Category: Євросоюз

Members of a rising nationalist party in Germany elected their leadership Saturday at a convention in the city of Hannover that was overshadowed by protests. Joerg Meuthen was re-elected as chairman at the first full party congress since the Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, won seats in the national parliament for the first time. Alexander Gauland, one of the party’s parliamentary leaders and a power within AfD, was elected as co-chair. The position Gauland assumes had been vacant since the day after the September election. Former party co-leader Frauke Petry said AfD was flirting with far-right extremism and quit, …

READ MORE

Romanian protesters clashed with riot police Saturday when they stopped construction workers from building a Christmas fair at the site of anti-corruption demonstrations in Bucharest. Victory Square saw big street protests at the beginning of the year following attempts by the ruling Social Democrats to decriminalize some corruption offenses. It has been a gathering place for largely peaceful protests since. Further demonstrations have been announced on social media as parliament gears up to approve a judicial overhaul that has been criticized by thousands of magistrates, centrist President Klaus Iohannis, the European Commission and the U.S. State Department. Earlier this week, …

READ MORE

Greece’s finance minister said Saturday that an agreement had been reached between the heavily indebted country and its creditors on its progress in implementing reforms. The agreement on the so-called Third Assessment of Greece’s latest bailout program will allow Greece to receive fresh funds next year, after implementing workplace reforms, speeding up the settlement of bad loans, tightening up rules for family subsidies and selling off state-owned power plants. European monetary affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici also announced that a “staff-level agreement” had been reached, meaning that although creditor representatives were involved, the European Union’s finance ministers must approve the agreement, …

READ MORE

Voters on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica head to the polls Sunday for the first round of territorial elections, with a nationalist ticket projected to score big. The campaign might not have attracted much attention but for the Spanish region of Catalonia, where independence aspirations have grabbed world headlines and turned attention to other autonomy-minded regions. Candidates from seven political lists will be on Sunday’s ballot. But the main nationalist ticket, Pe a Corsica (For Corsica), is surging. The elections aim to fuse Corsica’s two administrative territories into one, but they’re about much more than bureaucracy. They’re expected to solidify …

READ MORE

President Donald Trump’s rally in Missouri this past week was a set-piece of distortion about taxes and the economy. He compounded his growing legacy of false tales on Twitter, where he spread a British fringe group’s factually twisted propaganda aimed at stirring hate and fear of Muslims. A look at statements from his rally Wednesday, the anti-Muslim propaganda he retweeted and more: TRUMP describes the tax overhaul as “the biggest tax cut in the history of our country – bigger than Reagan,” and says of lawmakers: “For years they have not been able to get tax cuts, many, many years …

READ MORE

Britain’s cybersecurity agency has told government departments not to use antivirus software from Moscow-based firm Kaspersky Lab amid concerns about Russian snooping. Ciaran Martin, head of the National Cyber Security Centre, said “Russia is acting against the U.K.’s national interest in cyberspace.” In a letter dated Friday to civil service chiefs, he said Russia seeks “to target U.K. central government and the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure.” He advised that “a Russia-based provider should never be used” for systems that deal with issues related to national security. The agency said it’s not advising the public at large against using Kaspersky’s popular …

READ MORE

Pope Francis talked to a group of Bangladeshi priests and nuns about the “terrorism of gossip” and how it can destroy religious communities on Saturday, before returning to the Vatican.   The leader of the world’s Roman Catholics spoke from his heart to the crowd at Dhaka’s Holy Rosary Church. He abandoned the speech he had prepared and instead gave a spontaneous 15-minute address about the highs and lows of living in a religious community. In the laughter-filled monologue, he urged his audience to tend to their religious vocations “with tenderness” and warned them about the havoc gossip “bombs” can …

READ MORE

Pope Francis visited a home in Dhaka founded by Mother Teresa for orphans, unwed mothers and destitute elderly on Saturday as he wrapped up his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. The pope, who leaves for Rome later Saturday, was surrounded by children and nuns wearing the traditional blue-and-white habit of the woman who died in 1997 and became a saint in 2016. Mother Teresa, who started the Missionaries of Charity to serve “the poorest of the poor,” opened the home in the early1970s to look after Bengali women who became pregnant as a result of rape by Pakistani soldiers during …

READ MORE

Physical therapists can be a vital part of getting injured people back on their feet. But the therapy they recommend can sometimes be less than precise. Some new technology now being used in Italy could be a valuable tool for helping people recover from their injuries. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

READ MORE

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was removed from an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia, lifting an obstacle to him traveling outside the country, the justice minister said on Friday. Early this year Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovar guerilla leader who in September took over as prime minister, was arrested in France on an arrest warrant issued by Serbia. He was released after a French court rejected Belgrade’s extradition request. Despite many attempts by Pristina, Belgrade refused to remove his name from the Interpol red notice. “Today I was informed that Interpol has removed 18 people from Kosovo that are …

