Category: Євросоюз

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized Wednesday that the European Union’s remaining members are unwilling to renegotiate a Brexit agreement the British government accepted but lawmakers have refused to approve. Merkel was in Paris to discuss Brexit, relations with the United States and other European issues with the French president. With the U.K. leaving the EU, the two have positioned France and Germany as the logical drivers of the bloc’s future. “The Franco-German relationship is the necessary condition to make Europe move forward,” Macron said during a joint news conference with Merkel. Britain’s departure is set …

READ MORE

Turkish officials say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting with Jared Kushner for talks that are expected to center on his planned Mideast peace initiative. Erdogan’s office confirmed Wednesday that the meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law is underway. Economy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan’s son-in-law, was also present. Details of Kushner’s plan will be unveiled after the April 9 Israeli election. He said however, that it will address all “final status” issues, including borders, and require compromises by all sides. He made no mention of establishing a Palestinian state and said the plan would focus …

READ MORE

Israel’s prime minister vowed to prevent Iran from securing a lasting presence in Syria as he visited Moscow on Wednesday for talks focusing on regional security. For Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s the first trip to Moscow since September’s downing of a Russian warplane by Syrian forces that were responding to an Israeli airstrike. The incident left 15 Russian crew dead and threatened to derail close security ties between Russia and Israel. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the start of Wednesday’s talks that “it’s very important to discuss the situation in the region and security issues.” He added that the high-level …

READ MORE

Volvo’s electric performance brand Polestar is unveiling a battery-powered compact car touted as a rival to Tesla’s Model 3. The Polestar 2 is a five-door vehicle with a panoramic glass roof, an all-vegan interior and a battery with enough capacity to drive 500 kilometers under European tests for range measurement, or 275 miles under U.S. testing rules. With 408 horsepower, it should accelerate from zero to 100 kph (0-62 mph) in under five seconds. Polestar said Wednesday that the car’s U.S. price for the launch version will be $55,500 after tax incentives; later a lower-priced version with less range is …

READ MORE

A Russian military court convicted a former senior counterintelligence officer and a cybersecurity firm executive of treason Tuesday, concluding a case that initially aroused speculation of a manufactured effort to punish the source of leaks about Russian campaign hacking.   Moscow’s District Military Court heard several months of evidence and arguments behind closed doors before it found Col. Sergei Mikhailov, an ex-officer at Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and Kaspersky Lab executive Ruslan Stoyanov guilty.   The basis for the charges remains murky given the top-secret nature of the criminal proceedings. Russian media have reported the case centers on accusations …

READ MORE

Robots, cars, drones and virtual-reality gaming sets connected by cutting-edge 5G networks are among the thousands of futuristic gadgets on display at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. While there is much excitement over how 5G will transform our everyday lives, the conference is overshadowed by the standoff between the United States and Beijing over the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which the U.S. says could be used by the Chinese government for espionage. Some U.S. cities and parts of Asia are already operating 5G mobile networks. They offer speeds of over a gigabyte per second and low latency …

READ MORE

A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to delay sentencing for Maria Butina, who has admitted to working to infiltrate a gun rights group and make inroads with U.S. conservative activists and Republicans as an agent for Russia, after a prosecutor said her cooperation was continuing. Butina, 30, has been in custody since her arrest in July. She pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Russia. Butina’s attorney Robert Driscoll told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in court on Tuesday his client is ready to be sentenced. “From our perspective, we’re ready …

READ MORE

A close associate of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stepped aside from a senior government role on Tuesday pending a corruption investigation involving his son a month before the incumbent faces a tough battle for re-election. A confectionary magnate who came to power following the 2014 Maidan protests, Poroshenko trails in the election race, according to latest polls, and critics accuse him of not doing enough to tackle entrenched corruption. In a program on Monday, investigative journalist network Bihus.Info accused the son of Oleh Gladkovsky, deputy secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, of involvement in smuggling military equipment from …

READ MORE

Soldiers in Belarus have unearthed the bones of hundreds of people shot during World War II from a mass grave discovered at the site of a ghetto where Jews lived under the Nazis. The grave was uncovered by chance last month on a construction site in a residential area in the center of Brest near the Polish border. Soldiers wearing white masks on Tuesday sifted through the site with spades, trowels and their gloved hands to collect the bones. They also found items such as leather shoes that had not rotted. Dmitry Kaminsky, a soldier leading the unit, said they …

READ MORE

The Serbian government, which is building up its military, has reintroduced classes on defense and security to its high schools almost three decades after abolishing them. The first classes were organized by defense ministry lecturers at a Belgrade high school, the ministry said in a statement Tuesday. “We are tackling topics about Serbia’s system of defense and security, the army, about how to become an officer, about chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense,” the statement quoted Colonel Dragan Stojcic as saying. During Communist rule in the former Yugoslavia, such courses were compulsory in schools and universities and included ideological propaganda …

