Category: Євросоюз

U.S. President Donald Trump further escalated tensions with Turkey Friday by announcing a sharp increase in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in an early morning post on Twitter. In announcing 20 percent tariffs on aluminum and 50 percent tariffs on steel, Trump said “the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar!” Trump’s announcement came two days after a Turkish diplomatic delegation visited Washington in a bid to to ease tensions between the two countries. Analysts have warned that rising U.S.-Turkish tensions are threatening a financial crisis in Turkey. On Monday, the Turkish lira suffered its most …

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The Russian ruble fell to its lowest level against the dollar in almost two years after the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Moscow Wednesday over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain. Russia has denied a role using novichok, and Moscow on Thursday called the measure illegal under international law and announced retaliatory measures of its own. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports that Russians have reacted stoically to the additional sanctions. …

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Russia has denounced a new round of U.S. sanctions over its alleged chemical weapons use, and says it runs counter to the “constructive atmosphere” at last month’s summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. U.S. State Department officials say the new sanctions were triggered automatically in response to the poisoning of a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department. …

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Montenegro on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for a former CIA agent for alleged involvement in what the government said was a failed pro-Russia coup designed to prevent the Balkan country’s NATO membership. Montenegro’s state TV said that prosecutors want the extradition of Joseph Assad, a U.S. citizen born and raised in Egypt, on charges of participating in a criminal enterprise led by two Russian military spy agency officers. The Russians and 12 others, mostly Serbs, are on trial in Montenegro over the alleged election day plot in October 2016 that included plans to assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, …

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The value of the Turkish lira hit a record low Thursday amid reports of a deadlock during talks in Washington between Turkey and the United States. The lira has fallen more than 10 percent since last week, when Washington imposed sanctions against two Turkish ministers who have detained American Pastor Andrew Brunson. “I would assume the Americans have now understood that they have the upper hand over Turkey,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “They have got Turkey where it hurts, i.e., the threat of financial sanctions.” Analysts say international investors were already jittery over Turkey’s debt-fueled growth and …

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While U.S. lawmakers press Twitter and Facebook to better police their platforms against Russian social media trolls and ponder tougher sanctions against Moscow, American voters remain vulnerable to divisive messaging and misinformation before midterm elections in November, experts told VOA. “All of us, left and right [politically], are all very susceptible to being fooled by disinformation,” said Claire Wardle, director of First Draft News, a project at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy that provides tools to fight false content on the Internet and social media. “There are many people who are trying to spread misinformation.We …

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Romanians who live abroad have begun arriving back home for an anti-government protest where they will call for the left-wing government to resign and an early election.   Expatriates are staging a protest Friday in Bucharest to protest the way Romania is governed. Some of the estimated 3 million Romanians living abroad say they left because of corruption, low wages and lack of opportunities.   There were small anti-government protests in several cities, and by Thursday a handful of protesters had arrived in the large square outside the government offices where the demonstration will be staged.   Amid fears of …

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Faced with a new round of U.S.-sanctions over alleged chemical weapons use, Russia denounced the move as an “illegal” gesture that defied attempts by President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin aimed at improving relations during a recent summit. “Of course, such decisions taken by the American side, are absolutely unfriendly,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in discussing the new sanctions with reporters in Moscow on Thursday. “And it’s unlikely they’re in any way associated with the complicated but constructive atmosphere of the last meeting between the two presidents.”  The State Department announced the penalties on Wednesday — a …

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The United States has announced new sanctions on Russia in connection with its alleged attempt to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain. The State Department Wednesday said Russia is being sanctioned because it used a chemical weapon in violation of international law. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent, in Britain in March. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the sanctions are to go in effect in about two weeks. …

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A record number of people were charged with modern slavery offenses in Britain this year, prosecutors revealed Thursday, but activists said the number of convictions had not increased significantly since a tough new law was introduced in 2015. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said 239 suspects had been charged with modern slavery offenses over the past year, up 27 percent from the year before. Yet the number of convictions did not increase significantly: 185 people were found guilty over the same period, four more than last year, but down from 192 in 2016. “We have yet to see any significant …

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German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi is suing to halt a planned execution in Nebraska, claiming the U.S. state illegally obtained the company’s drugs to use for the lethal injection procedure. Fresenius Kabi filed the lawsuit Tuesday evening, saying the state was planning to use two of its drugs on August 14 to put to death convicted killer Carey Dean Moore. Moore is sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of two taxi drivers. He is not contesting his execution order, but it could nevertheless be delayed by the lawsuit.  If carried out, the execution would be Nebraska’s first in 21 years …

