Category: Євросоюз

France agreed Monday to a new military framework with Burkina Faso that would speed engagement of its forces to fight Islamist militants in a northern border region of Burkina where there has been a spike in violence. The arid Sahel region is suffering violence from militant groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, highlighting the difficulty international partners face in restoring regional stability. The northern region of Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has been especially hard hit, leaving the fragile West African state struggling to assert its authority since ex-Burkinabe president Blaise Compaore was ousted in 2014 at the …

READ MORE

The Czech Republic’s cybersecurity watchdog is warning against the use of products by Chinese electronics giant Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE. The National Cyber and Information Security Agency said Monday their software and hardware pose “a security threat.” Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and internet companies. It has become the target of U.S. security concerns because of its ties to the Chinese government. The U.S. has pressured other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft of information. A Czech spy agency …

READ MORE

Three years after she was acquitted over her role in Turkey’s Gezi Park protests, Mucella Yapici was called in last month by police to face more questions about the unrest that had posed a direct challenge to the authority of President Tayyip Erdogan. Yapici is one of dozens who were involved in demonstrations that brought millions onto Turkey’s streets in 2013 to protest against the government and who are now caught up in a renewed investigation, raising concerns among Turkey’s Western allies. Opposition figures say the renewed crackdown is designed to polarize public opinion and rally support for Erdogan’s AK …

READ MORE

A bomb blast early Monday damaged a building in Athens housing the headquarters of Greece’s private radio and television network Skai, but there were no casualties, police said. Anti-terrorist police opened an investigation into the attack that focused on Greek extremist groups. Attacks targeting broadcasting groups, public companies or embassies have been frequent in Greece in recent years, and have been blamed on anarchist or far-left groups. The coalition government led by leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras condemned the blast as “an attack on democracy” while his administration decried an act of “terrorism.” In a statement, Tsipras slammed what he …

READ MORE

An ex-business partner of Michael Flynn, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, was charged with undisclosed lobbying aimed at ensuring the extradition to Turkey of a Muslim cleric living in the United States. Flynn’s former partner, Bijan Rafiekian, was indicted on two criminal counts in the Eastern District of Virginia, including conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, according to an indictment unsealed on Monday. Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman, was also charged in the indictment for allegedly plotting to discredit and cause the extradition of Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who lives in exile …

READ MORE

Romania’s president wants to be sent the government agenda in advance amid concerns it will pass an amnesty for people imprisoned on corruption charges. President Klaus Iohannis Monday asked Premier Viorica Dancila to send him the details 24 hours before government meetings. The move came after Social Democratic Party chief Liviu Dragnea on Sunday asked for an amnesty for “thousands of people” he claims were wrongly imprisoned by anti-corruption prosecutors. Iohannis, a Dragnea critic, suggested the proposal smeared the memory of the 1,105 people who died in the 1989 anti-Communist revolt. He said: “Romania won’t return to the black era …

READ MORE

A fifth person died Sunday from gunshot wounds in last week’s Christmas market terror attack in Strasbourg. The French prosecutor’s office said the victim was a Polish national. His brother identified him in a Facebook message as Barto Pedro Orent-Niedzielski, a 36-year-old native of Katowice. Four others died and 11 were wounded when a gunman identified as Cherif Chekatt opened fire last Tuesday in the world-famous Christmas market in central Strasbourg. Witnesses tipped off police Friday that a suspect matching Chekatt’s description was spotted in the Strasbourg neighborhood where he grew up. When police confronted him, he turned and opened …

READ MORE

The decision to transform Kosovo’s security force into an army is ”irreversible,” the country’s president said Sunday while offering assurance that a new national military does not threaten ethnic Serbs living in the former Serbian province. President Hashim Thaci gave a briefing on the army plan before he left for New York, where the United Nations Security Council is expected in coming days to discuss the small Balkan nation’s decision. Kosovo’s parliament overwhelmingly approved the army’s formation Friday. Neighboring Serbia has warned that an army in a place it considers Serbian territory could result in an armed intervention. “Whatever happens …

READ MORE

Several thousand protesters have marched peacefully through Budapest for a fourth day to oppose laws introduced by the Hungarian government that critics say will restrict workers’ rights. The protesters chanted anti-government slogans and braved sub-zero temperatures while gathered Sunday in front of parliament, where speakers denounced changes to the labor code that lawmakers approved Wednesday. The demonstrations have attracted participants from across Hungary’s spectrum. They include members of Jobbik, which started out as a radical right movement and has worked to reframe itself as a “peoples”‘ party. …

READ MORE

Croatian authorities are denying a report by an international watchdog group that the country’s police are illegally and sometimes violently pushing migrants back into neighboring Bosnia. Croatian Interior Ministry denied wrongdoing Sunday, responding to a video published by the Border Violence Monitoring group, BMV. The video shows armed Croatian police officers shouting orders at a group of migrants and escorting them out of a forest. The BMV said it was just some of the footage recorded by hidden cameras along Croatian border with Bosnia, which it received from people who “prefer to remain anonymous for security reasons.” Croatia’s Interior Ministry …

