Category: Євросоюз

The Vatican has an unusual dilemma on its hands after nearly all the nuns in a tiny French religious order threatened to renounce their vows rather than accept the Holy See’s decision to remove their superior. The sisters argue that the Vatican commissioners sent to replace their superior general, who is also the niece of the order’s founder, have no understanding of their way of life or spirituality. The church’s conclusion — contained in a summary of its investigation provided this week to The Associated Press — is that the Little Sisters of Marie, Mother of the Redeemer are living …

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Several thousand people gathered Saturday amid a heavy police presence in southern Poland for a “March for Climate” to encourage negotiators at climate talks to set ambitious goals. Activists from around the world gathered in the main square of the city of Katowice where delegates from almost 200 countries are holding a two-week meeting on curbing climate change. Some of them were dressed as polar bears, some as orangutans, animals that are facing extinction from man-made global warming and deforestation. They joined in chants of “Wake up, it’s time to save our home,” and held banners including one reading “Defend …

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Leading U.N. humanitarian agencies warn migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea will multiply with the end of sea and rescue operations by Doctors Without Borders and its partner SOS Mediterranee.  The two international charities were pressured by the European Union to put their ship, the Aquarius into dry dock and abandon their life-saving rescue mission.   The Aquarius has been docked in Marseille, France, since early October after Panama revoked its registration at the behest of the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian government. Italy claims these operations encourage migrants to make the perilous sea journey.  It says ending these activities will save …

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French police fired tear gas Saturday at yellow-vested protesters on the Champs Elysees.  The demonstrators are protesting France’s high cost of living. Deputy interior minister Laurent Nunez estimated 8,000 demonstrators had taken to Parisian streets and hundreds had been arrested. Laurent said about 31,000 people were protesting nationwide, about the same number during last weekend’s protests. Bracing for a fourth week of violent protests, France closed the Eiffel Tower and other tourist landmarks and mobilized tens of thousands of security forces. Many shops in Paris were boarded up before Saturday’s planned protests to avoid being smashed or looted, and police …

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The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warns the United States is being outgunned in cyberspace, already having lost its competitive advantage to Russia while China is rapidly closing in. “When it comes to cyber, misinformation and disinformation, Russia is already our peer and in the areas of misinformation or disinformation, I believe is ahead of us,” Senator Mark Warner told an audience Friday in Washington. “This is an effective methodology for Russia and it’s also remarkably cheap,” he added, calling for a realignment of U.S. defense spending. Warner, calling Russia’s election meddling both an intelligence failure and a …

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An Armenian court on Friday put the nation’s former president in custody on charges linked to a deadly police crackdown on a 2008 protest over alleged voting fraud. Robert Kocharian, 64, spent two weeks in jail last summer on charges of violating the constitutional order by sending police to break up the protest in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. He was freed on appeal, but on Friday a higher court ordered that he should stay behind bars. Kocharian’s lawyer said he walked to jail without waiting for police to escort him there. Kocharian rejects the charges, calling them a political …

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Talks between the opposing sides in the Yemeni conflict are deadlocked on day two of indirect negotiations outside the Swedish capital Stockholm, according to Arab media reports. U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has been meeting separately with the Houthi delegation and that of the internationally recognized government.  The conflict in Yemen has been under way for nearly four years, and the second day of talks showed that many difficult issues remain to be resolved.  Media reports say the two sides agreed to release captives, though there is no timetable yet to actually begin releasing prisoners. But Foreign Minister Khaled al Yamani, …

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Turkey appears to be increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia over the death of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh’s Istanbul consulate. Turkish prosecutors have issued indictments for two Saudis allegedly involved in the killing, while Turkey’s spy chief, Hakan Fidan, reportedly briefed senior American senators and CIA chief Gina Haspel in a closed-door meeting Thursday on Khashoggi’s killing. According to the reports, the U.S. lawmakers initiated the meeting. “They (Ankara) think, they can still impress some senators and put some pressure on the (U.S.) administration,” said Turkish political scientist Cengiz Aktar. “But as long as the American administration chooses …

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Oil prices climbed sharply Friday after OPEC and other producers led by Russia agreed to cut output to reduce global inventories of crude oil. OPEC countries and the Russian-led coalition agreed to collectively slash oil production by 1.2 million barrels a day, said OPEC president Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei, more than the 1 million barrel cut the market anticipated. After two days of negotiations, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries said they would cut 800,000 barrels a day, while non-OPEC allies agreed to an additional 400,000 barrels per day. The cuts, from which OPEC members Iran, Venezuela and Libya are exempt, will …

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The search-and-rescue ship Aquarius, which has helped about 30,000 migrants avoid death in the Mediterranean Sea, is suspending its operations. The humanitarian groups Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee said European governments were forcing them to end the rescue runs. The Aquarius has been docked in Marseille, France, since early October after Panama revoked its registration at the behest of the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian government. The ship has been rescuing migrants who were trying to make the dangerous crossing from Libya to Europe in inadequate rafts and dinghies. “The end of Aquarius means more lives lost at sea; more avoidable …

