Category: Євросоюз

A crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates will square off in a second round of debates Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the U.S., with 20 contenders looking for a breakout moment to make the case that they are the party’s best of hope of defeating President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The two debates with 10 candidates each are occurring six months ahead of the Democratic party’s first presidential nominating contests early next year. But the debates on a theater stage in Detroit, Michigan, the heart of the country’s auto industry, and nationally televised by CNN could prove pivotal …

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Hundreds of people gathered Monday outside City Hall in the California city of Gilroy for a vigil honoring the victims killed and injured by a teenager who attacked a popular food festival. Those in attendance lit candles, listened to speeches from local leaders and joined in chants of “Gilroy strong.” “We cannot let the bastard that did this tear us down,” Mayor Roland Velasco said.  “Now the person that did this took something from us. They took a small town festival that has generated millions of dollars over the last 41 years. They took that from us. He took that …

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Two Somalia refugees living in Arizona were charged with providing support to a terror group after federal agents say they were planning to travel from Tucson to Egypt to join the Islamic State. A criminal charge unsealed Monday alleged 21-year-old Ahmed Mahad Mohamed and 20-year-old Abdi Yemani Hussein had told an undercover FBI employee that they wanted to travel to the Middle East to carry out violence and “achieve martyrdom.” Both Tucson residents, who had received government documents to travel to Egypt, were arrested Friday after they checked in for their flights and made their way through security at Tucson …

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A small Pakistani military plane crashed into a residential area near the garrison city of Rawalpindi before dawn Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, including two pilots, officials said. In a statement, the military said five soldiers were among those killed in the plane crash. Rescue officials said the death toll could rise further since there are injured in critical condition.  The military gave no details about the cause of the crash and only said an army aviation aircraft was on a routine training flight when the plane went down in the village of Mora Kalu on outskirts of Rawalpindi. …

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The U.N. human rights chief calls the murder of the leader of Brazil’s indigenous Wajapi tribe “reprehensible” and demands the Brazilian government respect the integrity of indigenous territories. “The Brazilian government’s proposed policy to open up more areas of the Amazon to mining could lead to incidents of violence, intimidation and killings,” Michelle Bachelet said Monday. “When indigenous people are pushed off their lands, it is not just an economic issue. As the U.N Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes clear, it affects their entire way of life.” The body of Wajapi chief Emrya Wajapi was found in …

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Greta Thunberg,  the Swedish teenager whose social media-savvy brand of eco-activism has inspired tens of thousands of students in Europe to skip classes and protest for faster action against climate change, said Monday that she plans to take her message to America the old-fashioned way: by boat. The 16-year-old tweeted that she’ll sail across the Atlantic aboard a high-tech racing yacht, leaving Britain next month to attend U.N. climate summits in New York in September and Santiago, Chile, in December. Thunberg told The Associated Press ahead of her announcement that she spent months trying to figure out how to travel …

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Two months after U.S.-Chinese talks aimed at ending a tariff war broke down, both sides are trying to temper hopes for a breakthrough when negotiations resume Tuesday on an array of disputes that has grown to include tension over China’s tech giant Huawei.   Rhetoric has hardened despite the June agreement by Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to revive efforts to end the costly fight over China’s technology ambitions and trade surplus.   “I don’t know if they’re going to make a deal,” Trump said Friday. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. I don’t care.” He repeated his claim …

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Israel’s four Arab political parties formalized a merger on Monday ahead of September elections, hoping to boost turnout among the minority that comprises a fifth of the country’s population.   The Palestinian nationalist Balad party announced late Sunday night that it would join a reunited Joint List of Arab parties, months after infighting fragmented the political alliance.   Ayman Odeh, head of the Hadash party, said Monday that now that the parties have reunited, they can address the “great challenge” facing the country’s Arab minority.   Israel’s Arab population mainly consists of Palestinians who remained in Israel after its creation …

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Tigers are one of the world’s endangered species. India, however, is working hard to change that classification for its national animal. In just four years, its tiger population has grown from 2,226 to 2,976. In 2010, India’s tiger population was down to 1,400. India is now one of the safest places in the world for tigers. “Nine years ago, it was decided in Saint Petersburg (Russia) that the target of doubling the tiger population would be 2022,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday at the release of the All India Tiger Estimation Report 2018.  “We in India completed this target …

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Chinese dissident Huang Qi has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on the charge of leaking secrets to a foreign entity, more than two years after his arrest, a court said Monday. Huang, who founded a website documenting alleged rights abuses by officials, has been jailed twice before, including in 2008 after advocating for parents whose children were killed in a massive earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Thousands of students died when their shoddily built schools collapsed, but the government has never made public the results of any investigation or held anyone accountable. A brief announcement Monday …

