Category: Євросоюз

With an International Criminal Court arrest warrant out for Vladimir Putin, South Africa is weighing what to do if the Russian president accepts an earlier invitation to attend an August summit in the country. The court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader March 17 for war crimes involving the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. South Africa is a signatory to the ICC’s Rome Statute that obligates countries to execute the court’s international arrest warrants.  But Pretoria is also a close ally with Moscow and has refrained from criticizing Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – …

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The government of Botswana said Monday it will buy a 24% stake in Belgian diamond company HB Antwerp. The deal comes amid uncertainty over Botswana’s long-standing sales agreement with industry giant De Beers.    Officially opening HB Antwerp’s cutting and polishing plant in Gaborone, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said Botswana must gain more from its diamond resources, for the “simple reason that the returns that come with having control to sell our diamonds with value addition, are much, much, higher than the returns on the sales of rough diamond stones.”  To that end, Masisi said that, “It is time for Botswana …

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Russia’s navy fired supersonic anti-ship missiles at a mock target in the Sea of Japan, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday.  “In the waters of the Sea of Japan, missile ships of the Pacific Fleet fired Moskit cruise missiles at a mock enemy sea target,” it said in a statement on its Telegram account.  “The target, located at a distance of about 100 kilometers, was successfully hit by a direct hit from two Moskit cruise missiles.”  The P-270 Moskit missile, which has the NATO reporting name or SS-N-22 Sunburn, is a medium-range supersonic cruise missile of Soviet origin, capable …

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Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who led a delegation of the Belarusian opposition to Washington, spoke to VOA’s Russian Service on Saturday about the democratic movement in her country and the war in Ukraine.   Tsikhanouskaya fled Belarus after facing President Alexander Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential elections that drew mass protests over allegations of electoral fraud. Lukashenko, who won a new term, has long denied the fraud allegations. Earlier this month, a court in Belarus sentenced Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in prison after a trial in absentia on charges including conspiring to overthrow the government, the latest move in …

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Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle is set to close its Turkey office Tuesday after Ankara declined to extend its operating license, a move condemned by media rights groups. The case shows the pressure that Ankara is putting on foreign media to make it harder for them to work in the country, some analysts say. Authorities had already blocked access to the Turkish-language websites of DW and VOA last year when the broadcasters refused to comply with license requirements that they said amounted to censorship. In the case of DW, the broadcaster says the Ministry of Industry and Technology informed it …

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Ukraine shut the eastern town of Avdiivka to non-military personnel on Monday, describing it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as Kyiv tried to break the back of Russia’s flagging winter offensive before a counter-assault of its own.  A Ukrainian general said Kyiv was planning its next move after Moscow appeared to shift focus from the small city of Bakhmut, which Russia has failed to capture after several months of the war’s bloodiest fighting, to Avdiivka further south.  The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in a Monday evening update that Russian forces were still trying to storm Bakhmut and had shelled …

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The 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks pledged by Germany to support Ukraine in its war against Russia have arrived in Ukraine, the German Defense Ministry said on Monday. Germany agreed in January to supply the tanks, regarded as among the best in the West’s arsenal, overcoming misgivings about sending heavy weaponry that Kyiv says is crucial to defeat Russia’s invasion but Moscow casts as a dangerous provocation. “I’m sure that they can make a decisive contribution on the front,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a tweet. Besides the 18 tanks, 40 German Marder infantry fighting vehicles, and two …

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The Scottish National Party elected Humza Yousaf as its new leader Monday. This comes after what analysts describe as a bruising five-week campaign that exposed deep cracks in Scotland’s pro-independence movement. The 37-year-old Yousaf, who is currently Scotland’s health minister, will be Scotland’s first Muslim and first person of color to serve as First Minister. He will succeed Nicola Sturgeon, who unexpectedly stepped down from her position last month after eight years.  Yousaf is widely seen as a ‘continuity of Sturgeon,’ as they share similar social liberal views. Yousaf said his main goals are to concentrate on tackling the cost-of-living …

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Advertisements promise cash bonuses and enticing benefits. Recruiters are making cold calls to eligible men. Enlistment offices are working with universities and social service agencies to lure students and the unemployed. A new campaign is underway this spring across Russia, seeking recruits to replenish its troops for the war in Ukraine. As fighting grinds on in Ukrainian battlegrounds like Bakhmut and both sides prepare for counteroffensives that could cost even more lives, the Kremlin’s war machine badly needs new recruits. A mobilization in September of 300,000 reservists — billed as a “partial” call-up — sent panic throughout the country, since …

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A security guard was killed in a gun attack on Albania’s largest broadcaster early Monday, with the country’s prime minister calling the assault on the media outlet “worrying”.   The 60-year-old guard was in a booth outside the Top Channel headquarters in Tirana when he was hit by a burst of gunfire from a passing SUV. The police gave no possible motive for the attack, saying “the investigation is ongoing”. But they said the attackers used a Kalashnikov rifle.  The SUV was found hours later on the side of the road approximately 40 kilometers away from the scene of the attack, …

