Category: Євросоюз

The U.K. government should increase oversight of social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, a parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia. The interim report by the House of Commons’ media committee, to be released Sunday, said democracy is facing a crisis because the combination of data analysis and social media allows campaigns to target voters with messages of hate without their consent. Tech giants like Facebook, which operate in a largely unregulated environment, are complicit because they haven’t done enough to protect …

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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is being detained in Turkey on terrorism and espionage charges. Details of the conversation were not disclosed, but State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the two diplomats were “committed to continued discussions to resolve the matter and address other issues of common concern.” Brunson, an evangelical pastor from Black Mountain, North Carolina, was indicted on charges of helping a network led by U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in addition to …

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The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago. At the time, the sister only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame. “It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told the Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.” After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to …

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Pope Francis has accepted U.S. prelate Theodore McCarrick’s offer to resign from the College of Cardinals following allegations of sexual abuse, including one involving an 11-year-old boy, and ordered him to conduct a “life of prayer and penance” in a home to be designated by the pontiff until a church trial is held, the Vatican said Saturday. Francis acted swiftly after receiving McCarrick’s letter of resignation Friday evening, after recent weeks have brought a spate of allegations that the 88-year-old prelate in the course of his distinguished clerical career had sexually abused both boys and adult seminarians. The revelations posed …

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Former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has returned to Belgium to drum up support for Catalonia’s separatist movement after Spain’s bid to extradite him on rebellion charges from Germany failed.   Puigdemont arrived in Brussels Saturday morning and shook hands with the current regional president of Catalonia, Quim Torra, who had traveled from Spain to meet his predecessor.   Puigdemont fled Spain in October following an illegal and ineffective declaration of independence by secessionist lawmakers in northeastern Catalonia.   He had been in Germany since March when he was arrested on a Spanish warrant while traveling in car from Finland back …

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Not counting certain types of skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women in the U.S. and worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Now researchers in Europe have come up with a robotic device that may speed detection of cancer tumors, potentially saving thousands of lives. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. …

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Music festivals have gained serious significance for right-wing extremists in their effort to draw more supporters in Germany and across Europe, the country’s domestic intelligence agency told VOA on Friday. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, said it estimated the number of right-wing extremists in Germany at 24,000 in 2017, up from 23,100 in 2016. Over half of them were thought to have no affiliation with organized groups while 4,500 showed allegiance to the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). Unlike previous years, when a small number of organized music festivals by right-wing members attracted only few …

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An Armenian court on Friday announced the arrest of former president Robert Kocharyan, whom special investigators had recently charged with usurping power. Yerevan City Court of General Jurisdiction announced Kocharyan’s detention less than a day after Armenian investigators filed a motion to have him arrested. One of Kocharyan’s defense lawyers, Aram Orbelyan, refused to give any further details of the arrest, citing the confidentiality of the preliminary investigation. He said his team is preparing a response that will be read at a news conference July 28. Mikael Harutyunyan, Kocharyan’s former defense chief, has also been charged in the case. It …

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Bulgaria’s top court ruled Friday that a European treaty to combat violence against women violates the constitution, likely eliminating any chance the treaty can be ratified. The center-right government of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov submitted the Istanbul Convention to parliament for ratification in January, only to withdraw it a few weeks later because of an uproar over its language about gender roles. Its critics include the influential Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the opposition Socialist party and the nationalist alliance United Patriots, which is in government. All said it could encourage young people to identify as transgender or third sex and lead to same-sex marriage. The Constitutional Court said the treaty …

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A senior U.S. official said Washington is confident a detained American pastor in Turkey will be free soon, as tensions deepen between the two countries. “On Pastor Brunson, I think there is excellent prospects that he’s going to come home,” Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, said Thursday at the conclusion of three days of State Department talks to advance religious freedom. Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor from Black Mountain, North Carolina, has been jailed in Turkey for nearly two years on terrorism and espionage charges. Earlier this week, Brunson was released from a Turkish prison and …

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Five of the biggest emerging economies Thursday stood by the multilateral system and vowed to strengthen economic cooperation in the face of U.S. tariff threats and unilateralism. The heads of the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — met in Johannesburg for an annual summit dominated by the risk of a U.S.-led trade war, although leaders did not publicly mention President Donald Trump by name. “We express concern at the spill-over effects of macro-economic policy measures in some major advanced economies,” they said in joint statement. “We recognize that the multilateral trading system is facing unprecedented …

