Category: Євросоюз

AVIGNON, France — A 71-year-old French man acknowledged in court on Tuesday that over nearly a decade, he was drugging his wife at the time and inviting dozens of men to rape her, as well as raping her himself. He pleaded with her and their three children for forgiveness. “Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Dominique Pelicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.” Pelicot’s testimony is the most important moment so far in a trial that has shocked and gripped France and raised awareness about sexual violence. Many also …

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LONDON — Less than two months ahead of the COP29 United Nations Climate Summit, the Azerbaijani leadership laid out its plans on Tuesday for what it hoped to achieve, as countries continue to wrestle with how to raise ambitions for a new financing target. The main task for the November summit is for countries to agree on a new annual target for funding that wealthy countries will pay to help poorer nations cope with climate change. Many developing countries say they cannot upgrade their targets to cut emissions faster without first receiving more financial support to invest in doing this. With …

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Brussels — Teresa Ribera will have to square up to Big Tech, banks and airlines if confirmed as Europe’s new antitrust chief, while juggling calls for looser rules to help create EU champions. Nominated Tuesday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the high-profile antitrust post, Ribera has been Spain’s minister for ecological transition since 2018. The 55-year-old Spanish socialist, one of Europe’s most ambitious policymakers on climate change, will have to secure European Parliament approval before taking up her post. As competition commissioner, she will be able to approve or veto multi-billion euro mergers or slap hefty fines …

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PARIS — When French prosecutors took aim at Telegram boss Pavel Durov, they had a trump card to wield – a tough new law with no international equivalent that criminalizes tech titans whose platforms allow illegal products or activities. The so-called LOPMI law, enacted in January 2023, has placed France at the forefront of a group of nations taking a sterner stance on crime-ridden websites. But the law is so recent that prosecutors have yet to secure a conviction. With the law still untested in court, France’s pioneering push to prosecute figures like Durov could backfire if its judges balk at …

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STOCKHOLM — Lower voter turnout and increasingly contested results globally are threatening the credibility of elections, an intergovernmental watchdog warned on Tuesday, as its sub-index for free and fair elections suffered its biggest decline on record in 2023. In its report, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said 2023 was the eighth consecutive year with a net decline in overall democratic performance, the longest consecutive fall since records began in 1975. The watchdog bases its Global State of Democracy indexes on more than 100 variables and is using four main categories – representation, rights, rule of law …

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geneva — Seven candidates are competing for one of the biggest and best jobs in world sports that traditionally becomes available only every 12 years. The International Olympic Committee announced on Monday which of its members in a most exclusive and discreet club have entered the race to be its next president. The election by secret ballot is in March. The winner will replace Thomas Bach, a German lawyer who steps down in June upon reaching the maximum 12 years in office. The 10th IOC president could be its first female leader, or its first from Africa or Asia. Or even …

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Germany began implementing checks on all its land borders Monday as the government tries to crack down on irregular migration. As Henry Ridgwell reports, many of Germany’s neighbors have criticized the plan, which they say undermines the core European Union principle of freedom of movement. …

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MOSCOW — The trial of a French citizen arrested in Russia on charges of unlawfully collecting information on military issues started Monday but was quickly adjourned for a month.  Laurent Vinatier, arrested in Moscow in June, had earlier admitted guilt, setting the stage for a fast-track trial without a detailed examination of evidence. But quickly after the trial opened on Monday, the judge adjourned the hearing until October 14 when prosecutors will declare the sentence they will seek.  Vinatier’s lawyer, Aleksey Sinitsyn, said the trial was adjourned because the prosecution needed more time to prepare for final arguments.  If convicted, Vinatier …

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Paris — Thousands of people protested sexual violence across France this past weekend, as two high-profile cases rock the country: one involving a woman who was allegedly drugged and raped by dozens of men for years; the other targeting a once-beloved French clergyman, who fought for the rights of the homeless.   In French cities like Marseille and Nantes, both men and women took part in demonstrations calling for an end to sexual violence.   They carried signs with messages like “No, to the culture of rape,” and “Gisele, we believe you” — in support of 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot.   Pelicot’s former husband is …

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department imposed on Monday sanctions on two Georgian government officials and two members of the country’s pro-Russian far-right movement who it said were involved in violent crackdowns on protests.   Large street protests erupted in Georgia over a “foreign agent” law, which the South Caucasus country’s parliament passed in May despite criticism, including from U.S. officials, that it was Kremlin-inspired and authoritarian.  A Treasury statement said the financial sanctions on Monday targeted Georgia’s Chief of the Special Task Department Zviad Kharazishvili and his deputy, Mileri Lagazauri, who oversaw security forces who violently suppressed the spring protests.  “The …

