Category: Євросоюз

The European Commission is considering potential legal and financial responses after Poland’s constitutional court challenged the supremacy of EU law, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.  Speaking during a meeting of EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, von der Leyen said the Polish court’s ruling earlier this month was “a direct challenge to the unity of the EU.”  “We cannot and we will not allow our common values to be put at risk,” she said.  The judges for Poland’s highest court ruled that the national constitution had primacy over EU law.  The increased tensions between Poland the EU fed speculation …

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Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who died Monday at age 84, used his decades-long governmental and military career to defend traditional U.S. alliances with European nations, some analysts say.   Family members say Powell died of COVID-19 complications. Doctors say he also suffered from multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer that suppresses the body’s immune response, as well as Parkinson’s, a disease that, among other things, weakens the muscles.  He first exerted influence over U.S. policy toward Europe as deputy national security advisor and then national security advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989, and later as the top U.S. military officer under …

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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is warning Russia against distracting European leaders with new talks when it has yet to make good on previous commitments.  “Russia, which currently occupies 20% of Georgia’s territory, should focus on honoring its 2008 cease-fire commitments before promoting any new discussion platforms,” Austin said Monday during a visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, to meet with the country’s prime minister and defense minister.  “I’m here to reassure Georgia,” Austin added. “We have many shared interests, and of course, shared values, and we see a number of opportunities for security cooperation.”  The visit to Georgia is the first …

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Chinese President Xi Jinping aims to bolster relations in Europe, a traditional stronghold of support for the United States, as a buffer against shaky Sino-U.S. ties, analysts believe. Xi spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last Wednesday and with European Council President Charles Michel on Friday. The council is a policymaking body for the European Union, an economic bloc of 27 nations including Europe’s largest countries. China hopes to build trade and investment ties with individual European countries as it seeks partnerships that can counter a half decade of acrimony with its superpower rival the United States, said Stephen Nagy, …

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Witnesses, security camera footage and forensic evidence all point to two men charged in the murder of Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, prosecutors said Monday as the trial of the suspects opened in Amsterdam. De Vries, 64, was gunned down in July in the Dutch capital in a brazen attack that sent shockwaves through the Netherlands. The suspected gunman is a 21-year-old Dutch man, identified under Dutch privacy rules only as Delano G. A 35-year-old Polish man, Kamiel E., is accused of being the getaway driver. They both were arrested shortly after De Vries was shot July 6 …

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Russia is retaliating for the recent expulsion of its diplomats from its NATO mission in Brussels, saying Monday it will suspend its mission to the alliance and ordered NATO’s office in Moscow shuddered. Earlier in the month, NATO said eight Russians working at its mission in Brussels were intelligence officers and removed their accreditation. NATO also cut the staff at its Moscow office from 20 to 10. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the allegations, saying “NATO isn’t interested in any kind of equal dialogue or joint work. “As a result of NATO’s deliberate moves, we have practically no conditions …

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The man held for the fatal stabbing last week of a British lawmaker had been referred to the British government’s anti-extremism program, called Prevent, because of his radical Islamist views, but the country’s security services, including MI5 – Britain’s domestic intelligence agency – had not deemed him a serious threat requiring monitoring, confirmed British officials.    Police have not released the name of the suspect, but local media have identified him as Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old British national of Somali descent. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that the suspect’s father, Harbi Ali Kullane, a former adviser to Somalia’s prime minister, said British counter-terrorism police had visited him at …

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Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform. The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting people online that encompasses augmented and virtual reality. Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet as they also contend with other matters such as antitrust crackdowns, the testimony of a whistleblowing former employee and concerns about how the company handles vaccine-related and political misinformation on …

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A two-day storm in Athens last week killed a 70-year-old farmer, whose car was washed away as he was rushing to tend to his herd of sheep. Dozens of other people, including tourists, were rescued from the floodwaters that destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses. Roads turned into rivers, homes and apartment blocks collapsed like decks of cards and dozens of children at a school in Athens were ordered to stand on their desks to be saved as floodwaters surged into their classrooms like a tsunami. The storm is the latest environmental calamity to hit Greece after devastating fires razed …

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A Russian actor and a film director making the first move film in space returned to Earth on Sunday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz MS-18 space capsule carrying Russian ISS crew member Oleg Novitskiy, Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko landed in a remote area outside the western Kazakhstan at 07:35 a.m. (0435 GMT), the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.  The crew had dedocked from the ISS three hours earlier. Russian state TV footage showed the reentry capsule descending under its parachute above the vast Kazakh steppe, followed by ground personnel assisting the smiling …

