Category: Євросоюз

Russian authorities on Friday released the names of 51 people presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion in a coal mine in Siberia, believed to be the deadliest since 2010. The list with the names of 46 miners and five rescuers was published online by the government of the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia, where the mine is located. Authorities had initially reported 52 possible fatalities, but search teams on Friday found a survivor in what officials described as a miracle.  A total of 285 miners were in the Listvyazhnaya mine at the time of an explosion on Thursday morning …

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European Union states have agreed to suspend travel from southern Africa after the detection of a new COVID-19 variant, the presidency of the EU said Friday. A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter.    Restrictions will apply to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said on Twitter. An EU official said that EU governments have also been asked to …

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The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday classified the B.1.1.529 variant detected in South Africa as a SARS-CoV-2 “variant of concern,” saying it may spread more quickly than other forms. Preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection and there had been a “detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology,” it said in a statement after a closed meeting of independent experts who reviewed the data. Infections in South Africa had risen steeply in recent weeks, coinciding with detection of the variant now designated as omicron, WHO said. “This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are …

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Britain’s blue-chip share index slumped Friday, suffering its biggest drop in more than a year as fears over a newly detected and possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant gripped stock markets around the world.   The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index closed down 3.7% at its lowest in more than seven weeks, with commodity, travel, and banking stocks leading the sell-off.   Britain said the virus variant spreading in South Africa was considered by scientists to be the most significant one found yet and it needed to ascertain whether it rendered vaccines ineffective.   Tourism group TUI fell almost 10%, while …

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All options are on the table in how to respond to Russia’s ‘large and unusual’ troop build-up near Ukraine’s border, and the NATO alliance will decide what the next move will be following consultations next week, the top U.S. diplomat for European affairs said Friday.   “As you can appreciate, all options are on the table, and there’s a toolkit that includes a whole range of options,” Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried told reporters in a telephone briefing.   “It’s now for the alliance to decide what are the next moves that NATO wants …

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Rescuers have found a survivor in a Siberian coal mine where dozens of miners are presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion, a top local official announced Friday. Sergei Tsivilyov, governor of the Kemerovo region where the mine is located, said on the messaging app Telegram that the survivor was found in the Listvyazhnaya mine in southwestern Siberia, and “he is being taken to the hospital.”  Acting Emergency Minister Alexander Chupriyan said the man found in the mine was rescuer Alexander Zakovryashin who had been presumed dead. “I can consider it a miracle,” Chupriyan said. Zakovryashin was conscious when rescuers …

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France on Friday scrapped planned talks with the UK about migrant crossings in anger at a letter by Britain’s prime minister over the crisis, pushing relations to new lows following the deaths of 27 people in the Channel this week. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told UK counterpart Priti Patel she was no longer invited to talks at the weekend about the migrant crisis in the Channel with other European ministers. The meeting was set to go ahead without any UK presence, prompting London to demand France reconsider the snub. The row puts London and Paris at odds when they are …

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Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed this week to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats, the party of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders. Members of the Social Democratic Pary, or SDP, which narrowly won the highest vote share in September’s election, agreed to lead a coalition alongside the Green party and the Free Democrats. SDP leader Olaf Scholz, who will be Germany’s next chancellor, pledged to strengthen Germany’s existing alliances …

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Germany will have a new government next month after three parties agreed to form a coalition, ousting the ruling Christian Democrats of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new government under Olaf Scholz faces an early test of foreign policy, as Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops on Europe’s eastern borders. Henry Ridgwell considers Berlin’s future relationship with Moscow. Camera: Henry Ridgwell …

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Czech President Milos Zeman was readmitted to a hospital late Thursday after he tested positive for COVID-19. He’d left the Prague military hospital only hours before, following more than a month’s treatment for an unspecified illness. The presidential office said Zeman was tested after he arrived at his official residence in Lany, west of Prague, in the afternoon. His official program was postponed, and it was unclear whether Zeman would be able to swear in the country’s new prime minister as scheduled Friday — a process already long delayed because of the president’s previous hospitalization. Zeman, 77, was rushed to …