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Frankfurt-Oder, Germany — Germany on Monday expanded border controls to the frontiers with all its nine neighbors in hopes of curbing the flow of irregular migrants, a move that has sparked protests from other EU members. Federal police in high-visibility vests braved rains at road and highway crossings for spot checks of passenger cars, buses and other vehicles, asking to see people’s identity papers and checking the trunks of some cars. Germany lies at the heart of Europe and of the visa-free Schengen zone, which is designed to allow the free movement of people and goods, long a core idea of …

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Rome — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Monday to discuss tackling illegal immigration, a day after another Channel migrant shipwreck claimed eight lives.   Starmer, whose center-left Labour Party was elected with a crushing parliamentary majority in July, has vowed to fight illegal immigration, a hot-button topic in British politics for years.   “Here, there’s been some quite dramatic reduction [in migrant arrival numbers] so I want to understand how that came about,” Starmer said in Rome ahead of his meeting with Meloni.   He was speaking while touring a national immigration …

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Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy once again Sunday urged Western allies to permit Kyiv to strike military targets deep inside Russia, especially air bases, after a deadly attack on Kharkiv.   “Only a systemic solution makes it possible to oppose this terror: the long-range solution to destroy Russian military aviation where it is based,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address.   “We are waiting for appropriate decisions coming primarily from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy.”   Earlier, a guided Russian bomb struck a residential building in Kharkiv, the latest of a series of attacks on the …

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Rome — The Italian army will start guarding medical staff at a hospital in the southern Calabria region from Monday, after a string of violent attacks on doctors and nurses by enraged patients and relatives across Italy, according to local media reports.  Prefect Paolo Giovanni Grieco has approved a plan to reinforce the surveillance services already operated by soldiers on sensitive targets in the Calabrian town of Vibo Valentia, including the hospital, the reports added.  Recent attacks on health workers have been particularly frequent in southern Italy, prompting the doctors’ national guild to ask for the army to be deployed to …

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Paris — Hundreds of people marched through Paris on Sunday in support of women’s rights and the opposition in Iran, two years after the death of Mahsa Amini sparked protests against the country’s religious authorities.    A 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Amini died in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.    The march, organized by around 20 human rights associations, took place as 34 women began a hunger strike in a Tehran prison to mark the two-year anniversary of her death.    Chirinne Ardakani, a Franco-Iranian lawyer and member of the “Iran Justice” …

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London — U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “bluster” Sunday over his warning that letting Ukraine use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia would put NATO “at war” with Moscow. Tensions between Russia and the West over the conflict reached dire levels this week as U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met at the White House to discuss whether to ease rules on Kyiv’s use of western-supplied weaponry. “I think that what Putin’s doing is throwing dust up into the air,” Lammy told the BBC.  “There’s a lot of bluster. That’s his …

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LIPOVA LAZNE, Czech Republic — One person drowned in southwest Poland and thousands were evacuated across the border in the Czech Republic as heavy rains continued to batter central Europe on Sunday, causing flooding in several areas. A firefighter tackling flooding in lower Austria was also killed, Austrian Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler said on Sunday on social platform X as authorities declared the province, which surrounds Vienna, bordering the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a disaster area. Rivers overflowed from Poland to Romania, where four people were found dead on Saturday, after days of torrential rain in a low-pressure system named Boris. …

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rome — Italian prosecutors requested on Saturday a six-year prison sentence for Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, for allegedly blocking migrants from disembarking at one of the country’s ports in 2019. Salvini, a partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition, is on trial for alleged deprivation of liberty and abuse of office for keeping 147 migrants at sea for weeks on a ship run by the Open Arms charity. “The prosecution has asked for former interior minister Salvini to be sentenced to six years,” Open Arms’ lawyer Arturo Salerni told AFP, as the “long and difficult trial” nears an …

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Geneva, Switzerland — Limited capacity is keeping mpox testing coverage low in the DR Congo — the epicenter of the international emergency — the World Health Organization said Saturday in its latest situation report.  “Testing coverage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains low, due to limited testing capacity,” the United Nations health agency said in its update.  It said the mpox case fatality ratio in the DRC in 2024 was 0.5% among confirmed cases — or 25 deaths from 5,160 cases — and 3.3% among suspected cases, both tested and untested — or 717 deaths among 21,835 cases.  “Due …

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