Category: Євросоюз

French authorities say a police officer faces a charge of voluntary homicide in connection with the death of a teenager during a traffic stop earlier this week. The incident, caught on video, has sparked widespread unrest leading to the arrest of 150 people in Paris and other cities. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced the arrests in a tweet in which he said, “Shame on those who did not call for calm.” “A night of intolerable violence against symbols of the republic, with town halls, schools and police stations set on fire or attacked,” Darmanin said. In addition to Paris, protests …

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ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A team of Italian researchers reached the edge of space Thursday morning, flying aboard Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane as the company prepares for monthly commercial flights. The flight launched from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, with two Italian Air Force officers and an engineer with the National Research Council of Italy focusing on a series of microgravity experiments during their few minutes of weightless. One wore a special suit that measured biometric data and physiological responses while another conducted tests using sensors to track heart rate, brain function and other metrics while in microgravity. …

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A British court ruled Thursday that a government plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is unlawful, delivering a blow to the Conservative administration’s pledge to stop migrants making risky journeys across the English Channel In a split two-to-one ruling, three Court of Appeal judges said Rwanda could not be considered a “safe third country” where migrants could be sent. But the judges said that a policy of deporting asylum seekers to another country was not in itself illegal. The government is likely to challenge the ruling at the U.K. Supreme Court. It has until July 6 …

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The Kremlin said Thursday it could not provide information about Russian General Sergei Surovikin, who has not been seen in public since Saturday, when Wagner mercenary group head Yevgeny Prigozhin led a mutiny attempt against the Russian military. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he could not clarify the situation with Surovikin and said they should contact the defense ministry. Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, appeared in a video Saturday urging the Wagner group to halt any moves against the army and return to their bases. Prigozhin arrived in Belarus earlier this week at the invitation …

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WASHINGTON – The fallout from Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny and exile to Belarus is set to broaden the agenda beyond Ukraine in talks at the upcoming annual NATO summit in July 11–12. The meeting will take place in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, just 35 kilometers from the border of Prigozhin’s new home base, highlighting urgency to fortify the alliance’s eastern flank and increase defense spending. It is still not clear how many members of Prigozhin’s mercenary army will accompany him to Belarus, but the thought of them setting up camp just a few hours away is rattling …

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Latest developments:   European Union leaders to discuss security assistance for Ukraine at summit.  U.S. State Department approves sale of up to $15 billion in Patriot missile defense systems for Poland.    Crews in Ukraine found a body Thursday in the rubble of a pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, bringing the death toll from a Russian missile attack on the site to 12 people.  Ukrainian authorities said the dead include three children, and that the attack injured another 60 people.  Ukraine’s counterintelligence service said Wednesday it arrested a man it accused of helping Russia direct the attack.  Ukrainian …

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US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say Saturday’s armed rebellion in Russia shows that President Vladimir Putin is clearly losing the war in Ukraine and highlights the stark contrast between Putin’s grand ambitions when he started the war and where his army stands now. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. …

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PARIS – Protesters shot fireworks at police and set cars ablaze in the working-class Paris suburb of Nanterre on Wednesday, in a second night of unrest following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy during a traffic stop there.  The use of lethal force by officers against the teenager, who was of North African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse suburbs of France’s biggest cities.   Shortly before midnight, a trail of overturned vehicles burned as fireworks fizzed at police lines on Nanterre’s Avenue Pablo Picasso.   Police clashed with protesters in …

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U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had “absolutely” been weakened inside his country by last weekend’s short-lived mutiny led by mercenary Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. But Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said it was “hard to tell” the extent to which Putin had been diminished. “He’s clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden said, meaning to refer to Putin’s 16-month war against Ukraine. “He’s losing the war at home. And he has become a bit of a pariah around the world. And it’s not just NATO. It’s not just …

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO on Wednesday to send Ukraine a clear signal at a summit next month that it can join the military alliance when Russia’s war on his country ends. In a speech to parliament on Ukraine’s Constitution Day, he suggested global leaders should stop thinking about how Moscow would react when making decisions about Ukraine and described Russia’s political and military leaders as “bandits.” He then set out what Kyiv expects of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Lithuania after holding talks in the Ukrainian capital with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda. “We …