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Armenian investigators on Thursday charged former President Robert Kocharyan with usurping power and filed a court motion to arrest him, the special investigation service said. The move comes three months after a power change in the ex-Soviet country following weeks of mass protests against corruption and cronyism. Kocharyan served as Armenia’s second president from 1998 to 2008 and investigators have charged him with an attempt to overthrow the constitutional order during post-election events in March 2008, when his ally Serzh Sarksyan was elected the next president. In February-March 2008 the opposition held protest rallies, contesting the results of the election …

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The Moscow lawyer said to have promised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign dirt on his Democratic opponent worked more closely with senior Russian government officials than she previously let on, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Scores of emails, transcripts and legal documents paint a portrait of Natalia Veselnitskaya as a well-connected attorney who served as a ghostwriter for top Russian government lawyers and received assistance from senior Interior Ministry personnel in a case involving a key client. The data were obtained through Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s London-based investigative unit, the Dossier Center, that is compiling profiles of …

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Thousands of people staged protests across Poland on Thursday after President Andrzej Duda signed into law a measure effectively letting the government choose the next Supreme Court chief. The European Union, human rights groups and opposition parties in Poland say the legislation and other changes pushed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party undermine judicial independence and democracy. Crowds gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw chanting “shame.” Many held candles and pens, referring to Duda’s readiness to sign. They shouted, “Break the pen” and “You will go to prison.” Similar protests took place in more than two dozen …

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Adem Demaci, a former long-term political prisoner known to ethnic Albanians as the “Mandela of Kosovo” for his resistance to Serb rule, died  Thursday at age 82, officials said. Demaci spent 28 years in Serb jails during Yugoslav times and was considered a symbol for Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians in their struggle with communist Yugoslavia and later Serbia for greater rights and independence for the province. “It is difficult to accept that our symbol of resistance has passed away. He was always unbreakable and unbending in the face of every challenge,” Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci wrote on Facebook. The president has announced three days of mourning. After Demaci …

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The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, is seeking access to Cameroon to verify what he says are alarming reports of horrific abuse by separatist and government forces in the country’s English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions. The U.N. human rights office said the situation in Cameroon’s English-speaking communities has worsened considerably since protests against what the English-speakers see as structural discrimination started two years ago. The Anglophones are demanding an end to what they allege is their economic and political marginalization by the country’s Francophone majority. The High Commissioner’s spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, told VOA what began …

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The United States is threatening sanctions on Turkey unless a detained American pastor is released. “If Turkey does not take immediate action to free this innocent man of faith and send him home to America, the United States will impose significant sanctions on Turkey until Pastor Andrew Brunson is free,” said U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday at a religious freedom summit at the State Department. Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor from Black Mountain, North Carolina, has been jailed in Turkey on terrorism and espionage charges.His case has strained relations between Turkey and the U.S., both NATO allies. “Release …

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The International Olympic Committee hit back Thursday at the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after its chief accused the IOC of failing to hold Russia accountable for doping in sports. In a rebuke directed at USADA CEO Travis Tygart, the IOC chastised the US over its struggles in tackling doping in its domestic leagues and for refusing to join the international fight against corruption in sport. Tygart had in testimony to a US agency that looks at human rights in Europe said that in allowing Russian athletes to take part in the Rio and Pyeongchang Olympic games, the IOC “chose not …

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German Football Association (DFB) head Reinhard Grindel on Thursday said he should have made clearer that racism is unacceptable after midfielder Mesut Ozil quit the national team citing “racism and disrespect” over his Turkish roots. Ozil, who plays for English Premier League club Arsenal, was widely criticized for having his photograph taken with Turkey’s authoritarian President Tayyip Erdogan in May. Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan, a team mate of Turkish descent who also posed with Erdogan, were jeered by German fans in warm-up games before the World Cup in Russia. Grindel rejected Ozil’s accusations of racism against the DFB but said …

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry says a woman who was detained in the United States on charges of being a Russian agent is a political prisoner and must be released promptly.   The Russian government previously objected to Maria Butina’s arrest this month, but its characterization of her as a political prisoner on Thursday raises the level of complaint.   The 29-year-old Butina has been accused of working to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and other U.S. political organizations before and after President Donald Trump’s election.   Foreign Ministry spokesman Artem Kozhin said at a briefing: “Her arrest is motivated solely by …

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