Category: Євросоюз

The International Olympic Committee said on Friday it had banned 11 Russian athletes for life after they committed doping offences at the 2014 Sochi winter games. Among them are speed skaters Ivan Skobrev, a two-time medalist at the Vancouver 2010 Games, and Artem Kuznetcov. Along with lugers Tatyana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko, who both won silver medals in Sochi, cross-country skiers Nikita Kryukov, Alexander Bessmertnykh — both silver medallists — and Natalia Matveeva, bobsledders Liudmila Udobkina and Maxim Belugin, and ice hockey players Tatiana Burina and Anna Shchukina, they were disqualified from the events they took part in. They were …

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Catalan separatists have claimed victory in a crucial snap election Thursday that could decide the future of Spain and its northern province. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the three secessionist parties together had won enough votes for 70 seats in the 135-seat assembly. But the Citizens party, which wants Catalonia to remain a semiautonomous part of Spain, appeared to be on track to become the biggest single party, with 35 seats in the parliament. As a result, it was unclear who would be given the right to form a government. The Spanish government called the election …

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Hackers tried to steal 55 million rubles ($940,000) from Russian state bank Globex using the SWIFT international payments messaging system, the bank said Thursday, the latest in a string of attempted cyberheists that use fraudulent wire-transfer requests. Globex President Valery Ovsyannikov told Reuters that the attempted attack occurred last week, but that “customer funds have not been affected.” The bank’s disclosure came after SWIFT, whose messaging system is used to transfer trillions of dollars each day, warned late last month that the threat of digital heists was on the rise as hackers use increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques to launch …

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Two Turkish-American men have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a brawl at the Turkish Embassy in Washington earlier this year,  according to court documents. Sinan Narin, 45, of Virginia and Eyup Yildirim, 50,  of New Jersey “each pled guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to one count of assault with significant bodily injury. The pleas, which are contingent upon the Court’s approval, call for each defendant to be sentenced to agreed-upon terms of one year and one day of incarceration.” Eighteen people, many of whom were members of the Turkish ambassador’s security detail, were indicted …

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The United States has approved the sale by U.S. manufacturers of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed this week that Congress was notified of the matter on December 13. The legal framework for U.S. manufacturers to sell arms to Ukraine has existed since the Obama administration, Nauert said.  Nauert noted in remarks to reporters Wednesday that the government itself was not supplying weapons to Ukraine, but only allowing U.S. weapons manufacturers to do so. The export license covers such weapons as semiautomatic and automatic firearms, the Reuters news agency reported. It includes combat shotguns, silencers, …

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Poland’s populist government remained defiant Thursday in the face of a European Commission decision to trigger a legal procedure that could lead to Poland losing EU voting rights. The unprecedented move by the commission to invoke an article 7 process to deter the Polish government from tightening political control over the judiciary was met with bravado by the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, who in a television address said he would go ahead and sign two controversial reform laws, adding to 11 other measures. Duda was careful in his late Wednesday address, though, not to repeat some of the more fiery …

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Catalonia holds a regional election Thursday that the Spanish government hopes will strip pro-independence parties of their control of the Catalan parliament and end their campaign to force a split with Spain. But, though final polls showed separatist and unionist parties running neck-and-neck, an effective pro-independence majority remains a likely outcome that would jolt financial markets and cast a long shadow over national politics. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the Dec. 21 vote in October in the hopes of returning Catalonia to “normality” under a unionist government. He sacked its previous government for holding a banned referendum and declaring …

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A jury did not reach a verdict in its first day of deliberations in the trial of a Turkish banker accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions and launder billions of dollars in oil revenue. Deliberations began early Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after Judge Richard Berman read instructions on the law to jurors. The jury went home four hours later after requesting some pens and coffee. The trial of Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla has featured testimony about bribery and corruption at high levels in Turkey. Turkish officials have lobbed counteraccusations that U.S. prosecutors are basing …

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Pope Francis is set to offer a “final commendation” Thursday at the Rome funeral of Cardinal Bernard Law, even as Law’s critics recalled him as the disgraced archbishop of Boston in the United States who covered up the actions of pedophile priests. The Vatican said Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will celebrate the funeral mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for Law, who died earlier this week in Rome at the age of 86 after a long illness. Pope Francis will then offer a blessing for Law, as he has done previously at other cardinals’ funerals. …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s most senior minister, Damian Green, has resigned at her request after an internal investigation found that he had made misleading comments about pornography found on computers in his parliamentary office. The resignation of one of her most trusted allies, who helped pacify her deeply divided party, is a serious blow for May as she navigates the final year of tortuous Brexit negotiations before Britain’s exit in March 2019. Green was appointed in the wake of her disastrous bet on a June snap election which lost her party its majority in parliament. Green, an old friend, …

