Category: Євросоюз

Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him. They weren’t able to crack the case of the German composer’s deafness or severe stomach ailments. But they did find a genetic risk for liver disease, plus a liver-damaging hepatitis B infection in the last months of his life. These factors, along with his chronic drinking, were probably enough to cause the liver failure that is widely believed to have killed him, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal …

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Latvia is the European Union country with the largest Russian minority, with ethnic Russians making up approximately 25% of its population. For them, the war in Ukraine has been a political and social earthquake. Marcus Harton narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in the Latvian capital, Riga. Camera: Ricardo Marquina …

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President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said a deeply unpopular new law that raises the retirement age was necessary and would enter into force by the end of the year. “Do you think I enjoy doing this reform? No,” Macron said in a rare TV interview. “But there is not a hundred ways to balance the accounts … this reform is necessary.” Until the government pushed the pension bill through without a vote, the protests against a bill that will push the retirement age by two years to 64 had gathered huge, peaceful crowds in rallies organized by unions. But since …

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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. UN chief makes brief trip to Ukraine U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday assailed Russia’s yearlong invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine,  for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The two men met on Thursday in the Ukrainian capital. UN nuclear board meets following chief’s visit to …

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The latest Russian missile barrage against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure has marked one of the largest such attacks in months.  On Thursday, Russia fired more than 80 missiles in a massive effort to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses and cripple the country’s energy system.  Russia has been regularly launching similar strikes since October in a bid to demoralize Ukrainians and force the government to bow to the Kremlin’s demands.  Thursday’s strikes differed from earlier attacks, though, by including a larger number of sophisticated hypersonic missiles that are the most advanced weapons in the Russian arsenal. But just like previous barrages it has …

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In a dramatic turn of events, Georgian lawmakers have voted to drop a controversial “foreign agents” bill just days after its first reading sparked massive protests over fears the legislation, which mirrored a similar law in Russia, and would have severely restricted dissent and the activity of civil society groups in the country and push it toward authoritarianism.  Parliament on March 10 voted in the second reading of the draft, a day after the ruling Georgian Dream party announced it was withdrawing the proposed legislation in the face of the protests.  Lawmakers voted 35-1 against the bill, thus canceling it. …

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The European Union wants to hold joint naval exercises as part of plans published Friday to step up its efforts to protect critical infrastructure at sea.  Concerns about threats to Europe’s maritime infrastructure were heightened by attacks in September on the Nord Stream pipelines, which left them spewing natural gas into the Baltic Sea.  The EU has updated its maritime security strategy, outlining plans to hold an annual naval exercise from 2024 and coordinate member countries’ national efforts to protect gas pipelines, undersea data cables, offshore wind farms and other critical maritime infrastructure.  EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius told Reuters …

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Following the wave of missiles strikes that Russia launched Thursday against Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Friday that the intervals between such strikes will likely grow. The ministry said that Russia needs time “to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.” Russia launched the barrage of missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least six and leaving hundreds of thousands without heat and electricity. It was the largest such attack on Ukraine in three weeks, with Ukrainian forces saying they …

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U.S. President Joe Biden will meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday at the White House to discuss potential sanctions against China amid concerns that Beijing is preparing to send weapons to Russia, and Europe’s frustration over Washington’s plans to subsidize American companies under the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden and von der Leyen also will discuss U.S.-EU coordination to combat the climate crisis through investing in clean technology based on secure supply chains, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. The meeting is the latest in a flurry of high-level diplomacy with European leaders …

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Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and several people were killed or wounded, police said. The shooting took place in the Gross Borstel district, a few kilometers north of the downtown area of Germany’s second-biggest city. “We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said. He said he had no information on the severity of the injuries suffered by the wounded. Police did not confirm German media reports — which named no sources …

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Rights groups are warning that independent Turkish media face fines and arrests over critical reporting of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s handling of February’s deadly earthquakes. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

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Russia said on Thursday that a landmark deal to ensure the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was only being half-implemented, raising doubts about whether it would allow an extension of the agreement set to expire next week. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports. The deal was extended for 120 days in November and will renew on March 18 if no party objects. However, Moscow has …

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Is the fight for democracy at a turning point? Freedom House documents a global decline for the 17th consecutive year. One of the biggest concerns: media freedom. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains. VOA footage by Saqib Ul Islam. …

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A federal court in New York authorized the seizure of a $25 million Boeing 737 owned by a Russian energy company, citing U.S. sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.  The aircraft is owned by PJSC Rosneft Oil Co., headquartered in Moscow and led by sanctioned oligarch Igor Ivanovich Sechin.  The court found probable cause that the aircraft, which has not been in the U.S. since 2014, could be seized by the U.S. based on violations of the Export Control Reform Act.  “Today’s enforcement action demonstrates there is a price to pay for …

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Ukrainian officials reported Russian missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country that killed at least six people. Ukraine’s military said it shot down 34 of 81 missiles that Russia fired, and that it downed four Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces. “The occupiers can only terrorize civilians,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram.  “That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.” The governor of the western Lviv region said five people were killed there when a missile hit a residential area. In the Dnipropetrovsk, officials said …

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Georgia’s ruling party announced Thursday it is withdrawing a proposed foreign agent law after the legislation sparked two days of massive protests.  The measure would have required media and nongovernmental organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.”  Opponents of the bill compared it to a 2012 Russian law that has been used to suppress or shut down organizations critical of the Russian government.  The ruling Georgian Dream party said Thursday the bill was presented in a negative way and that a portion of the public was misled.  Georgia’s President …

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top House lawmaker in the United States to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN. “Mr. (Kevin) McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter. Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in …

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The World Uyghur Congress, a Germany-based Uyghur rights group, has been nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Canadian lawmakers and a leader of the Young Liberals in Norway, the youth wing of Norway’s Venstre political party, nominated the organization. The rights group was cited for its work toward peace, democracy and the plight of the Uyghur and other Turkic people who live under what the nomination letter described as a “repressive regime in China.” “The World Uyghur Congress has the main purpose of promoting democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur People and supporting the use of peaceful, …

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The Netherlands’ government on Wednesday said it planned new restrictions on exports of semiconductor technology to protect national security, joining the United States’ effort to curb chip exports to China.  The U.S. in October imposed sweeping export restrictions on shipments of American chipmaking tools to China, but for the restrictions to be effective, they need other key suppliers in the Netherlands and Japan, who also oversee key chipmaking technology, to agree. The allied countries have been in talks on the matter for months.  Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher announced the decision in a letter to parliament, saying the restrictions would …

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As parts of southeast Turkey struggle to recover from last month’s earthquake, many are questioning why so many relatively modern buildings collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude tremor — with some engineers pointing the finger at government policy, as Henry Ridgwell reports. Video: Memet Aksakal, Henry Ridgwell …

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