Category: Євросоюз

Kosovo’s prime minister called on Friday for an international investigation after some of his countrymen were convicted of taking part in a gun battle with Macedonian police. The men were part of a group of ethnic Albanians jailed in neighboring Macedonia on Thursday, some of them for life, on charges of plotting attacks and clashing with the police in a 2015 shootout. Crowds took to the streets of Kosovo’s capital after the sentencing, accusing the Macedonian authorities of staging the attack. Protesters in the eastern Kosovan town of Gjilan burned the Macedonian flag. Kosovan media and officials have regularly said …

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Austria’s conservative People’s Party and the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) said Friday that they had agreed on a commitment to the European Union and budget discipline as well as cuts in migrants’ welfare benefits as basic policies for a new coalition government. People’s Party leader Sebastian Kurz started coalition talks with the FPO last week after his party won a parliamentary election with 31.5 percent of the vote. Kurz’s hard line on immigration and his decision to force a collapse of the current coalition with the Social Democrats, who came in second, made the anti-immigration FPO a natural partner. Some …

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Poland plans to bar Ukrainians with “anti-Polish views,” its foreign minister said on Thursday, emphasizing the nationalist credentials of his ruling party that often talks of the “historic wrongs” inflicted on Poles by their neighbors. Witold Waszczykowski said the policy was a reaction to disrespect shown at a Polish cemetery in the western city of Lviv, which was part of Poland before World War II. The foreign ministry said lion sculptures at the cemetery’s entrances that hold shields inscribed with the Polish phrases “Always faithful” and “To you, Poland” had been covered up with boxes. Waszczykowski said Ukrainians who express …

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Pope Francis prayed for an end to all war during a mass at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, just south of the Italian capital, on Catholic All Souls’ Day commemorating the dead. Francis laid flowers on the graves of some of the 7,860 American soldiers buried there as well as another 3,095 missing in action while trying to liberate southern Italy and Rome during World War II. The pope said the thousands of white headstones should stand as a call for peace, saying “no more war, no more of these useless massacres.” The pontiff lamented that humanity has not learned, or …

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A court in Macedonia on Thursday convicted 33 people of planning terrorist attacks as members of an ethnic Albanian militant group. Heavy security, including helicopters flying overhead, protected the court proceedings in Skopje. Armored vehicles and at least 100 police officers deployed around the courthouse to safeguard the participants in the highly anticipated trial. Seven of the accused were given life sentences, 13 got 40-year sentences, and the rest got sentences of 12 to 20 years, all on charges including terrorism and participating in a terrorist organization. Four defendants were acquitted. Attorneys for the defendants said the proceedings were “a …

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Iceland’s president asked the leader of the Left-Green Movement, Katrin Jakobsdottir, on Thursday to form a new government, although it came second in Saturday’s parliamentary election. The mandate deals a blow to Prime Minister Bjarne Benediktsson of the Independence Party who called the snap election in September after less than a year in office as a scandal involving his father prompted a government ally to drop out of his ruling coalition. The Nordic island of 340,000 people, one of the countries hit hardest by the 2008 financial crisis, has seen an economic rebound spurred by a tourism boom. But a …

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Romania’s president on Thursday accused the leftist government of mishandling the economy, slamming it for overspending and failing to attract investment. President Klaus Iohannis said that current annual economic growth of more than 5 percent was “not sustainable,” as it was based on spending. He noted foreign and local investment had fallen by 20 percent in the last year.   Iohannis said revenue from taxes had fallen to the equivalent of one fourth of GDP, less than the 35 percent forecast for the year.   “The government is behaving like a person who earns more every month, but borrows more …

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A political sex-harassment scandal in Britain that has claimed one Cabinet minister looked set to spread Thursday, with a senior politician warning that the world of politics must clear out an “Augean stable” of wrongdoing.   Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May was force to replace Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, who resigned late Wednesday saying his past behavior “may have fallen below the high standards” expected.   May promoted Gavin Williamson, the Conservatives’ chief whip, to the defense job.   Fallon apologized after a newspaper reported that he had repeatedly touched a journalist’s knee at a function in 2002. Reports suggested …

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Turkey’s military says eight Turkish security force members and five Kurdish militants were killed in a clash near Turkey’s border with northern Iraq.   A military statement said the skirmish erupted early on Thursday near the town of Semdinli, after the security forces spotted a group of rebels who were allegedly preparing to launch an attack.   The military said the dead included two government-paid village guard aiding troops in the fight against the rebels. Two soldiers were also hurt in the clashes.   The clashes were continuing.   The rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have waged …

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Israelis celebrate it. Palestinians despise it. The Balfour Declaration, Britain’s promise to Zionists to create a Jewish home in what is now Israel, turns 100 this week, with events in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Britain drawing attention to the now yellowing document tucked away in London’s British Library. Historians still muse about Britain’s motivations, and its commitment to the declaration waned in the decades after it was issued. Yet the 67 words penned by a British Cabinet minister still resonate 100 years later, with both the Israelis and Palestinians seizing the anniversary to reinforce their narratives. Each side is …