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A rescue operation began Thursday for a British woman who was sailing solo in an around-the-world race and was stranded in the Southern Ocean after a storm battered her boat.  Susie Goodall texted that she was “safe and secure” after being briefly knocked unconscious when the storm flipped her boat end over end and destroyed its mast.   On the race website, Golden Globe Race officials said they had been in regular radio contact with Goodall since she regained consciousness.    Goodall, 29, was the youngest skipper and the only woman participating in the 48,280-kilometer (30,000-mile) race.     On Wednesday, Goodall texted race …

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Just days before scores of countries sign up to a landmark U.N. migration pact, a number of European Union nations have begun joining the list of those not willing to endorse the agreement. The 34-page U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be formally approved in Marrakech, Morocco, on Dec. 10-11. The drafting process was launched after all 193 U.N. member states, including the United States under President Barack Obama, adopted in 2016 a declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own and agreed to work on a global compact But the United …

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Greek police clashed with protesters Thursday after demonstrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the killing of a teenage boy by police, which triggered the country’s worst riots in decades. Hundreds marched peacefully through central Athens in a tribute to 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos who was shot dead in 2008. After the evening march, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters hurling petrol bombs at them in the bohemian Exarchia district, where the unarmed boy was killed. Some of the protesters set garbage containers on fire and set cars alight. Earlier, people laid flowers and lit candles during a memorial service …

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Russia must scrap its 9M729 nuclear-capable cruise missiles and launchers or modify the weapons’ range to return to compliance with a key Cold War-era arms control treaty and avert a U.S. pullout from the pact, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. “Either you rid the system, rid the launcher or change the system where it doesn’t exceed the range” in a verifiable manner, said U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson. On Tuesday, the United States announced it was giving Russia 60 days to end what Washington charges is the missiles’ violation of the …

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The “yellow vests” in France are worrying greens around the world. The worst riots in Paris in decades were sparked by higher fuel taxes, and French President Emmanuel Macron responded by scrapping them Wednesday. But taxes on fossil fuels are just what international climate negotiators, meeting in Poland this week, say are desperately needed to help wean the world off of fossil fuels and slow climate change. “The events of the last few days in Paris have made me regard the challenges as even greater than I thought earlier,” said Stanford University environmental economist Lawrence Goulder, author of the book …

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Police across Europe and in South America have carried out a massive operation targeting members of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group, with agents arresting scores of suspects wanted for cocaine trafficking and money-laundering, among other crimes. In the largest-ever sweep against the organized crime group, 90 people were arrested in Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. One person was also apprehended in Suriname. The coordinated dawn raids were carried out in locations that had been identified by the police in an investigation codenamed “Pollino” that was launched in 2016. Italy’s national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor, Federico Cafiero de Raho, …

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Prime Minister Theresa May said Thursday that British lawmakers faced a choice ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal: approving her deal or facing an exit with no deal or even the reversal of Brexit. May said she was speaking to lawmakers about giving parliament a bigger role in whether the Northern Irish backstop arrangement would be triggered, though she gave few details. May said some in parliament were trying to frustrate Brexit and that she did not think another referendum on Brexit was the right course. “There are three options: one is to leave the European Union with …

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A key Democratic senator is warning the Trump administration not to lift sanctions against a Russian oligarch or the companies he controls. Oleg Deripaska holds large stakes in the Russian aluminum giant Rusal and the automobile conglomerate GAZ Group. New Jersey’s Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department that it would face strong opposition in Congress if it waives sanctions against Deripaska and the companies. “How the Treasury Department manages this delisting exercise will shape our perceptions about the administration’s seriousness in implementing the Russian sanctions regime,” Menendez wrote. …

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U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker says Russia needs to release the Ukrainian sailors taken captive in the Kerch Strait in late November by Christmas or “before the new year.” Volker spoke with VOA on Monday in Washington, explaining that the United States and its Western allies are considering a number of options to prevent Russia from asserting any more “unilateral control” in the shared waters of the Azov Sea.  WATCH: US Ukraine Envoy: Unified US, EU Response to Russia “We don’t accept and will not accept Russia’s claimed annexation of Crimea,” he said, underlining the stance that the United States has …

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Russia on Wednesday warned authorities in Cyprus not to allow the U.S. military to deploy on their territory, saying such a move would draw a Russian reaction and result in “dangerous and destabilizing consequences” for the Mediterranean island. Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Moscow had become aware of what she called “anti-Russian plans” involving Cyprus and the U.S. military which she said was eyeing setting up forward operating bases for its troops there. “We’re getting information from various sources that the United States is actively studying options to build up its military presence on …

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