Category: Євросоюз

The World Health Organization is calling for resolute action to end violence against children. WHO’s appeal comes in advance of a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden this week that will seek solutions to the problem of violence, which affects one out of every two children on this planet. The upcoming conference will explore ways to achieve the U.N.’s sustainable development goal of ending violence against children by 2030. But, the statistics weigh heavily against this aspiration. The World Health Organization reports one half of the two billion children on earth, aged between two and 17, are victims of physical, sexual or …

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All 71 people aboard a Russian passenger plane were killed when it crashed near Moscow, Russian officials said Sunday. “Sixty-five passengers and six crew members were on board, and all of them died,” Russia’s office of transport investigations said in a statement. The seven-year-old plane disappeared from the radar just minutes after departing from the capital city’s second largest airport, Domodedovo and was falling up to 6,700 meters per minute in the last seconds of the crash, flight-tracking site FlightRadar24 reported. The An-148 regional jet, operated by Saratov Airlines, was traveling from Domodedovo, to the city of Orsk when it …

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London’s newest museum attraction is greasy, smelly – and a glimpse at the hidden underside of urban life. The Museum of London on Thursday unveiled its latest display, a chunk of a 130-metric-ton (143-U.S.-ton) fatberg that but was blasted out of a city sewer last year. It took sewage workers with jet hoses nine weeks to dislodge the 250-meter (820-foot) -long mass of oil, fat, diapers and baby wipes from beneath Whitechapel in the city’s East End. The museum has lovingly preserved a chunk the size of a shoe-box, whose mottled consistency a curator likens to parmesan crossed with moon …

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EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is dismissing criticism of the newly released European Commission enlargement strategy for the Western Balkans. Unveiled Tuesday, the strategy document says aspiring member nations Serbia and Montenegro in particular could become full members by 2025, assuming they successfully implement all required reforms and commit to “fundamental values” of the European bloc. As widely reported, the document is a product of Brussels’ redoubled efforts to exercise power in a region under growing influence from Moscow and Beijing, as one of its own member nations, Britain, pulls away. “Although Europe has identified the [Balkan] region’s problems …

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Britain’s Charity Commission must conduct a “full and urgent investigation” into Oxfam following an alleged cover-up of its staff hiring prostitutes in Haiti during a 2011 relief effort on the earthquake-hit island, the prime minister’s office said Saturday. “The reports of what is unacceptable behavior by senior aid workers in Haiti are truly shocking,” a spokeswoman for Theresa May said. “We want to see Oxfam provide all the evidence they hold of the events to the Charity Commission for a full and urgent investigation of these very serious allegations.” The call came as the British charities regulator released its own statement …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to comment Saturday on a Polish law that imposes jail terms for suggesting the country was complicit in the Holocaust, saying she did not want to wade into Poland’s internal affairs. The law would impose prison sentences of up to three years for using the phrase “Polish death camps” and for suggesting “publicly and against the facts” that the Polish nation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany’s crimes. “Without directly interfering in the legislation in Poland, I would like to say the following very clearly as German chancellor: We as Germans are responsible for …

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Skier Albin Tahiri will miss Kosovo’s 10th-anniversary celebrations next week — but as the country’s first winter Olympian, he thinks his 1.8 million compatriots will forgive him while he competes in the Pyeongchang Games that began Friday. While it has long had snow-capped mountains offering steep slopes and deep powder, Kosovo didn’t exist as a country until it broke free from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after a NATO-led bombing campaign pushed out Serbian forces to end a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanians during a two-year battle for independence. Now the 28-year-old Tahiri will compete in all five alpine-ski …

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Norway’s Marit Bjoergen entered the history books Saturday at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.  She became the most decorated female winter Olympian of all time when she won a silver medal in the 15K skiathlon.  It was her 11th medal – six gold, four silver and a bronze. Charlotte Kalla of Sweden won this year’s first gold medal when she won the skiathlon.  She won the race by more than seven seconds, breaking away from the pack in the final two kilometers to avenge her loss to Bjoergen in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Krista Parmakoski of Finland won …

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“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” — an old saying that often elicits groans — is just what organizers of an exhibition of 20th and 21st century photographic masterpieces at the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne believe and are promoting. The exhibit, “The Beauty of Lines,” exposes 160 photographs from the extensive, New York-based Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla collection, considered one of the top five private collections in the world. “The exhibition is a journey throughout the beauty of photography,” said Tatyana Franck, director of the internationally renowned Swiss photographic museum. “The show is intended to have …

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A new vocabulary program claims to dramatically accelerate a child’s understanding of language. As Faith Lapidus reports, the Mrs Wordsmith teaching system relies on cartoon drawings and short word exercises to boost academic achievement. …

