Category: Євросоюз

Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa have been elected to two-year terms on the U.N. Security Council. The five will join the 15-nation body responsible for maintaining international peace and security on Jan. 1, 2019. The vote Friday in the U.N. General Assembly generated little suspense, as all but one regional group ran a clean slate. The only contested seat was in the Asian-Pacific group, where Indonesia overwhelming beat Maldives 144-46. Member states cast secret ballots and candidates must win a two-thirds majority of votes to succeed, even if they are running uncontested. Candidate countries capped off …

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The United Nations is asking the international community to help millions of refugees and displaced people in Africa’s Lake Chad Basin. The Boko Haram insurgency is mainly responsible for a crisis that has left huge numbers vulnerable to hunger, malnutrition and violence. The Lake Chad Basin is into the ninth year of a humanitarian crisis that does not appear to be easing. The United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to provide life-saving aid for some 7.8 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Though half of the year has gone by, only one third of this urgently-needed money …

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French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to take the lead of the European brigade against U.S. President Donald Trump at the summit of the Group of Seven wealthy countries in Canada.   Macron called a meeting Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, new Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte and top EU officials just before the G-7 opening.   He told reporters the United States’ attitude must lead other nations to “reforge the European front.”   European leaders criticize the U.S. decision to impose protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum and to exit the Iran nuclear deal …

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A Russian space capsule carrying three astronauts has docked with the International Space Station two days after it was launched from Kazakhstan. The Soyuz capsule docked with the station at 13:01 GMT Friday some 255 miles (410 kilometers) above the Earth. It is carrying Serena Aunon-Chancellor of the United States, Sergey Prokopyev of Russia, and German Alexander Gerst, flying for the European Space Agency. They will join Americans Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold and Russia’s Oleg Artemyev at the station. The program for their six-month mission includes about 250 experiments in biology, earth sciences, physical sciences and other disciplines. The …

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As summer draws near in the Northern Hemisphere, millions of people will slather on sunscreen to protect themselves from the sun’s harmful rays. But most sunscreens contain chemicals harmful to the oceans. Now researchers in London have developed a compound found in seaweed that could be the basis for a new generation of environmentally friendly sunscreens. As VOA’s Julie Taboh reports, they may not only protect us from damaging rays from the sun but also act as an anti-oxidant. …

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NATO defense ministers on Thursday unveiled plans for expanded military reinforcements by having the ability to deploy 30 troop battalions, 30 squadrons of aircraft and 30 warships within 30 days to any conflict on the European mainland. Details of the U.S.-drafted plan remain unclear, though ministers said they aim to have it logistically operational no later than 2020. The ministers also announced plans to strengthen its new command structure by more than 1,200 personnel spread across a new Atlantic command center based in Norfolk, Virginia, and a mainland Europe conflict logistics headquarters in Ulm, Germany.  Briefly putting aside what NATO’s …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual televised call-in show with Russians on Thursday in a semi-choreographed event that highlighted the Russian president’s efforts to raise living standards at home while defending Russian interests abroad.  Amid Putin’s 18-year rule, the so-called “Direct Line” has emerged as a key symbol of Russia’s top-down system of government, in which Putin often sits as the sole arbiter of problems befalling citizens of the world’s largest country. State media claimed that Russians submitted over 2.5 million questions to the Russian leader on topics ranging from health care to gas prices, pension payments, mortgage rates …

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A 500-year-old copy of a letter in which Christopher Columbus describes his voyage to the Americas has been returned to Spain after U.S. authorities tracked down the document, which had been stolen and replaced with a forgery years ago. The letter, copied centuries ago from the one Columbus wrote to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain after his first Atlantic crossing, was given to Spain’s Ambassador Pedro Morenes in Washington, law enforcement authorities said on Thursday. The repatriation of the letter follows seven years of sleuthing by U.S. law enforcement agencies after the discovery that it had been replaced …

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NATO defense ministers rallied around their latest plans to contain Russia on Thursday, while keeping a lid on their frustrations over new steel tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump has justified on national security grounds. Briefly putting aside what NATO’s chief said were “serious differences” within the alliance, defense ministers agreed a plan to protect the North Atlantic against increased Russian naval strength, move troops more quickly across Europe and have more combat-ready battalions, ships and planes. “There are differences related to issues like trade, the Iran nuclear deal and climate change,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “We have …

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Tayyip Erdogan is seen falling short of a first-round victory in Turkey’s presidential election and his ruling AK Party is forecast to lose its parliamentary majority in the June 24 vote, a survey by pollster Gezici showed on Thursday. Erdogan called the snap elections in April, more than a year early, saying Turkey needs to switch to a powerful executive presidency to tackle economic and security challenges. The new presidential powers were narrowly approved last year. Gezici’s survey of 6,811 respondents, conducted between May 25-26, showed Erdogan receiving 48.7 percent of votes in the first round of presidential election, with …

