Category: Євросоюз

As people around the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, once again promising to “never forget” the genocide that killed 6 million Jews during World War II, a new study shows Americans appear to be doing just that. The study released Thursday by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, found two-thirds of American millennials cannot identify what Auschwitz is. Twenty-two percent of millennials said they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it. The study found that there were significant age gaps in knowledge about the Holocaust, with 22 percent of millennials saying …

READ MORE

Senior British, French and German officials believe they are making headway toward an agreement that would address U.S. President Donald Trump’s concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, a European diplomat said on Thursday. “We came out feeling like we are making good progress towards addressing the president’s concerns and coming [up] to an agreement,” the diplomat told a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity. Senior diplomats from the three European nations met Brian Hook, the U.S. State Department’s director of policy planning, in Washington on Wednesday to try to find a way to salvage the arms control pact. The …

READ MORE

Amnesty International reports the number of executions around the world continued to fall last year, with a 4 percent drop in executions and a significant decline in the number of new death sentences. In an annual report on executions and the death penalty released on Thursday, the human rights organization said there were at least 993 executions in 23 countries last year, down 4 percent from 1,032 in 2016 and down 39 percent from 1,634 in 2015. The vast majority of global executions recorded last year took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, according to the report. …

READ MORE

Kensington Palace has announced that politicians and world leaders won’t be attending Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding. But 1,200 members of the public — many involved with charities or community groups — have been invited to the grounds of Windsor Castle for the May 19 celebration. That will give them a chance to see the royals arrive at the chapel and to see the carriage procession after the wedding ceremony. Here’s a look at some of the people invited:   – Pamela Anomneze, 52, who works with 306 Collective in London, which helps people with mental health issues by teaching them …

READ MORE

Four laboratories linked to the international chemical weapons watchdog have confirmed Britain’s findings that a nerve agent was used last month to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter. The confirmations were in an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) report released Thursday. British Ambassador to the U.N. Karen Pierce said OPCW’s conclusions “agree explicitly with the U.K.’s analysis” and added the chemical used in the attack was a “military-grade nerve agent of high purity.” British Prime Minister Theresa May said former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned last month in Salisbury, England …

READ MORE

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia was on an official visit Thursday to longtime commercial ally Spain, where activists are criticizing past and possible future sales of military equipment to the kingdom. Mohammed bin Salman was due to attend a banquet with Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia before meeting with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and with Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal.   The 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne and Rajoy were scheduled to preside over the signing of bilateral agreements, according to the visit’s official agenda, which provided no further details.   Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam …

READ MORE

The international chemical watchdog is preparing to release its report on the nerve agent used to poison a former spy and his daughter in southwestern England as Russia continues to deny suggestions that it was behind the attack. Britain’s Foreign Office said it has asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to publish a summary of its findings at midday Thursday.   Britain has blamed Russia for the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union. Russia denies any involvement, saying Britain hasn’t provided evidence to support …

READ MORE

America’s allies are offering to join a possible military response to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. But they’re urging Washington to avoid swift retaliation, saying that before a reprisal is launched, more evidence is needed that Syria was behind the chemical attack. In very direct terms, U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Twitter Wednesday that a military response was coming: Russian officials were quick to respond, saying if there was an American strike, then Russia would shoot down the missiles and target the positions from where they were launched. “Smart missiles …

READ MORE

When the U.S. fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield a year ago after a chemical weapons attack, the Pentagon gave Moscow advance warning to get its personnel out of harm’s way. Since then, U.S.-Russian relations have soured, and the two nuclear powers have raised the ante, getting dangerously close to a potential military clash in Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump has taunted Moscow to “get ready” for “nice and new and ‘smart”‘ missiles coming to punish Syria for a purported chemical attack on Saturday that killed at least 40 people. The tweet followed Russia’s warning that it will strike …

READ MORE

The daughter of poisoned former spy Sergei Skripal said Wednesday that she didn’t want help from the Russian Embassy as she recovers from the nerve agent attack that left her and her father in critical condition and created an international furor. Yulia Skripal, 33, said in a statement that she found herself with a “totally different life” than the one she had before the March 4 poisoning in southwest England. She was released from the hospital this week, while Sergei Skripal remains hospitalized. “I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered …

READ MORE

Azerbaijan’s longtime president, Ilham Aliyev, won a fourth term Wednesday in an election boycotted by the opposition. Election officials said they expected Aliyev to finish with 86 percent of the vote. “I am grateful to my people for voting for our achievements and success,” Aliyev said late Wednesday, as supporters drove cars and honked their horns in celebration through central Baku. Election officials said they had received no complaints of fraud, although some in the opposition reported incidents of some voters casting multiple ballots. European election monitors planned to issue their report Thursday. Wednesday’s election was originally scheduled for October …

