Category: Євросоюз

A Georgian appeals court has upheld a ruling that sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to prison for abuse of power over a 2005 incident. The Tbilisi City Court had sentenced Saakashvili in absentia in July to six years in prison on charges of ordering members of his special forces to beat up lawmaker Valery Gelashvili in central Tbilisi in 2005. The court of appeals on Nov. 22 upheld the ruling but rejected the prosecutors’ request to toughen the sentence, prosecutor Archil Tkeshelashvili told reporters that day. The court found that Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, …

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Acrimony dominated a high-level Turkish-European Union meeting as both sides exchanged barbs in Ankara at a meeting that was anticipated to be a sign of improving bilateral ties. The “High-Level Political Dialogue Meeting” was reconvened for the first time in 18 months. EU foreign affairs commissioner, Federica Mogherini, accompanied by Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, sat down for talks Thursday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. But simmering tensions between Ankara and Brussels came to the fore.  “A strong Turkey means a democratic Turkey,” Mogherini said at the joint news conference with Hahn and Cavusoglu. “We expressed our strong concerns about …

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Britain says it reached agreement during overnight talks with the European Commission on the draft text of a political declaration laying out the terms for Britain’s “smooth and orderly” exit from the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May announced the agreement, which must be approved by EU leaders Sunday, in front of her No. 10 Downing Street residence early Thursday. She said the deal “delivers” on the will of the British people as expressed in a divisive Brexit referendum in June 2016. “It brings back control of our borders, our money and our laws, and it does so by protecting …

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Gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer and wounded several people, including children in a town along the Kenyan coast, about 100 kilometers north of Mombasa on Tuesday. This is the first abduction of a non-local in six years after a series of abductions carried out by al-Shabab militants in 2011 and 2012. Eyewitnesses say the men, armed with rifles, seized 23-year-old Silvia Costanza Romano, an Italian volunteer, from a room in the town of Chakama along the Kenya coast. Then, witnesses say, the attackers shot and wounded a local woman and four children. Churchill Otieno Onyango, who works with a local …

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Poland’s parliament passed legislation Wednesday to reinstate Supreme Court judges who were recently forced to retire, a step that could significantly ease a standoff with the European Union. For the EU, which is facing a string of crises, including Brexit and Italy’s debt, it was a rare victory in its struggle to preserve democracy in a region where illiberal populism has been on the rise, a trend led by Hungary. Wednesday’s development comes a month after the EU’s court ordered Poland to immediately suspend the lowering of the retirement age for Supreme Court judges, which had forced about two dozen …

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British counterterrorism police are investigating after two devices were found in an unoccupied apartment in northwest London. Police said Wednesday the “initial assessment” is that the items were improvised explosive devices. Police said the devices were made safe and neighboring apartments that had been evacuated as a precaution have been re-opened to occupants. Officials say the surrounding area was searched and has been declared safe. The area had been cordoned off for roughly eight hours. Police were called to the Craven Park neighborhood Wednesday morning when the two suspicious devices were found in an apartment that was being refurbished. Officials …

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The Trump administration has invited the heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler to the White House to discuss U.S. tariffs on carmakers, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Wednesday. Citing industry and diplomatic sources, the paper said the meeting could possibly take place as soon as next week, depending on circumstances. Handelsblatt said it was not known whether U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the meeting. A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to confirm or deny whether the carmaker had received an invitation. Sources close to VW said it had not received an invitation.   Daimler and BMW did not immediately respond …

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A rare, 1,500 year-old mosaic depicting St. Mark has joined other repatriated pieces that were looted from the ethnically split Cyprus’ breakaway north, a Cypriot Orthodox Church official said Wednesday. Together the pieces will create a Swiss government-funded reproduction of an apse that adorned a 6th-century church in the island’s north. The mosaics were stolen by Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikman from the Church of the Virgin of Kanakaria about four decades ago and sold abroad. Cyprus’ Byzantine Museum Director Ioannis Eliades said the apse will go on display at the museum until it can return to the Kanakaria church. …

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Interpol is the world’s largest global police organization, consisting of 194 member countries. The group was officially created in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, but became known as Interpol in 1956.   The idea for the organization was broached in 1914 at the first International Criminal Police Congress in Monaco. Law enforcement officials from 24 countries met there to discuss policing procedures and techniques and centralized international criminal records. The organization says it has developed high-tech infrastructure to help “meet the growing challenges of fighting crime in the 21st century.” Red Notices One such tool at Interpol’s disposal …

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Interpol’s general assembly voted Wednesday to make South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang its new president. Kim had been serving as the organization’s acting president and will serve a two-year term, Interpol said. He replaces China’s Meng Hongwei, who disappeared while visiting his native country in late September and was later said to be detained on bribery allegations. Ahead of the vote, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo strongly endorsed Kim to win. ​”We encourage all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader of credibility and integrity that reflects …

