Category: Євросоюз

French media and reporters’ organizations on Sunday denounced attacks on journalists by “yellow vest” anti-government protesters and called for better protection after a series of incidents this weekend. Paris police fired water cannon and tear gas to push back demonstrators from around the Arc de Triomphe monument on Saturday, in the ninth straight weekend of protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms. Journalists covering the protests are increasingly becoming a target for the demonstrators. In the western city of Rouen, LCI television reporters were attacked by a group of protesters. One of the security agents working with the TV …

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Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May has pleaded with lawmakers to accept her deal for leaving the European Union, warning that faith in democracy was at stake. Writing in the Sunday Express ahead of a critical vote this week, May urged lawmakers to “do what is right for the country,” because she said rejecting the will of the people would be “a catastrophic and unforgivable breach of trust in our democracy.” May has urged Parliament to support her little-loved EU divorce deal so that Britain doesn’t leave the EU on March 29 without an agreement on exit terms. She postponed a …

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Paris police fired water cannon and tear gas to push back yellow vest demonstrators from around the Arc de Triomphe monument Saturday, in the ninth straight weekend of protests against French President Emmanuel  Macron’s economic reforms. Thousands of protesters in Paris marched noisily but mostly peacefully through the Grands Boulevards shopping area in northern Paris, close to where a massive gas explosion in a bakery killed two firefighters and a Spanish tourist and injured nearly 50 people earlier in the day. But small groups of demonstrators broke away from the designated route and threw bottles and other projectiles at the police.  Around the 19th-century Arc de Triomphe at the top …

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Several thousand people turned out Saturday in Belgrade for the sixth week of street protests against populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his government.    Demonstrations first started after thugs beat up an opposition politician in November, prompting calls for more democracy and an end to political violence in Serbia.      Critics say Vucic has fostered an atmosphere of fear and hate speech against opponents in the Balkan nation while seeking to tighten his rule. He has denied the allegations.    Whistle-blowing crowds marched through central Belgrade despite freezing temperatures and icy streets. Some carried banners reading “Rise Serbia” or “It’s started.”  …

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No one is sure about how many migrant children are living in Spain without their parents — and that’s part of the problem. Three months ago, Spanish officials estimated there were 10,000 unaccompanied minors living in the country — 70 percent of them Moroccan. But more than 11,000 migrant children were recorded having arrived in Spain in 2018 alone, and previous migrant influxes had already swept in at least 4,000, say civil-society groups. “The registry of unaccompanied minors is not working properly,” says the non-profit Fundacion Raices, which promotes the rights of migrant children. Not knowing the actual numbers is …

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French authorities said two firefighters were killed and 47 people injured in a powerful explosion and fire apparently caused by a gas leak at a Paris bakery Saturday that blasted out windows and overturned cars. Firefighters pulled injured victims from windows and evacuated residents as smoke billowed over Rue de Trevise in the 9th arrondissement of north-central Paris. The Paris prosecutor’s office said that two firefighters have been killed in the bakery blast, correcting the overall figure of four dead given earlier by France’s interior minister. Authorities said 10 people were in critical condition and 37 others less seriously injured. …

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The central French city of Bourges is shuttering shops to brace for possible violence between police and yellow vest protesters, as the nationwide movement seeks a new stage for its weekly demonstrations. Paris, too, is hunkering down for a ninth weekend of anti-government protests Saturday. France’s government has deployed 80,000 security forces for the day, and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner threatened tough retaliation against violence. Online groups mounted calls through the week for mass protests in Bourges, but Paris police said they wouldn’t let down their guard, notably around government buildings and the Champs-Elysees, scene of repeated rioting in past …

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The United States on Friday signaled it would not bow to the European Union’s request to keep agriculture out of planned U.S.-EU trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for American farm products. The objectives, required by Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek to reduce or eliminate EU tariffs on U.S. farm products and break down non-tariff barriers, including on products developed through biotechnology, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said. Agricultural issues were among the major sticking points in past negotiations for a major U.S.-EU trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership …

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The New York Times is reporting that FBI officials were so alarmed by President Donald Trump’s behavior after he fired former FBI Director James Comey that they started investigating whether he was working against American interests. The Times cited anonymous former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation Friday who said counterintelligence investigators looked into whether “Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.” The officials told the newspaper that after Comey was fired in May 2107, they become concerned when Trump tied the firing of Comey to the Russia investigation. Trump actions …

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In the latest blow to the International Olympic Committee’s efforts to rid itself of scandal, marketing head Tsunekazu Takeda is being investigated for alleged corruption related to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.    Takeda, who is also the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, was placed under formal investigation for “active corruption” on Dec. 10, France’s financial crimes office said Friday.    French investigators are in the midst of a years-long and wide-ranging probe into sports corruption that is looking, among other things, at the bidding contests for the 2020 Olympics and other major sports events.    Takeda’s career in Olympic circles has ticked almost …

