Category: Євросоюз

Benjamin Harnwell, a British acolyte of Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, says he and his mentor plan to fight efforts to scrap their plans to turn a picturesque medieval monastery in the mountainous Italian heartland into a boot camp for populist activists. Last year, amid cries of outrage from the Italian left, the 43-year-old Harnwell and Bannon secured a two-decade-long lease on the Trisulti Charterhouse, a 13th century monastery in Collepardo, in the central Italian province of Frosinone on the slopes of a forested peak 825 meters above sea level. Announcing the plan, Bannon talked combat ively about …

READ MORE

The Shali district court in Russia’s Chechnya region says it has granted an early release from prison to human rights activist Oyub Titiyev. The court on June 10 announced its decision to release Titiyev on parole. The ruling is expected to take up to 10 days to come into force. Titiyev, the 61-year-old head of the Chechnya office of the human rights group Memorial, was arrested in January 2018 by police who claimed they found marijuana in his car. Titiyev and Memorial say the drugs were planted there by the authorities in order to silence the group in Chechnya. In …

READ MORE

Leading lawmakers from Britain’s governing party battled over Brexit as the contest to become the next Conservative prime minister officially kicked off Monday, when nominations were closing.   The decision of who will replace Prime Minister Theresa May affects all Britons, but will be made only by members of the Conservative Party.   Ahead of a 5 p.m. (1600 GMT, noon EDT) deadline to submit nomination papers, almost a dozen contenders were already battling it out over tax policy, past drug use — and, of course, Britain’s stalled departure from the European Union.   The winner will face the challenge of …

READ MORE

Three of Russia’s leading newspapers have published identical front pages questioning the motives behind the arrest of investigative reporter Ivan Golunov, who was injured while in police custody. Vedomosti, Kommersant, and RBK had the same joint statement from their editors on the front page of their June 10 editions, which also calls for an investigation into an arrest the journalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders has warned could mark “a significant escalation in the persecution” of independent journalists in Russia. “We do not consider the evidence presented by the investigation into the guilt of Ivan Golunov convincing, and the circumstances of …

READ MORE

A U.S. State Department official has called for an end to Kosovo’s taxes on Serbian goods so that European Union-mediated talks on resolving the dispute between the former war foes could resume. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer said Monday full normalization of relations between Serbia and its former province is “essential” for the future of Western Balkans. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 which Serbia does not recognize. The EU-mediated dialogue has stalled after Kosovo introduced a 100% tariff on all goods coming from Serbia and Bosnia last year. Palmer said the tariffs present an “obstacle” for the dialogue …

READ MORE

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is stepping up his campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister by challenging the European Union over Brexit terms. Johnson told the Sunday Times he would refuse to pay the agreed-upon 39 billion-pound ($50 billion) divorce settlement unless the EU offers Britain a better withdrawal agreement than the one currently on the table.   The contest for leadership of the Conservative Party officially begins Monday. The post was vacated Friday by Prime Minister Theresa May, who will serve as a caretaker until a new leader is chosen and moves into 10 Downing Street.   The …

READ MORE

Search and recovery operations continued in in the Danube River in Hungary’s capital Budapest on Sunday to help raise a sunken sightseeing boat with the help of a floating crane. Hungarian rescue officials said Saturday that the tour boat is unlikely to be raised out of the water before Tuesday.   The Hableany (Mermaid) was carrying 33 South Koreans and a two-man Hungarian crew when it collided with a much larger cruise ship on the river in Budapest on May 29. Seven South Koreans were rescued after the nighttime crash in heavy rain but eight of the passengers and the …

READ MORE

Polls have closed in Kazakhstan where police detained hundreds of protesters and several journalists as the country held a snap presidential election, with the chosen successor of authoritarian ex-President Nursultan Nazarbaev expected to win easily. More than 100 protesters were detained in the in Astana Square in Kazakhstan’s largest city of Almaty as they were calling for a boycott of the election in which Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev is running against six government-approved candidates in a carefully controlled election. RFE/RL correspondents also reported that some 500 people held an anti-government rally near the Palace of Youth in the capital, Nur-Sultan — newly renamed …

READ MORE

Albania’s president on Saturday canceled upcoming municipal elections, citing the need to reduce political tensions in the country.    President Ilir Meta said he acted because “the actual circumstances do not provide necessary conditions for true, democratic, representative and all-inclusive elections” at the end of the month. The president said he would clarify his decision Monday.    Thousands of Albanians who support the political opposition assembled for an anti-government protest on Saturday. Opposition parties planned to boycott the municipal elections and threatened to prevent them taking place.    After sundown, smoke from tear gas and flares clouded the streets of Tirana. Some protesters …

