Category: Євросоюз

The United States cannot guarantee that it will provide India a waiver from sanctions if it purchases major weapon and defense systems from Russia, a top Pentagon official said on Wednesday, ahead of a high-level dialogue between Washington and New Delhi. The United States has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia, under which any country engaged with its defense and intelligence sectors could face secondary U.S. sanctions. However, a new defense bill gives the president the authority to grant waivers in case of national security interests. Randall Schriver, the Pentagon’s top Asia official, said there was an “impression that we are …

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Germany announced a new agency on Wednesday to fund research on cybersecurity and to end its reliance on digital technologies from the United States, China and other countries. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters that Germany needed new tools to become a top player in cybersecurity and shore up European security and independence. “It is our joint goal for Germany to take a leading role in cybersecurity on an international level,” Seehofer told a news conference with Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. “We have to acknowledge we’re lagging behind, and when one is lagging, one needs completely new approaches.” …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Senegal late Wednesday on a three-nation West African visit focusing on economic development and migration. Merkel is meeting with the presidents of Senegal, Ghana and then Nigeria as she presses for further investment in a region that is a source of many of the migrants who make their perilous way toward Europe. Migrant arrivals in Europe across the Mediterranean from Africa and Turkey are at their lowest level in five years, but the issue remains sensitive. Merkel, who refused to close Germany’s borders at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, has toughened …

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told a visiting Italian official on Wednesday that there is a “strong will” to bring the killers of an Italian researcher to justice, an Egyptian spokesman said. Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University doctoral student who was studying labor unions in Egypt, was abducted in January 2016 and tortured for several days before his body was left on a desert highway north of Cairo. During a meeting in Cairo with Italy’s deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, el-Sissi expressed confidence that the investigation into Regeni’s death would be completed, presidential spokesman Bassam Radi said in a …

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Authorities in Greece have arrested three members of a charity helping migrants on the eastern island of Lesbos for allegedly belonging to a criminal organization that directly facilitated migrant smugglers for financial profit. Police said Wednesday that a total of 30 Greek and foreign nationals, all members of the Greek non-governmental organization, are suspected of involvement. The three people — a Syrian, a German and a Greek national — arrested on Lesbos and in Athens on August 21 and on Tuesday are accused of belonging to a criminal organization, money laundering, espionage, forgery and breaches of immigration laws. Police said …

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The U.N. human rights chief says threatened U.S. funding cuts wouldn’t be “fatal” for his office, but says he hopes other countries won’t follow suit. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein insisted “the office will continue to survive” even if the U.S. carries out the promise made by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton in an interview with The Associated Press last week.   Zeid told reporters Wednesday that “clearly what one doesn’t want to see is a whole series of withdrawals and withdrawal of funding.”   Bolton’s pledge that the U.S. will cut funding to the rights office, and the U.N.’s top …

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Pope Francis lamented Wednesday how Irish church authorities failed to respond to the crimes of sexual abuse, speaking during his first public appearance at the Vatican after bombshell accusations that he himself covered up for an American cardinal’s misdeeds. Francis presided over his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square and spoke about his weekend trip to Ireland, where the abuse scandal has devastated the Catholic Church’s credibility. The final day of the trip was overshadowed by release of a document from a retired Holy See diplomat accusing Vatican authorities, including Francis, of covering up for ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite …

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British officials have been turning to Japan for tips on how to dodge American sanctions on Iran, according to local media. Britain is already seeking from Washington exemptions from some U.S. sanctions, which are being re-imposed by President Donald Trump because of the U.S. withdrawal earlier this year from a controversial 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. The British are especially keen to maintain banking links with Iran and to import Iranian oil. According to local media, U.K. officials have been asking their Japanese counterparts how they managed in the past to sidestep some aspects of the pre-2015 sanctions regime, which …

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Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is slamming Russia’s role in Syria’s civil war as the State Department presses Moscow to stop the Syrian regime from launching more chemical attacks on its people. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details. …

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The Turkish lira weakened on Tuesday as investors weighed up Turkey’s efforts to manage its rift with the United States after Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said U.S. trade sanctions against Ankara could destabilize the Middle East. The currency has lost about 38 percent of its value against the dollar this year due to a sell-off accelerated by a row with Washington over an American evangelical Christian pastor detained in Turkey on terrorism charges. More broadly, investors are worried about the direction of monetary policy under President Tayyip Erdogan. The president, a self-described “enemy of interest rates” has repeatedly put public …