READ MORE

Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes. The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. The report, unusual even by the sometimes bellicose standards of Russian state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening, days after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban Missile”-style crisis if the United States wanted one. With tensions rising over Russian fears that the United …

READ MORE

The $8 billion Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing nations tackle global warming, named Yannick Glemarec of France as its new executive director Monday after his predecessor quit. Former leader Howard Bamsey of Australia stepped down in July after what the fund described as a “difficult” board meeting marred by disputes between rich and poor nations about how to select projects in developing nations. “Yannick Glemarec brings 30 years of experience in climate change, development, finance and their inter-relationships,” the fund said in a statement. He has previously had senior jobs at U.N. Women and the U.N. Development …

READ MORE

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday welcomed the United States’ decision to leave American troops in Syria, a reversal by U.S. President Donald Trump that came after an outcry from coalition allies such as France. “On the U.S. decision, I can only but welcome this choice,” Macron told a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. “The U.S. decision is a good thing. We will continue to operate in the region within the coalition.” In December, Trump ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 troops in Syria after he said they had defeated Islamic State militants, an abrupt decision that …

READ MORE

The number of Russians who tuned in to watch President Vladimir Putin’s annual address on television last week slipped to its lowest level since 2013, nationwide data from market research firm Mediascope showed on Monday. The findings come as opinion polls register a slide in Putin’s popularity ratings following moves last year to raise the retirement age and hike sales tax, amid stagnating real wages. Putin, whose overall approval rating still remains high at over 60 percent, uses state television to burnish his image and every year outlines government priorities in his state-of-the-nation speech to parliament. This year he put …

READ MORE

An election in Moldova has produced a hung parliament, with results showing the vote split between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces at a time when the ex-Soviet republic’s relations with the European Union have soured. The outcome of Sunday’s contest sets the stage for coalition talks or potentially new elections, just as the country has recovered from a political and economic crisis following a $1 billion banking scandal in 2014 and 2015. Opposition leaders have meanwhile threatened street protests against the result after raising suspicions of vote-buying. The incumbent government wants closer EU integration and warns of catastrophe if Moldova, one …

READ MORE

Thousands gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder. Although the events were approved by Moscow authorities, police limited access to the northern edge of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge just outside the Kremlin, where for years a makeshift memorial comprising of plaques, photos, flowers and candles has marked the spot of the 55-year-old’s assassination by gunshot. It was on the evening of February 27, 2015, when Nemtsov was walking across the bridge when a car stopped alongside him. A gunman emerged from the vehicle and fired multiple shots from a range …

READ MORE

A poster at the National Rally’s headquarters outside Paris shows a smiling Marine Le Pen standing alongside Italy’s interior minister and League leader Matteo Salvini. “Everywhere in Europe,” reads the tagline, “our ideas are coming to power.” The message is more than aspirational. As campaigning heats up for May European Parliament elections, experts predict the two far-right leaders and those of other nationalist movements may score strongly, with potentially sweeping consequences for the European Union. “Complacency will be very dangerous with these elections,” said analyst Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, who estimates that “anti-European” parties could …

READ MORE

Pope Francis has compared the sexual abuse of children to human sacrifice. “I am reminded of the cruel religious practice, once widespread in certain cultures, of sacrificing human beings – frequently children – in pagan rites,” Francis said Sunday.   He was speaking at the close of the summit of the church’s top bishops and leaders, called to design a plan on how to deal with the predatory priests who have sexually abused children and adults for decades. AFP, the French news agency, reports that the bishops were given a “roadmap” on how to stop the predatory priests that included …

READ MORE

Poland’s ruling party leader has pledged more social benefits for families with children and for the elderly as he opened the right-wing party’s campaign ahead of key elections this year. Speaking at a party convention Saturday, Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced an upgrade to the generous social program of his Law and Justice party, a policy that has kept the party on top of the political polls since it won power in 2015. But opinion polls show the party could lose to a united opposition in the European Parliament election in May and in a vote for Poland’s national parliament in the …

READ MORE

Iceland’s whaling industry will be allowed to keep hunting whales for at least another five years, killing up to 2,130 baleen whales under a new quota issued by the government. The five-year whaling policy was up for renewal when Fisheries Minister Kristjan Juliusson announced this week an annual quota of 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales for the next five years. While many Icelanders support whale hunting, a growing number of businessmen and politicians are against it because of to the North Atlantic island nation’s dependence on tourism. Whaling vs. tourism Whaling, they say, is bad for business and …

READ MORE