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Leaders of the world’s top industrialized democracies will meet in Quebec, Canada, this weekend at a time of growing tensions over trade and other issues While the G-7 Summit is likely to be overshadowed by another historic meeting next week in Singapore, analysts say the G-7 summit is likely to be no less consequential to the future of the global economy or the continued international leadership of the United States. Mil Arcega has more. …

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Vladimir Putin, on a living standards drive at the start of a new presidential term, is expected to try to fix Russians’ everyday problems on live TV later Thursday, handing out real-time orders to regional governors and government ministers. Putin, who won a landslide re-election victory in March, has taken part in the annual phone-in since 2001, using it to cast himself as a decisive troubleshooter on the home front and as a staunch defender of Russia’s interests on the world stage. Political theater Critics say the event, which is being held days before Russia hosts the soccer World Cup, …

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Ukrainian journalists have been left puzzled and feeling uneasy since the Ukrainian security service (SBU) staged the assassination of Russian reporter Arkady Babchenko, a U.S. media watchdog says. Ukrainian authorities have said the elaborate operation was designed to foil a Russian plot to assassinate Babchenko and other members of the Ukrainian media.  The Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday that Ukrainian media staffers were upset by SBU’s revelation that it had discovered a “hit list” of 47 journalists, bloggers and activists who may allegedly be targeted by assassins. But veteran journalists told CPJ that while they were perturbed by the news …

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Iran will not cooperate more fully with atomic inspectors until a standoff over its nuclear deal is resolved, its U.N. envoy said, as one signatory warned Tehran against moving ahead with preparations to boost its uranium enrichment capacity. Tehran, meanwhile, signaled its resolve to expand its enrichment capability by detailing plans to build advanced centrifuges — the machines that enrich uranium. European powers have been scrambling to salvage the agreement they signed in 2015 since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out last month and said he would reimpose far-reaching U.S. sanctions on Iran. Foreign and finance ministers from those …

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Rising populism across Europe is fueling human trafficking in Libya where a growing number of migrants are being trapped in detention centers and sold into slavery, aid officials told a conference on modern-day slavery on Wednesday. The rise of anti-immigration political parties in nations from Italy to Slovenia and Europe-wide efforts to stem migration means more migrants in Libya are struggling to leave and are falling into the hands of traffickers, several experts said. A video appearing to show Africans sold as slaves in Libya sparked a global outcry last year and put the spotlight on the lawless nation where …

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A year ago in Sicily at the G-7 summit of leading industrial nations, U.S. President Donald Trump was at loggerheads with his fellow summiteers primarily over climate change. At this year’s annual meeting starting in Canada Friday, the dispute will be over tariffs. European and Canadian participants remain fuming over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on their steel and aluminum imports — an issue which will dominate a summit planners were already struggling to agree on an agenda for ahead of the U.S. president’s decision to include close allies in the new metals tariff regime. The U.S. President will find …

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Britain, France and Germany have joined forces to urge the United States to exempt European companies from any sanctions the U.S. will slap on Iran after pulling out of an international nuclear agreement. In a letter dated Monday to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ministers from the three European countries said they “strongly regret” President Donald Trump’s decision last month to withdraw from the Iran deal. Trump has said sanctions will be imposed on any company doing business with Tehran.   The three European countries were also signatories of the 2015 deal, which was …

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Tunisia’s interior minister has fired 10 security officials amid an investigation into the sinking of a boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe that left an estimated 112 dead or missing. It was the deadliest shipwreck this year on the dangerous route from North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Braham announced late Tuesday the dismissal of 10 people including local police and security chiefs in the coastal city of Sfax and the Krekennah island, based on preliminary investigations into Sunday’s sinking. The Tunisian government has been widely criticized for not grasping the extent of …

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London Wednesday, concluding the final leg of a three-day European tour aimed at persuading European leaders to alter the international nuclear agreement with Iran. Netanyahu began his three-day European tour Monday in Germany, where he warned Chancellor Angela Merkel Iranian meddling in the Middle East could spark massive new refugee flows to Europe. In France Tuesday, the Israeli leader said his interest is “making sure Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons.” “I’ve been very consistent about my opposition to this nuclear deal, because I said you cannot divorce …

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There was little likelihood that France and Israel would see eye to eye on the Iran nuclear deal, which the Europeans support and Israel strongly opposes. But as European businesses — including French carmaker PSA — begin exiting Iran over fears of U.S. sanctions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicts business, not politics, will sink the deal. “I think the nuclear issue is going to be resolved because economic forces will do their thing,” Netanyahu said from Paris. “But the larger issue today is: How do we block Iran’s aggression? Its cash machine has been smashed by the possibility of new …

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