Category: Євросоюз

Britain’s upper house of parliament inflicted an embarrassing defeat on Theresa May’s government on Wednesday, challenging her refusal to remain in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. May, who has struggled to unite her Conservative Party over Brexit, has said Britain will leave the European Union’s single market and customs union after it quits the bloc next March so that London can forge its own free trade deals. That stance has widened divisions not only within her own party but across both houses of parliament, emboldening the House of Lords, where the Conservatives do not command a majority, …

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Britain plans to ban the sale of plastic straws and other single-use products and is pressing Commonwealth allies to also take action to tackle marine waste, the office of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May said. It said drink stirrers and cotton buds would also be banned under the plans. May has pledged to eradicate avoidable plastic waste by 2042 as part of a “national plan of action.” “Plastic waste is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world, which is why protecting the marine environment is central to our agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,” May said …

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Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans. The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of the British political consultancy, a firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani last week repeated his request to Zuckerberg to appear before the assembly, saying that sending a junior executive would not suffice. …

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The U.S. and its Western allies avoided triggering a wider war in Syria last Saturday when they retaliated with precision missile strikes against President Bashar al-Assad for an alleged chemical weapons attack. But there are plenty of hazards ahead that could draw the big powers, as well as neighboring countries, deeper into the Syria quagmire — and into direct conflict with each other, however determined they are to avoid it, analysts said. Washington and its allies may have given up on seeking the removal of Assad from power, and the rebels may now control only a few pockets of the …

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Britain’s broadcast regulator has opened seven investigations into Russian state-owned RT television channel, citing an increase in potential violations of impartiality rules since the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter. Ofcom, the media regulator, said the probes would determine whether RT owner TV Novosti is “fit and proper” to continue to hold a British broadcast license. Ofcom said that until recently, TV Novosti’s “overall compliance record has not been materially out of line with other broadcasters.” But Ofcom added it has seen a “significant increase in the number of programs on the RT service that warrant investigation.” …

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Igor, a Siberian tiger in a Hungarian zoo, received stem-cell joint treatment on Wednesday which doctors hoped would help heal its hip and allow it to live happily, on less medicine. Igor is a 13-year-old tiger living in the zoo in the southern Hungarian town of Szeged. It has been suffering from hip joint pains for years. The treatment, used more widely on humans than animals, cures injured joints with tissue taken from patients’ own fatty tissue, which contains regenerative stem cells, doctors said. These are injected back into the ailing joints. “The essence of stem-cell treatment is that we …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel backs the idea of a European Monetary Fund, provided national governments have sufficient oversight, sources close to her said before a visit by the French president. President Emmanuel Macron, who will meet Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, is pushing hard for bold euro zone reforms to defend the 19-member currency bloc against any repeat of the financial crisis that took hold in 2009 and threatened to tear it apart. His vision includes turning Europe’s existing ESM bailout fund into a European Monetary Fund (EMF). At one point, Macron also suggested the zone should have its own …

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Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns. Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him. “There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue …

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Vitaly Bespalov, a 23-year-old journalism school graduate, had no idea what to expect when he arrived at a nondescript four-story business center in St. Petersburg to interview for a job. Everything about the building at Savushkina 55 seemed odd. Security was heavy and the windows were tinted. Guards dressed in camouflage demanded his passport and his home address before letting him into the building. And, as he negotiated his entry, Bespalov noticed a woman enter the lobby in a rage. “She was yelling something about how she refused to be part of this,” says Bespalov. “Everything about the place was …

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Some of Europe’s biggest venture capital firms are buying into sales of new virtual coins or asking their investors to give them the freedom to do so, in a sign of mainstream investor backing for the booming but controversial crowd-funding tool. Germany’s HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, which has more than 1 billion euros ($1.23 billion) under management, is talking to its investors about changing the terms of its next fund so it can buy tokens directly, Jan Miczaika, a partner at the firm, told Reuters. Lakestar, the Zurich-based firm run by Klaus Hommels, has made at least four investments in crypto …

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Turkey is regressing in several areas, says a European Commission annual report in the group’s harshest criticism yet of Ankara’s efforts to join the European Union. The report also ruled out any further progress in Turkey’s accession in the current situation. “I am afraid the country continues to make huge strides away from the EU,” said European Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn at a news conference. “The commission repeatedly called on Turkey to reverse this trend as a matter of priority and make very clear recommendation on this in today’s report.” The commission issues an annual progress report on all …

