Category: Євросоюз

Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations. At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20. CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were …

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Journalists are being jailed in unprecedented numbers across the globe, with 262 detained for their work at the end of 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “The jailing of journalists is a brutal form of censorship that is having a profound impact on the flow of information around the world,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon told a press freedom event Friday at the United Nations. At the end of 2017, the worst offenders were Turkey, with 73 journalists jailed; China with 41; and Egypt with 20. CPJ says that slightly more than half of all imprisoned journalists were …

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Four large Finnish unions called on Friday for tens of thousands of their members to go on strike on Oct. 3 to protest against what they called attacks on workers’ rights. The unions said the strike was over government plans to make it easier for small companies to dismiss workers. “The obstinacy of the right-wing government … has not left us with any choice,” the Industrial Union’s chair Riku Aalto said in a statement. Service sector union PAM, professionals’ union Pro and the Finnish Electrical Workers’ Union also called the 24-hour strike. Finnish food industry workers had already announced plans …

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France’s leaders are proposing a new international coalition to revive global cooperation that they say is being threatened by countries like the United States and Russia. Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced the plan Friday while speaking at Harvard University, calling for an alliance of “goodwill powers” that believe in cooperation and share democratic values. Any nation could join, but the minister says he hopes it would include countries like India, Australia and Japan, along with others in Europe. He says it would go on with or without the U.S. His speech came days after U.S. President Donald Trump …

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The fact that Pope Francis has not responded to accusations of having covered up for former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is evidence the pope is guilty, according to a letter written by former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. Vigano renewed his charge that Francis knew five years ago that McCarrick had sexually harassed young men and did nothing. The letter, written in English and dated Sept. 29, was published Thursday night on American Conservative as soon as it was received by U.S. blogger Rod Dreher. The content of the letter echoes Vigano’s first letter, published a month ago, …

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Hundreds of Russians braved the cold and rain to queue for days outside a Moscow phone store ahead of the release of the new Apple iPhones on Friday, but when the doors opened none stepped in to buy. Instead, they tried in vain to sell their queue places to genuine Apple enthusiasts outside the first Russian store to sell the new iPhones XS and XS Max in central Moscow. Banking on strong enthusiasm for the phones, which have drawn days-long queues outside stores in Singapore, Sydney and elsewhere, the queue sellers set the price of the first place at 450,000 …

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As global leaders digest the fallout from a stormy United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, China has strongly denied accusations from President Donald Trump that it is trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections next month. Meanwhile the diplomatic tussle has intensified between the United States and other signatories over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as the U.S. prepares to hit Tehran with fresh sanctions. Trump’s accusations against China took many at the U.N. by surprise. In a news conference Wednesday evening, the president was asked by reporters what evidence he had to …

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As global leaders digest the fallout from a stormy United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, China has strongly denied accusations from U.S. President Donald Trump that Beijing is trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections in November. Meanwhile, the diplomatic tussle has intensified between the United States and other signatories over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as the U.S. prepares to hit Tehran with fresh sanctions. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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President Gjorge Ivanov on Thursday urged Macedonians to boycott a referendum on changing the country’s name, saying making such a change would amount to “historical suicide.” “On September 30, I will not go out and vote, and I know that you, my fellow citizens, will make a similarly wise decision,” Ivanov said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to North Macedonia to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the European Union. Athens has argued that …

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Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called on Prime Minister Theresa May to rip up her Brexit proposals, ratcheting up the pressure on May as she prepares to face her divided party at its annual conference in two days time. “This is the moment to change the course of the negotiations and do justice to the ambitions and potential of Brexit,” Johnson wrote in Friday’s Daily Telegraph, adding a six-point alternative plan for Brexit. “There has been a collective failure of government, and a collapse of will by the British establishment, to deliver on the mandate of the people,” he …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a three-day state visit to Germany on Thursday, the latest step in rapprochement efforts after more than a year of acrimony that pushed bilateral ties to the breaking point. In in op-ed in the Thursday edition of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, Erdogan called for bilateral ties to “turn over a new page.” The arrest of German citizens in Turkey has been a point of contention between the two NATO allies, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to press for their release. They include five Germans who Berlin says are being held for political reasons. Turkey’s …

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Moscow has responded derisively to a report by a Britiain-based investigative group claiming one of the two men suspected of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal is a highly decorated colonel in Russian military intelligence. A report by Bellingcat asserted Wednesday that the man identifying himself as Ruslan Boshirov is really Anatoly Chepiga, a military intelligence colonel awarded the Hero of Russia, the country’s highest honor. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova characterized the report as a stunt timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. “There is no proof, so they are continuing their …

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Residents in a small Russian village have identified one of the two suspects in the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain as a senior intelligence agent, Russia’s respected Kommersant daily said Thursday in a report that backed up findings by an investigative group. Britain-based investigative group Bellingcat on Wednesday named one of the men suspected to have carried out the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter as Col. Anatoly Chepiga, an agent with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU who was awarded Russia’s highest medal, Hero of Russia, in 2014. The suspect had been named …

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The presiding judge in the appeal by Radovan Karadzic against his genocide and war crimes convictions removed himself from the case Thursday, following a request by the former Bosnian Serb leader’s lawyer.   The decision by American Judge Theodor Meron could delay a ruling in the appeal that had been expected before the end of the year at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. The mechanism is a court set up to deal with appeals and other residual issues from now-closed temporary tribunals for the Balkan wars and Rwandan genocide.   Meron’s decision follows a ruling removing him and two …

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Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, is witnessing an explosion of graffiti, many by women artists. Even though Turkey is in the grip of rising authoritarianism, city authorities are not cracking down on the graffiti and in some cases are even actively encouraging the wall art. Dorian Jones has more from Istanbul. …

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Slovak police have detained one or more persons suspected of the murder of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, several Slovak media outlets reported on Thursday, citing police sources. The police said on its Facebook page it had detained persons suspected of violent crime and was carrying out home searches but did not say in which case. The police declined to comment further. Media, including the websites of SME daily and Aktuality.sk, where Kuciak had worked, reported police were carrying out searches in the south of the country. Kuciak, who had written about political corruption in Slovakia, was found …

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A group of British investigative journalists have identified a highly decorated member of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) as one of two men accused of trying to assassinate an ex-Russian spy and his daughter in Britain earlier this year. British prosecutors have charged two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, of trying to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with the Soviet nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.  On Wednesday, the investigative website Bellingcat reported that Boshirov was actually Col.  Anatoliy Chepiga, who was awarded Russia’s highest honor — Hero of the Russian Federation — in …

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Israel should think carefully before attacking Syria again once it obtains the sophisticated S-300 defense system from Russia, a Damascus official said.   The warning followed pledges from Moscow to deliver the missile system after last week’s downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike.   Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said late Tuesday that the S-300 should have been given to Syria long ago.   Israel, “which is accustomed to launching many aggressions under different pretexts, will have to make accurate calculations if it thinks to attack Syria again,” he said.   The …

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Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard one of his own vessels last year, lost his appeal Wednesday against his life sentence. The Danish version of a life sentence typically is about 16 years long, but it may be continuously extended if the court rules that circumstances call for it. Madsen had sought a time-limited term. Now the 47-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison. His defense had argued that Wall’s death was an accident, although Madsen himself admitted to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea. …

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy speech to the 73rd session of the U.N. General Assembly drew mixed reaction from world leaders. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has this report looking at the international community’s response. …

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