A Moscow cinema has been warned after defying a government ban on showing The Death Of Stalin. (Please see related stories link for VOA story on “The Death of Stalin”) The black comedy was screened to a packed audience on January 25, and many said they didn’t find the satirical film offensive. (RFE/RL’s Russian Service) …
The U.S. Treasury has announced new sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian citizens involved in the Russian annexation of Crimea, barring them from doing business with Americans and freezing any assets they hold under U.S. jurisdiction. “The U.S. government is committed to maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and to targeting those who attempt to undermine the Minsk agreement,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday, referring to the agreement under which Russia and Ukraine are obligated to support a cease-fire, withdraw heavy weapons, and support electoral reform. The new sanctions target several Russian officials, including deputy energy ministers Andrei …
Netherlands’ spy service broke into the computers used by a powerful Russian hacking group and may be sitting on evidence relating to the breach of the U.S. Democratic National Committee, a Dutch newspaper and television show jointly reported Friday. Reports carried in the respected daily Volkskrant and the current affairs show Nieuwsuur say hackers working for the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service penetrated the computers used by the group, often nicknamed Cozy Bear, in mid-2014 and watched them for at least a year, even managing to catch the hackers on camera. Dutch officials declined comment; Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren, …
Lawyers for Julian Assange are asking a British court to drop an arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks founder. Assange’s attorney says the warrant has no purpose because he is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden over alleged sex offenses. Swedish prosecutors dropped the case last year. But Assange still faces arrest if he leaves the embassy of Ecuador in London, where he has been holed up since 2012. He is wanted for jumping bail and taking refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden. Lawyer Mark Summers told Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday that the arrest warrant had …
America’s Diversity Immigrant Visa Program — more commonly known as the Green Card Lottery — is among the immigration programs President Trump and others want to end. For more than 20 years, the program offers visas to people from countries with relatively few immigrants in the U.S. VOA Turkish Service reporter Mehmet Sumer introduces us to a winner of the lottery who is now living the American dream in El Paso, Texas. …
North Korea shipped coal to Russia last year which was then delivered to South Korea and Japan in a likely violation of U.N. sanctions, three Western European intelligence sources said. The U.N. Security Council banned North Korean exports of coal last Aug. 5 under sanctions intended to cut off an important source of the foreign currency Pyongyang needs to fund its nuclear weapon and long-range missile programs. But the secretive Communist state has at least three times since then shipped coal to the Russian ports of Nakhodka and Kholmsk, where it was unloaded at docks and reloaded onto ships that …
A partial jawbone bearing seven teeth unearthed in a cave in Israel represents what scientists are calling the oldest-known Homo sapiens remains outside Africa, showing that our species trekked out of that continent far earlier than previously known. Researchers on Thursday announced the discovery of the fossil estimated as 177,000 to 194,000 years old, and said the teeth bore telltale traits of Homo sapiens not present in close human relatives alive at the time, including Neanderthals. The fossil of the left part of the upper jaw of a young adult — the person’s sex remains unclear — came from Misliya …
Grocery shopping went a little nuts in France when a supermarket chain deeply discounted jars of Nutella. Aficionados of the chocolate hazelnut spread jostled and fought each other when the Intermarché supermarkets offered the treat at a 70 percent discount. “They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand,” one customer told French media. Videos posted on social media showed huge crowds gathered around pallets of Nutella, with people grabbing as many jars as they could carry. In some stores, including in Ostricourt in northern …
U.S. President Donald Trump has questioned whether peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians will ever resume. He made the remarks in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Trump is due to give a much-anticipated speech at the summit Friday. …
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the U.S is “not concerned” about the value of the dollar in the short-term. At a press briefing at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, Mnuchin said the short-term value of the dollar is dependent on many factors in what is a very liquid market. In the longer-term, he said, the U.S. currency’s value will be determined by the underlying strength of the U.S. economy. On Wednesday, Mnuchin sparked a big dollar sell-off when he said the recent fall in the value of the dollar was “good” for trade. The euro, for example, spiked …
