Category: Євросоюз

Czech President Milos Zeman has won the first round in the nation’s presidential election, and now must face Jiri Drahos, the former head of the country’s Academy of Sciences, in a runoff vote in two weeks. Eight candidates were hoping to unseat the current controversy-courting 73-year-old leader, who is seeking another five-year term. With 95 percent of ballots counted by the Czech Statistics Office, and a 61-percent turnout, Zeman was leading with 39.3 percent of the vote, followed by Drahos with 26.3 percent. A former diplomat, Pavel Fischer, placed third with 10.1 percent. None of the other candidates seeking the …

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Thousands of Austrians are protesting their country’s new right-wing government with a march in Vienna.   Police in the capital said about 20,000 people were attending the march on Saturday.   Some protesters carried placards reading “Never Again.” Others chanted slogans such as “Refugees should stay, drive out the Nazis.”   The new governing coalition made up of the conservative Austrian People’s Party and the nationalist Freedom Party has taken a hard line against migration.   …

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A new biography of French first lady Brigitte Macron says her husband penned a racy novel inspired by their early romance, when he was still a teenager and she his married drama teacher. President Emmanuel Macron, who turned 40 last month, fell for Brigitte during rehearsals for a school play at the Providence high school in Amiens, and defied his parents’ disapproval to pursue the relationship with a woman 24 years his senior. The book, “Brigitte Macron, The Liberated Woman”, to be published next week, quotes a family neighbor from Macron’s home town who says she typed up the 300-page …

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Authorities say three people have died after a bus collided with a car near the Czech capital.   Prague firefighters say a total of 48 people were injured in the accident that took place Friday near the town of Horomerice, just northwest of Prague.    Authorities say the municipal bus veered off the road and into a tree after it was hit by the car. The bus driver, the driver of the car and one bus passenger died in the crash.   Prague rescue service says 12 teenagers were among the injured. …

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Russia deployed a new division of S-400 surface-to-air missiles in Crimea on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported, in an escalation of military tensions on the Crimean peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, triggering economic sanctions by the European Union and United States and a tense standoff in the region. The U.S. said in December it planned to provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities,” which officials said included Javelin anti-tank missiles. Moscow’s latest deployment represents the second division armed with S-400 air defense systems on the peninsula, after the first in the spring of 2017 near the port town …

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Japan’s prime minister Friday landed in Estonia, his first stop on a tour of the Baltic states and other European nations as he seeks to drum up support for his hawkish stance on North Korea. Despite a recent cooling of tensions in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, Shinzo Abe has insisted on “maximizing pressure” on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs. In the Estonian capital Tallinn, Abe met with President Kersti Kaljulaid and Prime Minister Juri Ratas and discussed bilateral cooperation on cybersecurity, a topic that digital-savvy Estonia has championed since being hit by one …

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Riot police used tear gas on protesters in Athens, Greece, on Friday, as thousands of people gathered in the streets to demonstrate against a new austerity bill coming up for a vote Monday. The police deployed tear gas when a small group of demonstrators tried to enter the parliament building. No arrests or injuries were reported. The bill, which has triggered demonstrations all week in the Greek capital, is expected to be one of the last major packages of cuts before the end of Greece’s EU bailout package in August. It would limit workers’ rights to strike and speed up …

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In the latest tit for tat between NATO allies Turkey and the United States, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has issued a travel advisory urging the country’s citizens to reconsider visiting the U.S., citing security concerns. “We observe an increasing number of terror plots and acts of violence in the U.S.,” said the Foreign Ministry on its website. The advisory listed a series of incidents that have occurred since 2016, including at Ohio State University, the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida, the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Minnesota and a church in Texas. The Foreign Ministry also warned of the danger …

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The U.N. human rights office has sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s vulgar comments on migrants from Africa and Haiti, calling them shocking and shameful. Trump’s reportedly crude outburst against migrants from the African continent and Haiti have set off a firestorm of global rebuke. Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Office, calls Trump’s remarks clearly racist. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘s—holes’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome. The positive comment on Norway makes the underlying sentiment very clear,” Colville said. Recalling Trump’s earlier comments vilifying Mexicans who cross …

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Angela Merkel has survived as German chancellor but the coalition deal she clinched on Friday puts her fate in the hands of her Social Democrat (SPD) partners and risks eroding support from her close allies before the end of her fourth term. Europe’s pre-eminent leader for more than 12 years, Merkel’s star is waning as she pays for her 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over a million refugees, a move that cost her Christian Democrats votes and fueled the rise of the far-right. After the collapse of talks in November to form a three-way coalition with the …