READ MORE

In his first liturgy as head of the newly christened Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Epiphanius called for Ukrainians to unite under the new church and pray for peace in Ukraine. Ukrainian bishops met Saturday and voted to approve a charter for the new church and elect a leader. Moscow has vigorously protested Ukraine’s bid for spiritual independence, because since the late 1600s, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine had been a wing of the Russian Orthodox Church. Epiphanius on Sunday says “we must complete the unification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy … pray for an end to the war (in eastern Ukraine), and …

READ MORE

The man described as the father of the 29-year-old suspect in this week’s deadly Christmas market attack in Strasbourg says his son subscribed to the beliefs of the Islamic State group. The interview with Abdelkrim Chekatt by the state-run France 2 television channel was shown Saturday night, two days after the son was killed in a confrontation with three police officers in his childhood neighborhood in Strasbourg following a massive manhunt. Four people died in the Tuesday night attack. A dozen others were wounded. The Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, is the …

READ MORE

Alarmed by the growing popularity of rap among Russian youth, President Vladimir Putin wants cultural leaders to devise a means of controlling, rather than banning, the popular music. Putin says “if it is impossible to stop, then we must lead it and direct it.’’ But Putin said at a St. Petersburg meeting with cultural advisers Saturday that attempts to ban artists from performing will only bolster their popularity. Putin noted that “rap is based on three pillars: sex, drugs and protest.’’ But he is particularly concerned with drug themes prevalent in rap, saying “this is a path to the degradation …

READ MORE

French protesters for the fifth straight weekend rallied against the high cost of living, although demonstrations were more subdued nationwide Saturday, partly because of concessions made by the President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week, as well as a combination of cold weather and rain.    Several thousand people turned out in Paris. Scuffles erupted between protesters and police, who fired tear gas and used water cannons on demonstrators as they scurried down side streets near the famed Champs-Elysees boulevard.     About 8,000 police and 14 armored vehicles were deployed to prevent a repeat of previous protests that turned violent, with protesters …

READ MORE

Ukrainian Orthodox priests are holding a historic synod in Kyiv’s Saint Sophia’s Cathedral to establish a new national church, one that does not have ties to Russia. The clergy gathering Saturday follows a landmark decision by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodoxy, to remove the Ukrainian Orthodox church from under the Moscow Patriarchate, which has overseen the Ukrainian branch for hundreds of years.    The decision infuriated the Russian church, prompting it to cut all ties with Constantinople. Relations between Ukraine and Russia have been strained since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, following a …

READ MORE

Ukrainian Orthodox leaders on Saturday approved the creation of a unified church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate and elected a leader to head the new church, officials said.    The leader of the new autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church will be Metropolitan Epiphanius, a 39-year-old bishop from the Kyiv Patriarchate.      The vote, which was held Saturday at a closed-door synod in Kiev’s St. Sophia Cathedral, is certain to anger authorities in Russia.    “God heard our appeals and gave us this anticipated unity,” Epiphanius told a crowd of thousands who had gathered outside the cathedral. He stressed that the new …

READ MORE

Former top U.S. intelligence officials are warning the guilty plea by a former Russian graduate student and self-proclaimed gun-rights advocate should serve as a wake-up call about the Kremlin’s brazen desire and ability to interfere with the American political system. Maria Butina, a 30-year-old native of Siberia, entered the plea Thursday in Washington, admitting she worked with a top Russian official, and two other Americans, to infiltrate U.S. conservative groups and the Republican Party for Russia’s benefit. Her efforts, according to court documents, which included attending events hosted by the National Rifle Association gun-rights group and hosting so-called “friendship dinners,” …

READ MORE

A strong police presence deployed in Paris on Saturday for planned demonstrations by the “yellow vest” protesters, with authorities repeating calls for calm after protests in previous weekends turned violent. Security forces in riot gear were positioned around central train stations and along the famed Champs-Elysees boulevard, where shops were closed and their windows boarded up in anticipation of the protests. Authorities have said about 8,000 police and 14 armored vehicles were being deployed in the French capital. Paris police say 21 people have been detained by midmorning in the French capital before the protests. Last weekend, groups of demonstrators …

READ MORE

French officials say a fourth victim of the Christmas market shooting in Strasbourg has died. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte Friday identified the victim as Italian journalist Antonio Megalizzi. Police killed the alleged assailant in the market attack Thursday and searched for other potential suspects Friday. The Islamic State terror group, without providing evidence, claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack that wounded more than a dozen people, and left a country on edge. ​Two-day manhunt French public prosecutor Remy Heitz on Friday detailed the two-day manhunt that led to police shooting dead Cherif Chekatt, in the Strasbourg neighborhood where he grew …

READ MORE

Kosovo’s parliament has voted to convert and expand its lightly armed security force into a standing army, a move backed by the United States but opposed by neighboring Serbia.    Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic responded by saying Belgrade would request an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting over the vote. He called it the “most direct threat to peace and stability in the region.”    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday that Kosovo, a former Serbian province, did not have the right to form an army. Serbia’s government does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.  Last week, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic suggested …

READ MORE