READ MORE

The English hospital treating poisoned spy Sergei Skripal on Wednesday accused a Russian TV crew of “appalling behavior” for sneaking into the facility overnight. Footage posted online by British newspapers showed a reporter from the REN TV network walking along corridors at Salisbury District Hospital early Wednesday and commenting on the apparent lack of security. The hospital said in a statement that “this footage shows appalling behavior on the part of these Russian journalists — approaching staff in the middle of the night with no warning and without asking for any permission.” It said “any attempt to harass, intimidate or cause …

READ MORE

One of Hungary’s two national opposition dailies will shut down on Wednesday due to financial problems, its publisher said, in a sign of rapidly deteriorating prospects for media freedom after the landslide re-election of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The closure of Magyar Nemzet will be a milestone in the gradual disappearance of independent media in Hungary that western European Union leaders and international rights groups say underlines the country’s slide into authoritarianism. The 80-year-old daily is owned by tycoon Lajos Simicska, once an ally of the right-wing nationalist prime minister who fell out with him and became one of his …

READ MORE

Russian retailers warned of price increase after ruble tumbles European electronic and household goods manufacturers have warned Russian retailers of a possible 5 to 10 percent rise in prices after the ruble tumbled this week due to U.S. sanctions, retailers said on Tuesday. Eldorado, which operates over 400 stores in Russia, said the hikes may mean it has to adjust its retail prices. “Suppliers have already started warning of a possible 5-10 percent adjustment in prices,” a spokesperson for Eldorado told Reuters, adding that the warnings had primarily come from European manufacturers that do not produce goods in Russia. A …

READ MORE

Emmanuel Macron has blurred a line that has kept French government free of religious intervention for generations, critics said on Tuesday, after he called for stronger ties between the state and the Catholic Church. The issue is particularly sensitive in historically Catholic France, where matters of faith and state were separated by law in 1905 and which is now home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities. The president’s remark might have raised fewer eyebrows had he left it until later in a one-hour speech on Monday night to Church dignitaries in Paris, where he began by saying that just …

READ MORE

Italian President Sergio Mattarella will hold a second round of talks about the formation of a coalition government on April 12-13, his office said on Tuesday, with no indication that any breakthrough is at hand. Mattarella has the power to name a prime minister, but elections on March 4 resulted in a hung parliament and a first round of consultations ended in stalemate last week. Since then, the various political blocs seem to have drifted even further apart, firing daily barbs at each other and showing no sign of wanting to lay aside the rancor of the election campaign and …

READ MORE

The leaders who brokered a peace deal for Northern Ireland in 1998 marked its 20th anniversary on Tuesday by warning that a hardening political divide and Britain’s exit from the EU were creating new dangers for the region. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined Irish and Northern Irish politicians in Belfast to mark the breakthrough on April 10, 1998, that called an end to 30 years of sectarian violence in which around 3,600 people died. But the collapse early last year of the power-sharing administration at the heart of that deal meant there was …

READ MORE

Yulia Skripal has been released from the hospital after she and her father were poisoned last month in Britain. Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, were found unconscious and in critical condition on a bench on March 4 in the southern British city of Salisbury. They remained in critical condition for weeks until their health began to rapidly improve. The British government says Russian operatives poisoned them with a military-grade nerve agent.  Russia has denied it was involved in the incident. Salisbury District Hospital Director Christine Blanshard did not say when Yulia was released, but sources …

READ MORE

Voters in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan are set to cast ballots in a snap presidential election Wednesday that is all but certain to extend the rule of the country’s long-serving leader by another seven years. President Ilham Aliyev is expected to win the vote by a landslide. Leading opposition parties boycotted the race, leaving seven token challengers. Opinion surveys have put support for the incumbent at over 80 percent. Aliyev, 56, has led Azerbaijan since 2003. He succeeded his father, Geidar Aliyev, who ruled Azerbaijan first as Communist Party boss and then as a post-Soviet president for …

READ MORE

Hungary’s Central European University, an international school embroiled in a conflict with the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said Monday it had signed an agreement with the City of Vienna to open a new satellite campus there. CEU has found itself in the eye of a political storm since last year, when Hungary passed a law setting tougher conditions for the awarding of licenses to foreign universities. Critics said the law would hurt academic freedom and was especially aimed at CEU, founded by Hungarian-born George Soros after the collapse of Communism and considered a bastion of independent scholarship in …

READ MORE