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The White House on Sunday belittled Democratic lawmakers who are continuing to advance the case for impeaching President Donald Trump after former special counsel Robert Mueller failed to produce any explosive new allegations against the U.S. leader at last week’s congressional hearings. “This is not over in their minds, which is absolutely bizarre,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the Fox News Sunday interview show. “This is over. Most folks know it is over.” Mulvaney offered his comments two days after Congressman Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that “in effect” the panel has …

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A spokeswoman for Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is serving a 30-day jail term, says he has been hospitalized after suffering a “severe allergic reaction.” Kira Yarmysh said Navalny was taken from the Moscow detention facility to a hospital on the morning of July 28. The opposition figure and Kremlin foe arrived at the hospital with “severe facial swelling and red rashes on the skin,” Yarmysh tweeted. The source of the allergic reaction has not been determined yet, she wrote, adding that Navalny “never experienced an allergic reaction before.” “He is currently in the ward under the supervision of …

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Libyan health authorities say an airstrike hit a field hospital south of the capital, Tripoli, killing at least four doctors and a paramedic. Malek Merset, a spokesman for the health ministry of the U.N.-supported government, says the attack took place late Saturday in the Zawya district.   Forces based in the country’s east are currently fighting for control of the capital’s southern outskirts against militias allied with the Tripoli-based government.   Health authorities did not say which side was behind the airstrike, which wounded eight health workers.   The Tripoli-based government blamed the airstrike on the self-styled Libyan National Army, …

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Afghan authorities say a car-bomb-and-gun attack in Kabul has killed at least two people and injured 25 others. Officials and witnesses said several heavily armed suicide bombers stormed a compound housing the office of Afghanistan Green Trend (AGT), a political movement headed by the country’s former spy chief, Amrullah Saleh.  Saleh is also a vice-presidential candidate of incumbent President Ashraf Ghani’s electoral team for the country’s upcoming election.   The incident occurred just hours after Ghani and Saleh attended an election rally in Kabul as the official campaign to elect news president of Afghanistan kicked off Sunday. The attack began …

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Twenty-two year old Egan Bernal was set to make history Sunday, as the first Colombian to win the Tour de France—and the youngest cyclist to place first in more than a century. The 2019 edition of the Tour de France was marked by high drama, including sharp weather swings and a crushing defeat for the French. Only towards the end did a clear winner emerge in Colombia’s Egan Bernal. Interviewed on French TV ahead Sunday’s final sprint from the town of Rambouillet to Paris, Bernal said he was still trying to digest the events. He said he felt good as …

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KUTUPALONG, BANGLADESH — A top-level Myanmar government delegation began repatriation talks with Rohingya leaders in a Bangladesh refugee camp on Saturday, an official said, with many of the Muslim minority fearing for their safety if they return home.    Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar’s military and are living in squalid conditions in camps in Bangladesh’s southeastern border district of Cox’s Bazar.    The two countries signed a repatriation deal in November 2017 but so far virtually no Rohingya have volunteered to go back to Myanmar, where the group has faced decades of repression.    The Myanmar team, …

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MAKINDYE-LUKULI, UGANDA  — The darkening clouds are ominous for many in this urban neighborhood, promising rushing rainwaters stinking of human waste from overflowing septic tanks.    As Africa faces a population boom unmatched anywhere else in the world, millions of people are moving to fast-growing cities while decades-old public facilities crumble under the pressure.      Sewage is a scourge for residents of this community on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. There are no public toilets for 1,200 people. Mud tinged with feces washes into homes during heavy rains.    The sanitation crisis echoes that of cities across the developing …

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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will keep his job as head of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History after the museum concluded its investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against him. A museum spokesman said in a statement Thursday that based on the results of the investigation, Tyson “remains an employee and director of the Hayden Planetarium.” The statement said museum officials would not comment further “because this is a confidential personnel matter.” Tyson was accused of behaving inappropriately with two women in an article published in November on the website Patheos. Fox Broadcasting and National Geographic …

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LAS VEGAS — Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi want their USA Basketball legacy to be more than just winning medals.    The four-time Olympic gold medalists came up with an idea for a training plan for USA Basketball leading up to next year’s Tokyo Olympics that would help the Americans go for an unprecedented seventh consecutive title: USA Basketball, which usually trains together only for short periods of time during a crowded calendar, would get a core group of eight players together for five training sessions over the next year. The players would be paid $2,000 a day at each …

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STOCKHOLM — Nordic countries are experiencing searing temperatures as Europe’s record-breaking heat wave moves north, with Norway on Saturday equaling its 1970 record and many areas recording “tropical nights.”    Laksfors in northern Norway on Saturday recorded a temperature of 35.6 degrees Celsius (96 degrees Fahrenheit), equaling the national record set in Nesbyen in 1970, the country’s meteorology service said on Twitter, adding, however, that the measuring station needed to be double-checked to ensure that it was operating properly.    The Norwegian Meteorological Institute also said it had recorded “tropical nights” in 20 different locations in southern Norway, meaning that temperatures stayed above 20 …

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