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Ousted Catalan government members and lawmakers began arriving at two Spanish courts in Madrid on Thursday to face possible charges of rebellion for having declared the region’s independence.   Twenty regional politicians, including sacked regional government president Carles Puigdemont, were called to appear after the chief prosecutor demanded they be charged with rebellion, sedition and embezzlement following the Catalan parliament’s declaration of secession Oct. 27.   Spain took the unprecedented step of seizing control of Catalonia following the declaration and later sacked the Cabinet, dissolved the regional Parliament and called fresh regional elections for Dec. 21. Ousted president declines  Puigdemont, …

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Museums of fine art in Bern, Switzerland, and Bonn, Germany, have put on display hundreds of paintings and drawings, including works by Picasso, Matisse and Chagall, collected by German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. Some of the works were looted from Jewish homes, others were acquired after Nazi authorities had them removed from galleries. Gurlitt, who died in 2014, bequeathed what was left of the collection to the Bern Kunstmuseum. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more. …

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A Swiss art museum on Wednesday showcased a new exhibit of artwork deemed “degenerate art” by the Nazis, drawn from a collection of some 1,500 works found hidden in the homes of German collector Gurlitt five years ago. The Bern Kunstmuseum exhibit features over 200 modern art pieces confiscated in a Nazi crackdown in the late 1930s against so-called “degenerate art” — deemed inferior because they were un-German, Jewish or Communist or, in the case with impressionist and other modernist works, didn’t employ traditionally realistic forms. But the Nazis were all too happy to sell such works to help fund …

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The Islamic State terror group is trying to sell a transnational image, but its future doesn’t lie West of the Middle East, according to analysts. The group’s claims do not match its actual operational capacity, according to researchers, but the focus by Western media and politicians of IS-inspired or directed attacks on civilians in America and Europe is obscuring the limits of the terror group’s reach. According to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, the future of the jihadist terror group lies mostly east of the Levant and not in Western cities as the center of the gravity of its …

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Following Brexit, the German and Austrian elections, the crisis in Catalonia, and a referendum in northern Italy, new questions are arising among analysts over whether Europe could be in danger of splitting apart. VOA’s Jane Bojadzievski reports. …

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Catalonia’s ousted leader Carles Puigdemont agreed Tuesday to a snap election called by Spain’s central government when it took control of the region to stop it breaking away, but he said the fight for independence would go on. Below are several scenarios of what could happen in the next few days. Courts Puigdemont and his sacked cabinet have been ordered to testify before the Spanish High Court on Thursday and Friday after charges of rebellion, sedition and breach of trust were filed against them. Under Spain’s legal system, a judge will then decide whether Puigdemont should go to jail pending …

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A top Ukrainian official says Russia should provide U.S. investigators with access to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his rule was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan revolution of 2014. Dmitry Shymkiv, the deputy head of the administration of President Petro Poroshenko, said access to Yanukovych could prove vital to an understanding of the work done for Ukraine by indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Shymkiv, whose role is similar to that of deputy chief of staff in the United States, spoke to VOA in response to comments made Tuesday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, …

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Britain is accelerating preparations for “all eventualities” when it leaves the European Union, but both sides are hopeful an agreement on stepping up talks to unravel more than 40 years of partnership will be sealed soon. With only 17 months remaining until Britain’s expected departure, the slow pace of talks has increased the possibility that London will leave without a deal, alarming business leaders who say time is running out for them to make investment decisions. British and EU negotiators met in Brussels on Tuesday to try to agree a schedule for further divorce talks, with an initial proposal from …

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Spain’s High Court Tuesday called for ousted Catalonia President Carles Puigdemont to appear in court on Thursday morning. Spanish prosecutors announced plans to seek sedition, rebellion and embezzlement charges against Puigdemont and his colleagues, who are currently in Brussels “for safety purposes and freedom”. Puigdemont said Tuesday he would not be seeking asylum in Belgium. He and 13 members of his sacked administration were called to appear in court at 9 a.m. on Thursday. Chief prosecutor Jose Manuel Maza said Monday he would seek to charge the leaders of Catalonia who led a push to secede from Spain. It is …

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Czech election winner Andrej Babis will attempt to form a minority government after being shunned by other parties, Babis said on Tuesday after meeting the president. The country faces the possibility of months of political wrangling which could put approval of the 2018 budget approval at risk, potentially curbing investments that would help the economy keep growing at least at its current rapid pace. Babis said he hoped to have a new government put together by the Christmas holiday. His ANO party won a parliamentary election this month by a large margin, convincing voters it could deliver a more effective …

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