Category: Євросоюз

The Trump administration has agreed to postpone implementing a rule allowing medical workers to decline performing abortions or other treatments on moral or religious grounds while the so-called “conscience” rule is challenged in a California court.  The rule was supposed to take effect on July 22 but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its opponents in a California lawsuit mutually agreed Friday to delay a final ruling on the matter until Nov. 22. The agency called it the “most efficient way to adjudicate” the rule. A federal judge in San Francisco permitted the change on Saturday. A …

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Donald Trump may become the first U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he visits the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas on Sunday.   Trump has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a quick meeting at the DMZ’s Panmunjom border village. Before landing in Seoul, Trump said he would feel “very comfortable” stepping across the border into North Korea.   “Virtually a handshake,” Trump said of the possible meeting. “But that’s OK. A handshake means a lot.”   Though it isn’t clear the meeting will go beyond a photo opportunity, many hope a DMZ handshake …

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Australia’s national science agency says years of concern about the health of the Great Barrier Reef have created a type of ‘grief’ among tourists.  A survey of thousands of visitors to the reef has found they consider the world’s largest coral system to be less beautiful now, and worry about its decline.  The study is published in the journal, Nature Climate Change.  The Great Barrier Reef is nature’s gift to Australia, but it is in trouble because of climate change and pollution. “But now the largest living structure on the planet is becoming the largest dying structure.  Vast amounts of …

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Italian police Saturday arrested the captain of the Dutch-flagged Sea Watch 3 vessel, owned by a German charity, after it docked in the port of Lampedusa with out authorization. The vessel, still carrying 40 African migrants, had been at sea for more than two weeks. Carola Rakete, the 31-year-old German captain of the Sea Watch 3, was arrested Saturday morning amid heavy police presence in the port of Lampedusa. She had entered the port without authorization and docked the vessel. Rakete said she had no choice but to enter the port because the situation of the migrants on board was …

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It’s not unusual for U.S. President Donald Trump to encounter demonstrations when he travels overseas. South Korea, where Trump arrived Saturday for his second visit as president, will be no exception. But what makes South Korea different is that U.S.-focused demonstrations are held on a near-constant basis. On any given day in Seoul, it’s not unusual to see street parades, public speeches, or permanent protest sites where mostly older, conservative activists wave U.S. and Korean flags and chant pro-U.S. slogans. Though it is harder than it once was to find overt displays of anti-Americanism, there are also frequent protests by …

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Europe was bracing itself for a sweltering Saturday as the heatwave continued across the continent. The Meteo-France weather service lifted its red warning but forecast a “very hot day” across a large central band of the country with the mercury expected to rise to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts. With France, Spain, Italy and parts of central Europe hard hit by the record-breaking temperatures, officials pleaded with people to take precautions. France’s new record temperature of 45.9 degrees C (114.6 degrees F) was registered on Friday in Gallargues-le-Montueux, a village in the southern department of Gard …

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U.S. President Donald Trump says he will hold off on imposing additional tariffs on China after a meeting with President Xi Jinping that resulted in the stalled trade negotiations getting “right back on track.”    Speaking Saturday at a wide-ranging news conference at the conclusion of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump said he will also allow American companies to sell to Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant whose software U.S. intelligence has warned could threaten  U.S. national security. FILE – A logo of Huawei marks one of the company’s buildings in Dongguan, in China’s Guangdong province, March 6, 2019. …

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Authorities in the Dominican Republic say they have arrested the mastermind behind the shooting of baseball great David Ortiz earlier this month in an apparent case of mistaken identity.   Police said Friday that Victor Hugo Gomez was detained in the Caribbean country. No further details were immediately released.   Authorities had said last week that they believed Gomez was living in the U.S.   Alleged Shooter Arrested in $8,000 Plot to Kill Baseball’s David Ortiz Arrests come as Ortiz, 43, recovered in a Boston hospital following a second round of surgery on Tuesday, according to his family, which said …

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Six days after the assassination of Ethiopia’s army chief, the prime minister has appointed the country’s spy chief as the late general’s successor …

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VOA Connect Ep 76 – We look at T4Tactics, a training program that teaches participants how to respond to an active shooter and a father’s quest to keep his son’s memory alive and promote gun safety after Parkland.   …

