Category: Євросоюз

Pope Francis has apologized for the abuse perpetrated by the powerful Catholic Church in Ireland, but critics say it is not enough. The victims of abuse and their supporters gathered in Ireland’s capital Dublin on Sunday to protest what they call the Church’s attempt to silence and marginalize the abuse. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the protests come as a senior Vatican official calls on the pontiff to resign for failing to act sooner against a former U.S. cardinal. …

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Turkey’s Erdogan says will bring safety and peace to Syria, Iraq ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to bring peace and safety to Iraq and areas in Syria not under Turkish control and said terrorist organizations in those areas would be eliminated. Turkey, which has backed some rebel groups in Syria, has been working with Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and Iran for a political resolution to the crisis. It has so far carried out two cross-border operations along its border with Syria and set up a dozen military observations posts in the …

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Three days after she was given a temporary release, a British-Iranian woman returned to prison in Tehran Sunday after authorities there refused to extend the furlough. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been jailed since early 2016 following her arrest at the Tehran airport as she tried to return to Britain with her daughter following a family visit.  Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was born in Iran, is married to a British man and has dual British and Iranian citizenship. She was given a five year sentence for “plotting to topple the Iranian regime.” Last week she received a …

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Pope Francis issued a sweeping apology Sunday for the “crimes” of the Catholic Church in Ireland, saying church officials regularly didn’t respond with compassion to the many abuses children and women suffered over the years and vowing to work for justice. Francis was interrupted by applause as he read the apology out loud at the start of Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, somber protesters marched through the Irish town of Tuam and recited the names of an estimated 800 babies and young children who died at a Catholic Church-run orphanage there, most during the 1950s. …

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The Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States accused senior Vatican officials of knowing as early as 2000 that the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, regularly invited seminarians into his bed but was made a cardinal regardless. The letter, an extraordinary allegation from a one-time Holy See diplomat, also accuses Pope Francis of knowing about McCarrick’s behavior in 2013 but rehabilitating him — a claim of cover-up against the pontiff himself. The National Catholic Register and another conservative site, LifeSiteNews, published the letter attributed to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano on Sunday as the pope wrapped up a two-day …

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Hundreds of volunteers from 18 countries have gathered in the northeastern French town of Verdun to keep alive the memory of those who fought under appalling conditions in World War I. Re-enactors dressed in soldiers’ uniforms brought to life a big military encampment in the town and held a military parade Saturday, part of a series of events to mark the centenary of the end of the war. Visitors could visualize soldiers’ daily life during the war through the reconstruction of field kitchens, First Aid posts and command posts. Soldiers in khaki, grey or blue uniforms, depending on the country, …

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Pope Francis has “begged for God’s forgiveness” for the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church. The pontiff said at a shrine in Knock, Ireland, on Sunday the scandal is an “open wound” and “firm and decisive” measures need to be taken to find “truth and justice.” Francis’ call for forgiveness comes as a letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano was published in the National Catholic Register.  In the 11-page letter, Vigano, the Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, accuses Francis and other Vatican officials of ignoring sexual abuse claims against U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who …

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It’s a good idea for people to get an annual physical … and it’s important for animals, too. The London Zoo hosted its annual weigh-in for thousands of its animals recently, enticing the creatures with food to get their measurements. The documentation process is an extensive and time-consuming exercise for the zoo keepers, but a crucial one, say zoo officials. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. …

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Italy on Sunday disembarked all 150 migrants from a rescue ship that had been docked for five days in a Sicilian port, ending the migrants’ ordeal and a bitter stand-off between Rome’s anti-establishment government and its European Union partners. The migrants, mainly from Eritrea, had been stranded in the port of Catania since Monday because the government refused to let them off the boat until other EU states agreed to take some of them in. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Albania had offered to accept 20 of the migrants and Ireland 20-25, while the rest would be housed by Italy’s …

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Bulgarian authorities say a tourist bus has flipped over on a highway near Sofia, the capital, killing at least 16 people and leaving 26 others injured. Police said a bus carrying tourists on a weekend trip to a nearby resort overturned and then fell down a side road 20 meters (66 feet) below the highway. The accident happened at 5:10 p.m. Saturday about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Sofia.   Ambulances rushed to the scene and took the injured to Sofia hospitals. Doctors said some of them were in critical condition.   Health Minister Kiril Ananiev gave an initial …

