it must take responsibility for what it sees as an existential threat to security in its own neighborhood and is preparing to tackle some of the financial burden, perhaps even without the United States. EU envoys have been working in Brussels this week on a proposal to provide Ukraine with a hefty loan package worth up to $39 billion. It was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a trip to Kyiv last Friday. “Crucially, this loan will flow straight into …
NEW YORK — Donald Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as public tensions have been rising between the two over Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. Trump said Zelenskyy asked for the meeting. The visit is set for about 9:45 a.m. Eastern Time at Trump Tower in New York, less than a day after Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent, met with the Ukrainian leader and expressed unwavering support. “I look forward to seeing him tomorrow,” Trump said in a press conference Thursday. “I believe I will be able to make a deal between President [Vladimir] Putin …
New York — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This meeting between the countries’ top diplomats comes amid growing U.S. concerns over Chinese firms supplying chips and drones to Moscow, which have significantly bolstered Russia’s battlefield capabilities in its war against Ukraine. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has told the Congress that China’s material support for Russia’s war effort “comes from the very top.” Blinken’s talks with Wang will take place ahead of a call between …
According to the International Energy Agency, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. But with that shift comes environmental risks related to the mining of critical minerals. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at how nations are navigating the environmental challenges of creating a renewable future. …
WASHINGTON — A network of people and virtual currency exchanges associated with harboring Russian cybercrime were hit with sanctions on Thursday, in a government-wide crackdown on cybercrime that could assist Russia ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. U.S. Treasury sanctioned alleged Russian hacker Sergey Ivanov and Cryptex — a St. Vincent and Grenadines registered virtual currency exchange operating in Russia. Virtual currency exchanges allow people and businesses to trade cryptocurrencies for other assets, such as conventional dollars or other digital currencies. Treasury alleges that Ivanov has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of virtual currency …
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is traveling to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe to try to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches. Francis stops first Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 650,000 people, and its richest per capita. Torrential downpours are expected, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences because of a slight flu. He seemed in fine form at the Vatican on Wednesday, during his general audience …
The war in Ukraine, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, and an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah dominated the second day of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports. …
Madrid — Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum angered Spain on Wednesday by barring its King Felipe VI from her swearing-in ceremony, accusing him of failing to acknowledge harm caused by his country’s conquest of Mexico five centuries ago. The decision prompted Spain to boycott the event altogether, with its Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the Mexican decision “inexplicable” and “totally unacceptable.” Mexico’s outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2019 sent a letter to the king asking that he “publicly and officially” acknowledge the “damage” caused by the 1519-1521 conquest, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country’s …
Oslo, Norway — Norwegian police on Wednesday said they had arrested a man on suspicion of incitement to commit crimes against humanity in Cameroon, where a radio station identified him as “separatist leader” Lucas Cho Ayaba. The Kripos police unit that deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity said in a statement that it had arrested “a man in his 50s” on Tuesday, but did not name him. “Norwegian police have arrested the separatist leader Lucas Cho Ayaba. He is implicated in atrocities committed in the northwest and southwest,” said CRTV radio station. Two sources had earlier told AFP that …
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people — a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality. The move against the leadership of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodomized his recruits. The decision was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Conference, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website. The statement was astonishing because …
Geneva — As Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine grinds on for a third year, a United Nations report says all dissenting voices in the Russian Federation have been muzzled, civic and political rights have been shut down, and the human rights situation in the country “has significantly worsened.” “The country is now governed by a state-sponsored system of fear and punishment including the use of torture, with absolute impunity,” Mariana Katzarova, who monitors rights in Russia under a mandate from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, said Tuesday. Katzarova said civil and political freedoms in Russia have become further restricted since she …