Category: Євросоюз

Serbia has canceled a women’s World Championship qualifier handball match with Kosovo over security concerns after nationalists announced they would protest the game. Serbia’s Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told local media Friday he called off the match to avoid any clashes between nationalist fans and police. In response, the European Handball Federation (EHF) said it was expelling the Serbian team from the tournament. Match moved The game would have been the first documented sporting encounter between Serbia and its former province, Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a nation. “Could we have organized for …

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Britain’s opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn sacked his shadow Northern Ireland minister Friday after he called for a second referendum on Brexit, a move that exposes deep divisions in the party over whether to leave the European Union. Owen Smith, who challenged Corbyn for the party leadership in 2016, wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper Friday urging his party to reopen the question of whether Brexit was the right decision. Smith said he was sacked for voicing his opinion that Brexit will damage the economy and threaten the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which ended decades of …

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British investigators have entered the London offices of the data research firm Cambridge Analytica, which is at the center of controversy over the alleged use of millions of people’s personal data from the Facebook social network. About 20 investigators arrived at the firm’s central London offices late Friday, soon after a judge granted a search warrant that Britain’s Information Commissioners Office had requested. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is investigating claims the research firm illegally acquired the personal data from Facebook.  The research firm is alleged to have illegally used the data of an estimated 50 million Facebook users to build …

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European Union leaders have given their unqualified backing to Britain over its accusation that Russia used a nerve agent to try to kill former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in southern England earlier this month. The two victims remain hospitalized in critical condition. A policeman first on the scene, who also was infected with the nerve agent, was discharged from the hospital Thursday. WATCH: EU Backs Britain in Russian Spy Standoff; Europe Demands Full US Tariff Exemptions Speaking Friday at the EU summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister Theresa May offered gratitude for the bloc’s solidarity against …

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At least one person is believed to have been killed Friday after a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State militant group fired shots in a supermarket during an apparent hostage situation in the southwestern French town of Trebes. “We unfortunately presume one person has been killed, but we cannot bring a doctor on site to check,” said regional police chief Jean-valery Letterman. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said investigators are treating the situation as a terrorist act. National police said law enforcement authorities had surrounded the suspect at the supermarket and may have taken hostages. …

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With the results of Russia’s presidential elections now nearly a week old, Russia’s domestic political analysts and foreign observers alike have largely arrived at the same conclusion: The March 18 contest brought few surprises for Russians and Westerners alike. While the Kremlin insists the elections were fair and transparent, a number of Russia’s leading political analysts are voicing concerns and predicting a succession crisis in the country in 2024, when Russian constitutional terms limits say Putin, now 65, will be ineligible to seek another consecutive term. The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which sent hundreds of …

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The sale of one Turkey’s largest media conglomerates to a pro-government businessman is being seen as the ruling AKP party strengthening its control of the media. The sale came as parliament on Thursday passed legislation widening government control of the internet, one of the last remaining platforms for critical and independent reporting. Dogan Media Company, owns a chain of prominent newspapers and TV channels. The company was reportedly sold to Demiroren Holding, whose owner, Erdogan Demiroren, has close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Demiroren will probably do to Dogan media what he did when he bought independent newspapers Milliyet …

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Allegations of illicit Libyan campaign financing now grabbing French headlines are also revisiting — and potentially revising — the tangled, roller-coaster relationship between Paris and Tripoli. Once centered on arms and oil sales, France’s strategic interests toward the North African country have since morphed to concerns about security and migration flows to Europe, following the chaotic aftermath of Libya’s 2011 uprising. From welcoming former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to Paris, to leading a NATO campaign that helped to unseat him, Paris has taken a more proactive policy toward Libya and other parts of the Middle East in recent years, some analysts …

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The British police officer who was poisoned by a nerve agent when he tried to help an ex-Russian spy and his daughter was released from the hospital Thursday. “There are really no words to explain how I feel right now,” Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey said in a statement. “Surreal is the word that keeps coming up. … I’m just a normal person with a normal life.” Bailey was hospitalized for three weeks in the southwestern English city of Salisbury. The apparent intended target of the poisoning — former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia — are still …

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“I brought tea for you — English tea, from Fortnum and Mason, the very best,” chirped the financial adviser in the foyer of a plush Moscow hotel near the Kremlin.  “You have a package for me, I think,” he added before scurrying off with his Russian client. The adviser, like many of his British colleagues, has been making routine rounds to reassure clients since the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain, an attempted assassination Britain accuses the Kremlin of orchestrating. British ministers and their Kremlin counterparts have been threatening further reprisals after retaliatory expulsions of diplomats …