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Pope Francis has gone on a road trip to an ancient monastery in central Italy that houses a community of cloistered nuns. The Poor Clares monastery in the Umbria region town of Spello dates from the 14th century. Its nuns belong to an order founded by St. Clare, a follower of the pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. The Vatican said a car took Francis on the two-hour drive to and from the monastery Friday so he could encourage the nuns in their contemplative life. It said Francis celebrated Mass for the nuns and had lunch with them. Francis frequently …

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A Gallup poll has found that fewer than a third of U.S. Catholics rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as “very high” or “high,” the latest evidence of the hierarchy’s diminished credibility as a result of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The record-low 31 percent honesty rating marked an 18-percentage-point drop from 2017, a precipitous fall after years of steady decline. Catholics aren’t alone in the crisis, however. The Gallup survey released Friday also found that while the Protestants’ 48 percent positive rating for clergy is higher than Catholics’, 2018 marked the first time that fewer than half …

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Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a Polish national involved in cyber business on allegations of spying, Polish media reported Friday, deepening the controversy over Western criticism of the Chinese telecoms equipment maker. Polish public TV channel TVP said security services had also searched the local offices of Huawei Technologies Cos Ltd, as well as the offices of telecoms firm Orange Polska, where it said the Polish national works. Orange said in a statement the security agency had on Tuesday gathered materials related to an employee, whom it did not identify. The company added that it did …

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Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived an unassuming life in New York City for decades until his past was revealed and he was deported to Germany last year, has died, German media reported Thursday. He was 95. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Westfaelische Nachrichten newspapers independently quoted German officials saying Palij died Wednesday in a care home in the town of Ahlen. U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, who lobbied for Germany to take Palij, said he had been informed of the death. He credited U.S. President Donald Trump with seeing through Palij’s August 2018 deportation after it …

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Opposition is rising among Italian mayors and regional governors who are against the central government’s crackdown on asylum-seekers. They are planning court challenges to the new measures in defiance of the populist government and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. A controversial security decree, backed by Salvini and recently approved by parliament, has significantly tightened the criteria for migrants requesting humanitarian protection. The mayors and governors who oppose the decree contend parts of it are unconstitutional.    But Salvini has made clear that in the past Italy has provided humanitarian protection too easily, and now only those who are truly fleeing from a war will be able …

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The long-awaited trial of a Frenchman accused of killing four people at a Jewish museum in the Belgian capital began Thursday in Brussels. The defendant, Mehdi Nemmouche, also is believed to be among the first European jihadist fighters who returned from the Middle East.  Mehdi Nemmouche, now 33, appeared in court wearing an orange sweatshirt and flanked by masked police. He is accused of shooting dead four people in under two minutes in 2014, at the Jewish museum in Brussels. He also is believed to be the first jihadist fighter returning from Syria’s battlefields to stage a terrorist attack in …

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Jaguar Land Rover said Thursday it will cut 4,500 jobs as the carmaker addresses slowing demand in China and growing uncertainty about the U.K.’s departure from the European Union. The luxury carmaker, owned by India’s Tata conglomerate, said the cuts will be in addition to 1,500 people who left the business in 2018. The cost-cutting program will begin with a voluntary reduction program in the U.K., where some 44,000 people are employed.   The latest job losses follow on from last year’s 2.5 billion-pound ($3.2 billion) turnaround plan that was designed to deal with many of the headwinds facing the …

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Officials in Davos have authorized a protest by a Socialist youth group against U.S. President Donald Trump and other expected attendees of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort this month. Authorities rejected a similar protest request last year when Trump attended the elite event, citing heavy snowfall. Julia Baumgartner, secretary-general of Switzerland’s Young Socialists, said Thursday that her group was “very excited” about the chance to demonstrate. Baumgartner said she expected no more than 150 to 200 protesters because the rally falls on a Thursday when people are at work and school. The protest is to …

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More than a million euros have been donated to French police hurt in clashes with yellow vest protesters as both sides take to online crowdfunding to rally support. The police fund-raising campaign came in response to a similar support drive for a boxer who was captured on video punching police officers during Saturday’s protests in Paris. Fund-raising site Leetchi suspended donations for the boxer, Christophe Dettinger, amid government outrage. Dettinger is in custody until his trial next month on charges of violence against public officials. Conservative lawmaker Renaud Muselier then launched a fund-raising campaign for police injured since the protests …

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Hungary’s prime minister says his country’s objective for the upcoming European Parliament elections is for “anti-immigration forces” to become a majority in all European Union institutions, including Parliament and the EU’s executive Commission. Viktor Orban also said that he had “great hopes” for cooperation between Italy and Poland, both of which oppose immigration, and said he continues to view hard-line Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini as “my own hero.” Orban, who won a third consecutive term in April with an electoral campaign based on anti-immigration policies, predicted that there would be two civilizations in Europe — one “that builds its …

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