READ MORE

Libya’s coast guard said Saturday that it had intercepted nearly two dozen Europe-bound migrants off the country’s Mediterranean coast.    Spokesman Ayoub Gassim said a wooden boat carrying at least 22 African migrants, all men, was intercepted Friday north of the Bouri offshore oil field, around 105 kilometers (65 miles) from Tripoli.    He said the migrants were given humanitarian and medical aid and then were taken to a refugee camp in the Tajoura district of eastern Tripoli.    Libya became a major conduit for African migrants and refugees fleeing to Europe after the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.    Libyan …

READ MORE

A White House deputy national security advisor says Kosovo’s excessively high tax on goods from Serbia precludes direct U.S. involvement in normalization talks, which President Donald Trump has been pushing for since December. The EU-mediated dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade, which started in 2011, broke down last fall over a proposed land swap and Kosovo’s levy of a 100-percent tax on imports from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Last month, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci said Washington must have a “leading role” in the process of normalizing relations with Serbia because the European Union is too “weak” and “not united.” But John Erath, …

READ MORE

The race to succeed the Brexit-fouled Theresa May as Conservative party leader and the country’s prime minister got underway Saturday in earnest, two days after Britain’s governing party suffered one of its worst ever humiliations in a parliamentary by-election. The Conservative leadership contest risks deepening the rift in the party over when, how or even if to leave the European Union — with a few of the nearly dozen contenders ruling out serving in a future cabinet — if they are vanquished and lose out to a rival. Some Conservative lawmakers and activists fear the party is in the grips …

READ MORE

Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido said Friday that the opposition’s demand for presidential elections is not negotiable, slowing mediation efforts by Norway aimed at resolving Venezuela’s political crisis.    “A new meeting isn’t planned at the moment, we can get what we’ve proposed on the agenda,” Guaido said at an event in the central city of Valencia, dismissing earlier comments from Russia’s foreign ministry that a third round of exploratory talks with representatives of Nicolas Maduro would take place next week.    “Nobody who is straight in the head would sit across from a dictator thinking he is negotiating in good …

READ MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is open for talks with Ukraine’s newly elected president.    Asked Friday why he didn’t congratulate comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy on taking office as Ukrainian president last month, Putin pointed at Zelenskiy’s statements in which he called Russia an aggressor.     Relations between the two countries have been strained since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.    Putin said that Zelenskiy is a talented actor, but noted that “there is a difference between playing and being.”      He softened the statement by adding that Zelenskiy may have the makings of a leader and said that he …

READ MORE

The United States on Friday raised the stakes in its standoff with Turkey over Ankara’s deal to acquire a Russian air defense system, laying out a plan to remove the NATO ally from the F-35 fighter jet program that includes halting any new training for Turkish pilots on the advanced aircraft. Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart, seen by Reuters on Friday, that laid out the steps to “unwind” Turkey from the program. Reuters on Thursday first reported the decision to stop accepting more Turkish pilots for training in the United States, in …

READ MORE

A leading Russian journalist has been detained on drug charges that he and his supporters say are retaliation for his investigative reporting work into alleged misdeeds by the authorities.    Ivan Golunov, 36, a special correspondent with the online news portal Meduza, is well-known in media circles for investigative stories that exposed graft and corruption among Moscow city bureaucrats and the business elite.    On Thursday, Golunov was on his way to meet a source in central Moscow when he was detained by plainclothes officers, who said they discovered the banned “club drug” mephedrone in the reporter’s backpack, as well as a larger stash of …

READ MORE

The U.N.’s refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration are urging the European Union to take urgent action to help migrants fleeing conflict-torn Libya or stuck in detention centers there. In talks with EU interior ministers Friday, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi and IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino called for “more urgency in the responses” to Libya’s challenges. They say “Libya is not a safe place for disembarkation given the appalling conditions in the detention centers to which people are transferred. More support is needed for those trapped.” The two lament that the EU still has no predictable method to …

READ MORE

 Russia’s Pacific Fleet on Friday accused a U.S. warship of nearly causing a collision with a Russian military vessel in the East China Sea due to what it called dangerous maneuvering, Russian news agencies reported. The Russian Navy was cited as saying that the USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser, had come within just 50 meters of the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov which had been forced to take emergency action to avoid a collision.   …

READ MORE

British Prime Minister Theresa May steps down as leader of the Conservative Party on Friday, and the first round of voting to elect her successor is expected next week. May will remain in the post until a new leader is chosen, likely by the end of July, but she relinquished control over the direction of Britain’s departure from the European Union, scheduled for Oct. 31. The next prime minister will have less than five months to decide whether to try to revive May’s plan and delay Brexit again, or leave the EU with no agreement at all. May took office …

READ MORE

Who are the candidates vying for British Prime Minister Theresa May’s job and what have they said about Brexit? May has announced she is quitting, triggering a contest that will bring a new leader to power, with most of the front-runners expected to push for a cleaner break with the European Union. Below are the 11 Conservative lawmakers who have said they are running and what they have said about Brexit. They are arranged in the order listed by oddschecker, a website that compiles bookmakers’ odds. ​BORIS JOHNSON, 54 The bookmakers’ clear favorite was the face of the official campaign …

READ MORE