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A federal judge in Seattle on Friday was hearing a challenge to a new Trump administration policy that would keep thousands of asylum seekers locked up while they pursue their cases, instead of allowing them to be released on bond. Attorney General William Barr announced the policy in April as part of the administration’s efforts to deter a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, and it is scheduled to take effect next month. It targets immigrants who have recently entered the U.S. without permission and have demonstrated a credible fear of persecution or torture if returned to their home …

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When Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa took office in 2017, he signed deals promising billions of dollars in foreign investment to help revive the moribund economy but the funds never materialized.  Now, officials acknowledge the country has major steps to take before investors are willing to sink cash into new projects. At its peak, the state-owned Cold Storage Company was the biggest African beef exporter to European Union countries. The company no longer stores or produces anything, and its freezers sit empty. At its peak, this state-owned Cold Storage Company, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe was the biggest African beef exporter to the …

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In the end, the death of Oregon’s climate bill was an inside job. The Democrat-controlled state Senate was expected to pass a bill last week that would have charged industries for their carbon pollution. The measure aimed to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming. Republicans fled the state rather than vote, bringing the Legislature to a standstill. But it was one Democratic holdout with an energy-hungry industry in her district who ultimately killed the bill, according to local media. Confronting the climate crisis comes with costs. By some estimates, the bill would add at least 16 cents …

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Palestinian officials attending a two-day conference on the status of Jerusalem warn peace with Israel will not be possible without resolving the dispute over the ancient city, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital.  The conference is addressing the issue of Israel’s policies and measures, which organizers say are aimed at changing the character of Jerusalem. They warn the decision by the Trump administration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has significant political, legal and socioeconomic ramifications. Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations in New York, has warned that President …

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Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was at the center of attention Thursday on the second night of Democratic presidential debates, set to make the case that he has the best chance to oust Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Biden currently leads Democratic voter preference surveys for the party’s presidential nomination, but he will face some of his biggest rivals before a live audience in Miami, Fla., with millions watching on national television. He was to be joined in the debate by nine other presidential aspirants, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist; California Sen. Kamala …

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Argentine authorities have seized about 1,000 guns and hundreds of explosives from an international criminal gang, officials said Thursday, calling it the largest seizure of its kind in the country’s history.  The security ministry said in a statement that the weapons were smuggled into Argentina from the U.S. and Europe. The magazines were purchased in Spain and the Netherlands and sent in containers aboard ships. They were then sent by land to neighboring Brazil and Paraguay. Officials have not identified the gang involved. In this photo provided by the Argentine Ministry of Security, a police officer takes inventory a cachet …

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Nearly six years after his arrest, and two years after he was legally set free, Mauritanian lawyers and international rights groups are calling for authorities to release blogger Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mkhaitir. Citizen journalist and blogger Mkhaitir was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to death for what the state called blasphemy after he wrote a blog post condemning the use of religion to justify racial discrimination.  In 2017, a Mauritanian court commuted Mkhaitir’s sentence to two years — which he had already served, legally liberating him. However, he has remained detained in an undisclosed location. “He is no longer officially, …

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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved bipartisan legislation to address the humanitarian crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border with more than $4 billion in supplemental funds and new requirements for the care of detained migrants, especially children. The 84-8 vote came amid renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s treatment of minors in its custody and amid widespread revulsion over the deaths of a father and daughter from El Salvador who perished trying to cross the Rio Grande River into the United States. “There is no longer any question that the situation along our southern border is a full-blown humanitarian and security …

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Ten of the Democrats competing for the party’s nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election took part in a two-hour debate Wednesday night that included discussion of several topics such as health care, immigration, climate change and how the country should engage with the rest of the world. Here is a key quote from each of the participants as they tried to convince voters they are the person who should compete against President Donald Trump next November: Democratic presidential hopeful Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio participates in the first Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign …

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Steve Herman contributed to the report. WASHINGTON — Ten U.S. Democratic presidential contenders held a spirited debate Wednesday night in the first major event of the 2020 election campaign, all looking to oust Republican President Donald Trump after a single term in the White House. The immediate focus was on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive lawmaker from the northeastern state of Massachusetts who national surveys show has edged closer to former Vice President Joe Biden as a Democratic favorite to oppose Trump in the election set for Nov. 3, 2020. She told a live audience in Miami, Florida, and millions …

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