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European countries expanded COVID-19 booster vaccinations, began plans to get shots to young children and tightened some curbs Thursday as the continent battled a surge in coronavirus cases and concerns about its economic fallout grew. Slovakia went into a two-week lockdown, and the Czech government declared a 30-day state of emergency involving early closure of bars and clubs and a ban on Christmas markets. Germany crossed the threshold of 100,000 COVID-19-related deaths. Europe is at the heart of the latest COVID-19 wave, reporting a million new infections about every two days and now accounting for nearly two-thirds of new infections …

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Pope Francis, meeting the prime minister of Lebanon Thursday, compared the country to a dying person and promised to do everything in his power to help it “rise again.”    Francis and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who took office in September after a year-long government vacuum, met privately for about 20 minutes and discussed the country’s devastating economic and social crisis, the Vatican said in a statement.    The fallout from Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019 has left swathes of the nation in poverty and foreign donors are demanding an audit of the central bank and financial reforms before they …

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Italy has given safe haven to Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s office said Thursday. The government intervened after Gula asked for help to leave Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country in August, a statement said, adding that her arrival was part of a broader program to evacuate and integrate Afghan citizens.   U.S. photographer Steve McCurry took the picture of Gula when she was a youngster, living in a refugee camp on the Pakistan-Afghan border.   Her startling green eyes, …

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The holiday tree is towering over the main square in this central German city, the chestnuts and sugared almonds are roasted, and kids are clambering aboard the merry-go-round just like they did before the pandemic. But a surge in coronavirus infections has left an uneasy feeling hanging over Frankfurt’s Christmas market. To savor a mug of mulled wine — a pleasurable rite of winter in pre-pandemic times — masked customers must pass through a one-way entrance to a fenced-off wine hut, stopping at the hand sanitizer station. Elsewhere, security officers check vaccination certificates before letting customers head for the steaming …

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An accident at a coal mine in Russia’s Siberia region killed at least 11 people Thursday and injured more than 40 others. Local officials said there were 285 people inside the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo area at the time of the accident. Rescue operations were ongoing for more than 40 people still underground. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the families of those who died. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, AFP and Reuters. …

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Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday will consider a request to shut down Memorial, the country’s most prominent rights group and a pillar of its civil society. Founded by Soviet dissidents including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov in 1989, Memorial has built up a huge archive of Soviet-era crimes and campaigned tirelessly for human rights in Russia. Prosecutors have asked the court to dissolve Memorial International, the group’s central structure, for allegedly violating Russia’s controversial law on “foreign agents.” The move has sparked widespread outrage, with supporters saying the shuttering of Memorial would mark the end of an era in …

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On a bad day, Maria Tikas receives four or five abusive online messages suggesting that she only got her job as a journalist because she offered sexual favors to her bosses. Some messages include graphic sexual images. Others suggest a woman cannot know anything about covering soccer for Sport, a Spanish daily sports newspaper. “You have not got any idea (about soccer), get back to the kitchen,” read one of the messages Tikas showed VOA. Tikas and other female journalists in Spain have gone public about the daily vitriol. “¡Basta!  Female journalists say enough!” That was the headline over a double-page …

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At least 27 migrants drowned Wednesday after their inflatable dinghy capsized as they tried to cross the English Channel from France. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 34 people were aboard the boat. Two were rescued and one is missing, according to Reuters, in the worst recorded tragedy involving migrants between the two countries. Without explanation, the Interior Ministry later revised the initial death toll to 27, according to Agence France-Presse. The nationality of the migrants was not immediately clear. Darmanin said the survivors are suffering from hypothermia. “It is a catastrophe for France, for Europe, for humanity, to see these people who are at the mercy of smugglers perish at sea,” he said, according to Reuters. Darmanin said …

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The buildup of Russian troops along the border with Ukraine, and on the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, is prompting an intense debate among American and European policymakers about how to respond, say Western officials. They are split over why Russian President Vladimir Putin is amassing troops. They are also wrestling with their options for deterring him from making any dramatic military moves on Ukraine and, separately, for responding if Putin does order his forces to seize more Ukrainian territory, most likely Mariupol on the coast of the Sea of Azov and its surroundings. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg …

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Three European countries have broken records for new COVID-19 cases, prompting calls for urgent measures to slow the spread. Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, all of which have vaccine rates below 60%, hit new highs for infection rates Wednesday. In the face of surging cases, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, or ECDC, shifted its booster policy and is now recommending shots for adults over 40. “Available evidence emerging from Israel and Britain shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term,” the ECDC said in a report published Wednesday. “The potential burden of …

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