Category: Євросоюз

Serbian authorities on Sunday displayed many of around 13,500 weapons they say people have been handed over since this month’s mass shootings, including hand grenades, automatic weapons, and anti-tank rocket launchers. The authorities have declared a one-month amnesty period for citizens to hand over unregistered weapons or face prison sentences as part of a crackdown on guns following the two mass shootings that left 17 people dead, many of them children. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic accompanied top police officials on Sunday for the weapons’ display near the town of Smederevo, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, Belgrade. …

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Turkey is voting in presidential and parliamentary elections Sunday, in what is predicted to be one of the closest votes in decades and one of the most important, both domestically and internationally. The poll will decide the political fate of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ruled for more than 20 years. Sunday’s elections are predicted to see a record turnout in a country with one of the world’s highest voting participation rates. Both incumbent President Erdogan and his primary challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, claim the election is the most important in the country’s history. In Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, voting was …

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Four sisters are building the first Hobbit-style village in southeast Europe in the green hills of central Bosnia, hoping to attract fans of “The Lord of the Rings” books and movies as well as sharing their childhood memories. “We have often held family gatherings on this hill and discussed what would be the best way to make use of this view for tourism purposes,” said Milijana, the eldest of the Milicevic sisters, pointing to the stunning view of a valley and a lake nestled among the hills. The Kresevo Hobbiton, as the Hobbits’ village is called, is located in the …

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Voters in Turkey are heading to the polls Sunday for landmark parliamentary and presidential elections that are expected to be tightly contested and could be the biggest challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces in his two decades in power. The vote will either grant the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan a new five-year term in office or set the NATO-member country on what his opposition contender calls a more democratic path. Polling began at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Media organizations are barred from reporting partial results until an embargo is lifted at 9 …

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The Group of Seven (G-7) rich nations is set to agree on establishing a new program to distribute vaccines to developing countries at next week’s summit of leaders, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said Saturday. In addition to the G-7, G-20 nations such as India and international groups such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank will participate, it added, citing Japanese government sources. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVAX facility, backed by WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), delivered nearly 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine to 146 countries. However, COVAX faced setbacks in …

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Driving through the city of Hatay in Turkey is like touring a war zone in the months after a battle. Some apartment buildings are gutted, others are massive piles of rubble and tangled metal. “This city was a rose garden,” says Ali Kandenir, a 62-year-old truck driver, in a settlement of tents housing families displaced in the February earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. “Now the city is gone.” Kandenir says he is among those who intend to show his anger at the polls this weekend, when Turkey votes in what could be its most …

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The family of a Frenchman released this week after he had been jailed by Iran said on Saturday he was “relieved” to be back in France. On Friday, Benjamin Briere, whose ordeal in Iran lasted three years, and French-Irish citizen Bernard Phelan, held since October, were freed from their prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the French foreign ministry said. There had been grave concerns about the health of the men, both of whom had been on hunger strikes to protest their conditions. ‘Relieved’  Briere, 37, was first detained while traveling in Iran in May 2020 and later sentenced …

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New developments: Germany says it is preparing a new weapons package for Ukraine worth $3 billion, reportedly the nation’s largest package since Russia invaded its neighbor last year. Russia says its forces launched attacks on Ukrainian troops and military facilities on front lines in Kupyansk, Bundman and western Bakhmut. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Rome on Saturday for expected talks with Italian political leaders and the pope. Zelenskyy’s trip comes as Russia again launched a drone attack on Kyiv and shelled cities in central and southern Ukraine, causing material damage, amid reports of some Ukrainian gains in Bakhmut, where …

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Sprinkle the sequins and pump up the volume: The 67th Eurovision Song Contest reaches its climax on Saturday with a grand final broadcast live from Liverpool. There will be catchy choruses, a kaleidoscope of costumes and tributes to the spirit of Ukraine in a competition that for seven decades has captured the changing zeitgeist of a continent. Here’s what to expect as acts from across Europe — and beyond — vie for the continent’s pop crown. Who’s Competing? This year, 37 countries sent an act to Eurovision, selected through national competitions or internal selections by broadcasters. The host country is …

