Category: Євросоюз

Євросоюз

Putin may visit Vietnam as Hanoi aims to secure power balance

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — Vietnamese officials are hopefully anticipating an unannounced visit to Hanoi by Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly as early as next week on his way to Beijing for meetings with Chinese leaders. Experts say such a visit would allow the Russian leader to show that Western efforts to isolate his government over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine have failed, while furthering Hanoi’s efforts to navigate a middle ground between the United States and China. Vietnam could also be expected to seek an arms deal with its historical ally as its Soviet-era military equipment ages beyond its …

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Євросоюз

Analysis: Is the West losing a battle with China for Serbia’s heart? 

belgrade, serbia — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Serbia this week brought out a crowd waving Serbian and Chinese flags and praising the “ironclad” friendship of two countries. Elsewhere in the West, it raised many questions about Serbia’s future role in Europe.  Analysts say that was exactly the idea. At a time of global rivalry between Beijing and Washington, the messages Xi delivered from Belgrade appeared aimed at a much wider audience.  Xi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed a number of bilateral agreements on Wednesday, which followed the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade …

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Євросоюз

North Macedonia’s right-wing opposition scores victory in elections

WASHINGTON — North Macedonia elected its first woman president Wednesday as the ruling Social Democratic Union of Macedonia suffered historic losses in presidential and parliamentary elections. With nearly all the votes counted, university professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, the presidential candidate of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE opposition party, won nearly 65% of the vote, with incumbent President Stevo Pendarovski winning 29%, according to the country’s State Election Commission. In the parliamentary contest, the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition Your Macedonia won 43% of the votes, giving it 58 of the parliament’s 120 seats, just short of a majority. Although it was uncertain on election day whether the …

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Євросоюз

Torchbearers in Marseille kick off Olympic flame’s journey across France

MARSEILLE, France — Joyful crowds gathered along the streets of France’s southern port of Marseille on Thursday to see torchbearers carrying the Olympic flame through the city’s most emblematic sites, a day after it arrived on a majestic three-mast ship for a welcoming ceremony.  It was the first leg of an 11-week journey across the country for the torch, which will be carried by about 10,000 bearers as it passes through more than 450 towns until the Games’ opening ceremony in Paris on July 26.  Former soccer player Basile Boli, who played with the Marseille team in the 1990s, kicked off …

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Євросоюз

EU reaches tentative deal on Ukraine aid coming from profits of frozen Russian assets

BRUSSELS — European Union nations reached a tentative breakthrough deal to provide Ukraine with billions in additional funds for arms and ammunition coming from the profits raised from frozen Russian central bank assets held in the bloc.  The agreement among the 27 EU ambassadors was announced by Belgium, which holds most of the frozen assets in the bloc. It came after weeks of tough negotiations among member states, which were made more complicated by the stringent financial limits on using such funds.  The deal should free up to $3.2 billion a year for Kyiv, of which 90% could be spent on …

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Євросоюз

Russia intensifies crackdown on journalists, dissenting voices on Ukraine

Geneva — United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday condemned Russia’s brutal crackdown on journalists, which he says has been increasing since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.  “The continuous attacks on free speech and the criminalization of independent journalism in Russia are very troubling,” Türk said in a prepared statement that called for the release of journalists detained “solely for doing their jobs.”  The U.N. human rights office says the number of imprisoned journalists in Russia has reached an all-time high since Moscow began its war of aggression in Ukraine, noting that at least 30 journalists …

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