Category: Євросоюз

Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has filed a lawsuit against Britain’s Prince Andrew, alleging he raped and sexually abused her several times when she was 17 years old.Andrew, who is Queen Elizabeth II’s second son and ninth in line to the British throne, has consistently denied the accusations and has said he does not recall ever meeting Giuffre.In the civil lawsuit filed Monday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Virginia Giuffre, now 38, said the prince sexually abused her on multiple occasions during visits arranged by Epstein, who committed suicide …

READ MORE

Recent weeks have seen a spate of police raids on independent media companies and the homes of journalists in Russia, as part of an intensifying crackdown. Kremlin-critical media face fines, arrests, and violence. Some journalists are relocating to other countries to avoid an increasingly hostile environment. …

READ MORE

Six-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi received a hero’s welcome after flying to France on Tuesday to join Paris Saint Germain (PSG) following his shock departure from Barcelona.The agreement to sign the 34-year-old Argentine is a major coup for wealthy PSG, who will add one of the best soccer players of all time to an already formidable front line that includes Brazil’s Neymar and young Frenchman Kylian Mbappe.Wearing a T-shirt that read “This is Paris,” Messi beamed and waved at scores of fans who had come to greet him at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of the French capital …

READ MORE

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized Monday for government failures in responding to wildfires that have hit the country. Citing what he called an unprecedented heat wave and prolonged drought, Mitsotakis said the fires have been difficult to put out. He said more than 500 fires in total had broken out in recent days. “I fully understand the pain of our fellow citizens who saw their homes or property burned,” Mitsotakis said in a televised address. “Any failures will be identified. And responsibility will be assigned wherever necessary.” One massive fire has been ravaging the Greek island of Evia, charring buildings and pine forests and forcing thousands of people to …

READ MORE

Russia has opened a criminal investigation into two exiled allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny for raising funds for organizations deemed by the authorities as “extremist.” The Investigative Committee said in a statement on August 10 that the case was opened against Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov and other unnamed individuals. FILE – Leonid Volkov, chief strategist for Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, speaks during a press conference at the Lithuanian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2021.According to the law enforcement agency, the charge stems from a video posted on the Internet in August in which Volkov and Zhdanov “announced …

READ MORE

An American woman who has long accused the late businessman Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse sued Prince Andrew on Monday over alleged sexual assault. Virginia Giuffre filed the lawsuit in federal court Monday in Manhattan under the Child Victims Act. Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, said she was 17 when the assault by the member of the British royal family took place. In a statement, Giuffre said, “I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me.” She said she hopes other victims will see from her lawsuit “that it is possible not to live in silence and fear but …

READ MORE

More than 600 firefighters continue to battle a massive wildfire ravaging the Greek island of Evia that has charred buildings and pine forests and forced thousands to evacuate.The fire covering the country’s second-largest island has been blazing, uncontrolled, for seven consecutive days, resulting in the deaths of a volunteer firefighter and an Athens official.The United States and several European and Middle Eastern countries sent firefighters and firefighting planes and helicopters to Greece. Over the weekend, the U.S. Navy provided a reconnaissance plane from an airbase in Sicily, according to the Navy Times.An helicopter fills with water as people watch from …

READ MORE

About 800 wildfires have struck Italy this year, tripling the normal annual average and causing millions of dollars in damage. But more than half of them were likely started by arsonists or farmers breaching fire rules, authorities say.A 50-year-old sheep and goat farmer was arrested last week after a surveillance camera captured him setting undergrowth afire Thursday near the town of Montesarchio, 48 kilometers from Naples in southern Italy, near to where another wildfire raged last year.Local officials say the farmer likely wanted to renew his pasture by burning it off in defiance of strict rules regulating such burns. They …

READ MORE

The United States, in coordination with Britain and Canada, rolled out new sanctions on Belarus on Monday, the one-year anniversary of the start of protests in the eastern European country against elections that were widely seen as fraudulent. Since that time, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has taken harsh action against peaceful demonstrators and political opponents. “Rather than respect the clear will of the Belarusian people, the Lukashenko regime perpetrated election fraud, followed by a brutal campaign of repression to stifle dissent,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement. “From detaining thousands of peaceful protesters, to imprisoning more than 500 activists, civil …

READ MORE

Hundreds of people, among them many Belarusians living in exile in Poland, marched Sunday in Warsaw to protest political repression in neighboring Belarus — a demonstration held on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Belarus presidential election that they consider rigged.Many carried the Belarusian opposition’s red-and-white flag, which is banned in Belarus, and chanted “Long live Belarus!”The protest focused on the Aug. 9, 2020, presidential election in Belarus in which President Alexander Lukashenko was awarded a sixth term in a vote that the opposition and many in the West view as fraudulent.A belief that the vote was stolen …

