Category: Євросоюз

BERLIN — Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing. While the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the strait since 2002. China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180-km (110 miles) wide waterway that divides the two sides and is part of the South China …

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Moscow — A Russian court rejected an appeal Monday by a U.S. soldier who has been jailed for three years and nine months for alleged death threats and theft. Gordon Black was sentenced in June by a court in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, where he was arrested in May while visiting a Russian woman he met and dated while serving in South Korea. The 34-year-old was detained after the woman, named by Russian media as Alexandra Vashuk, reported him to the police after an argument, saying he physically attacked her and stole about $110 from her. Black pleaded “partially …

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Rome — A luxury superyacht carrying foreign tourists capsized and sank off Sicily in bad weather early Monday. One body was found, six people remain missing and 15 people were rescued, including a 1-year-old girl, authorities said. The sailboat had overturned sometime before 5 a.m. off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, where it was anchored. It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers that included British, American and Canadian citizens, the Italian coast guard said. Local media said a sudden fierce storm, including tornadoes over water known as waterspouts, had battered the area overnight but skies were clear …

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Germany has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia to Western Europe. At question is whether the Ukrainian government was involved in the 2022 attack, which many say contributed to a global spike in inflation. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin. …

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Lisbon — Hundreds of Portuguese firefighters scrambled Sunday to put out a wildfire sweeping parts of the Atlantic island of Madeira’s south coast, a popular tourist destination, with strong winds complicating efforts to tackle the blaze.  The wildfire, which started Wednesday in a remote rural area of Ribeira Brava has spread to the neighboring municipality of Camara de Lobos, and now has three fronts, island authorities said.  Nearly 200 firefighters, backed by 38 vehicles, are tackling the fire but high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds are complicating efforts to combat the flames. A helicopter also battled the blaze but had …

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Serhiy Danilets is one of the more than 100 thousand Ukrainian soldiers estimated to have been wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine. But serious combat injuries haven’t stopped him and other fighters from enjoying life and, in some cases, making plans to head back to the front lines. Anna Kosstutschenko met with some of them in Kyiv …

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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, adding it would always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media said Sunday. Ukraine’s drive into Russia is a product of the anti-Russia confrontational policy of the United States, which is pushing the situation to the brink of World War III, KCNA news agency said. The U.S. handed “astronomical” sums of lethal weapons to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the report said. “We strongly condemn the armed attack against the Russian territory by the …

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Warsaw, Poland — Poland has taken steps to contain the spread of toxic golden algae in the river Oder’s tributary system to prevent a repeat of the pollution crisis that hit the waterway in 2022, the climate ministry said Sunday.  Hydrogen peroxide has been pumped in at the junction of the Gliwice Canal and the Klodnica river, helping to reduce the algae by over 90%, the ministry said in a statement.  Between Aug. 3 and 16 some 77 tons of fish have died in the affected section of the canal and in nearby lake Dierzno Duze. The risk related to the …

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Kyiv — Russia on Sunday carried out its third ballistic missile attack on Kyiv this month but preliminary data indicated that most of the projectiles were shot down on approach, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said. “This is already the third ballistic strike on the capital in August, with exact intervals of six days between each attack,” Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. Popko said the Russians had most likely used North Korean-made ballistic missiles. Reuters could not independently verify the type of missiles launched.  Separately, the commander of Ukraine’s …

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Ankara — Firefighters in Turkey have brought under control two large forest fires that had been burning for three days, with several other wildfires across the country expected to be put out soon, the Forestry Minister said on Sunday. The blazes in Turkey’s western coastal province of Izmir and northern province of Bolu started late on Thursday and firefighters have been working to contain them since then. Speaking in Izmir’s Karsiyaka district, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said cooling efforts were under way to fully extinguish the fires. A small fire that started in Izmir’s Urla district on Saturday was also under …

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Berlin — At least 23 people were injured when two gondolas of a Ferris wheel caught fire at a music festival near Leipzig in eastern Germany, news agency dpa reported Sunday.  The fire started in one gondola and then spread to a second one on Saturday night, police said. Four people suffered burn injuries and one suffered injuries from a fall. Others, including first responders and at least four police officers, were to be examined in the hospital for possible smoke inhalation, dpa reported.  The accident took place at the Highfield Festival at Stoermthaler Lake near Leipzig. Police are still investigating …

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Islamabad — Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, has formally applied to run for chancellor of Oxford University from his prison cell, a close aide announced Sunday. Khan served as Pakistan’s leader from 2018 until April 2022, when he was ousted through an opposition parliamentary no-confidence vote he alleges was planned by the powerful Pakistani military. “As per Imran Khan’s instructions, his application form to Oxford University Chancellor Election 2024 has been submitted,” Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “We look forward to everyone’s support for a historic campaign,” he wrote. Khan, who remains …

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paris — French actor Alain Delon, who melted the hearts of millions of film fans whether playing a murderer, hoodlum or hitman in his postwar heyday, has died, French media reported on Sunday. He was 88. Delon had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2019, rarely leaving his estate in Douchy, in France’s Val de Loire region. With his striking blue eyes, Delon was sometimes referred to as the “French Frank Sinatra” for his handsome looks, a comparison Delon disliked. Unlike Sinatra, who always denied connections with the Mafia, Delon openly acknowledged his shady pals in the underworld. …

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moscow — A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula early Sunday morning local time, according to the regional earthquake monitoring service. The local emergencies ministry said tremors were felt along the coast including in the region’s capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. “Operational teams of rescuers and firefighters are inspecting buildings,” the regional branch of Russia’s emergencies ministry in the Kamchatka region said on Telegram. The earthquake struck at a depth of nearly 50 kilometers just after 7 a.m. local time, some 90 kilometers east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the United States Geological Survey reported. The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center …

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WARSAW, Poland — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday reacted to reports that revived questions about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, saying the initiators of the gas pipeline project should “apologize and keep quiet.” That comment came after one of his deputies denied a claim that Warsaw was partly responsible for its damage. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Ukrainian authorities were responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022, a dramatic act of sabotage that cut Germany off from a key source of energy and worsened an energy …

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Istanbul — Wildfires raged across western Turkey for a third straight day Saturday, exacerbated by high winds and warm temperatures, authorities said.  More than 130 fires have erupted across the country in the past week, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate. Most have been brought under control, but eight major fires continued in the provinces of Izmir, Aydin, Manisa, Karabuk and Bolu.  Thousands of firefighters were tackling the blazes on land and from the air, with dozens of aircraft and hundreds of vehicles aiding in the emergency response.  Thousands of people have been evacuated from the affected areas, but …

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LONDON — A fire broke out Saturday at Somerset House, a large arts venue on the River Thames in central London. Smoke billowed from the building and flames could be seen coming from the roof as firefighters on tall ladders showered it with water. The cause of the fire was not yet known, the London Fire Brigade said. Fifteen engines and about 100 firefighters were deployed. Somerset House said all staff and the public were safe and the site was closed. The venue had been scheduled to host a breakdancing event. The neoclassical building, which is nearly 250 years old, houses …

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Helsinki, Finland — Western officials and analysts are suspicious of Beijing’s admission this week that a Chinese container ship damaged the Balticconnector — a vital Baltic Sea gas pipeline linking Estonia and Finland — in October. The South China Morning Post reported August 12 that the Chinese government notified Finland and Estonia 10 months after the incident that it was caused by a Hong Kong-registered ship called Newnew Polar Bear, but blamed a storm for what it called the accident. In an interview August 13 with Estonia’s public radio, ERR, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said he was skeptical of China’s …

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