Category: Євросоюз

Italians celebrated the European Championship soccer title as a new beginning not only for their youthful national team but for a country that’s been yearning to return to normalcy after being hit hard and long by the coronavirus pandemic. A cacophony of honking cars, fireworks and singing fans filled the night in Rome as thousands of people took to the streets after Italy beat England in a penalty shootout Sunday to win its first major soccer trophy since the 2006 World Cup. “We are coming out of a difficult year and a half which has left us exhausted, like other countries in the world,” said Fabrizio …

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Several thousand people protested Sunday evening in front of the Georgian parliament, demanding that the ex-Soviet nation’s prime minister resign over the death of a journalist who was attacked and beaten by anti-LGBT protesters.  Cameraman Alexander Lashkarava was found dead in his home by his mother earlier Sunday, according to the TV Pirveli channel he worked for. Lashkarava was one of several dozen journalists attacked last Monday by opponents of an LGBT march that had been scheduled to take place that day in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.Organizers of the Tbilisi March for Dignity canceled the event, saying authorities had …

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Italian soccer’s redemption story is complete. England’s painful half-century wait for a major title goes on.And it just had to be because of a penalty shootout.Italy won the European Championship for the second time by beating England 3-2 on penalties on Sunday. The match finished 1-1 after extra time.Gianluigi Donnarumma dived to his left and saved the decisive spot kick by Bukayo Saka, England’s third straight failure from the penalty spot in the shootout in front of its own fans at Wembley Stadium.It was less than four years ago that the Italians plunged to the lowest moment of their soccer …

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Italy won the European Championship by beating England 3-2 in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw.Domenico Berardi, Leonardo Bonucci and Federico Bernardeschi scored for Italy in the shootout and Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made two saves at the end of the shootout.Italy had a chance for a winner in the 107th minute. England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford bobbled a swerving free kick from substitute Federico Bernardeschi but he eventually gathered it.England had been leading 1-0 for most of the match after Luke Shaw scored in the second minute.Then Italy defender Leonardo Bonucci equalized the score in the 67th minute with …

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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is condemning pervasive arbitrary detention and torture by both government and Russian-backed separatists in the seven-year eastern Ukraine conflict.  The condemnation comes in a report submitted Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council.The analysis by the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine finds around 4,000 of those detained have been subjected to torture or ill-treatment in both government and rebel-controlled territories over the past seven years.  The analysis is based on over 1,300 conflict-related cases since the war in the breakaway eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk began …

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 Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic has won his record-tying 20th Grand Slam title, defeating Italy’s Matteo Berrettini 6-7,6-4,6-4,6-3 in the men’s Wimbledon final Sunday. With the win, the top-ranked Djokovic joins his rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal with 20 major championships.   Sunday’s win was Djovovic’s sixth Wimbledon title overall and his third straight championship on Centre Court. Djovovic was serving for the first set Sunday with a 5-2 lead before the 7th seeded Berrettini stormed back to win a tiebreaker.  After that, Djokovic was able to fend of his Italian opponent and his big serve and win the last three sets. In …

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Bulgarians are voting in a snap poll on Sunday after a previous election in April produced a fragmented parliament that failed to form a viable coalition government.  Latest opinion polls suggest that the rerun could produce similar results but also a further drop in support for former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s GERB party, after the current caretaker government made public allegations of widespread corruption during his rule.  NATO and EU member Bulgaria has been repeatedly criticized for not tackling corruption and for deficiencies in the rule of law and media freedom.  The anti-corruption campaign of Borissov’s opponents was additionally boosted by the sanctions the U.S. …

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Pope Francis on Sunday made his first public appearance since major intestinal surgery last week, greeting well-wishers as he stood for 10 minutes on a hospital balcony, offering hearty thanks for all the prayers for his recovery and calling health care for all a “precious” good. Francis, 84, has been steadily on the mend, according to the Vatican, following his July 4 scheduled surgery to remove a portion of his colon which had narrowed due to inflammation. But it hasn’t said just when he might be discharged. On the morning after his surgery, a Holy See spokesperson said his hospital stay …

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Polling stations in Moldova opened Sunday morning with voters eager to choose the new parliament after the previous one was dissolved by new President Maia Sandu to shore up her position against pro-Russia forces.    Sandu, who wants to bring Moldova into the European Union, in November defeated Kremlin-backed incumbent Igor Dodon on a pledge to fight corruption in one of Europe’s poorest countries. Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova has long been divided over closer ties with Brussels or maintaining Soviet-era relations with Moscow. With lawmakers loyal to Dodon blocking Sandu’s promises of reform, the former World Bank economist dissolved parliament …

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Ukraine and NATO have conducted Black Sea drills involving dozens of warships in a two-week show of their defense ties and capabilities following a confrontation between Russia’s military forces and a British destroyer off Crimea last month.The Sea Breeze 2021 maneuvers that ended Saturday involved about 30 warships and 40 aircraft from NATO members and Ukraine. The captain of the USS Ross, a U.S. Navy destroyer that took part in the drills, said the exercise was designed to improve how the equipment and personnel of the participating nations operate together.”We’d like to demonstrate to everybody, the international community, that no …