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The Czechs are electing a new president, and eight candidates are hoping to unseat the current controversy-courting leader. President Milos Zeman, 73, is seeking another five-year term in the largely ceremonial post and is the favorite to win the election’s first-round vote on Friday and Saturday. Two political newcomers, the former president of the Academy of Sciences, Jiri Drahos, and popular song writer Michal Horacek are considered his major challengers. Others with a chance to advance to the runoff are Mirek Topolanek, an outspoken leader who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009, and Pavel Fischer, a former diplomat. …

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Increased attacks in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province will spark a new wave of migration, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Friday, calling on Russia and Iran to rein in a Syrian army offensive near Turkey’s southern border. The Syrian government offensive supported by Iran-backed militia has gathered pace and displaced tens of thousands of people since November, according to the United Nations. Turkey, which opposes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but has been working with his allies Iran and Russia to reduce the fighting in Idlib, says the latest army assault could not have taken place without Tehran and Moscow’s …

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Turkey on Friday cautioned its citizens about traveling to the United States, in retaliation for a new U.S. travel advisory that warned Americans about terror threats and arbitrary detentions in Turkey. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the U.S. travel warning “unfairly” portrayed Turkey as an unsafe country and did nothing to improve frayed ties between the NATO allies. “Ankara is as safe as Washington, Istanbul is as safe as New York,” Yildirim said. The Turkish travel advisory urged citizens to reconsider travel plans to the United States, citing a series of terror attacks and violent incidents, including in Charlottesville, Ohio …

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living in asylum inside Ecuador’s embassy in London for five years, was granted Ecuadorian citizenship, the country’s foreign minister said Thursday. The move was seen as an unsuccessful attempt to allow Assange to leave the embassy without facing arrest by British police. London denied Ecuador’s request to grant Assange diplomatic status, which would give him safe passage out of the embassy. “Ecuador is currently exploring other solutions in dialogue with the UK,” Ecuador’s foreign minister, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, told reporters Thursday. “There are well-founded fears we have about possible risks to his life …

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Turn up at a polling station in Russia in March and get the chance to win an iPhone or iPad. That’s one of the plans the Kremlin is considering in a bid to secure a high turnout in the presidential elections being held then, according to a leaked document reported by a Russian media outlet. Vladimir Putin’s re-election as president is assured. Yet while he remains highly popular, according to opinion polls, the overall success of the presidential election isn’t, and opposition activists say the Kremlin is worried as it tries to balance between keeping tight control over campaigning and …

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Russia’s government is threatening additional penalties against U.S. media operating in Russia. The threat is the latest in a back and forth dispute between Washington and Moscow over the treatment of media outlets operating in each other’s countries.  Ever since U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report last January, claiming a Russian media role in alleged Kremlin meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the media have been garnering unwelcome headlines. First, the U.S. demanded the Russian state-affiliated RT news service register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, an 80-year-old law first introduced to counter Nazi propaganda during World …

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The suspected attempt on the life of a German Kurdish football player and outspoken critic of the Turkish government is fueling suspicions the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could be targeting opponents abroad.   On Sunday, Deniz Naki’s car was shot at twice while he was driving in Germany.  The footballer escaped without injury. “I could have died,” Naki said in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.  “I always knew something like this could happen.  But I would never have expected it to happen in Germany.”   Naki, who was born in Germany, plays for the Amedspor football …

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The former owner of a luxury British bra maker that supplied lingerie to Queen Elizabeth II says the company lost its royal warrant after she wrote a book disclosing details of fittings at Buckingham Palace.   June Kenton said Rigby & Peller lost its right to display the royal coat of arms in 2016 after she mentioned the royals in “Storm in a D-cup.”   While Kenton said she never discusses what happens in a fitting room, the book recounts her first meeting with the monarch and her trepidation about being ushered into the royal bedroom.   The 82-year-old Kenton …

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Ax-wielding robbers stole jewelry on Wednesday possibly worth more than $5 million from a store in the famed Ritz Paris hotel, police said. Five thieves carried out the heist at the luxury hotel in late afternoon. Three were arrested while two others got away. There were no injuries. “The loss is very high and remains to be assessed,” one police source said. Another put the figure at 4.5 million euros ($5.38 million), but said that a bag had been recovered possibly containing some of the loot. The hotel first opened in 1898 and was the first Paris hotel to boast …

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Kosovo President Hashim Thaci is insisting that he will sign legislation to abolish a special court set up to try former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members for war and postwar crimes if parliament passes such a measure. “The law on [the] special court is in place, but if the parliament votes otherwise, it will be my legal and constitutional duty to sign such legislation,” he said in a Wednesday interview with VOA’s Albanian Service. It is unclear why Thaci, a former leader of the KLA, changed his position on the Hague-based special court, which was set up under Kosovo’s jurisdiction. …

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