A commuter train derailed Thursday in northern Italy, killing at least three people, seriously injuring 10 and trapping others heading into Milan at the start of the work day, officials said. The Trenord train derailed at a switch track near the Pioltello Limito station on the outskirts of the city, halting train traffic into and out of Italy’s financial capital for hours. At least two main cars from the middle of the train peeled off the rails but were still standing, albeit at an angle. Rescue crews gingerly climbed through the crushed sides of the cars trying to get …
Donald Trump arrived at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos on Thursday, the first serving U.S. president to attend since Bill Clinton in 2000. Analysts say many delegates are braced for a clash of competing visions for the global economy. Trump is expected to push his agenda of “America First,” which has seen the United States put tariffs on some imports and demand the restructuring of global trade deals. Other global powers, including Europe, China and Japan, are urging a renewed commitment to global free trade. Organizers hope the summit will help reconcile the rival …
Scientists have reconstructed the face of a 9,000-year-old Greek teenager, shining a new light on life in a period known as the dawn of civilization. Faith Lapidus reports. …
Relentless rain in Paris has authorities scrambling to safeguard residents in France’s capital. They suspended river traffic Wednesday and closed several rail stations as water in the Seine River keeps rising. Several people died in similar flooding in 2016, and the flood damage cost about 1 billion euros. Arash Arabasadi reports. …
Pope Francis denounced “fake news” as evil and urged reporters to rediscover the “dignity of journalism” and search for the truth. “Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions and serve economic interests, the pope wrote in an annual message released Wednesday in advance of the Roman Catholic Church’s World Communications Day on May 13. The document was the first released by a pope on the topic and came after months of ongoing debate about the effect of fake news stories on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The pope’s message cited the difficulty people have of …
Russia tightened its so-called “foreign agent” law last month to target overseas media operating in the country. It means the government can require media outlets to state that they are “foreign agents.” They also have to submit to intensive scrutiny of staffing and financing. Voice of America is among the media organizations to receive such a designation. Similar legislation was introduced in 2012 against civil society and non-governmental groups that receive any type of foreign financial support. The human rights group Memorial has long been targeted for its efforts at documenting historical crimes in the Soviet era, as well as …
Syria and Russia on Wednesday accused the United States of lying about chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian conflict as a way of derailing efforts to bring an end to the fighting. Syria’s state-run SANA news agency carried comments from a Foreign Ministry source condemning what it called “lies and allegations” by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency that whenever peace efforts advance, the United States promotes “rigged, unverified reports” of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Those comments came a day after …
Europe’s economy is on a roll — raising the question of exactly when the European Central Bank will end its extraordinary stimulus efforts. Bank President Mario Draghi will be at pains this week to leave that point open. No changes in stimulus settings or interest rates are expected at Thursday’s meeting of the bank’s 25-member governing council, which sets monetary policy for the 19 countries that use the euro. Draghi’s post-meeting news conference, however, will be closely scrutinized for any hints of a change in the timetable for withdrawing a key stimulus component — a massive bond-buying program — later …
Italy holds national elections on March 4 under a new, complicated electoral system that mixes proportional representation with first-past-the-post balloting. Unlike the previous electoral system, the new law does not provide any bonus to the first-placed party or coalition. Pollsters estimate that the winner this time around will need at least 40 percent of the vote, and probably more, to govern. No party or coalition has taken 40 percent of the vote in an opinion poll for months. Here are some of the more likely scenarios following the vote: The president’s government President Sergio Mattarella is the supreme arbiter of …
Officials in Washington say U.S. President Donald Trump will invite French President Emmanuel Macron to pay a state visit to the White House later this year. This would be the first state visit Trump has hosted since taking office. A state visit, in which one head of state hosts another, is considered the most formal and most prestigious type of diplomatic visit. It indicates friendly relations between two sovereign states. The Macrons are scheduled to visit the White House in late April. The White House has not confirmed Tuesday’s report that it will be a state visit. In July last …