Category: Євросоюз

Britain’s Standard Charter Bank has agreed to more than $1 billion in fines and forfeited assets to the U.S. and New York state for violating U.S. sanctions against trade with Iran. Federal and state prosecutors said Tuesday that between 2007 and 2011, the global financial institution processed about 9,500 financial transactions worth about $240 million through U.S. financial institutions to benefit Iranian entities. In addition, U.S. authorities said an unnamed former bank employee in the United Arab Emirates pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and to violate the trade sanctions. Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said the …

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A group of Hungarian business leaders and politicians close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban have founded an international news agency in London whose coverage will focus on central and eastern Europe. Orban’s associates have gained control over a large chunk of the Hungarian media in recent years and his Fidesz party has taken total control of state media, drawing international accusations that they are weakening freedom of speech. However, Orban has been unable to control international news coverage, which has been far more critical of him than local media. The new agency’s early content suggests it is more sympathetic to …

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Police have moved in to stop a scuffle between supporters of rival candidates in Ukraine’s presidential election. Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who stars in a widely popular TV sitcom about a schoolteacher turned president, easily beat President Petro Poroshenko in the first round on March 31. Zelenskiy garnered 30% of the vote, while Poroshenko won just under 16%, and a runoff between them is set for April 21. Supporters of Zelenskiy and Poroshenko clashed Tuesday in front of Zelenskiy’s campaign headquarters in Kyiv, as they tried to wrest campaign posters from each other. Police quickly intervened, detaining two people. Zelenskiy’s office …

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The leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees warned Turkey on Tuesday that it risked tough sanctions if it pursued plans to purchase Russian S-400 missile defense systems, and they threatened further legislative action. “By the end of the year, Turkey will have either F-35 advanced fighter aircraft on its soil or a Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system. It will not have both,” Republican Senators Jim Risch and Jim Inhofe and Democratic Senators Bob Menendez and Jack Reed said in a New York Times opinion column. Risch is chairman of Foreign Relations and Menendez is …

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Investigators in Belarus have searched the office of a leading independent satellite channel as part of a criminal probe. Tuesday’s search of the Belsat office in Minsk was the latest episode in an official crackdown on independent media in the ex-Soviet nation.   Belarus’ state investigative agency said the search was part of a slander probe looking into a Belsat report about the arrest of corruption suspects that proved erroneous. Belsat, which broadcasts from Poland, said its computers were confiscated during the search. It said Belarusian authorities are trying to muzzle independent voices ahead of next year’s presidential election. Belarusian …

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Turkey’s High Election Board has rejected a request by the ruling AK Party for all votes to be recounted in 31 of Istanbul’s districts, a board member said on Tuesday, in a blow to the party’s goal of a total recount in the city. President Tayyip Erdogan, also AKP leader, said on Monday the local elections were marred by “organized crime” at ballot boxes in Istanbul, raising the possibility of re-running a March 31 vote in the city that handed a slim majority to the main opposition party. Erdogan’s comments, his strongest challenge yet to the election process in Turkey’s …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday to argue for a Brexit delay while her ministers hold crisis talks with Labour to try to break the deadlock in London. Britain’s departure from the EU has already been delayed once but May is asking for yet more time as she courts veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, whose opposition Labour Party wants to keep Britain more closely tied to the bloc after Brexit. “The prime minister has not yet moved off her red lines so we can reach a compromise,” Corbyn said …

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One of the key Russian officials to foster a supply pact with OPEC, Kirill Dmitriev, signaled on Monday that Russia wanted to raise oil output when it meets with OPEC in June because of improving market conditions and falling stockpiles. Dmitriev, head of Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF, was the first Russian official to predict a deal with OPEC in 2016 and since then has become a key defender of the pact despite pressure from domestic oil firms to drop the agreement. Dmitriev, an envoy for Moscow in the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, had in …

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Hard-line Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and members of nationalist parties from around Europe met Monday in Milan to discuss forming a broad international alliance within the European Parliament. Their talks come as the European Union prepares for May 26 elections aimed at choosing members of the parliament. At the gathering in a Milan luxury hotel, the nationalist and anti-immigrant forces said they want to create a major new grouping to shake up the European Union following elections next month. Matteo Salvini, who also serves as Italy’s interior minister, organized the meeting held under the slogan, “Toward a Common …

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Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu was officially charged with crimes against humanity by the country’s top prosecutor on Monday as it finalized an inquiry into the chaotic and bloody anti-Communist revolution of 1989. Iliescu, 89, has repeatedly said he was innocent. He enjoyed widespread popularity after the revolt against dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed and executed in December 1989. But hundreds of people died in the ouster and Iliescu’s opponents accused him of stealing the revolution from the people. “The completion of this case by our military prosecutors, is one of the most important goals in the management project …