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American photographer Chuck Fishman was 21 when he began traveling behind the Iron Curtain in 1975 to document a Jewish community on the verge of dying out after centuries of existence in Poland. He couldn’t have foreseen the Jewish revival that would come after the fall of communism in 1989. A new photo exhibition opened this week in Warsaw that brings together Fishman’s early documentation of a melancholy and declining Jewish world with the revival of traditions by the third and fourth generations after the Holocaust, a transformation that left him astounded. Titled Re-Generation: Jewish Life in Poland, the exhibition showing …

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The United States is imposing tough new sanctions on Russia after determining Moscow was responsible for poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain in March. The State Department says Russia broke international law when it used a lethal nerve agent against its own nationals. A policeman found Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia slumped over on a bench and unconscious in the British city of Salisbury. It was determined that they were sickened by Novichok – a Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent. Both survived but spent weeks in the hospital.   WATCH: US Imposes New Sanctions on Russia …

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Reports out of Turkey say a diplomatic delegation has already left and is set to visit Washington this week for discussions about the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. The U.S. State Department could not confirm that such a meeting is planned. The conflicting reports come at a time of escalating U.S.-Turkish tensions, which are threatening to trigger a financial crisis in Turkey. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department. …

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Britain will always be a “tier one” military power, British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson told the Atlantic Council think tank Tuesday in Washington, contradicting recent comments by British Prime Minister Theresa May. In June, the prime minister asked Williamson to justify Britain’s role as a tier one military power at a Downing Street meeting, challenging Defense Ministry plans to modernize the armed forces just weeks before a NATO summit, according to the Financial Times. Underlying her statement, the report said, was a realization that Britain can no longer economically compete with top global powers. The following day, when asked to …

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A Turkish diplomatic delegation is visiting Washington Wednesday in a bid to to ease tensions between the two countires. Reports of the visit helped to stem a sharp drop in the value of Turkish currency. Analysts warn rising U.S.-Turkish tensions are threatening to trigger a financial crisis in Turkey. On Monday, the Turkish lira suffered its most significant drop in a decade. The sell-off triggered by reports that the Trump administration is considering ending Turkey’s duty-free access to the U.S. market. The lira recovered some of its heavy losses on news of the diplomatic visit. But the currency began to …

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An activist from Russian punk collective Pussy Riot has led a protest outside the headquarters of the state penitentiary agency to protest torture and slave labor in Russian prisons. Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina and activist Dmitry Tsorionov put banners and photos of inmates who were reportedly beaten by prison personnel on the Federal Penitentiary Service building in Moscow.   Tuesday’s protest comes amid public outrage stoked by a recently released video of an inmate being beaten by men in guards’ uniforms while lying handcuffed on a table. Several guards have been put in custody while the 2017 beating is …

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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will pay a state visit to Germany on Sept. 28-29, a spokeswoman for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday, amid efforts by the allies to improves ties strained by a number of disputes. The two fellow members of the NATO military alliance have differed over Turkey’s crackdown on suspected opponents of Erdogan after a failed coup in 2016 and over its detention of German citizens. The spokeswoman did not say if Erdogan would also hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel’s office declined to comment. Germany’s mass-selling Bild newspaper reported last month that Erdogan would …

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Greece’s prime minister vowed on Tuesday that experts will investigate all aspects of the country’s deadliest forest fire in decades and that the seaside resort areas devastated by the blaze will be rebuilt to higher standards. Alexis Tsipras led a meeting about the fire on Tuesday with ministers and regional officials in Lavrion, a seaside town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the areas burned. At least 91 people died in the July 23 fire. “My promise, from the first day of this tragedy, was that the `how’ and the `why’ will be investigated in depth and in all …

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Georgia on Tuesday condemned Russia’s continued “occupation” of its territory, a decade after the two countries went to war over the Kremlin-backed separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “This is a war against Georgia, an aggression, an occupation, and a blatant violation of international law,” Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili told a round table meeting attended by Georgian government officials and visiting foreign ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine’s vice premier. “The aggressor’s appetite has only increased after the invasion,” he said. Georgia and its Soviet-era master Russia have long been at loggerheads over Tbilisi’s bid to join the …

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