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The detention in northern Syria by U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters of two notorious British jihadists, the remaining members of a militant quartet that tortured and beheaded Western hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, is being greeted with pleas by former Western captives of the terror group that they face trial. Nicolas Henin, a French reporter held for 10 months by the British gang, has told British and U.S. broadcasters that he wants the militants to face justice for their crimes somewhere he and other former hostages and the relatives of murdered victims will be able to attend and testify.  …

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press Turkey to release Americans detained by Ankara, and urge the NATO ally to show restraint in military operations in northern Syria, according to senior U.S. officials. “At times like this, engagement is all the more important,” said a State Department official on Friday, while acknowledging, “It’s going to be a difficult conversation.” Turkey is the second stop of Tillerson’s five-nation visit to the Middle East next week, following a visit to Jordan. He will also meet with senior officials from Lebanon, Egypt and Kuwait. The top U.S. diplomat’s visit to Ankara comes …

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There are growing fears that Britain could be headed for a so-called “cliff-edge” exit from the European Union, as big differences remain between Brussels and London over the shape of any future deal.  The European Union’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, voiced frustration Friday that London has yet to detail what type of relationship it wants with the EU after Brexit. “We had agreed with the British team on an agenda this week covering Ireland, the governance of the withdrawal agreement, and of course the transition,” Barnier told reporters in Brussels. “We had also planned an update by the United Kingdom …

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U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is due in Turkey this weekend, as a potential military confrontation looms between the two countries over Syria. The NATO allies disagree over Turkey’s military intervention in Syria against a Kurdish militia which is a key U.S. ally in the war against Islamic State. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu this week lambasted Washington, accusing it of making deals with Islamic State militants and claiming his government has lost confidence in its alliance with the U.S. Such verbal assaults against Washington by Turkey’s political leadership are almost a daily occurrence. A recent poll found only …

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Politicians and public figures suspected of buying property with corrupt money will be forced to explain their wealth, or face the seizure of their assets under new legislation that has come into force in Britain this month. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the so-called Unexplained Wealth Orders have been welcomed by activists, who say the British capital is at the center of a global web of corrupt and embezzled money. …

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When two people see things the same way, it is often said that they are “operating on the same wavelength.” That concept recently got a scientific stamp of approval when researchers at the University of Cambridge found that adults’ and infants’ brainwaves synchronize when they look at each other’s eyes while singing a nursery rhyme. VOA’s George Putic has more. …

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Virtual-reality-based therapy combined with standard treatment reduced paranoia and anxiety in people with psychotic disorders, scientists reported Friday. In clinical trials involving 116 patients in the Netherlands, virtual reality exercises led to less fraught social interactions, a team wrote in The Lancet Psychiatry. More research is needed to confirm the long-term benefits of such technology, which gave the impression of being in an alternate reality populated by lifelike avatars. Avoiding public places, people Up to 90 percent of people with psychosis suffer from paranoid thoughts, leading them to perceive threats where there are none. As a result, many psychotics avoid …

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Turkey and Russia’s presidents have reportedly agreed to meet with their Iranian counterpart in Istanbul in the near future. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Thursday amid growing tensions between the countries over Syria.The two also agreed to increase coordination between their forces in Syria. The telephone conversation follows a tumultuous few days in Syria. Saturday, a Russian made missile was blamed by Ankara for the destruction of a Turkish tank and the killing of eight Turkish soldiers in the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin. The deaths were the worst loss for Turkey since …

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Russia has warned Islamic State is turning northern Afghanistan into a “resting base” of international terrorism and a “bridgehead” for establishing its “destructive” caliphate in the region. The “international wing of Daesh” is spearheading the effort of terrorists spilling over the borders of Syria and Iraq and moving worldwide, asserted Russian ambassador to Pakistan, Alexey Dedov. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for IS. “With clear connivance, and sometimes even with direct support of certain local and outside sponsors, thousands of militants of various nationalities are consolidating under the banners of Daesh there (in northern Afghanistan), including jihadis from Syria and …

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The top surviving suspect of the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, stayed mostly silent during a much awaited trial appearance Monday in Brussels. The trial is for a case involving a shootout with Belgian police. Salah Abdeslam quickly shattered any hopes he might finally talk about his role in the 2015 Paris attacks, the deadliest in recent French history. Bearded, long-haired and clad in a white polo, Abdeslam arrived under tight security at the main courthouse in Brussels.  He first refused to stand or answer questions but then claimed Muslims were unfairly judged and said he would only respond to …

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