Category: Євросоюз

Following are details of the funeral this Saturday of Britain’s Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, who died on April 9 aged 99.The funeralThe funeral, which will be broadcast live, will take place at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle at 3 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).As planned, it will be a ceremonial royal funeral, rather than a state funeral, with most of the details in keeping with Prince Philip’s personal wishes.However, it has had to be scaled back because of COVID-19 restrictions. There will be no public access, no public processions and the funeral will take place entirely within the …

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A Rwandan priest was arrested in France this week on charges of providing, among other things, food to militiamen who massacred members of the Tutsi minority in his church during the 1994 genocide in the African country, authorities said Friday. Marcel Hitayezu, who was born in 1956, was charged on Wednesday with genocide and being an accomplice to crimes against humanity, according to the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office. He was arrested the same day at his home in Montlieu-la-Garde, southwestern France, a source close to the case said. Prosecutors said Hitayezu was the priest at a church in Mubuga, in southern Rwanda, when …

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Russia announced late Friday it will expel 10 U.S. diplomats from Moscow in a tit-for-tat response to Washington’s decision to send 10 Russian diplomats packing under a wide-ranging U.S. sanctions package levied against Moscow earlier this week.Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the retaliatory moves during a press conference with his Serbian counterpart in Moscow.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, April 16, 2021.”Ten diplomats were included in the list that was sent to us with a request that they leave,” said Lavrov in announcing the expulsions. “We will respond to this measure in kind.”In …

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U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is asking the European Court of Human Rights to block Russia from enforcing penalties that could cost the broadcaster millions of dollars.      Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor last year ordered broadcasters designated as foreign agents to add a lengthy statement to news reports, social media posts and audiovisual materials specifying that the content was created by an outlet “performing the functions of a foreign agent.”      The law, which applies to non-governmental political organizations and media receiving foreign funding, has been widely criticized as aiming to discredit critical reporting and dissent. The term …

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“How can we cope with this?” That was Patrick Bury’s thought after attending his first in-country briefing in 2008 at the headquarters of British forces in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.   Then a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment, Bury wrote in a subsequent memoir that he was left reeling by the three-hour briefing. “The situation is so complicated, there are so many tribal, cultural, political, religious and military dynamics, that I am overwhelmed,” he noted.   He added: “It seems that we soldiers, primarily trained to fight conventional wars, need to be friendly police, social workers, government representatives, aid …

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The head of a Serbian investigative news outlet being attacked for its work uncovering corruption says his country needs to do more to protect media. During a visit to the U.S., Stevan Dojcinovic, editor in chief of the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK), met with journalist rights organizations and investigative outlets to discuss recent attacks on his news website and the overall situation for press freedom in Serbia. KRIK has been subject to a smear campaign by pro-government media as well as some politicians in recent months, who falsely accuse it of having links to the head of an organized crime …

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The Biden administration on Thursday imposed tough sanctions targeting the Russian economy to punish the Kremlin for the SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign against the United States and efforts to influence the 2020 presidential election. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story. …

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U.S. allies including Britain have announced they too will begin pulling their troops out of Afghanistan, following Washington’s announcement it intends to withdraw all American armed forces personnel by September 11 – the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell    Produced by: Henry Ridgwell, Rod James …

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The U.S. military commander keeping close watch on Russia’s massing of military forces in Crimea and along the border of Ukraine says there is only a “low to medium” likelihood that Moscow’s forces will invade. Air Force General Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command, shared the assessment with lawmakers Thursday during a hearing in Washington, where he warned that the Kremlin’s maneuvering remains of “great concern.” FILE – Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 25, 2020.”There is a very …

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President Emmanuel Macron Thursday praised the painstaking efforts to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral, two years after flames ripped through its centuries-old attic and sent its spire crashing through the vaults below.   In the hours after the blaze, Macron told a distraught nation that the cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, would be restored and later promised it would be reopened to worshippers by 2024.   More than 700 days after workers scrambled to shore up Notre Dame’s flying buttresses, save its 13th-century stained-glass rose windows and install movement sensors, the effort to make the site secure ahead of …