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Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in the center of the Armenian capital on Tuesday to protest as parliament voted to allow former president Serzh Sarksyan to become prime minister in the former Soviet republic. Sarksyan was president from 2008 and demonstrators said he was switching jobs but clinging to power. Under a revised constitution approved by referendum in 2015, the prime minister will hold power while the presidency becomes largely ceremonial. Sarksyan’s ally Armen Sarkissian was sworn in as president last week after being elected by parliament and in March Sarksyan said he would become prime minister to allow …

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A Russian official says a team of chemical weapons experts is set to make a visit Wednesday to the site east of Syria’s capital where a suspected chemical attack killed dozens of people earlier this month. The investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrived in Syria on Saturday, but so far have not been able to begin their work in Douma. The U.S. envoy to the OPCW, Ken Ward, said Monday it was his understanding Russia had already visited the site and he raised concerns of tampering before the OPCW carries out its fact-finding mission. Russian …

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A Russian investigative journalist, who recently wrote about the deaths of Russian mercenaries in Syria, has died after falling from his 50th-floor balcony in the city of Yekaterinburg. Maxim Borodin, 32, was found badly injured on the pavement under his balcony and taken to a hospital, where he died Sunday, according to his employer, the news website Novy Den (New Day). Local police said they did not see any foul play, but his death prompted intense speculation among friends and colleagues. Borodin’s friend, Vyacheslav Bashkov, wrote on Facebook that Borodin contacted him early in the morning on Wednesday, the day …

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office said on Monday an “irresponsible” migration policy on the part of the European Union had stoked religious intolerance in western Europe that was threatening Jews there. His office issued a statement a week after Orban was re-elected by a landslide to a third straight term with a fierce anti-immigrant campaign that vilified Hungarian-born, Jewish-American tycoon George Soros for promoting liberal open-door values in Hungary and elsewhere in central and eastern Europe. The right-wing nationalist premier has presented himself as the savior of Hungary’s sovereignty and Christian values against what he calls an “invasion” of …

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Pro-European Union leader Milo Djukanovic has won Montenegro’s presidential election to extend his dominance over the country’s politics. The state election commission said on Monday a preliminary count showed he won 54.1 percent of Sunday’s vote with 97 percent counted and Mladen Bojanic won 33.2 percent on a 63.9 percent turnout. Bojanic is a businessman backed by an alliance of parties some of whom want closer ties with Russia. Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) led the Balkan republic of 620,000 people into NATO last year and he has pledged to complete talks for European Union membership. He …

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The United States and Britain issued a rare and ominous alert Monday charging Russia of ramping up cyber attacks on American and British companies, government operations and infrastructure.  Washington and London said the widespread, global campaign began in 2015 and could be escalated to launch offensive attacks. The warning came from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and Britain’s National Cyber Security Center, and included advice about what companies can do to protect themselves. American and British officials said the attacks affected a wide range of organizations including internet service providers, private businesses and critical infrastructure providers. They did …

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European foreign ministers and France’s parliament meet Monday to discuss their response to the joint U.S., French and British strikes on Syria. The military action has sparked sharp divisions, even though French President Emmanuel Macron insisted Sunday night they carried international legitimacy. EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg and France’s parliament in Paris are expected to question, but not seriously test, the decision by French and British leaders to join Washington in striking suspected chemical weapons facilities in Syria. Some EU leaders, like Germany’s Angela Merkel, have called the military action necessary — and the bigger debate may be on figuring …

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Russia will not delay adopting legislation in response to new U.S. sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday, RIA news agency reported. Senior members of the lower house of parliament have said they are considering legislation to give the Kremlin powers to ban or restrict a list of U.S. imports. Ryabkov said Moscow was discussing what he called Washington’s abuse of the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. …

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Prime Minister Theresa May is set to face British lawmakers to explain her decision to launch airstrikes against Syria without a vote in Parliament. Britain, the United States and France hit targets in Syria Saturday in response to a reported chemical attack in Douma. Parliament returns Monday after a spring break, and was not consulted about the action. The government is not legally bound to seek Parliament’s approval for military strikes, though it is customary to do so. May plans to tell lawmakers that the airstrikes were “in Britain’s national interest,” were carried out to stop further suffering from chemical …

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