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The war in Ukraine remains high on the agenda as European Union leaders meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, just days after the Wagner group’s short-lived revolt in Russia. Other hot-button issues to be discussed include European defense, relations with China, and immigration. Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising last weekend has added a new element of instability for the EU when it comes to the war in Ukraine — with Eastern European countries especially worried about Wagner mercenaries moving to nearby Belarus. The Brussels summit also comes ahead of a key NATO summit in Vilnius next month. Kyiv is pushing …

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France’s government on Wednesday announced heightened police presence around Paris and other big cities and called for calm after scattered violence erupted over the death of a 17-year-old delivery driver who was shot and killed during a police check.  The death prompted nationwide concern and widespread messages of indignation and condolences, including from soccer star Kylian Mbappe.  It also triggered unrest in multiple towns around Paris. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 31 people were arrested, 25 police officers injured and 40 cars burned in overnight unrest.  The tensions focused around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where lawyers say 17-year-old Nael …

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South Korea has for the first time placed sanctions on a former South Korean national for setting up business entities to bypass United Nations Security Council resolutions against North Korea and its nuclear weapons program. Choi Chon Gon is suspected of engaging in illicit financial deals on behalf of Pyongyang, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday, including co-investing in a Russia-based trade company, Epsilon, with a North Korean. Choi fled South Korea while under investigation by local authorities, Yonhap reports, and is now based in Vladivostok, having acquired Russian citizenship. The 66-year-old set up a front company, Hanne Ulaan, in Mongolia …

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Latest developments:  Pope Francis’ peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi traveled to Moscow weeks after a visit to Kyiv, with the Vatican saying he seeks “a solution to the tragic current situation” of the war in Ukraine.      The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, arrived in Belarus days after an aborted mutiny.   Ukrainian officials said Wednesday a Russian missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed at least eight people and injured more than 50 others.  Emergency services posted photos of rescue teams searching through the rubble at the site that included a restaurant.  Kramatorsk is located …

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As a veteran correspondent for National Public Radio, Sylvia Poggioli spent the bulk of her 41-year career at the American broadcaster living and reporting in Italy.   Now, as she moves into retirement, the Rhode Island-born journalist is watching with interest at how the change in Italy’s government is affecting the media and some of the key issues she has covered there over the years, including immigration.   Last October, Giorgia Meloni — head of Fratelli d’Italia, or the Brothers of Italy party — became prime minister of Italy, the country’s first far-right leader since the end of World War II.  Under her administration, the government …

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A portrait of an unnamed woman by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold for 85.3 million pounds ($108.4 million) on Tuesday, setting a record price for any work of art sold at an auction in Europe, London-based auction house Sotheby’s said.   The painting, which had been given a guide price of 65 million pounds ($82.9 million), was sold after a tense 10-minute bidding war as auctioneer Helena Newman, Sotheby’s head of impressionist and modern art, eked out the final bids in half-million pound increments. Described by Newman as a “technical tour de force, full of boundary-pushing experimentation, as well as …

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The United States on Tuesday accused companies in the United Arab Emirates, the Central African Republic and Russia of engaging in illicit gold deals to help fund the mercenary fighters of Russia’s Wagner Group. The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement it has sanctioned four companies linked to Wagner and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that it alleged were used to help pay the paramilitary’s forces fighting in Ukraine and undertaking operations to support Russian interests in Africa. “The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali. …

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Italy’s culture and tourism ministers have vowed to find and punish a tourist who was filmed carving his name and that of his apparent girlfriend in the wall of the Colosseum in Rome, a crime that resulted in hefty fines in the past. Video of the incident went viral on social media. The message reading “Ivan+Haley 23” appeared on the Colosseum at a time when residents already were complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season. Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano called the writing carved into the almost 2,000-year-old Flavian Ampitheater “serious, undignified and a …

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While Ukrainian pilots could soon be training to fly U.S.-made F-16s, analysts say the jet fighters won’t be seen on the battlefield anytime soon. In the meantime, the Ukrainian military is using a variety of aircraft in the field. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. VOA footage by Pavel Suhodolskiy. …

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A German court gave Rupert Stadler, the former head of Audi, a suspended sentence along with a fine Tuesday as he became the highest-ranking executive to be convicted in connection with an emissions cheating scandal.  As part of a plea deal, the court gave Stadler a 21-month suspended sentence and ordered him to pay $1.2 million.  Prosecutors did not accuse Stadler of orchestrating the system in which Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen, admitted it used software to rig emissions tests in 11 million diesel vehicles to make them seem less polluting.  Stadler admitted to continuing to allow vehicles potentially equipped with …

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