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Pope Francis is recovering from colon surgery in a Rome hospital and the Vatican has announced that he will deliver his weekly Sunday blessing from there. An exact date for his release has not been given, although the Vatican had said he would spend about seven days in the hospital, barring complications.Pope Francis has been recovering from a three-hour operation that removed half of his colon last Sunday evening. He was taken to Rome’s Gemelli hospital for the planned surgery after delivering his weekly Sunday blessing.This is the first time the pope has been hospitalized since he was elected head of …

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The global economic recovery is at risk from the rise of new coronavirus variants and poor access to vaccines in developing countries, finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies warned on Saturday.The G-20 gathering in the Italian city of Venice—the ministers’ first face-to-face talks since the start of the pandemic—also endorsed a move to stop multinational firms from shifting profits to low-tax havens.That paves the way for G20 leaders to finalize a new global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% at a Rome summit in October, a move that could recoup hundreds of billions of dollars for public treasuries …

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Ukraine and NATO have conducted Black Sea drills involving dozens of warships in a two-week show of their strong defense ties and capability following a confrontation between Russia’s military forces and a British destroyer off Crimea last month.The Sea Breeze 2021 maneuvers set to wrap up Saturday involved about 30 warships and 40 aircraft from NATO members and Ukraine. The captain of the USS Ross, a U.S. Navy destroyer that took part in the drills, said the exercise was designed to improve how the equipment and personnel of the participating nations operate together. “We’d like to demonstrate to everybody, the international …

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Voters will go to the polls in Bulgaria for the second time in three months this weekend after no party secured enough support in an April parliamentary election to form a government.Former three-time Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s GERB party performed best in the inconclusive election, but it received only 26% of the vote. Public discontent over widespread reduced the party’s popularity from four years earlier, when it had 33% of the vote.The latest opinion polls indicate that support for GERB has dropped further since an interim government Bulgaria’s president installed in May opened investigations into alleged corruption during Borissov’s time …

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France will withdraw more than 2,000 troops from an anti-extremism force in Africa’s Sahel region by early next year and pivot its military presence to specialized regional forces instead, President Emmanuel Macron said Friday. Macron announced last month a future reduction of France’s military presence, arguing that it’s no longer adapted to the needs in the area. The French Barkhane force, operating in Mali, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania, also had met opposition from some Africans. After discussions Friday with leaders of the African countries involved, Macron announced that France would reduce its force to 2,500 to 3,000 troops over the …

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Belarusian authorities on Friday raided the offices of several media outlets outside Minsk and searched the homes of independent journalists, in the second straight day of the country’s latest crackdown on independent press critical of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.The raids, most of which took place in the western city of Brest, came a day after the website of the country’s oldest newspaper, Nasha Niva, was blocked and its chief editor was detained and reportedly beaten while security forces searched the offices of several regional newspapers.Offices of news outlets were also raided in Baranovichi in the Brest region. Journalist Ruslan Ravyaka of …

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A London Metropolitan Police officer pleaded guilty Friday to the murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard, whose disappearance and subsequent murder in March sparked grief and outrage regarding violence against women.   Appearing by video link from the Belmarsh high-security prison, 48-year-old Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to murder during a hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court. Couzens, who had confessed to abduction and rape earlier, had worked as a member of the Diplomatic Protection Command. Everard, who worked as a marketing executive, disappeared on the evening of March 3, sometime during a 50-minute walk home from a friend’s house in south …

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A Vatican spokesman said Pope Francis is continuing to recover from intestinal surgery performed earlier this week and will deliver his Sunday noon blessing from the hospital.   In a statement, Vatican Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said the 84-year-old pope walked in the corridor of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital Thursday and “resumed his work, alternating it with moments of reading texts.”  He said the pope “celebrated Holy Mass in the chapel of his private apartment” in the hospital, “attended by all those assisting him during his hospitalization.” Bruni said the pope had fully recovered from a slight fever he had …

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A Taliban delegation in Moscow said on Friday that the group controlled over 85% of territory in Afghanistan and reassured Russia it would not allow the country to be used as a platform to attack others.   The Taliban’s claim of control of much of the country, disputed by the Afghan government, is impossible to independently verify.   Foreign forces, including the United States, are withdrawing after almost 20 years of fighting, a move that has emboldened Taliban insurgents to try to gain fresh territory in Afghanistan.   That has prompted hundreds of Afghan security personnel and refugees to flee …

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Moldovan voters go to the polls this weekend in a snap parliamentary election that could decide whether the former Soviet republic fully embraces pro-Western reforms or prolongs a political impasse under strong Russian influence.   The landlocked country of 3.5 million — Europe’s poorest, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine — has in recent years lurched from one political crisis to another, dogged by instability and stuck in geopolitical limbo between pro-Western and pro-Russia forces.   Although Moldova signed a deal with the European Union in 2014 on forging closer political and economic ties, rampant corruption and lack of reform have …

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