Category: Євросоюз

Days ahead of a summit once seen as the moment Britain and the European Union would have to reach a Brexit deal, both sides are still staring at each other over the question of the Irish border, refusing to blink. A flurry of diplomatic meetings over the weekend had raised hopes for an agreement, only to be disappointed by the issue that has dogged the talks for months — how to ensure no hard border is created between the EU’s Ireland and Britain’s Northern Ireland once Brexit happens on March 29. The EU has proposed keeping Northern Ireland in a …

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A Moroccan man convicted of helping Mohamed Atta and the other Hamburg-based Sept. 11 suicide pilots as they plotted their attacks on New York and Washington was deported Monday from Germany to his native country.   Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and accessory to the murder of the 246 passengers and crew on the four jetliners used in the 2001 attacks, was flown by helicopter from a Hamburg prison on Monday morning.   Blindfolded and with his hands and ankles shackled, the 44-year-old was then led by two police officers to another helicopter while …

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Since 1966 Germany’s conservative Christian Social Union has been the majority party in its home-state of Bavaria, but on Sunday the long-run ended when voters disillusioned with its courting of the far-right flocked to the Green Party. The Christian Social Union, or CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union, or CDU, has dominated politics in Bavaria since the end of World War II.  For only three years in the past seven decades has the CSU not been the majority party in Bavaria’s parliament. Although its fall from political grace in Sunday’s state polls had been widely …

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The threat is growing — and so, too, the toll. Forty-eight journalists have been killed so far this year, according to a VOA tally, adding to the thousand killed in the past decade-and-half. Some died on dangerous reporting assignments in conflict zones as they courted similar risks to combatants and were killed in crossfire or bombings. They include 9 Afghan reporters, among them three from VOA’s sister public broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). All were killed in the same bombing incident in Kabul in April, likely planned to cause a high media death toll. It was the most lethal …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative allies lost their absolute majority in Bavaria’s state parliament by a wide margin Sunday, according to projections from a regional election that could cause more turbulence in the national government. The Christian Social Union was on course to take just over 35 percent of the vote, down from 47.7 percent five years ago, projections for ARD and ZDF public television based on exit polls and a partial vote count indicated. That would be the socially conservative party’s worst performance in Bavaria, which it has traditionally dominated, since 1950. Squabbling in Merkel’s national government and a …

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Britain’s former Brexit secretary is urging members of Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet to rebel against her proposed deal with the European Union over the terms of Britain’s departure from the bloc. David Davis wrote in the Sunday Times that May’s plans for some continued ties with the EU under her Chequers plan is “completely unacceptable” and must be stopped. The fellow Conservative Party member said the time has come for ministers to shoot down May’s plan. “It is time for the cabinet to exert their collective authority,” he said. “This week the authority of our constitution is on the …

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Saudi Arabia has rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to punish it over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying Sunday it would retaliate with “greater” economic actions of its own if Trump were to sanction Riyadh. The Saudi stock market plunged seven percent before recovering to a five percent loss for the day after Trump told CBS there would be “severe punishment” if it is determined, as Turkey believes, that Saudi agents killed Khashoggi inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. The Saudis have said the allegation is “baseless,” but have provided no proof that Khashoggi left …

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was released from jail Sunday after three weeks behind bars for organizing anti-Kremlin protests, his second spell in detention in as many months. The 42-year-old activist left a detention center in the south of Moscow early in the morning and spoke briefly to journalists before leaving in a waiting car. “Over the 50 days I have been in jail we have seen yet more evidence that this regime is in complete decline,” he said, referencing recent embarrassments to Moscow’s intelligence services abroad and the launch failure of a manned Russian space rocket.  “If anyone thinks …

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Twenty-two people, including children, died on Sunday when a vehicle carrying migrants reportedly heading for EU member Greece plunged off the highway into a waterway in western Turkey. The vehicle, described as a lorry, was traveling on a highway in the Izmir region close to Izmir airport when it flipped over and fell into the channel several meters below, state-run Anadolu news agency said. The nationality of the migrants was not made clear. Twenty-two people were killed, the agency said, lifting an earlier toll of 19, while 13 more were injured. Turkish television pictures showed the stricken wreckage of the …

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Climate change is usually thought to bring hotter weather, but scientists say it can also make some places colder. Temperature changes mean some plants and animals struggle to survive, while others seek new territory. That may be the case for one species of barracuda that is living in colder waters than it normally would. A school of them have settled near an island off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea. VOA’s Deborah Block has the story. …