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Interpol’s general assembly is voting to choose a new president at a meeting Wednesday in Dubai, with a member of Russia’s Interior Ministry considered the front-runner in the race. Alexander Prokopchuk currently serves as one of Interpol’s vice presidents. Kremlin critics say putting Prokopchuk in charge of Interpol would politicize the organization. Four U.S. Senators have called on the Trump administration to outright oppose Prokopchuk. They accuse him of being “personally involved” in what they call Russia’s routine “abuses of Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents, and journalists.” Interpol presidents serve for a period …

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Europe this month marked the 100th anniversary of the armistice that brought World War One to an end. Now, a conclusion to World War Two may be finally in sight – if Russian President Vladimir Putin gets his way. The Russian leader has an initiative to sign a final peace treaty with Japan — and resolve a Soviet-era dispute over the fate of several small islands in Russia’s Far East. Charles Maynes traveled to the region and has this report. …

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Interpol is in danger of being politicized by Russia as the organization chooses a new president, according to Kremlin critics.  A senior Russian police official is one of only two candidates put forward for the role of president of the organization, which coordinates police forces across the globe, in a vote scheduled Wednesday in Dubai. The winner of the election will replace Chinese national Meng Hongwei, who was detained in Beijing in September over corruption allegations.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the United States was supporting Kim Jong Yang of South Korea to lead the international …

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Interpol, the body that coordinates police forces across the globe, is in danger of being politicized by Russia, say prominent Kremlin critics. A senior Russian police official is one of only two candidates put forward for the role of president of the organization in a vote scheduled Wednesday in Dubai. Opponents say the Kremlin is abusing Interpol’s arrest warrants to pursue political enemies, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Tuesday that he met with the family of jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during his visit to Iran. “No child should have to go this long without their mother,” Hunt wrote on Twitter alongside photos of him with Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s four-year-old daughter Gabriella. He also met her mother and brother during his brief visit to Tehran on Monday, and pressed for her release during his meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. “British-Iranian dual nationals wrongly imprisoned must be freed,” Hunt tweeted later on Monday. “I’ve pressed hard on this today – innocent people should not be …

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Italian prosecutors have ordered the seizure of a migrant rescue ship and accused the aid group Doctors Without Borders of illegally disposing of 24 metric tons (26.5 tons) of medical and contaminated waste accumulated during nearly 50 rescues. Prosecutors in Catania, Sicily said Tuesday that 24 people were under investigation, including the aid group’s Italy personnel and the crew of the Aquarius. Prosecutors accused them of working with a Sicily-based shipping company to mix medical and “contaminated” waste, like migrants’ clothing, with other garbage to save money. Prosecutors ordered the sequester of the Aquarius, which is currently moored in Marseille, …

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The Kremlin says opposition to a Russian candidate to lead the global police group Interpol amounts to election interference. The election for a new leader is set for Wednesday at the end of Interpol’s annual conference in Dubai. Four U.S. senators issued an open letter Monday urging President Donald Trump to oppose the candidacy of Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk, the current Interpol vice president. The senators said Prokopchuk had been “personally involved” in what it said was Russia’s routine “abuses of Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists.” “This is probably a certain kind …

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A U.N. human rights expert says his efforts to highlight Iranian harassment of BBC Persian service journalists are unlikely to result in the world body acting against Iran. David Kaye, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, spoke with VOA Persian in a Monday interview. Asked what the world body would do next after he raised the issue of Iran’s treatment of BBC Persian in an October 22 speech to the U.N. General Assembly’s 3rd Committee, he said: “To be honest, I don’t expect the 3rd Committee to do …

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“Yellow Vest” activists have vowed to bring the French capital Paris to a standstill next weekend, prolonging their campaign of disruption to force President Emmanuel Macron to ease fuel taxes. Government officials fear the flash demonstrations, which are morphing into a more broad-based grassroots protest against the French leader’s economic policies in general, are hardening into a long-term challenge to the state, which they are scrambling to contain. On Monday — the third day of protests — the Yellow Vests (gilets jaunes), who are named after the high-visibility jackets all motorists are legally obliged to carry in their vehicles and …

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged greater cooperation on migration while making his first visit Monday to Morocco, a jumping-off point for a growing number of migrants trying to reach Spain and get a foothold in Europe. Spain is one of the North African kingdom’s strongest European allies, and enhanced collaboration on all levels was a focus of Sanchez’s visit. It was among the topics discussed at a lunch hosted by Moroccan King Mohammed VI, the official MAP news agency said. Controlling migration from Morocco to Spain was the focus of Sanchez’s talks with Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine El …

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