Category: Євросоюз

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. US Move Gives Hope to Stateless People Living in America Geopolitical events such as war or the dissolution of a government, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, can leave people without a country. In the United States, more than 200,000 people are living in a stateless status. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum.  Ukrainians Move to North Dakota for Oil Field Jobs to Help Families Back Home Maksym Bunchukov remembers hearing rockets …

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Despite U.S. efforts to curb migration, the flow of migrants at Mexico’s northern border continues. But it’s not just people from Central and South American nations. Veronica Villafane narrates this story by Vicente Calderon in Tijuana and Victor Hugo Castillo in Reynosa. Camera: Vicente Calderon. …

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Several explosions were heard across Kyiv early Friday. Earlier, Mayor Vitali Klitschko had urged residents to go to air raid shelters and Ukrainian officials had issued a nationwide air raid alert. Ukraine shot down a missile near a children’s hospital in the city Friday. Debris from the missile fell near the hospital in Kyiv, but there were no reported injuries. Meanwhile, the airspace over two Russian airports – Vnukovo and Kalugo – was temporarily closed Friday due to drone flights. The airports have since reopened. In its daily intelligence report Friday about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry …

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China, Iran and Russia are engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand, the nation’s domestic intelligence agency said Friday after making its threat assessment report public for the first time. In the report, Director-General of Security Andrew Hampton said the Security Intelligence Service sees enormous value in sharing more of its insights publicly. The agency had previously taken a secretive approach. It decided to change course after it and other agencies were criticized for focusing too much on the perceived threat from Islamic extremism and being blindsided when a white supremacist shot and killed 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques …

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The U.S. and its European allies are importing vast amounts of nuclear fuel and compounds from Russia, providing Moscow with hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed revenue as it wages war on Ukraine. The sales, which are legal and unsanctioned, have raised alarms from nonproliferation experts and elected officials who say the imports are helping to bankroll the development of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal and are complicating efforts to curtail Russia’s war-making abilities. The dependence on Russian nuclear products — used mostly to fuel civilian reactors — leaves the U.S. and its allies open to energy shortages if Russian …

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The Biden administration on Thursday asked Congress to provide more than $13 billion in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8 billion for humanitarian support through the end of the year, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces. The request also includes $12 billion to replenish U.S. federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster enforcement at the border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s …

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They are talented, smart, and ambitious, and live in the middle of a war. But 84 Ukrainian high school students aren’t letting the war short circuit their dreams and are preparing to apply to top U.S. colleges and boarding schools with the help of a non-profit group. VOA’s Lesia Bakalets reports from Warsaw. …

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China’s “friendship without limits” with Russia may be tested in Africa, where Beijing’s long-established economic interests are at risk of clashing with the growing footprint of Moscow’s paramilitary Wagner Group. The most recent point of potential friction is Niger, where leaders of a July 26 military coup are reported by The Associated Press to have reached out to Wagner for help in cementing their hold on power. That news is unlikely to have been welcomed in Beijing, where a foreign ministry spokesman last week described the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, as “a friend of China” and said the country hoped …

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Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous — before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters. It’s certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study said, Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius. “We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials …

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Paris’ escape from record temperatures gripping parts of Europe this summer could be a short-term reprieve. A study finds the city could have the most heatwave-related deaths of any European capital by 2050 — when temperatures may soar to 50 C (122 F). For VOA, Lisa Bryant has more from Paris. …

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Wednesday marks three years since the contested elections in Belarus that resulted in a widescale crackdown on dissent and opposition voices. When longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in a presidential election in which members of the opposition were jailed or threatened, mass protests broke out across the country. Security forces responded with violence and mass arrests of journalists, protesters and others, with large numbers of opposition voices still being detained or silenced, according to international rights organizations. “Three years after the start of mass pro-democracy protests in Belarus, there is no end in sight to the horrendous crackdown on free …

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The United States is providing up to $200 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, two U.S. officials told VOA, in a package that is expected to include more rockets for HIMARS and more munitions for Patriot surface-to-air missile defense systems. The officials, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity ahead of the expected release of the package later this week, said the aid also includes mine clearing equipment and anti-tank weapons such as TOW missiles and shoulder-fired AT4s.   The latest aid package will mark the 44th authorized presidential drawdown of military equipment from Defense Department inventories since Russia’s invasion …

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A devastating fire that raged through a vacation home for adults with disabilities in eastern France left 11 people dead Wednesday, moving so quickly that people on the upper floors had no chance of escaping. Nathalie Kielwasser, deputy prosecutor for Colmar, said 11 people who were sleeping on the upper floor and in a mezzanine area of the private accommodation in the Alsatian town of Wintzenheim, in eastern France, were trapped by the fire, while five escaped. Twelve people who were staying on the ground floor were evacuated, she said.  The adults, who had “slight intellectual disabilities,” were on a …

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A dam partially burst on Wednesday following days of heavy rain that triggered landslides and flooding in mountainous southern Norway, a police official said. Communities downstream already had been evacuated. The Glomma, Norway’s longest and most voluminous river, is dammed at the Braskereidfoss hydroelectric power plant, which was under water and out of operation. Authorities initially considered blowing up part of the dam to prevent communities from getting deluged. But the idea was scrapped since water later broke through the dam, police spokesman Fredrik Thomson told reporters. “We hope that we will get a gradual leveling of the water and …

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The United States issued new sanctions against Belarus on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, adding it was designating eight individuals and five entities to a list for allegedly funding the Belarusian government.   “This action targets several entities involved in the Belarusian regime’s continued civil society repression, complicity in the Russian Federation’s unjustified war in Ukraine, and enrichment of repressive Belarusian regime leader” Alexander Lukashenko, the Treasury Department said in a statement. Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the …

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Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, the Ansa news agency reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa. Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children. The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying. The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – said …

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Fire officials say nine bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a massive fire at a vacation cottage in eastern France, where 11 people had been reported missing. The fire broke out early Wednesday morning in the town of Wintzenheim. Authorities say the cottage was rented by an association that assists disabled people. The missing residents, including 10 adults with learning disabilities and a staff member, were from the nearby eastern city of Nancy.   Christopher Marot, the secretary-general of the Haut-Rhin district, told reporters earlier Wednesday it was unlikely the 11 missing people were able to escape the blaze.   …

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Russia on Tuesday aligned itself with its ally Iran in rejecting Western attempts to maintain curbs on Iran despite the collapse of a 2015 deal intended to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions.  After a meeting between their respective deputy foreign ministers in Tehran, Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow and Tehran were unanimous in believing that the failure to implement the deal stemmed from the “erroneous policy of ‘maximum pressure’ pursued by the United States and those who think similarly.”  Then-U.S. President Donald Trump quit the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) …

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Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous — before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters.  It’s certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study finds Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius.  “We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials to …

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Dozens of second-hand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by another European country for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion, the arms trader who did the deal said Tuesday.  The German-made Leopards were at the center of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said the government had explored buying back tanks to send to Ukraine but had been quoted unreasonable prices.  The clash highlighted a predicament faced by Western governments trying to find weapons for Ukraine after more than a year of intense warfare — arms they discarded as obsolete …

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