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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies are heading for their worst state election result in more than 60 years in a regional vote Sunday that is likely to increase tensions within Germany’s fragile coalition government. According to the latest polls, the Christian Social Union (CSU) will win about 34 percent, losing the absolute majority with which the center-right party has controlled its southeastern heartland for most of the postwar period. Voting stations opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and broadcasters are expected to publish exit polls shortly after 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). Who wins, loses One of the biggest winners are …

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The head of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Northern Irish party that props up British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, is “ready” to trigger a no-deal Brexit and now regards it as the “likeliest” outcome, The Observer reported Saturday, citing a leaked email. The newspaper said Arlene Foster told Ashley Fox, leader of Conservative Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), she had a “hostile and difficult” exchange at her meeting this week with Michel Barnier, the French official leading the European Union’s negotiating team. “AF said the DUP were ready for a no-deal scenario, which she now believed was the likeliest one,” according to the email, whose sender or recipient …

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Pope Francis has defrocked two Chilean former bishops for sexually abusing minors, the Vatican said Saturday, after a meeting between the pontiff and Chile’s president. The decision to expel former Archbishop Francisco Jose Cox Huneeus and former Bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez — the latest heads to roll in a country hit hard by the clerical abuse scandal — is not open to appeal. Both were stripped of their priesthood “as a consequence of overt acts of abuse against minors,” the Vatican said. The announcement came a day after the pope accepted the resignation of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl, …

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A car carrying migrants collided with a truck in northern Greece Saturday, killing 11 people, police said. Ten of the victims were believed to be migrants who crossed into the Greece from Turkey. The 11th person was the driver and a suspected migrant smuggler, police said.  Police said the car in which the migrants were packed had another vehicle’s license plates and is suspected of having been used for migrant trafficking. The car had not stopped at a police checkpoint during its journey, but it wasn’t immediately clear how close to the site of the crash that it happened. Increase …

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Russia’s top diplomat on Friday called the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s independence from Moscow a Washington-backed “provocation,” from which he vowed to protect “the faithful” in Ukraine if the schism sparks violence. On Thursday, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based head of global Orthodox Christianity, recognized Ukrainian churches as independent from the Russian Orthodox Church, ending the Moscow Patriarchy’s 332-year oversight of Ukrainian parishes. The move has immediately restored Ecumenical Patriarchate jurisdiction over all Orthodox faithful in Ukraine, granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the right to autocephaly — the ecclesiastical term for self-governance. Under this …

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Paris Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe’s rapid rise to global fame has earned the teenaged World Cup winner an appearance on the cover of Time magazine’s international edition. Time said Mbappe was a global superstar who “is the future of soccer.” Mbappe made headlines in September 2017 when he moved from Ligue 1 side Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain for a staggering 180 million euros ($207 million), a deal that saw the then 18-year-old player handed a reported monthly salary of 1.5m euros ($1.8m). But the 19-year-old’s stock skyrocketed during this year’s World Cup, where a series of phenomenal displays drew compliments …

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Britain’s Princess Eugenie wore an elegant voluminous dress by London-based label Peter Pilotto for her wedding to Jack Brooksbank on Friday, with the bride picking a low back to reveal scars she got from surgery as a child. The 28-year-old granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth walked down the aisle of Windsor Castle’s 15th Century St George’s Chapel in a fitted corset and pleated skirt with a long train designed by Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos, who founded the label in 2007. “The dress features a neckline that folds around the shoulders to a low back that drapes into a flowing …

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French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday it was not clear whether a foiled attack on a Paris-based Iranian opposition group was ordered by the higher echelons of authorities in Tehran. “As you know Iran is sometimes divided into different factions and tensions, and so I can’t say today whether the order came from the top or from this [security] service or that division,” he told France 24 television in an interview. France’s foreign ministry said on Oct. 2 there was no doubt the Iranian intelligence ministry was behind the June plot and froze assets belonging to Tehran’s intelligence services …

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The American evangelical Christian pastor at the center of a dispute between Ankara and Washington arrived at his home in Turkey on Friday after a Turkish court ruled he could go free, a move that may signal a major step towards mending ties between the allies. Andrew Brunson arrived at his home in Turkey’s coastal province of Izmir, a Reuters cameraman said, having left the courthouse in a convoy of cars. He was released after the court sentenced him to three years and 1-1/2 months in prison on terrorism charges, but said he would not serve any further jail time. …

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China said Friday it is in contact with the United States amid reports of a planned meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump next month following a dive in the U.S. stock market blamed partly on a growing trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang offered no specifics, but said that “I have also seen the relevant reports.” “China and the U.S. maintain communication on dialogues and exchanges at all levels,” Lu told reporters at a daily briefing. The reported meeting would take place during the G-20 summit in Argentina in late …

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