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President Vladimir Putin hinted on Tuesday he was ready to soften an unpopular proposal to reform the pension system which has pushed his approval rating down to its lowest level in more than four years. He said he would deliver his views in a public statement on the issue, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, adding he was aware of public unhappiness about the proposed reform and decisions had to be undertaken cautiously. “I ask you not to forget that our decisions will affect the fates of millions of people and must be fair. One should not act mechanically, formally, but …

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Russia has deployed several frigates to the Mediterranean via the Bosphorus, an analysis of shipping traffic showed, part of what a Russian newspaper on Tuesday called Moscow’s largest naval buildup since it entered the Syrian conflict in 2015. The reinforcement comes as Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is believed to be considering an assault on the last big rebel-held enclave, Idlib in the north. Russia has accused the United States of building up its own forces in the Middle East in preparation for a possible strike on Syrian government forces. On Saturday, the Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen frigates …

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A Pakistani cricketer has offered a reward for the murder of firebrand anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders for organizing a cartoon contest depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The incendiary bounty offer is adding to fears in the Netherlands that the cartoon competition, which was announced June 12, will lead to targeted violence, either in Holland or against Western targets in Pakistan, by religious militants including so-called Islamic State (IS) or assassins inspired by the terror group. In 2015, two French militants who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida massacred 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices, ostensibly for the printing of …

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Russia will next month hold its biggest war games in nearly four decades, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday, a massive military exercise that will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies. The exercise, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts and involve almost 300,000 troops, over 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all its airborne units, Shoigu said in a statement. The maneuvers will take place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, which is concerned about what it says is an unjustified build-up of …

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Germany’s top security official offered to send federal assistance to the eastern state of Saxony on Tuesday following violence during a far-right protest in the city of Chemnitz that left at least 18 people injured. The protest late Monday, sparked by the killing of a 35-year-old German man in an altercation with migrants over the weekend, erupted into clashes between neo-Nazis and left-wing counter-protesters. Opposition parties criticized police for failing to prevent the violence. “The police in Saxony are in a difficult situation,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said. “Should it be requested, the federal government will provide police support.” He …

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saw his interior minister take up a key post in his leftist Syriza party on Monday, heralding a cabinet reshuffle to shore up waning support after painful bailouts. In a rousing speech, Tsipras ruled out early elections, telling his party faithful that polls would be held as scheduled in the autumn of 2019, but that his government and the Syriza movement needed ‘new blood.’ The country emerged from the biggest bailout in economic history last week but jaded Greeks found little reason to celebrate after nine years of cuts and job losses. “It will be …

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A Russian court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in jail on Monday after convicting him of breaking public protest laws, a move he said was illegal and aimed at stopping him leading a rally against pension reform next month. Navalny, who was detained by police outside his home on Saturday, was found guilty of breaking the law by organizing an unauthorized Moscow rally on Jan. 28 which called for a boycott of what he predicted would be a rigged presidential election. Under Russian law, the time, place and size of such protests must be agreed in advance …

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The European Union does not believe Syria is safe for refugees to go back, officials in Brussels said of a Russian push to have people return to the war-torn country and the international community to spend money on rebuilding it. The bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the matter in Austria later this week. EU officials expect the bloc to stick to its line that it would not offer reconstruction money for as long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — propped back to power by Russian and Iranian militaries — does not let the opposition share power. Russian President Vladimir Putin …

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Relations between Turkey and Russia are cozy, prompting worries in the West of a potentially critical rift in the NATO alliance. But Turkey’s president may be engaged in a balancing act, tactically turning to Russia as ties with the United States further deteriorate over the detention of an American pastor. President Donald Trump tweeted this month that U.S.-Turkey relations “are not good at this time!” and announced tariff hikes on the NATO ally, precipitating a nosedive in the Turkish currency. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was on the phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin that same afternoon, when they promised more …

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Afghanistan’s government says that the Russia has indefinitely postponed a meeting on the Afghan peace process planned for next week. A statement released Monday by the office of the Afghan presidency said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani have decided to postpone the meeting and hold it at another date.   President Ghani insists the peace talks should be “Afghan owned and led,” according to the statement.     Lavrov said Russia agrees the peace process should be under the auspices of the Afghans and it is “ready to cooperate,” the statement added.   …

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