Category: Євросоюз

Pope Francis said on Saturday rapid deforestation and the loss of biodiversity in individual countries should not be treated as local issues since they threaten the future of the planet. Francis made his appeal on a visit to Madagascar, the world’s fourth-largest island, which research institutes and aid agencies say has lost about 44% of its forest over the past 60 years, abetted by illegal exports of rosewood and ebony. Francis zeroed in on endemic corruption, linking it with persistent, long-term poverty as well as poaching and illegal exports of natural resources. Addressing Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, his cabinet and …

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A senior Iranian nuclear official said Saturday that the clock was ticking for other parties to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal and that it had the capacity to raise its uranium enrichment beyond 20%, although it had no plans to do so for the time being. “We have started lifting limitations on our Research and Development imposed by the deal … it will include development of more rapid and advanced centrifuges … all these steps are reversible if the other side fulfills its promises,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, said in a televised news conference. “The U.N. nuclear …

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Anyone who has tried booking interesting and affordable accommodations in New York City knows how difficult it is. Renting a room for less than $30 a night sounds impossible. But it’s true, even if the accommodations are a bit… unconventional. Elena Wolf has the story narrated by Anna Rice.    …

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An Iraqi resort is welcoming visitors again after years of war, terrorism and chaos kept families away. Habbaniya Lake was once one of Iraq’s most popular tourist destinations. Now, managers say they plan to restore it in the next couple of years. VOA’s Jim Randle narrates our report.   …

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Hurricane Dorian has weakened as it hits the U.S. southeastern coast Friday, lashing North Carolina, southeast Virginia and parts of New England with torrential rain, flooding and strong winds. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump has created a potential firestorm of his own, by continuing to insist he was right when he said that Alabama was also in the storm’s path earlier this week, despite evidence that it wasn’t. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.   …

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The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Dorian is “heading for Nova Scotia in a hurry” and is expected to arrive late Saturday as it moves with maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour. Dorian made landfall over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Friday morning after weakening into a Category 1 storm and generating tornadoes, severe storm surges and flooding in coastal areas in North and South Carolina. After landfall, Dorian began moving out into the Atlantic ocean and continued its trek up the U.S. eastern seaboard, the NHC said. The storm had devastated much of the Bahamas days earlier. The …

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Officials said Friday Taliban militants conducted an overnight attack on the western Afghan city of Farah, the capital of Farah province. There was no immediate word about casualties among Afghan forces or the Taliban. On Thursday, the NATO-led military alliance said an American soldier and a Romanian soldier were killed “in action”  in Kabul, Afghanistan, raising the number of U.S. military fatalities to 16 this year. The Resolute Support mission did not immediately disclose additional details, citing policy restrictions. The announcement came hours after the Taliban took responsibility for a suicide car bombing in the city that the insurgent group …

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WAGGA WAGGA, Australia — After the horrors of fleeing to Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq to escape Islamic State fighters in 2014, several hundred Yazidi refugees are starting new lives in the Australian outback.  Members of the minority religious group have been resettled in a handful of regional centers, like Wagga Wagga, to relieve pressure on refugee services in Australia’s main cities. Wagga Wagga is proud of its country roots. It is a farming and transport hub halfway between Sydney and Melbourne. FILE – Displaced people from the Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to Islamic State militants in Sinjar, …

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Maurice, a French rooster, now has a legal victory to crow about.    A court in Rochefort in western France on Thursday rejected complaints by Maurice’s neighbors that he was a nuisance and made too much noise.    The rooster’s owner, Corrine Fesseau, who lives in the village of Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron, was sued by neighbors who claimed Maurice’s crowing had made their holidays stressful.    Fesseau made several attempts to silence the rooster, including placing black sheets around his coop to trick him into thinking that morning had not yet broken.   Ultimately, the judge found that Maurice, being a rooster, had a right to …

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Democratic presidential candidates are flocking to Silicon Valley but this time it’s different. Once candidates wooed wealthy tech executives at Facebook, Google and other mega companies. Some now attack companies over issues such as data privacy, antitrust and worker rights. Michelle Quinn looked at how this election season reflects the changing views of tech across the United States.   …

