Category: Євросоюз

For the anxious Palestinian residents of Khan al-Ahmar, there’s little left to do but wait. After the West Bank hamlet lost its last legal protection against demolition late last week, Israeli forces could swoop any day now to tear down the desert community’s few dozen shacks and an Italian-funded schoolhouse made from recycled tires. Some hold out hope that Israel might be deterred by an inevitable international outcry over razing the community. Major European countries have warned that flattening Khan al-Ahmar poses a grave threat to the already fading prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. International attention The …

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A boat made from recycled plastic, now sailing on London’s river Thames, is a creative way to make an environmental problem part of the solution. Faiza Elmasry tells more about the significance of the Pet Project and its mission. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.]] …

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An Italian designer’s dream to improve the quality of life of his workers and the environment where his company is located has turned his vision into reality in the past 40 years. Brunello Cucinelli calls his philosophy humanistic capitalism. He has adapted the practice to his cashmere empire based in the rolling hills of Italy’s lush central region of Umbria. VOA’s Sabina Castelfranco visited the Umbrian countryside. …

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Nineteen humanitarian aid groups are urging that steps be taken immediately to ease “desperate conditions” for more more than 17,000 migrants “crammed in Greek island reception centers with a total capacity for only 6,000.” The groups, in a statement Thursday, said they were seeking “sustainable solutions” to relieve congestion and improve conditions. Migrants, primarily from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan but also from African countries, are living in squalor on several overcrowded Greek islands near Turkey’s coast, according to the statement, whose signatories include Oxfam International.  That organization released a separate statement of complaint earlier this week, noting that “thousands of refugees and …

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea was critical to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. His remarks came after the U.S. accused Russia of altering an independent U.N. report to cover up Moscow’s alleged violation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea. “Russia has actively attempted to undermine the U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Pompeo said during a news conference, “by attempting to change the language” of a report that evaluates compliance with sanctions against Pyongyang. Pompeo spoke with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday. A day earlier, …

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NATO  Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says he has no intention of backing down in the face of a “resurgent” Russia, insisting the Western alliance will hold a firm but fair line with Moscow while continuing to accept former Soviet states. Stoltenberg made the comments Friday, following a meeting at the White House with National Security Adviser John Bolton. “For us there is no contradiction between being firm, strong in our approach to Russia, as we are, and at the same time seeking dialogue,” he told an audience at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington. Tensions between Russia and …

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Swiss authorities said Friday that the Netherlands arrested and expelled two suspected Russian spies who allegedly tried to hack a Swiss laboratory that conducts tests for the U.N.-backed chemical weapons watchdog. Switzerland’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the attempted attack. The Federal Intelligence Service says it worked “actively” with British and Dutch partners on the case involving Switzerland’s Spiez Laboratory. Russia’s foreign minister said earlier this year that the lab analyzed samples linked to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England. The confirmation came after Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and Swiss …

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The European Union on Friday urged member countries to work together to avoid turning Europe into a confusing patchwork of different time zones, after announcing plans to abolish seasonal clock changes. The European Commission wants to end the longstanding practice of putting clocks forward an hour in the spring and back an hour in the autumn, arguing that it causes unjustified disruption. Each EU country is being asked to decide whether it wants to stay permanently on what is now their summer or their winter time. This will end the twice-yearly ritual of time changes, but raises the possibility that …

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Two Russian men’s claims that they were innocent tourists wrongly accused of an attempted assassination in Britain raised eyebrows on Friday – even in Russia’s usually patriotic media. The men said that far from plotting to poison a turncoat spy with a deadly nerve agent, they were actually just in England to admire the Gothic architecture in the city of Salisbury. In an interview aired by Russian broadcaster RT on Thursday, the men identified as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov said they had nothing to do with the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. In Russia meanwhile, Kommersant newspaper …

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Prominent anti-Kremlin activist Pyotr Verzilov is seriously ill and in hospital, members of the Pussy Riot protest band with whom he collaborated said late on Wednesday, suggesting he may have been poisoned. Verzilov, 30, staged a brief pitch invasion during the soccer World Cup final in Moscow in July along with three women affiliated to the anti-Kremlin punk band and is the publisher of Mediazona, a Russian online news outlet which focuses on human rights violations inside Russia’s penal system. ​ “Our friend, brother, comrade Petr Verzilov is in reanimation. His life is in danger. We think that he was …