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A British member of Parliament died Friday after being stabbed several times at a church in what police said Saturday was a terrorist attack. David Amess, 69, was a member of the Conservative Party and represented Southend West in Essex, England. He was attacked Friday while visiting constituents in his home district in southeastern Britain, officials said. In a statement Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said that while their investigation was in its early stages, it “has revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Amess one of the “kindest, nicest and most gentle people …

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As dozens of African migrants traversed the Mediterranean Sea on a flimsy white rubber boat, a small aircraft circling 1,000 feet above closely monitored their attempt to reach Europe. The twin-engine Seabird, owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, is tasked with documenting human rights violations committed against migrants at sea and relaying distress cases to nearby ships and authorities who have increasingly ignored their pleas. On this cloudy October afternoon, an approaching thunderstorm heightened the dangers for the overcrowded boat. Nearly 23,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since 2014, according to …

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French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday condemned as “inexcusable” a deadly crackdown by Paris police on a 1961 protest by Algerians whose scale was covered up for decades, disappointing activists who hoped for an even stronger recognition of responsibility. Macron told relatives of victims on the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed that crimes were committed on the night of Oct. 17, 1961, under the command of the notorious Paris police chief Maurice Papon. He acknowledged that several dozen protesters had been killed, “their bodies thrown into the River Seine,” and he paid tribute to their memory. The precise number of …

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Tens of thousands of union members and other Italians gathered in Rome to stand up against rising fascism Saturday, a week after right-wing extremists forced their way into the headquarters of Italy’s most powerful labor confederation while protesting a COVID-19 certification requirement for workplaces. The head of the CGIL union confederation, Maurizio Landini, led the protest with other labor leaders under the slogan: “Never again fascism.” Organizers estimated the crowd assembled in front of St. John Lateran basilica for the protest at up to 100,000. Some participants waved flags reading “Si Vax,” a direct retort to the protesters armed with …

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When Vaclav Havel nearly died of a ruptured intestine as Czech president in 1998, doctors provided daily updates on his condition. Nearly a quarter of a century later, a Czech president is again hospitalized but the public has not been told what is wrong with him. President Milos Zeman was taken into intensive care in hospital on October 10. Since then, his spokesperson and doctors have not provided a diagnosis or said how long he will need to recover. Politicians and members of the public are now asking whether the 77-year-old president is fit to carry out his duties in …

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Norway on Saturday announced it will hold an independent investigation into the actions of police and security agencies following a bow-and-arrow attack that killed five people and injured three others. Police have been criticized for reacting too slowly to contain the massacre, acknowledging that the five deaths took place after police first encountered the attacker. Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, known by the acronym PST, said it decided to seek the review after consulting with the country’s national and regional police commanders about the attack Wednesday night in the southern town of Kongsberg. A 37-year-old local resident, who police said has …

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Greece is lauding a renewed defense pact with the United States as a “resounding vote of confidence” from Washington to Athens. The deal is seen by Greece as an added swipe against its age-old foe — but NATO ally — Turkey, in a long-running dispute over sea and air rights in the Aegean, eastern Mediterranean and beyond. In a rare televised statement on national defense, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the deal raised strategic ties between Greece and the United States to a higher level. The deal, signed in Washington earlier this week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony …

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Britain’s interior minister has ordered an immediate review of the security arrangements for the country’s lawmakers following the slaying Friday of Conservative Member of Parliament David Amess, who was stabbed multiple times in a suspected Islamist terror attack while meeting with constituents east of London. The 69-year-old Amess is the second British MP to have been killed in the past five years, and his death has prompted nationwide horror and outrage, with politicians across political divides praising him as a hard-working “gentleman MP,” one who eschewed a ministerial career in favor of focusing on the needs of his constituents. Home …

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At an emergency conference this week, the European Union pledged more than 1 billion dollars in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and neighboring countries, as the United Nations warns millions of Afghans are facing famine. But the United States has been cautious, saying it is sending humanitarian aid, but cannot provide funds directly to the Taliban-led government until they start respecting human rights and women’s rights. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. …

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A British member of Parliament died Friday after being stabbed several times at a church in what police said Saturday was a terrorist attack.  David Amess, 69, was a member of the Conservative Party and represented Southend West in Essex, England. He was attacked Friday while visiting constituents in his home district in southeastern Britain, officials said. In a statement Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said that while their investigation was in its early stages, it “has revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism.”  Police have not identified a 25-year-old suspect, who is in custody.  “All our hearts are full …

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