Category: Євросоюз

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev says the entire Balkans will have prosperity and lasting peace when Macedonia joins NATO. Zaev spoke in Sofia, Bulgaria Monday — two days before Macedonia signs the accession protocol at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Macedonia has been waiting for 27 years to become a member of NATO.  Zaev said. “Today, Macedonia has the hope of having open doors.” Greece had blocked Macedonia’s efforts to join NATO and the EU because of a long-running dispute over the use of the name Macedonia — shared both by a historic region of northern Greece and the former Yugoslav …

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Britain, along with Spain, France and Sweden and Denmark on Monday recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American country’s interim president.  The European countries want Venezuela to hold a presidential election as soon as possible to end its political and humanitarian crises.  British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt posted on Twitter: “Nicolas Maduro has not called Presidential elections within 8 day limit we have set. So UK alongside European allies now recognizes @jguaido as interim constitutional president until credible elections can be held. Let’s hope this take us closer to ending humanitarian crisis.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez …

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A former lawmaker who is openly gay launched a progressive party in Poland ahead of two elections this year, presenting a program Sunday that includes phasing out coal production and liberalizing the abortion laws. At an inaugural convention in Warsaw, Robert Biedron announced the new party’s name, Wiosna, or “Spring,” and vowed to work to unify the bitterly divided country.  “The last years were cold and gloomy. Instead of conversations we got constant conflict; instead of the good of the community, party interests,” Biedron told a crowd of thousands. “Let this finally come to an end. We need a spring …

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Turkey has maintained low-level contact with the Syrian government, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, even though Ankara has supported rebels who fought for years to topple President Bashar Assad. Erdogan has described Assad as a terrorist and said several times during Syria’s eight-year conflict that the Syrian leader must go. But with support from Russia and Iran, Assad had recaptured large parts of Syria from rebel fighters, driving them from most of their former strongholds. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in December Turkey and other countries would consider working with Assad if he won a democratic election, and …

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Taliban representatives will meet influential Afghan opposition leaders in Moscow for two days of peace building discussions starting Tuesday, but envoys from the Kabul government will not be in attendance. The controversial meeting, critics say, underscores a deepening political divide in Afghanistan and would further weaken President Ashraf Ghani’s National Unity government. The so-called “intra-Afghan peace meeting” in Russia comes just days after the United States reported “significant” progress in ongoing talks with Taliban insurgents, though they also excluded the Afghan government. The Taliban refuses to engage in direct or indirect talks with the Ghani administration, branding them American “puppets.” …

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Last Sunday, January 27, was the day designated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was the 74th anniversary of the day Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp run by the German Third Reich, located just over an hour from the Polish city of Krakow, was the largest of the network of concentration and extermination camps used to systematically murder Jews, homosexuals, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Slavs, Roma, Poles, and the mentally and physically disabled. Some 16 million civilians are believed to have died during the Nazi genocide we now call the Holocaust. Yet, as the event …

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Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union. Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project. That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV …

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The newly elected head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church has officially assumed office in the capital of Kiev, a month after the church severed its centuries-long ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Epiphanius I, 40, was enthroned during a lavish service at St. Sophia Cathedral in central Kiev on Sunday, a month after the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople granted independence to a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election in the country’s March 31 presidential race, and his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko both attended the ceremony. In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church …

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Pope Francis has made dialogue with Islam one of the cornerstones of his papacy. Since he became pope in 2013, he has visited several countries with large Muslim populations. On Sunday he will become the first Pope to go to the Arabian Peninsula when he visits the United Arab Emirates. Pope Francis was invited by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to take part in an interfaith conference. The pope will spend less than 48 hours in the United Arab Emirates and is due to make only two public addresses during his visit. Pope Francis released a …

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Pope Francis arrived in the United Arab Emirates Sunday ahead of an interreligious conference.   The leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, is making the first-ever trip by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam. He returns to Rome Tuesday. Before leaving the Vatican, Francis said he had been following the humanitarian crisis in Yemen with great worry and urged all sides to respect international agreements and ensure food reaches suffering Yemenis. ‘Human Fraternity Meeting’ Francis and Sheik Ashamed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Islam will speak Monday at the …