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Volkswagen said on Thursday it would stop producing its Beetle compact car globally in 2019, ending a model that looked backward to the 1960s counter-culture as the automaker prepares for a leap toward a future of mass-market electric cars. The VW Beetle and the VW minibus became symbols of the small-is-beautiful esthetic of many in the post-war Baby Boom and the crescent shaped car was revived with the “New Beetle” of the late 1990s, which offered a built-in flower vase. The New Beetle was a hit during its early years, with sales of more than 80,000 cars in the United …

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The Turkish central bank caught international markets by surprise Thursday as it aggressively hiked interest rates in an effort to strengthen consumer confidence, stem inflation and rein in the currency crisis.  Interest rates were increased to 24 percent from 17.75 percent, which is more than double the median of investor predictions of a 3 percent hike. The Turkish lira surged above 5 percent in response, although the gains subsequently were pared back. International investors broadly welcomed the move. “TCMB [Turkish Republic Central Bank] did show resolve in hiking the one-week repo rate substantially and going back to orthodoxy,” chief economist …

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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners demanded the removal of Germany’s domestic intelligence chief on Thursday following much-criticized comments about recent far-right protests in the eastern city of Chemnitz. Hans-Georg Maassen’s future as the head of the BfV intelligence agency has created new strains in Merkel’s six-month-old coalition. The center-left Social Democrats, the junior governing party, called for him to go after Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told parliament Maassen still has his confidence. Merkel, Seehofer and Social Democrat leader Andrea Nahles met at the chancellery Thursday afternoon to discuss the spat, which comes only 2½ months after a crisis over …

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Two Russian men accused by Britain of carrying out the March poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, said Thursday it was just an “incredible, fatal coincidence” they were in the city at the time of the attack. Britain quickly rejected the claims made by the two men, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, in an interview on the Kremlin-funded RT channel. London renewed its assertions that the men were officers of the Russian military intelligence service GRU and lied about their involvement in the poisoning of one-time Russian agent Sergei Skripal. “The government is clear,” Britain said, that …

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A Renoir masterpiece stolen by the Nazis in World War II is back in the hands of the Jewish family who owned it. Sylvie Sulitzer, granddaughter of the original owner, received the painting, “Two Women in a Garden,” at a ceremony Wednesday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. “I’m very thankful to be able to show my beloved family, wherever they are, that after all they’ve been thorough, there is a justice,” Sulitzer said. “Two Women in a Garden” was among the last works Renoir painted before he died in 1919. Sulitzer’s grandfather, famed art collector Alfred …

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The United States is threatening automatic sanctions to deter Russia and any other current or future adversary from interfering in the country’s elections. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Wednesday, signing an executive order that mandates a range of economic sanctions and other penalties against any person, group or country assessed to have meddled with the upcoming midterm elections November 6. The order comes eight weeks before voters go to the polls and covers attacks on America’s election infrastructure, such as voting machines and voter databases, cyber attacks against candidates or political organizations, and disinformation campaigns. It also comes …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he wanted to sign a formal peace treaty with Japan ending hostilities from World War II by the end of the year without conditions. Seventy-three years after the war concluded, the two countries remain technically at war because of a territorial dispute over four Pacific islands. “Let us sign the peace treaty … and later we will continue to talk about all of our disagreements as friends on the basis of a peace treaty,” Putin said at an economic conference in Vladivostok. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared open to a treaty, saying …

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British, French and German fighter jets simulated flight interceptions over Western Europe on Wednesday as part of NATO drills to deter Russian planes from entering allied airspace and to showcase European efforts to integrate their air defenses.  Fighter pilots carrying air-to-air missiles from 10 NATO nations took turns to simulate the interception of a Belgian air force transport plane en route to Spain, performing visual inspections of the aircraft’s status by hovering off the wings at speeds of 900 km/hour (560 mph). Some 60 NATO jets, mainly from European allies, are on alert to defend alliance airspace, as NATO deals …

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The last time Britain accused two Russians of an assassination, one of them ended up in the Russian parliament. The case of Andrei Lugovoi, a key suspect in the 2006 killing of ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, shows how the two alleged Russian military intelligence operatives accused by Britain of poisoning ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal could have lucrative careers in Russia if they go public. President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday the men – who British authorities said used the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – appeared to be innocent. He suggested they tell their story “to some media outlet.” Hours …

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Nataša Kandić, the formidable Serbian human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace prize nominee, shrugs. “Nobody likes the truth,” she says. For almost three decades Kandić has been a thorn in the side of those who butchered, raped and tortured during the Balkans wars of the 1990s. She documented abuses and massacres. She protested what was unfolding, cajoling and informing a shocked world, insisting it pay attention to the return of genocide to Europe, and to do something about it. The evidence she gathered was used in the preparation of many indictments issued by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the …

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