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Germany’s public transportation workers are striking Monday as unions demand higher wages for their members.   The schedules of trains, buses and planes are being disrupted by the 24-hour work stoppage.   The strike is intended to pressure employers as a new round of negotiations begins this week.   German news outlet Deutsche-Welle reports that Frank Werneke, head of Verdi, one of the unions involved in the strike, said, “What employees right up into the middle-income groups find to be a burden, above all, are the enormous price increases for electricity, gas, and groceries.”  Some German airports began canceling flights Sunday in anticipation …

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Hundreds of volunteers descended on the beaches of the North Sea coast this weekend to collect sea shells as a measure of the sea’s biological diversity. While there is a serious scientific purpose to the exercise, it is also a fun day out on the coast for Belgian, French and Dutch families with kids. On Saturday, Natascha Perales and her children marked a wide spiral pattern on the sand in Middelkerke, in Flanders, and filled their plastic buckets with shells. The harvests were taken to a sorting center run by volunteers, to be counted and divided up by species. “We …

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Officials told “fire tourists” to keep away from blazes raging in eastern Spain on Sunday, saying onlookers were putting themselves at risk and disrupting efforts to quell the flames. More than 500 firefighters backed by 20 planes and helicopters were battling the fire four days after it broke out near the village of Villanueva de Viver in Valencia region, emergency services said. Police had spotted 14 cyclists near the scene trying to get a closer look, Gabriela Bravo, the regional head of interior affairs in the Valencia region, told reporters. “We ask once again and above all tourists not to …

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As the United States prepares to co-host the second Summit for Democracy in Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how the weapons that Russia has used so far in its war on Ukraine have already taken a heavy toll not only on the civilian population in Ukraine, but also on that country’s environment. …

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Berlin votes on Sunday on making the city climate neutral by 2030, in a binding referendum that will force the new conservative local government to invest heavily in renewable energy, building efficiency and public transportation. Climate campaigners gathered over 260,000 signatures in support of the referendum, which will make Berlin one of few major European cities with a legally binding goal to become carbon neutral in seven years. The European Union last year started a scheme to help 100 cities inside and outside of the bloc become climate neutral by 2030, but the scheme and the financial support it offers …

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A controversy over John Paul II’s legacy looks set to spur some undecided voters in Polish elections due by November, political analysts say, as allegations that the late pope concealed child abuse deepen rifts in the predominantly Catholic country. Claims in a new book and TV documentary that the late pope, born Karol Wojtyla, knowingly hid clerical pedophilia scandals as archbishop of Krakow have led some Poles to demand that his legacy be reassessed. This has provoked a furious response from religious conservatives, with politicians from the ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) defending John Paul II in the face …

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Russia on Saturday accused Azerbaijan of violating the Moscow-brokered cease-fire that ended a 2020 war with Armenia by letting its troops cross over the demarcation line. Arch foes Baku and Yerevan have been locked for decades in a territorial conflict over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The fragile Russian-mediated truce, which ended six weeks of fighting in autumn 2020, has stood despite occasional shootouts along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in Karabakh. “On March 25 … a unit of the armed forces of Azerbaijan crossed a line of contact in the district of Shusha, in violation” of the agreement of November …

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At a historic military cemetery in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Valeriy Pushko lights up two cigarettes. One is for himself, the other for his son whose portrait is fixed to a cross planted in the ground. “I smoke with my son,” the gray-haired man said. “We used to take cigarette breaks together. It’s a bad habit but it makes things easier. I talk to him, think about him and that makes me feel better.” Pushko said many others come here to smoke with their fallen husbands or sons. In southeastern Lviv, the Lychakiv cemetery is one of the …

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Spain’s first major wildfire of the year scorched more than 4,000 hectares of forest and forced 1,700 villagers to leave their homes in the Valencia and Aragon regions. Residents recounted fleeing their houses and leaving animals behind. “Bad, how am I supposed to feel? Your town is burning, your life is burning. Our animals were there, and no one can tell us anything,” Antonio Zarzoso, 24, who had to leave the village of Puebla de Arenoso, told Reuters. More than 500 firefighters supported by 20 planes and helicopters were working to bring the blaze under control near the village of …

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A poll of global attitudes toward Russia’s Ukraine war suggests the West has regained its “unity and sense of purpose” following the invasion, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations. The survey, conducted in nine EU countries, Britain, China, India, Turkey, Russia, and the United States in December and January, portrays markedly different attitudes in non-Western nations. “We asked the question whether they agree strongly with the idea that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible, even if that means giving Russia control of some areas of Ukraine,” Susi Dennison, an analyst at …

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