Category: Євросоюз

Europe’s financial markets are in a swoon, Italy is in political turmoil, a fresh eurozone debt crisis is in the offing and the continent’s euroskeptic populists are predicting gleefully the fast-approaching demise of the European Union. So, what’s new? For the past few years, all of the above could have been written virtually any day of the week, much of it fueled by hyperbole. But the political drama unfolding in Italy is of a different order and shaping up to be a much greater existential threat to the European Union than Britain’s Brexit vote two years ago, analysts say. That …

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UNICEF is warning that hundreds of thousands of severely malnourished children in Mali are at risk of dying, as the security situation in the country worsens. The United Nations reports that attacks by extremists and criminals in northern and central Mali are rising at an alarming rate, with many civilians being deliberately targeted. UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac says more than a million children are going hungry because of severe food shortages. “More than 850,000 children under the age of 5 are at risk of global acute malnutrition this year, including 274,000 children facing severe malnutrition and at imminent risk of …

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A man who murdered three people Tuesday in the Belgium city of Liege engaged in an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Wednesday. Benjamin Herman repeatedly stabbed two female officers with a knife from behind before seizing their handguns and shooting them as they laid on the ground. Herman also shot to death a man who was a passenger in a passing car. Police fatally shot Herman after taking at least one woman hostage at a nearby school. Investigators said Herman’s methods were encouraged in online videos produced by the Islamic State militant group. Prosecutors said Herman yelled “Allahu akbar,” an …

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The United States on Wednesday condemned Syria’s decision to recognize two breakaway regions in Georgia and create diplomatic ties, saying it fully backed Georgia’s independence and reiterating its call for Russia to withdraw from the area. “The United States strongly condemns the Syrian regime’s intention to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian-occupied Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “These regions are part of Georgia. The United States’ position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia is unwavering,” the statement said. The U.S. statement came one day after Georgia said it would …

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Italy may hold repeat elections as early as July after the man asked to be prime minister failed to secure support from major political parties for even a stop-gap government, sources said on Tuesday, as markets tumbled on the growing political turmoil. Italy has searched for a new government since inconclusive elections in March, with the president finally designating former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli as interim prime minister until a new vote is held between September and early 2019. But sources close to some of Italy’s main parties said there was now a chance that President Sergio Mattarella …

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A Canadian accused of helping Russian intelligence agents break into email accounts as part of a massive 2014 data breach at Yahoo was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. Karim Baratov, who pleaded guilty in November 2017 in San Francisco, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Baratov, a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, was arrested in Canada in March 2017 at the request of U.S. prosecutors. He later waived his right to fight a request for his extradition to the United States. Lawyers for Baratov in a court filing had …

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A British-based maritime services company has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve allegations it overbilled the U.S. Navy for goods and services provided to American warships at ports around the world, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday. Privately held Inchcape Shipping Services Holdings Ltd and some of its subsidiaries provided U.S. Navy ships with waste removal, telephone access, ship-to-shore transportation, local security and other services at ports in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, the Justice Department said in a statement. A lawsuit charged that between 2005 and 2014 Inchcape knowingly submitted invoices to the Navy overstating the …

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Christians in western Europe are less accepting of immigrants and non-Christians than people without religious affiliations, a study published Tuesday that was based on a 15-country survey found.  The Pew Research Center report revealed that Christians — whether or not they are churchgoers — are more likely than western Europeans who don’t identify with a religion to express negative views of Muslims, Jews and migrants. They also are more inclined to think their country’s culture and values are superior. “On balance, more respondents say immigrants are honest and hardworking than say the opposite,” the study’s authors wrote. “But a clear …

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Exiled opposition politician Mikheil Saakashvili called on European nations Tuesday to impose sanctions on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle, accusing them of violating his human rights. Saakashvili said that Poroshenko, his former ally, breached international law by stripping him of his Ukrainian citizenship and forcibly kicking him out of the country. Speaking in The Hague, Netherlands, Saakashvili and a legal expert said sanctions should be used to push Poroshenko into restoring the opposition leader’s citizenship and to target assets that Saakashvili alleged Ukraine’s leaders obtained illegally. “We are looking for their assets across Europe to impound them, …

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The doctors who treated a Russian former spy and his daughter after they were poisoned with a nerve agent in Britain say they don’t know what the pair’s long term health outlook is — and initially feared the incident could have been much worse. Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain, and daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4. Staff at Salisbury hospital, where they were treated, told the BBC that some started to wonder whether they too would …