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Turkish citizens wishing to visit the United States will again be able to apply for visas, but not anytime soon. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara announced this week that the earliest appointments for applications are in January 2019, more than a year from now. The U.S. suspended all nonimmigrant visa services in Turkey Oct. 8 in response to the arrest of Metin Topuz, a consulate employee in Istanbul, on terrorism charges. Turkey shut down visa services in the U.S. in retaliation. WATCH: Student Arif Yediren The two nations resumed limited visa services in early November, around the time of a …

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Austria’s new chancellor traveled to Brussels on Tuesday on his first foreign trip since being sworn in, aiming to dispel concerns that his coalition with the far right spells trouble for the European Union. Responding to a letter on Monday from European Council President Donald Tusk that underlined EU worries, 31-year-old conservative leader Sebastian Kurz tweeted back that his new government would be “clear pro-European and committed to making a positive contribution to the future development of the EU.” A day after he took office at the head of a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Kurz delivered that …

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In the heart of Barcelona lies a foreboding reminder of Spain’s past. La Modelo prison is located just a few blocks from the Catalan capital’s main railway station and many of the city’s major tourist attractions.  The jail housed political prisoners during the 40-year dictatorship under General Francisco Franco. More than 1,000 were executed. Barcelona was the last bastion of republican resistance in the Spanish civil war, falling to Franco’s forces in 1939. In the four decades of dictatorship that followed, many continued the opposition fight underground. Among them was Felipe Moreno, who was eventually caught and jailed in 1975. He has …

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The European Union’s executive may trigger a process on Wednesday to begin to strip Poland of its voting rights in the bloc, officials say, as months of tensions between Brussels and Warsaw come to a head. In what would be an unprecedented move, the European Commission could invoke Article 7 of the European Union’s founding Lisbon Treaty to punish Warsaw for breaking its rules on human rights and democratic values. “Unless the Polish government postpones these court reforms, we will have no choice but to trigger Article 7,” said a senior EU official before a Commission meeting on Wednesday, where …

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The Czech parliament revoked an election of a Communist-era policeman to a police oversight job on Tuesday after some lawmakers claimed the vote was manipulated. Earlier, the lower chamber entrusted oversight of the police force to Zdenek Ondracek, former member of a Communist-era special unit which tried to crush the peaceful 1989 uprising that helped to bring down Communist rule. The unprecedented appointment of a Communist lawmaker as chairman of parliament’s General Inspection of Security Forces commission appeared to be part of complex manoeuvring by the new prime minister, billionaire businessman Andrej Babis, and his ANO party to get backing …

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Fighting in eastern Ukraine has escalated to the worst level in months, officials monitoring the conflict said Tuesday, after the shelling of a front-line village wounded eight civilians and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes. A Russia-backed insurgency erupted in 2014 and the bloodshed has continued despite a cease-fire deal that was meant to end a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors the implementation of the peace agreement, said it had recorded 16,000 cease-fire violations from December 11 to …

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Police say a British man who was arrested at an air base used by the U.S. Air Force in England has been detained for involuntary treatment under the Mental Health Act. That means authorities believe he needs urgent treatment for a mental health problem and poses a risk to himself and others.   The 44-year-old man has not been charged in connection with an incident Monday that prompted a lockdown at the RAF Mildenhall base.   He was arrested on suspicion of criminal trespass after trying to enter the base. Police say the incident was not connected to terrorism.   …

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Turkey will take the resolution calling on the United States to withdraw its declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital to the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday. The resolution was introduced to the U.N. Security Council on Monday by Egypt, a non-permanent member, but was vetoed by the United States, despite the 14 other votes in favor. “Now, God willing, we will carry the resolution to the U.N. General Assembly,” Erdogan a joint news conference with the Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh. “A two-thirds support in the General Assembly would actually mean the …

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Pope Francis and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday discussed U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that both say is dangerous to Middle East peace. Abdullah and the pope spoke privately for about 20 minutes at the start of the king’s visit to the Vatican and France. A Vatican statement said they discussed “the promotion of peace and stability in the Mideast, with particular reference to the question of Jerusalem and the role of the Hashemite Sovereign as Custodian of the Holy Places.” King Abdullaha’s Hashemite dynasty is the custodian of the Muslim holy …

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French president Emmanuel Macron has hit back at Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad’s allegations that France supported terrorism in Syria, insisting that the U.S.-led international coalition should be credited for the military successes against the Islamic State. Speaking after a meeting with NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, Macron said on Tuesday that Assad’s comments were “unacceptable” because France’s priority is “the war against Daesh,” using an Arabic term for the group.   Macron was reacting to comments made by Assad, who said earlier this week that France had no right to be involved in the peace process because “since the beginning France …

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