Category: Євросоюз

The U.S. Justice Department denied it was planning to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, following a media report suggesting Washington was looking into the extradition in exchange for Ankara’s easing of its pressure on Saudi Arabia. “The Justice Department has not been involved in nor aware of any discussions relating the extradition of Fethullah Gulen to the death of Jamal Khashoggi,” Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said. NBC News reported Thursday that the Trump administration had been seeking ways to extradite Gulen, as a means to persuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ease pressure on Saudi Arabia over …

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Russian Ambassador to Finland Pavel Kuznetsov has been summoned to a meeting on Monday with Finnish state secretary Matti Anttonen over the disruption of Finland’s global positioning system (GPS) signal during recent NATO war games.  “We don’t have anything to hide here. Disruption is a serious matter which disturbs civil aviation. We will act towards Russia, we will discuss this and we expect answers,” Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said in a statement to public broadcaster Yle while on a state visit to the United States.  The Finnish foreign ministry said Thursday that the disruption of Finland’s GPS signal during recent NATO war games came from Russian territory.  The Kremlin on Monday dismissed an earlier allegation from Finland that …

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Investigative group Bellingcat and Russian website The Insider are suggesting that Russian intelligence has infiltrated the computer infrastructure of a company that processes British visa applications. The investigation, published Friday, aims to show how two suspected Russian military intelligence agents, who have been charged with poisoning a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury, may have obtained British visas. The Insider and Bellingcat said they interviewed the former chief technical officer of a company that processes visa applications for several consulates in Moscow, including that of Britain. The man, who fled Russia last year and applied for asylum …

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Turkey has dismissed Saudi Arabia’s latest version of events in the October 2 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its consulate in Istanbul. Saudi authorities announced this week 11 people are being charged with the writer’s killing and that the death penalty is sought for five. The country’s deputy public prosecutor alleged Khashoggi was killed in a  rogue operation that went wrong when a fight broke out as he was being injected with a drug and tied up. “I have to say that I did not find some of the [Saudi] statements satisfactory,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu …

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American prosecutors have obtained a sealed indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose website published thousands of classified U.S. government documents, a U.S. federal court document showed Thursday. The document, which prosecutors say was filed by mistake, asks a judge to seal documents in a criminal case unrelated to Assange, and carries markings indicating it was originally filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in August. A source familiar with the matter said the document was initially sealed but unsealed this week for reasons that are unclear at the moment. On Twitter, Wikileaks said it was an “apparent cut-and-paste …

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Ethically driven businesses are becoming increasingly popular and profitable but they can face threats for shaking up the existing order, entrepreneurs said on Social Enterprise Day. When Meghan Markle wore a pair of “slave-free” jeans on a royal tour of Australia last month, she sparked a sales stampede and shone a spotlight on the growing number of companies aiming to meet public demand for ethical products. “Right now is the perfect time to have this kind of business,” said James Bartle, founder of Australia-based Outland Denim, which made the $200 (150 pound) jeans. “There is awareness and people are prepared …

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The three candidates competing to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) agreed on Thursday to revive their party’s fortunes by cutting taxes and reducing Germany’s dependence on the United States for defense. In a strikingly good-humored three-hour debate in the northern city of Luebeck, the first of eight meetings with party grass roots across Germany before a leadership vote on Dec. 7, the rivals barely clashed on broad policy. While there were different nuances on details, the three agreed to work to improve the integration of migrants, focus more on affordable housing, cut subsidies …

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Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski sought asylum at a Hungarian representation outside Macedonia before reaching Hungary earlier this week and submitting his formal application for refugee status, Budapest said on Thursday. Gruevski, who resigned in 2016 after 10 years in power, fled his Balkan homeland six months after being sentenced to two years in prison on corruption-related charges. Macedonian police issued an arrest warrant for him after he failed to show up to begin his sentence following a Nov. 9 court ruling against his motion for a reprieve. Gruevski’s refugee status application could put Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban …

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Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman expects to get new loans from the International Monetary Fund as early as December, once parliament passes a budget of stability that refrains from making pre-election populist moves, he said Thursday. Securing IMF assistance will also unlock loans from the World Bank and the European Union. Groysman also said Ukraine was in negotiations with Washington for a new loan guarantee for sovereign debt. Groysman negotiated a new deal with the IMF last month aimed at keeping finances on an even keel during a choppy election period next year. The new loans are contingent on his steering an IMF-compliant budget through parliament. “This budget is a budget of stability and continuation of reforms,” Groysman said …