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It would be irresponsible for the European Union to refuse to reopen negotiations over Britain’s exit deal, British trade minister Liam Fox said in an interview aired Sunday. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she is seeking changes to the Withdrawal Agreement she agreed to with Brussels last year in order to win the support of parliament.  The EU has said the deal cannot be renegotiated. “Are they really saying that they would rather not negotiate and end up in a ‘no-deal’ position?” Fox told Sky News in a prerecorded interview. “It is in all our interests to get …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday suspended the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in response to a similar move by the United States on Friday. “The American partners have declared that they suspend their participation in the deal. We suspend it as well,” Putin announced during a televised meeting with foreign ministers and military brass. The U.S. vowed to withdraw from the INF Treaty in six months unless Moscow ended what it called violations of the landmark 1987 arms control pact. Putin said Russia would start work on creating new missiles, including hypersonic weapons, and told ministers not …

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The United States and Russia are making tit-for-tat moves with their participation in a nuclear treaty, and some politicians and analysts see it as a burgeoning arms race. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Saturday that Russia is suspending its participation in the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Russian move follows similar action Friday by the U.S. …

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Krzysztof Strzemeski watched with unease as a high school friend voiced support for Poland’s nationalist government on social media, followed by hate-filled extremist posts. But when the liberal mayor of Gdansk was stabbed to death in public in January, he could no longer hold back his anger. “Congratulations for your perseverance sharing right-wing filth,” the 58-year-old university lecturer wrote to his former classmate. The two haven’t communicated since. Poland’s political fissures have widened in recent months, pitting conservatives — many of them government supporters — against liberal critics who accuse the ruling party of threatening the country’s hard-won democracy by …

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The United Nations is appealing for $162 million to provide protection and life-saving assistance to 2.3 million of the most vulnerable people in eastern Ukraine, which is in its fifth year of civil war. The United Nations reports more than 3,300 people have been killed and up to 9,000 injured since 2014 when civil war broke out in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and the government. The conflict remains active and potentially deadly for millions of civilians who are liable to be hit by daily shelling and sniper fire. Nearly 2 million of the 2.3 million people the U.N. plans …

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Women’s marches last weekend in cities around the world show just how much attention the #MeToo movement has drawn to the issue of sexual violence. But experts say there is a long way to go. An EU report says one in 20 women in Europe has been raped, and many still do not report sexual assaults. But in France, a triple world karate champion is teaching women to heal through her sport—both at home and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Laurence Fischer has faced some tough adversaries, but nothing like the one she’s dealing with today. It’s often invisible …

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After seven years detained at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo and ex-youth leader Charles Ble Goude are free men — but there’s a hitch.  Presiding judge Chile Eboe-Osuji read out the unanimous verdict of the five-judge appeals panel.   “The conditions set out in the written judgement are imposed to Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Ble Goude upon their release to a state willing to accept them on its territory and willing and able to enforce the conditions.” It’s a small victory for ICC prosecutors, after the court’s stunning acquittal of both Gbagbo and …

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The United States on Friday fired a diplomatic warning shot at Russia, making good on threats to begin its withdrawal from a key arms control agreement and thus taking the next step toward what some politicians and analysts see as a burgeoning arms race. In a statement, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. was suspending its compliance with the decades-old Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, accusing the Kremlin of willfully breaking the deal. “For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity, covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat …

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The Kremlin may have helped Venezuela’s embattled socialist leader Nicolas Maduro swap gold for cash, transporting Venezuelan bullion deposited in Moscow to the United Arab Emirates and then flying U.S. currency into the Venezuelan capital, an investigative newspaper has claimed.  The report in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta is adding to the fears of pro-democracy activists in Venezuela that the Kremlin will try to make good on its pledge to stand by Maduro to help him survive a popular uprising against him. Russian officials have condemned U.S. sanctions imposed last month against Venezuela’s vital oil sector, a move aimed at depriving Maduro …

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Spanish authorities on Friday transferred nine politicians and activists from prisons in Catalonia to the country’s capital, Madrid, ahead of a high-stakes trial for their roles in Catalonia’s attempt to secede from Spain. The trial for 12 defendants, including three who are on bail, will begin Feb. 12 at the Supreme Court in Madrid, a Spanish court official told The Associated Press.   Supporters gathered early Friday at the gates of three different prisons in Catalonia, where convoys of regional police emerged ferrying the defendants. Some activists tried to block the vehicles by throwing themselves on the road, but were …

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