Category: Євросоюз

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Saudi Arabia on Monday in a three-stop tour of Persian Gulf states to seek trade and investment opportunities for Turkey’s floundering economy. Erdogan arrived in Jeddah accompanied by an entourage of some 200 businesspeople, according to the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey. He met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and is expected to meet King Salman. Business forums have been arranged in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during Erdogan’s three-day trip. “We are hoping to improve our relations and cooperation in many fields. We will focus on joint investment …

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Russia on Monday ended the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which guaranteed the free flow of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. Poor nations already struggling with food insecurity are expected to be affected the worst. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains. …

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Russia said Monday it is ending its participation in a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine safe passage to export grain from three Ukrainian ports past Russian warships on the Black Sea.  Here is a look at how the grain deal worked and what Russia’s withdrawal from the agreement will mean for both Moscow and Kyiv as well as the global food supply.  What is the grain deal? The United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal to allow grain to be shipped from Ukraine, despite Russia’s ongoing war in that country. Much of the exported grain was shipped to impoverished countries …

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Norway’s data protection agency said Monday it would ban Facebook and Instagram owner Meta from using the personal information of users for targeted advertising, threatening a $100,000 daily fine if the company continues.  The business practices of big U.S. tech firms are under close scrutiny across Europe over concerns about privacy, with huge fines handed out in recent years.  The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta uses information such as the location of users, the content they like and their posts for marketing purposes.  “The Norwegian Data Protection Authority considers that the practice of Meta is illegal and is therefore imposing …

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Elton John briefly testified Monday for the defense at Kevin Spacey ‘s sexual assault trial as the actor’s lawyer attempted to discredit a man who claimed the Oscar winner aggressively grabbed his crotch while driving to the singer’s summer ball. John appeared in the London court by video link from Monaco after his husband, David Furnish, testified that Spacey did not attend the annual party at their Windsor home the year the accuser said he was attacked. One of the alleged victims said he was driving Spacey to the White Tie & Tiara Ball in 2004 or 2005 when the …

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The family of a German-Iranian political dissident sentenced to death in Iran is expressing concern over his condition after a phone conversation with him Sunday. Ghazaleh Sharmahd, the daughter of Jamshid Sharmahd, wrote on Twitter “After five months, today we had our first phone call with my father, Jamshid Sharmahd. It is concerning that he was deprived of contact with his daughter for two years, and now he has been allowed to speak with me.” “This greatly worries me. Could this be his farewell call,” she said. Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian dual citizen and opposition figure was accused of masterminding …

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Mikhail Nalivajko, a fighter with Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces, lost his right leg in an attack on his unit. His injuries defied treatment until a nonprofit brought him to the U.S. for medical care. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vladimir Badikov, Natalia Latukhina. …

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Italian health officials intensified heat warnings as southern Europe began a brutally hot week on Monday with temperatures expected to top 40 C — or 104 F — on a continent already overburdened by tourists. The health ministry issued 10 recommendations to protect elderly people, the sick and pets from the heat, urging people to stay indoors during the hottest hours, drink at least 1.5 liters (nearly half a gallon) of water a day and refrain from strenuous exercise at peak daylight times. The culprit was a high-pressure anticyclone dubbed Cerberus, the multi-headed dog that guards gates to the underworld …

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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and the right to use them if cluster munitions are used against its forces in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV Sunday. Ukraine has pledged to only deploy the munitions it received from the United States to repel enemy soldiers from Ukrainian territory. Cluster munitions are banned in more than 100 countries. The Russian state has assumed control of the Russian subsidiaries of French yogurt maker Danone’s DANO.PA and Danish beer company Carlsberg’s CARLb.CO as a retaliatory move after Western countries froze assets of Russian companies abroad. The …

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European leaders and Tunisia’s president announced progress Sunday in the building of hoped-for closer economic and trade relations and on measures to combat the often-lethal smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea. The leaders of Italy, the Netherlands and the European Commission made their second visit to Tunis in just over a month. They expressed hope that a memorandum newly signed with Tunisia during the trip would pave the way for a comprehensive partnership. On their last visit in June, the leaders held out the promise of more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in financial aid to rescue Tunisia’s …