READ MORE

A former Croatian general who died after swallowing a liquid at a war crimes hearing in the Netherlands had cyanide in his system, Dutch prosecutors said after an autopsy was performed Friday. Preliminary results from a toxicological test revealed “a concentration of potassium cyanide” in Slobodan Praljak’s blood, the Hague Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. The cyanide caused heart failure, which investigators “pointed out” as Praljak’s “suspected cause of death,” according to the prosecutor’s statement. On Wednesday, Praljak, 72, drank from a small bottle that he said contained poison seconds after an appeals judge at the U.N.’s International …

READ MORE

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been greeted by hundreds of well-wishers on their first official royal visit since announcing their engagement. Webvideo by Jon Spier. …

READ MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reacting angrily after testimony in a New York trial implicated him in an alleged multi-million-dollar scam to evade U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran. His reaction is adding to concerns Ankara is on a collision course with U.S. courts that could have financial and political repercussions. “We have trade and energy ties with Iran. We did not breach the sanctions (on Iran). Whatever the verdict is, we did the right things,” Erdogan was reported to have said to his ruling party executives Thursday. Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy head of the Turkish state-owned Halkbank, is on trial, …

READ MORE

German police have destroyed a suspected improvised explosive device in Potsdam, a small city on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, Berlin. A local report said the suspicious package was delivered Friday to a pharmacy near a Christmas market. Police were called and the area was evacuated. Brandenburg state police said they inspected the package and confirmed that it was a possible IED that was successfully defused. Reports said the package contained nails and some kind of powder. Brandenburg state Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schroeter told reporters the powder will be analyzed. He said it is not clear whether the package …

READ MORE

Russian lawmakers are expected to discuss a bill that could ban all representatives of U.S. media from entering the lower house of parliament in Moscow. Olga Savastyanova, a member of the lower house, the State Duma, told Russian media Friday that the action was retaliation after journalists for Russian state-funded TV channel RT were barred from reporting inside the U.S. Capitol building. “It’s a ban on journalists who represent American media, all American media, visiting the State Duma,” the RIA news agency quoted Savastyanova as saying about the proposed ban in Moscow. The move is the latest in a series …

READ MORE

Federal prosecutors in Atlanta say a Russian cybercriminal has been sentenced to serve 14 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release Friday that 33-year-old Roman Seleznev was sentenced for his role in a $50 million cyber fraud ring and for defrauding banks of $9 million through a hacking scheme. Prosecutors say U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones sentenced Seleznev on a racketeering charge out of Nevada and a conspiracy to commit bank fraud charge in Georgia. He pleaded guilty in September. Jones gave him 14 years on each count. The sentences are to be served …

READ MORE

Turkish officials are working overtime to discredit testimony at a New York trial implicating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top officials in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme designed to help Iran skirt international sanctions. The officials have described the proceedings as a “mockery” and “theater” aimed at overthrowing the Turkish government, even suggesting that Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, is “pulling the strings” behind the prosecution. U.S. officials and prosecutors strongly deny the allegations. However, the trial has exacerbated the United States and Turkey’s strained relations, which have been deteriorating since a Turkish …

READ MORE

Germany’s president brought together Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leader of the center-left Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, on Thursday night with the aim of breaking the impasse over the formation of a new government. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the party leaders together after talks between Merkel’s conservative bloc and two smaller parties to form a previously untried coalition collapsed. Schulz, Merkel and her Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer agreed to meet at Germany’s presidential palace to explore the possibility of forming a so-called grand coalition like the one that makes up the outgoing government. Schultz had initially refused to consider another …

READ MORE

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he bribed a witness to give false testimony at a trial four years ago where he eventually was acquitted of paying for sex with an underage prostitute. The trial for the 81-year-old, four-time premier is set for February in the Tuscan city of Siena, not long before Berlusconi is set to try to reclaim control of the Italian government in new elections. Berlusconi, leader of the center-right Forza Italia party, is accused of paying a piano player at his wild Bunga Bunga parties to lie …

READ MORE

Germany, Europe’s most robust economy, said Thursday that its unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent in November, the lowest figure since West and East Germany were unified in 1990. Even as Chancellor Angela Merkel and other Berlin politicians struggle to form a coalition government, the German economy remains strong, with a months-long dip in the country’s jobless rate and solid demand for German products from other countries. The German report came as Eurostat, the statistics agency for the European Union, said the jobless rate for the 19-nation eurozone bloc that uses the euro currency dropped to 8.8 percent in October. …

READ MORE