READ MORE

A days-old fire burned through Greece’s second-largest island Sunday, prompting more evacuations.   Thousands of tourists and residents have fled the forested island of Evia since the blaze began on August 3. Scores of homes and other buildings have been destroyed, and reports show limited visibility beneath the haze and orange sky.   Evacuation orders were issued for four villages on the island Sunday, including the seaside village of Pefki, where hundreds of people fled on a ferry before flames reached the area.   Many people in the nearby town of Gouves refused evacuation orders, attempting to save their homes …

READ MORE

Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said the United States has asked 24 Russian diplomats to leave the country when their visas expire in September. The move comes shortly after the U.S. embassy in Moscow was forced to lay off dozens of Russian nationals working at the mission. Daria Dieguts has the story. …

READ MORE

Thousands of people have fled their homes on the Greek island of Evia as wildfires burned uncontrolled for a sixth day on Sunday, and ferries were on standby for more evacuations after taking many to safety by sea.Fires that had threatened northern suburbs of Athens in recent days died back. But the blaze on Evia, a large island east of the capital, quickly burgeoned into several fronts, ripping through thousands of hectares (acres) of pristine forest across its northern part, and forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages.”I feel angry. I lost my home … nothing will be the same …

READ MORE

Struggling to control his emotions, Lionel Messi said Sunday in his farewell to Barcelona that he wasn’t prepared to leave the club.Messi began crying even before he started speaking at his farewell ceremony at the Camp Nou Stadium.”This is very hard for me after so many years, after being here my entire life,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared.”Messi called his unexpected departure from the club “the most difficult” moment of his career.Messi’s family and some of his teammates were at the Camp Nou for the player’s farewell.Messi avoided speaking specifically about his future, saying he received offers from several clubs …

READ MORE

A New York Times report says as the coronavirus swept across the U.S., more than 1 million children, many of them in poor neighborhoods, failed to show up for public school classes, either online or in person.  The steepest decline the report said was among kindergarten students.    The newspaper said more than 340,000 kindergarten children did not show up for instruction. “In the country’s poorest neighborhoods, tens of thousands of 6-year-olds will begin first grade having missed out on a traditional kindergarten experience.” The Times said.  Kindergarten is where many youngsters receive their first exposure to numbers and letters and …

READ MORE

Hungary’s growing list of European Union worries includes controversial LGBT legislation and potentially hacking the phones of journalists, rights activists and political opponents.Poland has rebuffed a ruling by the bloc’s highest court, claiming its own constitution has precedence over the EU laws it vowed to follow when it joined the club in 2004, although it now appears to have backed down.Farther north and politically opposite, Denmark’s leftist government is also feeling legal heat over its recent decision to return hundreds of Syrian immigrants to Damascus, a move critics say violates basic human rights and could set a dangerous precedent for …

READ MORE

Flames swept through a town near Athens overnight and hundreds of people were evacuated by ferry from the island of Evia as wildfires burned across Greece for a fifth day Saturday.On Evia, east of the capital, a fire that began Tuesday quickly burgeoned into several fronts, ripping through thousands of hectares (acres) of pristine forest across the northern part of the island and forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages.More than 400 wildfires broke out in the last 24 hours, with the biggest fronts still burning in Evia, the second-biggest Greek island, and areas in the Peloponnese including Ancient Olympia, …

READ MORE

Wildfires in Greece raged into the night burning more forest and homes in the northern outskirts of Athens and other parts of the country and forcing more evacuations as more international aid was on the way.Authorities struggled with 154 wildfires across the country on Friday with the biggest fronts still burning in the north of Athens, the island of Evia and areas in the Peloponnese including Mani, Messinia and ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games.”We are facing another, more difficult night,” Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters. “Wildfires of unprecedented intensity and spread, all our …

READ MORE

While Ukraine’s president prepares for a visit to Washington, Kyiv is accepting COVID-19 vaccines from China and has signed a major infrastructure agreement with Beijing to cooperate on roads, bridges and railway projects. Some experts worry China is attaching strings to the ventures, as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. …

READ MORE

European Union ministers will hold emergency talks on what they view as a Belarusian pressure campaign of illegal migration against EU nations, according to Agence France-Presse.The bloc has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging new migrants to cross the border in reaction to Poland’s decision to provide refuge to Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who refused to return home from the Tokyo Olympics.Slovenia, which currently serves as rotating president of the EU, said the talks would take place virtually on August 18, AFP reported.In addition to the EU’s 27 member states, representatives of the Frontex border guard agency, the European …

READ MORE