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More than 200 supporters of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement have staged a rally in the Swedish capital, chanting slogans and waving the group’s green-and-white flags. A six-hour rally was approved by Swedish police, who deployed a strong security presence around Stockholm’s Kungsholmstorg Square. But after just a few hours, the crowds wilted and a march was canceled. Police had warned of potential disturbances across the city but no violence was seen. Local media reported that a counter-rally drew about 200 people. The neo-Nazi group is anti-European Union, anti-gay and anti-immigration. The rally took place ahead of Sweden’s Sept. 9 …

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained in Moscow, just two months after his release from prison for organizing protests against the government of President Vladimir Putin. A spokeswoman for Navalny said Saturday the reason for the detention is unclear that and he was being held at the Danilovsky police station. Navalny had posted on his blog Saturday that protests against the Putin government would take place September 9 in Moscow and “almost a hundred other cities.” The protests were against Putin’s pension reform plans. September 9 is also the date of Moscow’s mayoral election. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, …

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Austria’s foreign minister is defending a curtsy to Russian President Vladimir Putin at her wedding, saying that it was a traditional dance move and she doesn’t “submit” to anyone.   Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl invited Putin to her wedding last weekend, raising eyebrows at home and abroad. She told Oe1 radio Saturday it was a spontaneous decision made when Putin visited Vienna in June.   Video footage showed the bride dancing with Putin and making a deep curtsy at the end. Kneissl said that “if you’ve seen a ball opening, then you will have seen again and again that there …

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Pope Francis began the first papal visit to Ireland in almost 40 years Saturday, saying he shares the outrage of the Catholic community over the “repugnant crimes” committed by priests who raped and molested children, as well as over the failure of Church authorities to properly address the abuses. “I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis told a state reception at Dublin Castle where some abuse survivors were in attendance. “The failure of ecclesiastical authorities – …

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A Russian artist is going back to the roots of photography, rejecting the digital trappings and the assembly-line convenience of the modern age, by designing and creating wooden cameras the way they were built a hundred years ago. Combining craftsmanship with the principles of old school photography, some consider his creations art forms in themselves. And as VOA’s Julie Taboh reports, his wooden cameras, and the unique photographs he takes with them, are attracting buyers from around the world. …

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The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent “the wrong message at the wrong time,” and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability. “Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime’s ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement. “The Iranian people face very real economic pressures caused by their government’s corruption, mismanagement, and deep investment in terrorism and foreign conflicts,” …

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Firefighters struggled Friday to tame a wildfire southwest of Berlin but had to maneuver carefully as the blaze set off old World War II ammunition that is still buried in the forests around the German capital. Flames forced the evacuation of several nearby villages and sent clouds of acrid smoke toward the German capital.  The fire, which was the size of 500 soccer fields, has already set off several detonations of old ammunition, according to local lawmaker Christian Stein. Firefighters were not allowed to enter suspicious areas.  “The ammunition is very dangerous, because one cannot step on the ground, and …

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Victims of the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal are calling on Pope Francis to take a strong stance against predator priests during his visit to Ireland. The pope Saturday begins the first papal visit in nearly 40 years to Ireland. The country has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005. Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile, and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of …

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Mount Etna in Sicily has roared back into spectacular volcanic action, sending up plumes of ash and spewing lava. Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) says the volcano, which initially “re-awoke” in late July, sprang into fuller action Thursday evening by shooting up chunks of flaming lava as high as 150 meters (500 feet) almost constantly. On Friday, INGV said the action was continuing, feeding ash plumes several hundred meters (yards) into the air above the crater. No evacuations of towns on Etna’s slopes were reported. Sicilians farm on the fertile soils of the slopes of Etna. The …

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Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to provide the panel with the translator’s notes and other materials from President Donald Trump’s Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The senators have requested any cable traffic, memos, notes and policy directives related to the July summit, when Trump and Putin met privately for more than two hours with only translators present. The White House has not provided information on what was said, and even Trump’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, has said he does not know what happened in the room. In …

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