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Time to check that mailbox.   Kensington Palace said Thursday that invitations for the wedding between Prince Harry and his American fiancée Meghan Markle have been dispatched.   Some 600 people have been invited to the May 19 nuptials at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. All 600 have also been invited to a lunchtime reception given by Queen Elizabeth II at St George’s Hall.   The invitations, which are beveled and gilded in gold along the edges, feature Prince Charles’ three-feather badge. They were made by Barnard & Westwood, which has held the Royal Warrant for printing and bookbinding …

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Poland’s government distanced itself Thursday from comments made by the prime minister’s father, who claimed Jews willingly entered ghettos during the German occupation of Poland to get away from their Christian neighbors. The comment by Kornel Morawiecki, a senior lawmaker and father of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, is the latest episode in weeks of bitterness that have erupted over a controversial new Holocaust speech law. Kornel Morawiecki claimed in a recent interview that Jews were not forced into ghettos by Germans but went willingly because “they were told there would be an enclave where they could get away from nasty …

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Saudi Arabian airstrikes are to blame for most civilian deaths and injuries in Yemen, says a report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council by the U.N. Secretary-General and High Commissioner for Human Rights. Yemen is entering its fourth year of conflict, a conflict the United Nations says is getting worse, with no end in sight. In late March 2015, Saudi Arabia began bombing Houthi rebels in support of the government.Since then, the U.N. Human Rights Office has verified 6,100 civilian deaths,more than one quarter of them children, and nearly 9,700 injuries. U.N. Deputy High Commissioner Kate Gilmore, who …

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The political fallout from an allegedly illegal Libyan campaign financing scandal continues to shake France, even as former president Nicolas Sarkozy strongly denies wrongdoing. Sarkozy claims that he has been accused without physical proof and that allegations of Libya illegally financing his 2007 campaign have made his life hell, according to Sarkozy’s alleged statement to investigating magistrates, published Thursday by France’s center-right Le Figaro newspaper. The 63-year-old Sarkozy is under formal investigation, a move that has shaken France’s political establishment.  At issue are allegations he accepted millions of dollars from the regime of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to finance …

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Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was handed preliminary charges Wednesday over allegations he accepted millions of euros in illegal campaign funding from the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. A judicial official told The Associated Press that investigating judges overseeing the probe had charged the ex-president with illegally funding his successful 2007 campaign, passive corruption and receiving money from Libyan embezzlement. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. The charges involving illegal campaign funding from a foreign dictator are the most serious faced by a former French president in recent history. They were presented after Sarkozy was …

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Tear gas was thrown into the Kosovo parliament Wednesday, but it failed to stop lawmakers from approving a major border agreement that is key to eventual membership in the European Union. Police arrested several opposition politicians who tossed tear gas several times just before voting was to take place, forcing lawmakers to evacuate the chamber. Despite the tactic, parliament passed the measure 80 to 11. The deal was hammered out in 2015. It sets Kosovo’s borders with neighboring Montenegro and fulfills a key requirement for Kosovars to enjoy visa-free travel throughout the European Union. It also moves Kosovo one step …

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Russia’s top election official has lashed out at U.S. State Department criticism that in the recent presidential election, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) denied observer status to 4,500 monitors linked to anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, along with 850 others with ties to Golos, the independent Moscow-based election watchdog. “This is an absolutely illiterate lie,” CEC Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova was quoted Tuesday as saying to Russia’s state-run TASS news organization. She was responding to a comment by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who on Friday tweeted about widespread news reports of election monitoring violations. “The #Russian Central Election Commission’s decision to deny …

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The U.S. says it had constructive talks with its European partners last week on changes to the Iran nuclear agreement, but it is making contingency plans in case the talks fail and President Donald Trump decides to pull out of the landmark 2015 deal. Lead negotiator and State Department Policy Planning Director Brian Hook told reporters Wednesday he cannot predict whether U.S. talks with Britain, France and Germany on forging a supplemental agreement to address what Trump sees as deficiencies in the Iran nuclear agreement can meet a May deadline. May 12 is when the Trump administration is supposed to …

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The U.S. and French presidents, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, agreed in a phone call Wednesday on “the need to take action to hold Russia accountable” for its use of a nerve agent in the attack in Britain on a former Russian spy and his daughter, the White House said. In a statement, the White House said Trump and Macron “reiterated their solidarity with the United Kingdom in the wake of Russia’s use of chemical weapons against private citizens on British soil.” Britain has blamed Moscow for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city …

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A British parliamentary committee on Tuesday summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions as authorities stepped up efforts to determine if the personal data of social-media users has been used improperly to influence elections. The request comes amid allegations that a data-mining firm based in the U.K. used information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. The company, Cambridge Analytica, has denied wrongdoing. However, the firm’s board of directions announced Tuesday evening that it had suspended CEO Alexander Nix pending an independent investigation of his actions. Nix made comments to …

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