The United States clashed with Iran in the international arena Tuesday. The U.S. is hosting a Middle East conference in Poland with a focus on countering Iran’s influence in the world. An international court based in the Netherlands ruled Tuesday that Iran can proceed with a bid to unfreeze assets in the United States. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …
The European Commission added Saudi Arabia, Panama, Nigeria and other jurisdictions to a blacklist of nations seen as posing a threat because of lax controls on terrorism financing and money laundering, the EU executive said Wednesday. The move is part of a crackdown on money laundering after several scandals at EU banks but has been criticized by several EU countries including Britain worried about their economic relations with the listed states, notably Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government said it regretted the decision in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency, adding: “Saudi Arabia’s commitment to combating money laundering and …
Italian news agency ANSA says a monsignor who had worked years as a Vatican accountant has been convicted of corruption in connection with a failed cash-smuggling plot Italian news agency ANSA says a monsignor who had worked as a senior Vatican accountant has been convicted of corruption in connection with a failed cash-smuggling plot. ANSA said a Rome appeals court Wednesday convicted the Rev. Nunzio Scarano of corruption and sentenced him to three years in prison. In 2016, a lower court had acquitted Scarano, who had worked for years at a Vatican office that handled Holy See investments. Italian prosecutors …
With the Russian border little more than an hour away, the desolate grey sky burst open with an explosion of fire and a plume of smoke. If the scene evoked the Cold War, it was intentional. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo trekked Wednesday to the Polish town of Orzysz to witness NATO live-fire exercises in an unmistakable sign to Warsaw that the United States has its eye on Russia. Pompeo walked through drizzling rain with senior Polish officials over frozen soil and patches of snow to a reviewing stand as several hundred troops stood at attention. Pompeo, a West …
China has issued a travel warning to its residents visiting Turkey, in a move seen as targeting Turkey’s large tourism industry. The advisory is the latest escalation in bilateral tensions after Hami Aksoy, a spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry, condemned China’s treatment of its Uighur minority. In a statement, Aksoy said 1 million Uighurs have been arbitrarily detained and subjected to torture and brainwashing. Beijing swiftly shot back, calling the Turkish statement “vile.” Chinese officials called on Ankara to withdraw what they described as “false accusations.” The northwest Xinjiang region of China, home to most of the country’s Uighurs, …
The International Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that it has jurisdiction to hear part of a case brought by Iran against the United States that seeks to claw back around $2 billion worth of frozen Iranian assets. The U.S. Supreme Court awarded the money to victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran. At hearings last year, the United States raised five objections to the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of the case, which Iran filed in 2016. The ruling came amid high tensions between Washington and Tehran after President Donald Trump pulled America out …
The British government on Wednesday downplayed a report that its chief Brexit negotiator said lawmakers will have to choose between backing Prime Minister Theresa May’s unpopular divorce deal and a delay to the U.K.’s exit from the European Union. An ITV News correspondent, Angus Walker, said he overheard negotiator Olly Robbins in a Brussels bar saying the government would ask Parliament in late March to back her agreement, rejected by lawmakers last month, or seek an extension to the Brexit deadline. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay insisted the government was not planning a delay, saying “the prime minister has been …
The United States and Poland are kicking off an international conference on the Middle East on Wednesday amid uncertainty over its aims and questions about what it will deliver. Initially it was billed by President Donald Trump’s administration as an Iran-focused meeting, but the organizers significantly broadened its scope to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the fight against the Islamic State group, Syria and Yemen. The shift was designed in part to boost participation after some invitees balked at an Iran-centric event when many, particularly in Europe, are trying to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after last year’s U.S. withdrawal …
On a cold day in January, Ivanka Angelova was at home with her daughter and four grandchildren when the village mayor arrived and advised them to leave. Two neighbors – brothers aged 17 and 21 – were accused of beating up a local resident. The victim, a soldier, had been hospitalized. Angelova, who like the brothers is from Bulgaria’s minority Roma community, said the mayor told her that villagers were out for revenge. He was concerned her family might be attacked. She and most of the 76-strong Roma community fled Voyvodinovo village that evening, Jan. 6, and headed 10 kilometers …
Kremlin officials and Russian state media portray Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro as the country’s legitimate leader, even though the United States and a host of other countries have declared him illegitimate and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president. Russian media refer to the anti-Maduro demonstrators as extremists acting under the influence of the United States. With Alvaro Algarra in Caracas, VOA’s Ihar Tsikhanenka reports from Washington. …