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Russia is awaiting a European court ruling on whether it violated the rights of opposition leader Alexei Navalny when arresting him on repeated occasions. A leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny is to appear at the European Court of Human Rights in the French city of Strasbourg to hear the ruling Thursday, after a last-minute legal problem delayed his arrival. The court ruled last year that seven of his arrests were unlawful and ordered Russia to pay 63,000 euros ($67,000) in compensation. But the court didn’t rule on Navalny’s arguments that the arrests were politically motivated. The Russian …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s already tough task of persuading parliament to approve an agreement on Britain’s exit from the European Union took a hit Thursday as her Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigned. “I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU,” Raab said as he released a statement outlining his opposition to the agreement he helped negotiate. Raab specifically objected to a key provision setting up a customs union that would eliminate the need for a hard border between Britain’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland while Britain and the EU work on …

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The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed on a deal that will give London’s vast financial center only a basic level of access to the bloc’s markets after Brexit.  The agreement will be based on the EU’s existing system of financial market access known as equivalence — a watered-down relationship that officials in Brussels have said all along is the best arrangement that Britain can expect.  The EU grants equivalence to many countries and has so far not agreed to Britain’s demands for major concessions such as offering broader access and safeguards on withdrawing access, neither of which …

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This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.  A priest in a white robe swung an incense burner, leading the way for thousands of marchers as they crammed into a winding cobblestone alley decorated with candy-colored streamers in Lisbon’s ancient Alfama neighborhood.  Behind the priest, six men carried a life-sized statue of St. Anthony, Lisbon’s patron saint, born more than 800 years ago. The musky incense swirled together with the smoke from orange-hot charcoals grilling whole sardines a few streets away.  The procession moved along, …

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European Union trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Wednesday that the EU has a list of potential retaliation targets ready in case U.S. President Donald Trump imposes auto tariffs on EU member states. Malmstrom told reporters after a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the two did not speak specifically about auto tariffs but focused instead on regulatory cooperation issues and ways to enable EU countries to import more American soybeans and liquefied natural gas. Malmstrom did not specify the U.S. products on which the EU would levy retaliatory tariffs, as consultations would need to take place with …

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Britain’s Prince Charles is turning 70 with a family birthday party, and a firm commitment to his environmentalist views. Charles is due to have tea on Wednesday with a group of people who are also turning 70 this year, before a Buckingham Palace party thrown by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The prince’s Clarence House office released two family portraits to mark the birthday. The photos by Chris Jackson show Charles with his wife Camilla, sons Prince William and Prince Harry, their wives Kate and Meghan and his grandchildren: 6-year-old Prince George, 3-year-old Princess Charlotte and 6-month-old Prince Louis. The …

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Britain is to allow citizens from all Commonwealth countries to join its armed forces — even if they have never lived in Britain. The new rules are aimed at tackling a recruitment crisis. But campaigners want clarity over the citizenship rights of the new recruits after they leave the services. Touring Africa earlier this month, Prince Charles paid tribute to soldiers of the former Empire who fought for Britain. Out of the empire came the Commonwealth — and it is from those countries that Britain is now looking to recruit. The government says all roles and ranks will be open to …

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Britain is to allow citizens from all Commonwealth countries to join its armed forces – even if they have never lived in Britain. The new rules are aimed at tackling a recruitment crisis. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, activists want clarity over the citizenship rights of the new recruits after they leave the services. …

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France’s government has fired back at a flurry of critical tweets by Donald Trump, suggesting the U.S. president lacked “common decency” by launching his broadside on a day when France was mourning victims of the November 2015 terror attacks. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said Wednesday: “We were commemorating the assassination of 130 of our compatriots three years ago in Paris and Saint-Denis, and so I will reply in English: ‘Common decency’ would have been appropriate.” Nursing grievances from a weekend visit to France, Trump lit into French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday over his suggestion for a European defense force, …

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Britain’s Theresa May scrambled Wednesday to sell to her Cabinet a draft Brexit divorce agreement British negotiators concluded after months of wrangling with their European Union counterparts. But the 500-page draft remains a source of deep dispute within Britain’s ruling Conservative party and also in the country’s parliament, which will have the final say on whether to approve it. As news emerged Tuesday that a text had been agreed, hardline Brexiteers lined up to attack the proposed agreement with former British foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned earlier this year, urging other ministers to join him in opposing the terms …

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The European Union’s highest court has ruled that the taste of a food cannot be protected by copyright. The European Court of Justice said Tuesday “the taste of a food product cannot be identified with precision of objectivity,” thus making it ineligible “for copyright protection.” Dutch cheese maker Levola had argued that a rival company copied its herbed spread called Heksenkaas or witches’ cheese. The company claimed Heksenkaas was a work protected by copyright and asked the Dutch courts to insist that the rival firm cease production and sale of its cheese. But the judges ruled that unlike books, movies, …

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