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A senior adviser to the Biden administration and other experts say that deepening cooperation between China and Russia could overturn decades of stable international nuclear arms control. Pranay Vaddi, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for arms control, said that China and Russia have been deepening cooperation on key technologies for nuclear weapons while strengthening ties with Iran, according to Bloomberg. “We’re entering a different period,” Vaddi said. He told Bloomberg that during the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to maintain a nuclear balance and limit certain types of weapons. The Cold War lasted from …

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Troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia exchanged fire with weapons including mortars and drones on their joint border Friday, killing one soldier from each side two days before top-level talks on a long-term peace deal.  It was the second straight day of exchanges of fire ahead of Sunday’s planned meeting in Brussels between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.  One Azeri soldier died in Thursday’s hostilities.  The two ex-Soviet states have fought two wars in 30 years focusing on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.  In a …

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Experts from the United States and several other countries will begin working with Ukrainian counterparts within weeks to collect evidence and identify individuals involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who can be prosecuted for the crime of aggression, a U.S. diplomat told VOA. VOA was told this week that the work, to be conducted by the newly formed International Center for Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, was given the go-ahead at a meeting in Warsaw of the year-old Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, which comprises the United States, European Union and Britain. “The United States will be sending the senior …

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European Union ministers on Friday backed reducing the bloc’s economic dependence on China but will now have to figure out how to make that a reality, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. Borrell said foreign ministers gave broad backing to a plan to adjust policy on China to place greater emphasis on its role as a political rival, while continuing also to see Beijing both as a partner on global issues and an economic competitor. “Colleagues welcomed the paper that we presented. They agree on the basic lines of this recalibration of our strategy on China,” Borrell told reporters after …

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On Sunday, Turkey will go to the polls in what many consider the most important election in decades. Still suffering the impacts of the deadliest earthquake in centuries and facing a deep economic crisis, Turkish voters are divided between the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.  …

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A war of words is brewing between the U.S. and South Africa after the U.S. ambassador to the country said he would “bet his life” on U.S. intelligence that South African weapons were loaded onto a Russian vessel when it docked at a Cape Town naval base in December. The South African government hit back, saying that while it would investigate the matter, the U.S. ambassador’s remarks had “undermined” the relationship between the two nations. Pretoria summoned U.S. Ambassador Reuben Brigety on Friday, amid a diplomatic spat that has put relations between the two friendly nations at their lowest ebb …

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Serbian citizens have handed over nearly 6,000 unregistered weapons in the first three days of a monthlong amnesty period that is part of an anti-gun crackdown following two mass shootings last week, police said Thursday.  Police also have received nearly 300,000 rounds of ammunition and about 470 explosive devices during the same period, the Serbian Interior Ministry said on Instagram.  The effort to rid Serbia of excessive guns was launched after 17 people were killed in two mass shootings last week and 21 were wounded, many of them children. One of the shootings took place in a school for the …

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A California peace activist who has worked to remove land mines from war-torn regions and replace them with grape vines, fruit trees and vegetables was named the 2023 World Food Prize laureate Thursday at a ceremony in Washington. The Des Moines, Iowa-based foundation awarded its annual prize to Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace. Since founding her nonprofit in the basement of her San Rafael, California, home in 1997, Kuhn’s organization has helped remove thousands of mines and assist farmers in more than a half-dozen countries. The group recently signed an initial agreement to begin work in Ukraine. Kuhn, …

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Italy is having second thoughts on renewing a controversial investment pact with China. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal was on the table during May 5 talks in Rome between Chinese Foreign Ministry official Wang Lutong and his Italian counterparts, according to the Italian news outlet Decode39. It was also under discussion when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Italy in February this year. A senior Italian government official has told Reuters that his country is highly unlikely to renew the agreement when it expires early next year, but that it needs time for further discussions with Beijing. The …

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German prosecutors on Thursday charged a German Iranian dual national in an attempted arson attack near a synagogue on the orders of the government in Tehran.  Babak J. was instructed by an intermediary “acting on behalf of unknown Iranian state agencies” in November 2022 to carry out an arson attack on a synagogue in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.  Subsequently, the accused is said to have sought to persuade an acquaintance to set fire to a synagogue in Dortmund using a Molotov cocktail but was refused.  Babak J.’s handler allegedly later named …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces his biggest electoral challenge Sunday with a country recovering from deadly earthquakes, an economic crisis and a united opposition under the leadership of Kemal Kilicdaroglu vowing democratic reform. Dorian Jones reports for VOA from Istanbul. …

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