Category: Євросоюз

The U.S. sanctioned five Russian entities and three individuals Monday, accusing them of malicious cyber activities to provide material and technological support to Moscow’s intelligence service. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the sanctioned entities and individuals “have directly contributed to improving Russia’s cyber and underwater capabilities through their work with “the Russian Federal Security Service “and therefore jeopardize the safety and security of the United States and our allies.” He said the U.S. “is committed to aggressively targeting any entity or individual working at the direction” of the Russian intelligence service “whose work threatens the United States and will continue …

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A rescue ship run by a European charity is headed to Spain with more than 600 migrants on board after Italy and Malta refused to accept the vessel. Italy’s new government, which campaigned on halting the flow of migrants into the country, is starting to make good on his promises. The European Union and the United Nations refugee agency had called for a swift end to a political standoff that left 629 migrants on the rescue ship Aquarius drifting at sea. Spain has now offered to take the ship in after Italy and Malta refused. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez …

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Spain says it will allow a rescue ship carrying more than 600 migrants picked up in the Mediterranean to dock in the eastern port of Valencia, after Italy’s new prime minister, who also leads the right-wing League party, ordered Italy’s ports to refuse entry to the rescue ship. The Aquarius rescue ship run by European charity SOS Mediterranee has been drifting in international waters with 629 migrants on board. More from Sabina Castlefranco in Rome. …

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The United Nations reports Syria remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis as killings, displacement, hunger and illness threaten the lives of more than 13 million people dependent upon international life-saving aid in this war-torn country. According to the U.N., nearly one million people were newly-displaced in Syria between January and April, making this the highest number of people forced to flee their homes in a short period of time since the war began seven years ago. Since last year, the number of people in hard-to-reach and besieged areas has dropped from 4.5 million to two million. Nevertheless, the United Nations …

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Pope Francis has accepted the resignations of three Chilean bishops, including the cleric accused of failing to stop a pedophile priest decades ago. The Vatican issued a statement Monday saying the pontiff had accepted the resignation of 61-year-old Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno. Barros was appointed bishop by Pope Francis in 2015, despite numerous objections raised by local parishioners over his connection to disgraced Father Fernando Karadima. The 87-year-old Karadima has been punished to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for sexually abusing children. Barros has been accused by victims of witnessing the abuse while Karadima’s top protege, a charge …

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The White House is assailing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying he “stabbed us in the back” and undermined U.S. President Donald Trump after Trump left the G-7 economic summit early for Singapore. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door … that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.” Navarro added, “To my friends in Canada, that was one …

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A human chain made of 175,000 people stretched 200 kilometers (124 miles) Sunday in a display to demand an independence vote for the Basque region in northern Spain. The demonstrators linked hands and stretched their chain from the coastal resort of San Sebastian to the Basque capital of Vitoria. Some used white scarves as part of the chain while others sang and danced in place. “We want for our people to have the right to choose what it wants to be,” one demonstrator said. The president of the Basque parliament said the marchers are an “active and lively people” who …

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A private rescue ship carrying 629 migrants remained Sunday evening on a northward course in the Mediterranean Sea after more than a day of not receiving permission to dock in either Italy or the small island nation of Malta. Aid group SOS Mediterranee said the passengers on its ship, the Aquarius, included 400 people who were picked up by the Italian navy, the country’s coast guard and private cargo ships and transferred. The rescue ship’s crew itself pulled 229 migrants from the water or from traffickers’ unseaworthy boats Saturday night, including 123 unaccompanied minors and seven pregnant women. The Aquarius …

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Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has won his record extending 11th French Open title, defeating Dominic Thiem of Austria in straight sets Sunday 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. “It’s not even a dream to win here 11 times, because its impossible to think of something like this,” Nadal said after the match. After a hard-fought first set, the number-one seeded Nadal dominated the rest of the match to capture his 17th grand slam title, just three behind his rival Roger Federer. The 32-year-old Nadal now has 86 wins and only two losses on the clay courts at Roland Garros. Nadal had a …

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One photo is telling it all about tensions at the G-7 summit.   A picture of U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel displaying less-than-friendly body language is turning out to be a defining image of the contentious meeting of the Group of Seven leaders of the world’s advanced economies.   The picture, snapped by German government photographer Jesco Denzel, shows a standing Merkel with hands firmly planted on a table staring down at Trump, who is seated with his arms folded and eyes glaring. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stands next to Trump as French President Emmanuel …