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Talks to settle the long-running dispute between Greece and Macedonia over the name Macedonia are in their final stage, the two foreign ministers said Monday. Greece’s Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov of Macedonia both say their prime ministers will take over the talks after several legal and technical issues are worked out. Dimitrov told reporters in Brussels Monday there could be a final agreement before an EU summit at the end of June. Macedonia is the name of a former Yugoslav republic and a historic ancient area of northern Greece.  Both countries have been feuding over the use of the …

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The World Trade Organization is being slowly strangled to death, a retiring trade judge whose replacement has been blocked by the United States said in his farewell speech, delivering a thinly-veiled rebuke to the Donald Trump administration. Ricardo Ramirez-Hernandez served two terms as a judge on the WTO’s Appellate Body, which acts as the final court for trade disputes between countries. Since his departure last year, the United States has been blocking the process to replace him and other judges, throwing the WTO into crisis. “This institution does not deserve to die through asphyxiation,” Ramirez-Hernandez said. “You have an obligation …

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Hundreds of women’s rights activist rallied in Belfast on Monday to put pressure on British Prime Minister Theresa May to reform Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion rules after neighboring Ireland’s vote to liberalize its laws. Voters in Ireland on Friday backed the removal of a constitutional abortion ban by two-to-one. That leaves British-ruled Northern Ireland as the only part of the British Isles with a restrictive abortion regime, and May on Sunday faced calls from within her cabinet and the opposition to scrap Northern Ireland’s strict rules. Not May’s call? A spokeswoman for May said on Sunday changing the rules …

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A court in the Netherlands said Monday that lawmakers should recognize a neutral, third gender, in a groundbreaking ruling for a person who does not identify as male or female. The court in the southern city of Roermond said that the person’s gender could not be definitively determined at birth. The person was registered as male but later had treatment to become a woman and successfully applied to have her gender officially changed to female. However the applicant later sought to be listed as a “third gender” — neither male nor female. The person’s identity was not released. “The time …

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A real-life Spiderman spring into action in Paris and saved a young boy dangling from a fourth floor balcony. Mamoudou Gassama, a 22-year-old migrant from Mali, said he saw that the child was in danger in the neighborhood where he went Saturday to watch a soccer (football) match on a restaurant television.    He told CNN,  “I like children.  I would have hated to see him getting hurt in front of me. I ran and I looked for solutions to save him and thank God I scaled the front of the building to the balcony.” Video footage of the rescue …

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Supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party marched through central Berlin to protest against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government Sunday, and were kept away from a raft of counter-demonstrations by a heavy police presence. Police said over 5,000 people turned out for the demonstration organized by the anti-migration Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD. A variety of counter-protests against the far right attracted well over 25,000 people in total, they said.  The AfD event opened with German flags, placards such as “No Islam in Germany” and chants of “Merkel must go” outside Berlin’s central train station. The …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May will urge U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid protesters in central London during his UK visit in July and instead meet her at her country residence, the Sun newspaper reported on Sunday. The details of the plan will be given to the White House by Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, the report said. There are two proposals that will be made to the White House by Darroch upon May’s approval – one for a Downing Street visit or one based at Chequers, a 16th-century manor house 60 km (40 miles) northwest of …

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Russian democracy hit a grim milestone this week when Evgeny Roizman, the independent-minded mayor of Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, resigned from his post in protest. The mayor’s frustration was understandable: He was being forced to oversee a vote by local lawmakers to formally abolish elections to the post he had campaigned for and – against all odds – won as an opposition candidate back in 2013. “Since I was elected by the city’s residents, I defend the interests of the city’s residents,” said Roizman, in announcing his resignation. “I will not take part in this under any circumstances.” …

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High-ranking military officials from the U.S., France and Germany have taken part in Memorial Day ceremonies at an American cemetery in northern France to mark the centennial of the battle of Belleau Wood, a turning point in World War I and a key moment in Marine Corps history.   The ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in the village of Belleau on Sunday included speeches by military officials, including Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, prayers, wreath laying, reading of poems and the national anthems of the three countries.   A crowd of more than 5,000 attended …

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Four Russian servicemen have been killed by “militant fire” in Syria, Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday.  Five other soldiers were wounded in the incident in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, according to the ministry, when “several mobile terrorist groups attacked a Syrian government artillery position at night.”   The ministry said the Russian casualties were “military advisors” to the Syrian troops The statement did not say when the fighting occurred, although several reports suggested it may have taken place last Wednesday. A monitor for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the French News Agency nine Russian soldiers died Wednesday alongside …

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