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France’s prime minister has called for quick tax cuts to respond to the anger expressed through the yellow vests protests across the country. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Monday unveiled the results of a three-month “grand debate” launched by President Emmanuel Macron in response to the protests so ordinary people could express their views on France’s economy and democracy.   Philippe says “the debate clearly indicates the direction: we must cut taxes and cut them more quickly.” At the same time, however, he said the government must cut public spending.   Macron is expected to unveil a series of economic …

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Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban made his name as a young anti-Communist dissident delivering a fiery anti-Russian speech at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy, leader of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 against the Soviet Union. Among the KGB officers dispatched by the Kremlin to help quash the Imre Nagy-led Hungarian uprising was Nikolai Kosov, a young intelligence officer, whose wife had given birth just a few weeks earlier to their first child, a son.  Fast forward more than half-a-century, and the son, also named Nikolai, was one of the first visitors earlier this year to Viktor Orbán’s new prime …

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As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) heads into its eighth decade amidst doubts in some quarters of its contemporary relevance, the Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister tells VOA that there’s “huge consensus” among political parties in his country in support of NATO membership and of America’s leadership within the alliance. “Our membership is very important, and America’s leading role is key to the success of NATO,” says Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček. This year marks the 20th anniversary of NATO membership for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Petříček recognizes NATO as an organization “of shared values, as well as …

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The migration of Africans to Europe and North America should be viewed as a positive phenomenon, not a threat, Sudan-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim said Sunday. Experts said at a weekend conference hosted by Ibrahim’s foundation in Abidjan, Ivory Coast that Africans make up about 14% of the global migrant population, a much smaller share than the 41% from Asia and 23% from Europe. “Migration is healthy. It’s not a disease,” Ibrahim told The Associated Press in an interview. “Migration is about aspirations, not desperation. People who migrate are mostly capable, ambitious young people who are migrating to work and to …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party is asking for a recount of votes in Istanbul after the ruling party lost last week’s mayoral election. In a humiliating setback for Erdogan, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) narrowly won Istanbul, the country’s economic and cultural center. It also won the mayoral contest in Ankara, the capital. A recount in some districts in Ankara is already under way, and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has asked for a full recount in Istanbul. AKP officials say the voting in Istanbul was “tainted” and cited “organized abuse, something going beyond simple individual …

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Arrested former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is set to name the people he believes are responsible for his downfall in Japan, his wife said in an interview on Sunday as she fled Tokyo out of fear she could be detained. Ghosn was re-arrested last week in the Japanese capital over fresh allegations of financial misconduct which will see him held in custody until at least April 14. Speaking to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in France, his wife Carole detailed the latest twists in the extraordinary saga, saying that Ghosn had recorded a video interview in English before his detention. …

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Ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, the world has been fascinated with the idea of creating life in a lab. But it remained in the realm of fiction… until it became a bit closer to reality with genetic engineering work in a Swiss lab. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

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Top EU leaders meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang this week at a summit in Brussels, but their hopes of winning solid commitments on trade look set for disappointment. Brussels is trying to beef up its approach to the Asian giant as it shows little willingness to listen to longstanding complaints about industrial subsidies and access to its markets, and as fears grow about growing Chinese involvement in European infrastructure. But the half-day summit on Tuesday is on course to fizzle out with little to show in terms of agreements, with European sources saying it looks highly unlikely a final joint …

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Britain’s government has been forced to talk to Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to save Brexit, Andrea Leadsom, its leader in the House of Commons, said on Sunday, suggesting ministers were ready to compromise with the opposition leader. “Specifically provided we are leaving the European Union then it is important that we compromise, that’s what this is about and it is through gritted teeth. But nevertheless the most important thing is to actually leave the EU,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. She suggested that Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposal for a customs arrangement with the EU after Brexit was not …

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A British man poisoned along with his partner with a nerve agent, amid an assassination attempt on a Russian ex-spy in England blamed on Moscow, met its top UK envoy on Saturday, according to reports. Charlie Rowley, 45, whose partner Dawn Sturgess died after exposure to the toxin, held a 90-minute meeting with Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko at Russia’s embassy in London, Britain’s Sunday Mirror said. “I went along to ask them ‘why did your country kill my girlfriend?’” he told the tabloid newspaper. “But I didn’t really get any answers. I just got Russian propaganda,” Rowley added, saying Yakovenko’s explanations …

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