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Britain’s biggest companies will from 2020 be legally required to publish the gap between the salaries of their chief executives and what they pay their average U.K. workers, under proposed government rules. Business Minister Greg Clark said that the government would set out new laws in Parliament on Monday directing that U.K.-listed companies with more than 250 employees would have to reveal their pay gaps and justify their CEOs’ salaries. “We understand the anger of workers and shareholders when bosses’ pay is out of step with company performance,” Clark said in a statement Sunday. He said the new laws would improve transparency and boost accountability for both shareholders and workers, …

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Police in the Kurdistan region of Iraq said Saturday that a 20-year-old Iraqi man had admitted killing a 14-year-old girl in Germany, where the case has stoked the immigration debate. The body of Susanna Feldman, of Mainz, near Frankfurt, was found Wednesday in a wooded area in Wiesbaden, near a refugee center where the alleged attacker had lived, German police said. An autopsy showed she had been the victim of a violent and sexual attack. Feldman was Jewish, but police said there was no evidence her religion had been a factor in the attack, and the Central Council of Jews in Germany cautioned against attributing …

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Gena Turgel, a Holocaust survivor who comforted Anne Frank at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp before the young diarist’s death and the camp’s liberation a month later, has died. She was 95. Turgel died Thursday, Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said on Twitter. The news triggered tributes from some of the people the Polish native touched in the decades she shared her World War II experiences, including witnessing the horrors of the Nazi camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. After World War II, Turgel married one of Bergen-Belsen’s British liberators, Norman Turgel, earning the nickname “The Bride of Belsen.” Her wedding …

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Prime Minister Theresa May will gather together squabbling British ministers at her country residence after this month’s European Union summit to settle on details of a much-anticipated Brexit policy paper. May has yet to agree on some of the fundamental details of what type of trading relationship she wants to have with the European Union after Britain leaves next March. As a result, talks with the EU have all but ground to a halt, raising fears among businesses and in Brussels that Britain could end up crashing out of the bloc without an agreed-upon deal. “There’s going to be a lot happening over the next few weeks. You know, …

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Newly crowned French Open champion Simona Halep said she was inspired to win her first Grand Slam title by her manager Virginia Ruzici’s feats 40 years ago at Roland Garros. Ruzici’s 1978 Paris triumph over Mima Jausovec was the last time a Romanian, man or woman, had won a Grand Slam, but Halep ended that long wait Saturday in defeating American Sloane Stephens, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. In doing so, Halep equaled the feat of American seven-time French Open champion Chris Evert, who also suffered three Grand Slam final losses before capturing the 1974 French title. “It’s a motivation and inspiration,” Halep, …

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Prince Harry and his new wife, the former actress Meghan Markle, joined the pageantry of the annual Trooping the Color ceremony Saturday in London to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday. The duke and duchess, who married three weeks ago, made the short trip from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade in a horse-drawn carriage as royal fans lining the Mall cheered and waved. After the event, the couple joined other members of the royal family on the palace’s front balcony to watch the Royal Air Force fly by. The 92-year-old queen, who recently had a successful cataract operation, watched …

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Pope Francis has told the world’s oil executives that a transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions.” On the last day of a two-day conference Saturday, the Roman Catholic leader urged the executives to provide electricity to the one billion people who are without it, but said that process must be done in a way that avoids “creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.” Reuters reports the unprecedented conference was held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The news agency …

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Plastic and chemical pollution has been detected in most samples of snow and seawater taken by researchers in Antarctica, said the nongovernmental environmental group Greenpeace. Greenpeace scientists gathered water and snow samples from the southernmost continent during a voyage from January to March of this year. Laboratory analysis revealed humanity’s footprint on this most remote corner of the globe. “It was about one microplastic piece at least per liter. When you think of extrapolating that out to the scale of the Antarctic Ocean, it’s really, really significant. And previously we thought that the Antarctic Ocean might sort of be protected …

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A Kremlin spokesman says Vienna could be a site for a possible summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.  Dmitry Peskov said Saturday the two leaders had talked in March about meeting and Vienna was mentioned as a possible location.  Peskov said, however, no decision has been made about the meeting or a venue.  Peskov, speaking in Qingdao, China, where Putin is attending a regional summit, said, “there have been no concrete agreements or understanding, and no specific discussions are being conducted now.”  Trump is in Canada at the annual G-7 meeting.He leaves later Saturday for …

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Poland’s LBGT community celebrated a rainbow made of water and light in a Warsaw square as members geared up for the country’s largest pride parade. Light projected onto water created a “water hologram” rainbow for four hours starting late Friday, getting people in the spirit for the yearly “Equality Parade” in the Polish capital Saturday afternoon. The pride celebrations come as LGBT activists say a conservative turn in Poland is forcing them to fight harder for their rights, even though their hope of seeing same-sex marriage legalized has no real chance in the country now. Conservative strongholds  A record number …

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