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Despite not advancing on its goal to join NATO, Ukraine did receive security assurances by the military alliance’s members during their summit last week in Vilnius. And as VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, the Biden administration emphasized this Sunday again, that its’ support for Kyiv, remains strong. …

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Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and the right to use them if cluster munitions are used against its forces in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV Sunday. Ukraine has pledged to only deploy the munitions it received from the United States to repel enemy soldiers from Ukrainian territory. Cluster munitions are banned in more than 100 countries.   The Russian state has assumed control of the Russian subsidiaries of French yogurt maker Danone’s DANO.PA and Danish beer company Carlsberg’s CARLb.CO as a retaliatory move after Western countries froze assets of Russian companies abroad. Since July …

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British-born actress and singer Jane Birkin, a 1960s wildchild who became a beloved figure in France, has died in Paris aged 76. The French Culture Ministry said the country had lost a “timeless Francophone icon.” Local media reported she had been found dead at her home, citing people close to her. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years. Birkin was best known overseas for her 1969 hit in which she and her then-lover, the late French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, sang the sexually explicit “Je t’aime…moi non plus”. She had lived in …

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Britain on Sunday officially joined an Asia-Pacific trade group that includes Japan and 10 other nations during a meeting in New Zealand. The trade bloc covers more than 500 million people and 15% of the world’s economy. For Britain, it represents the largest trade deal it has struck since leaving the European Union more than three years ago. Britain first announced in March it had reached an agreement to join the bloc, which was created in 2018, after more than two years of negotiations. It is the first new member to join the bloc, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement …

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Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Taxi lines at Rome’s main train station are running just as long. And so many visitors are concentrating around St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds get backed up crossing bridges — even on weekdays. After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer, from Barcelona and Rome, Athens and Venice to the scenic islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain. While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery …

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Ukrainians have quickly learned how to counter Russian information attacks since Russia’s invasion in the country, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on her official Telegram channel Saturday. Since last July, the U.K. has trained 18,000 Ukrainian volunteer infantrymen under the Operation Interflex training program, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to “survive and be lethal in their fight against the illegal invasion of their homeland” it said. Russian President Vladimir Putin could be arrested if he attends the BRICS summit scheduled in South Africa because of an arrest warrant issued against him last March by …

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Thousands of participants of the Budapest Pride march wound through the streets of the Hungarian capital on Saturday with marchers voicing their anxiety over the increasing pressure on the LGBTQ+ community from the country’s right-wing government. The 28th annual event comes as the country’s laws, which ban the depiction of homosexuality or gender transition, to minors under 18 have begun to be applied with increasing regularity, resulting in fines and other penalties for those who disseminate LGBTQ+ content. Before the march, which began in Budapest’s city park, Pride organizer Jojo Majercsik said that while the laws, passed in 2021, didn’t …

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When Marketa Vondrousova punched away a volley and fell to the ground after completing one of the most unexpected runs to the Wimbledon title, a jumble of thoughts must have been running through her head. After all, Saturday was meant to be the day when Tunisian sixth seed Ons Jabeur would finally become the first Arab and first African woman to win a Grand Slam title. Instead, a distraught Jabeur was left with tears streaming down her face as her Wimbledon dream was wrecked in the final for the second year running with a 6-4 6-4 drubbing. In stark contrast, …

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Tens of millions were battling dangerously high temperatures in the United States on Saturday as record heat forecasts hung over Europe and Japan, in the latest example of the threat from climate change. A powerful heat wave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak as the National Weather Service warned of an “extremely hot and dangerous weekend.” Daytime highs were forecast to range between 10- and 20-degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the U.S. Southwest. In Arizona, one of the hardest-hit states, residents face a daily endurance marathon against the sun. The state capital, Phoenix, recorded 16 straight days …

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Even on the streets of London, Finn Lau does not feel safe from the reach of the Chinese Communist Party. He is among the exiled pro-democracy activists facing arrest warrants issued by Hong Kong authorities last week, with a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) offered for information that helps lead to their detention. Since then, Lau said he has seen several menacing online messages from pro-Chinese groups. “I got some screenshots coming from some Telegram groups, saying that ‘perhaps we should lure them with some kind of tactics, such that we could catch them or kill them,” …

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