A 2015 agreement to bring peace to Ukraine’s volatile east remains largely unimplemented and civilians are paying the highest price, with more than 3,300 killed and 3.5 million needing humanitarian aid this year, U.N. officials said Tuesday. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in early 2014 and support for separatist rebels in the east triggered a conflict with Ukrainian government forces that the U.N. says has also injured up to 9,000 civilians and displaced 1.5 million people. Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca told the Security Council that negotiations “appear to have lost momentum,” with Russia and Ukraine unable or unwilling to …
The British Broadcasting Corporation asked the White House for a review of security arrangements on Tuesday after a BBC cameraman was assaulted at a Donald Trump rally. BBC cameraman Ron Skeans was attacked by a Trump supporter yelling anti-media slogans during the U.S. president’s rally in El Paso, Texas, Monday night. Skeans was unhurt and the man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat was restrained and removed from the riser where the media had assembled. Paul Danahar, the BBC’s Americas Bureau Editor, said in a tweet that he had asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders for a “full …
Russian lawmakers backed tighter internet controls on Tuesday to defend against foreign meddling in draft legislation that critics warn could disrupt Russia’s internet and be used to stifle dissent. The legislation, which some Russian media have likened to an online “iron curtain,” passed its first of three readings in the 450-seat lower chamber of parliament. The bill seeks to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by state authorities and proposes building a national Domain Name System to allow the internet to continue functioning even if the country is cut off from foreign infrastructure. The legislation was drafted …
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg cautioned Tuesday the military alliance will respond to “more Russian missiles” following the collapse of a key Cold War-era arms treaty but will not deploy more nuclear missiles in Europe. Stoltenberg called on Russia to return to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which the alliance insists Russia violated by developing a new missile system Moscow calls Novator 9M729. The U.S. began the six-month process of withdrawing from the treaty on Feb. 2, claiming Russia’s missile system violates the treaty’s range requirements. The U.S. believes Russia’s new missile system could enable Moscow to launch …
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Slovakia Tuesday following his visit to Budapest – another stop on a trip focused on Russia and China’s growing influence in the central Europe region. As Henry Ridgwell reports, alongside the warm overtures towards America’s NATO allies in Central Europe, there were noticeable tensions on issues such as freedom of the press and relations with Russia. …
When France last recalled its ambassador from Italy it was 1940 and Benito Mussolini had just used the opportunity of the Germans marching into Paris to declare war on his northern neighbor. The backdrop to the withdrawal last week by the Élysée Palace of its ambassador to Rome following months of slurs traded between the country’s leaders, amid disputes over migration policy and Libya, was not accompanied by the thump of artillery shells. Nonetheless, it has prompted rising fears that the recent public bickering between two of the European Union’s founding members is only just getting started and could spark …
The European Court of Human Rights has dealt Turkish human rights activists a significant blow in its refusal to hear a pivotal case stemming from a Turkish military operation that left more than 100 civilians dead. The military campaign took place in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast between December 2015 and February 2016 as the security forces sought to oust PKK separatist fighters from towns and cities across the region. The European Court cases focused on Cizre, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Turkish security forces “deliberately and unjustifiably killed about 130 people — …
Hungary is facing “many interconnected human rights challenges,” including laws targeting civic groups, backsliding on women’s rights and the systematic detention of asylum-seekers, the Council of Europe’s human rights chief said Monday. Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic, who visited Hungary last week, also expressed concerns about the independence of Hungary’s media and judiciary. “The space for the work of NGOs, human rights defenders and journalists critical of the government has become very narrow and restricted,” Mijatovic said in a statement, calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to “reverse its worrying course” on human rights. Orban’s government said Mijatovic’s criticism …
Battling a sharp rise in food costs, Turkish authorities opened their own markets on Monday to sell cheap vegetables directly to shoppers, cutting out retailers who the government has accused of jacking up prices. Crowds queued outside municipality tents to buy tomatoes, onions and peppers in Istanbul’s Bayrampasa district, waiting for an hour for items selling at half the regular shop prices. The move to set up state markets follows a 31 percent year-on-year surge in food prices in January and precedes local elections next month in which President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party faces a tough challenge to maintain support. …
Serbian opposition parties said on Monday they had started to boycott parliamentary sessions in protest against what they see as the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Aleksandar Vucic and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Opposition parties and their backers accuse Vucic and the SNS of stifling media freedoms and carrying out attacks on political opponents and journalists in Serbia, a country seeking to join the European Union. They deny the accusations. The boycott move comes amid weekly protests by thousands of people that began in December and have spread from the capital Belgrade to a dozen other towns and …