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The Kremlin has long sought to clamp down on opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s appeal among younger Russians — as President Vladimir Putin, 66, has struggled to maintain his popularity among members of a generation that has essentially known him as the country’s sole leader their entire lives.    That approach took a new twist on Wednesday in Moscow — when Russian authorities announced criminal charges against four editors of a university news publication — accusing journalists of the publication DOXA of “inciting minors to take place in illegal rallies” in support of jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny earlier this year.   …

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The Biden administration on Thursday announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and sanctions against nearly three dozen people and companies as it moved to hold the Kremlin accountable for interference in last year’s presidential election and the hacking of federal agencies. The actions, foreshadowed for weeks by the administration, represent the first retaliatory measures announced against the Kremlin for the hack, familiarly known as the SolarWinds breach. In that intrusion, Russian hackers are believed to have infected widely used software with malicious code, enabling them to access the networks of at least nine agencies in what U.S. officials believe …

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In Spain, only ten percent of the population lives in rural areas, placing the Spanish countryside among the emptiest regions of Europe. The COVID pandemic and the ability for many urban dwellers to work remotely appears to be reversing that.  For VOA, Alfonso Beato has this report narrated by Jonathan Spier. Camera: Alfonso Beato      …

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Russian authorities on Wednesday charged four editors of an online student magazine with encouraging minors to take part in illegal activity for a report about the nationwide protests supporting jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny.All four were ordered by a court not to leave their residences for the next two months and were banned from using the internet and communicating with anyone other than immediate family, lawyers and law-enforcement agencies.The charges, which carry a potential sentence of three years in prison, come amid heightened pressure on independent news media.Police raided the Moscow apartments of the four DOXA magazine editors as well as …

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The United States will announce sanctions on Russia as soon as Thursday for alleged election interference and malicious cyber activity, targeting several individuals and entities, people familiar the matter said.The sanctions, in which 30 entities are expected to be blacklisted, will be tied with orders expelling about 10 Russian officials from the United States, one of the people said.The White House, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The action will add a new chill to the already frosty relations between Washington and Moscow, which has tested the West’s patience with …

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Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney is expected to press his British counterpart, Dominic Rabb, this week during a meeting in London to convene an emergency British-Irish intergovernmental conference to discuss a recent outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland. But British ministers are reluctant. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the British government would “look for an appropriate time for a future meeting” but did not commit to do so as a matter of urgency, despite a growing clamor in the British Parliament for a summit, which would include Northern Irish politicians. Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland deny …

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European Commission President Urusula Von der Leyen Wednesday announced the European Union has reached a deal with pharmaceutical partners Pfizer-BioNTech for 50 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine, to be delivered in the coming months. At a news briefing in Brussels, Von der Leyen said the new deal means the EU will have obtained 250 million doses. She said the bloc is negotiating a third contract with the partners for 1.8 billion doses to be delivered in 2022 and 2023.   She said the deal will “not only include the production of vaccines, but also the essential components. All of …

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France’s once-powerful Communist Party is fielding its first presidential candidate in years for the 2022 elections, a choice some consider vital for its very survival. It’s one of Western Europe’s last relevant Communist parties, whose latest move paradoxically risks further fracturing an already weakened French left.  The French Communist Party’s presidential hopeful is Fabien Roussel, a former journalist with a reputation as a bon vivant and amateur fisherman, who has been at its helm since 2018. He got strong backing at a party meeting last weekend, although the movement’s base must still endorse his candidacy next month.  A new poll finds France’s …

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet Wednesday in Brussels with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and top diplomats from several U.S. allies as the United States launches it plans to withdraw forces from Afghanistan.U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also participating in a meeting that includes German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi DiMaio, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.The Biden administration ended months of speculation about U.S. plans in Afghanistan by saying Tuesday it would withdraw remaining troops by September 11. That date is the anniversary of the …

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U.S. President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Tuesday that the United States is concerned about Moscow’s “sudden … military buildup” along Ukraine’s border and in occupied Crimea. He called on Russia to “deescalate tensions,” the White House said in a summary of the conversation.”President Biden emphasized the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said, but gave no assessment of Putin’s reaction to the U.S. leader’s remarks.Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, with the U.S. and Western allies condemning the takeover but doing nothing to block it. …

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