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Robert Mugabe, the guerrilla leader who led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, died Friday at age 95, two years after the army brought an ignominious end to almost four decades of his iron-fisted rule. Following are reactions to his death from Zimbabwe and around the world. Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa, on Twitter “Cde (Comrade) Mugabe was an icon of liberation, a pan-Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation and empowerment of his people. His contribution to the history of our nation and continent will never be forgotten.” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa “South Africans join the people and government …

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The government on Thursday ordered Michigan State University to make sweeping changes and pay a $4.5 million fine after determining that it failed to adequately respond to sexual assault complaints against Larry Nassar, a former campus sports doctor who molested elite gymnasts and other female athletes. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced the penalty after the conclusion of two federal investigations. She said Nassar’s actions were “disgusting and unimaginable” and that the university’s response fit the same description. “Too many people in power knew about the behaviors and the complaints and yet the predators continued on the payroll and abused even …

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Zimbabwe’s government doctors are on strike, demanding a salary increase to cover the soaring cost of living. The strike began on Tuesday. The doctors, like many government workers, say inflation has made it impossible to meet basic needs.  Columbus Mavhunga has the story for VOA from Harare. …

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A peculiar form of body art is gaining popularity in New York city – It’s protest body art where people paint their bodies, not with pictures and innocent images,  but slogans aimed at fighting divisiveness.  Nina Vishneva has the story narrated by Anna Rice. …

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Hope, peace, and reconciliation were the three main pillars of Pope Francis’s message to lawmakers and youth Thursday during his first papal visit to Mozambique. Thousands of young Catholics packed a Maputo stadium to hear that message in a nation that, for decades, has struggled with conflict. The pontiff was greeted Wednesday night by President Filipe Nyusi, who is running for re-election in October in a contentious poll in which rival parties have already begun to sling mud at each other. Pope Francis waves to wellwishers as he leaves after a meeting at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in …

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U.S. President Donald Trump has put himself in the eye of a storm over his comments about the path of a hurricane.   Most of Trump’s recent tweets about Hurricane Dorian, now lashing the eastern U.S. seaboard, have focused on the southern state of Alabama – which weather forecasters say was never in the storm’s direct path.   The president, however, has been arguing otherwise and hurling his “fake news” invective at media pointing out the discrepancy.   Even network television forecasters and government meteorologists – who typically eschew being drawn into political controversies – have firmly rebutted the president. …

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People in the Bahamas are running out of ways to describe the devastation left by Hurricane Dorian. Words including “apocalyptic,” “shock” and “looking like a bomb went off” have been used, but just about any description seems too weak to describe conditions on Abaco and Grand Bahama Island. Dorian spent nearly two days parked on top of the northern Bahamas, drenching the islands with massive rainfall and pounding it with winds as high as 251 kilometers per hour (156 miles per hour). “We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,” Prime Minister …

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The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Wednesday subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security for documents that could shed light on President Donald Trump’s alleged offer of pardons to officials implementing U.S. immigration policy. The committee, which is considering whether to recommend impeachment against Trump, cited press reports that the president offered pardons to officials should they face legal action for following his instructions to close a section of the U.S.-Mexico border, aggressively seize private property and disregard environmental rules in erecting a border fence. “The dangling of pardons by the president to encourage government officials to violate federal …

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A number of technology companies including Facebook Inc., Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Twitter Inc. met with representatives of the U.S. government Wednesday to discuss security strategies related to the 2020 U.S. election, Facebook said in a statement. The security teams of the companies met with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security at Facebook’s headquarter in Menlo Park, California. “The purpose was to build on previous discussions and further strengthen strategic collaboration regarding the security of the 2020 U.S. state, federal, and presidential elections,” Nathaniel …

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President Donald Trump isn’t giving up on the dubious idea that Alabama faced a serious threat from Hurricane Dorian.    During an Oval Office briefing Wednesday, Trump displayed a map of the National Hurricane Center forecast for last Thursday that showed Dorian could track over Florida. The map he displayed included what appeared to be a hand-drawn half-circle that extended the cone of uncertainty over a swath of Alabama.    Trump had raised eyebrows and drawn an emphatic fact check from the National Weather Service on Sunday when he tweeted that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, “will most …

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