Category: Євросоюз

The political crisis in Spain deepened Friday as lawmakers in the Catalan regional parliament voted to officially declare independence from Madrid. The Spanish government responded by invoking constitutional law to impose direct rule on the region and called snap elections there for Dec. 21, setting the stage for a confrontation with Catalan authorities and raising fears the crisis could turn violent. Henry Ridgwell has more. …

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The once-bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election has broken along partisan lines, with the committee’s top Democrat contacting witnesses independently and asking for a broad swath of new information. After months of negotiations with Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley stalled, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent five letters of her own on Friday to witnesses and companies involved in the probe. The letters were sent to the White House, Facebook, Twitter and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. There is also a letter to Cambridge Analytica, a data firm working for Trump’s campaign during …

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The Catalan regional parliament voted for independence from Spain Friday by approving a resolution to convene a constitutional assembly to form a sovereign republic. The move was accompanied by applause and embraces between lawmakers present, who sang the Catalan anthem. The resolution to secede from Spain was drafted and presented by the more radical separatist factions of the regional coalition headed by Catalonia President Carles Puigdemont, and it passed by 70 votes in favor, 10 against and 2 blank votes. Spain’s ruling center-right Popular Party and the mainstream opposition socialists, who hold just under half the seats in the Catalan …

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Spain’s prime minister urged the country’s Senate Friday to grant special constitutional measures to allow the central government to take control of Catalonia’s autonomous powers in an attempt to halt the region’s independence bid.   Mariano Rajoy told senators that Spain is facing a challenge not seen in its recent history, adding that what is happening in Catalonia is “a clear violation of the laws, of democracy, of the rights of all, and that has consequences.”   Rajoy said if the Senate approves, the government’s first step would be to take control of the region and dismiss it’s president and …

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Burundi has become the first nation to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. Burundi had announced its plan to withdraw a year ago, saying the court focused too much on Africa. Amnesty International immediately reacted, saying Burundi’s withdrawal “does not in any way absolve Burundi of its obligations to end ongoing widespread human rights violations, or to address its abject failure to deliver justice for victims at the national level.” The rights group said, “The ICC can continue its preliminary investigations regardless of Burundi’s efforts to stop its work by withdrawing from the Court. Even if President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government …

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More than 10,000 mainly Syrian refugees who escaped fighting in their country are living on five Greek islands. About 2,500 of them are crowded into camps on the island of Samos, even though there is only room for about 800. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports aid groups say there is a growing mental health crisis among those refugees. …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused by critics of amassing power and creating the latest in a series of autocratic governments in the country, faces a new political threat after the launch Wednesday of the Iyi Party by Meral Aksener. The former interior minister boosted her profile by campaigning against a referendum on extending the Turkish president’s powers, and now observers see her as potentially posing the biggest challenge to Erdogan’s re-election bid. Some polls show she could secure more than 20 percent of the vote and threaten the majority that Erdogan’s party now holds in parliament. Aksener, a right-wing …

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NATO has accused Russia of misleading the Western military alliance about the military exercises it held last month with Belarus. “There is a discrepancy between what Russia briefed before the exercise … and the actual numbers and the scale and the scope of the exercise,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. Russian defense officials said the Zapad 2017 exercises involved 12,700 troops, but NATO contends there were nearly 100,000 troops from the Arctic to eastern Ukraine and that they simulated attacks on the West. Alexander Grushko, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, disputed the claim. “NATO countries are counting all the military …

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The social media company Twitter on Thursday announced it would block any advertising on its platform from Russia-sponsored news outlets Sputnik and RT. The company, in a statement on its blog, said it took the step as part of its “ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter.” Twitter cited a report produced in January by U.S. intelligence agencies that concluded the Russian government attempted to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “Early this year, the U.S. intelligence community named RT and Sputnik as implementing state-sponsored Russian efforts to interfere with and disrupt the …

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Amnesty International’s country chairman in Turkey is to remain in custody on terrorism charges related to the use of a phone app, the human rights group said. Amnesty announced the Turkish court’s decision to keep chairman Taner Kilic behind bars in its Twitter feed, saying it “won’t stop until he is free.” Kilic has been in prison for five months, facing up to 15 years in prison for downloading ByLock, a popular encrypted messaging app. Turkish authorities say the messaging app is used by supporters of Fetullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric whom Turkey blames for a failed coup attempt last …

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The cold-call pope is setting his sights heavenward by ringing astronauts aboard the International Space Station.   Pope Francis’ imminent hookup Thursday will mark the second papal phone call to space: Pope Benedict XVI rang the space station in 2011, and peppered its residents with questions about the future of the planet and the environmental risks it faced.   Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli was aboard the orbiting lab for that call and will be on hand to chat with Francis, who considered a career in chemistry before becoming a priest.   For his latest trip into space, Nespoli brought along …

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Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has ruled out the possibility of holding a regional snap election and has asked parliament to decide how to move forward as the secession crisis from Spain continues. During an announcement which was delayed, cancelled, and rescheduled Thursday, Puigdemont said that there were not enough guarantees from Madrid that a snap election would stop the imposition of direct rule in Catalonia. “I was ready to call an election if guarantees were given.  There is no guarantee that justifies calling an election today,” he said. Earlier Thursday, Puigdemont said the Spanish government will worsen the political crisis …

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The democratic opposition and political prisoners in Venezuela have won the European Union’s Sakharov Prize for human rights.    The European Parliament said Thursday that it wanted to reward the courage of students and politicians fighting for freedom in the face of a repressive government.    Guy Verhofstadt of the ALDE liberal group said that “this award supports the fight of democratic forces for a democratic Venezuela.’’ He urged “the international community to join us in this fight for the freedom of the people of Venezuela.’’  …

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An explosion in Kyiv on Wednesday killed a bodyguard and wounded three people, including Ukrainian lawmaker Ihor Mosiychuk, Ukrainian officials said, describing the incident as a deliberate attack. Mosiychuk, a member of the opposition Radical Party, was hospitalized but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, while his bodyguard was killed, according to party leader Oleh Lyashko. Interior Ministry adviser Zoryan Shkiryak said investigators were at the scene of the incident, where it appeared a motorcycle had been blown up near the entrance to a TV station. “Unfortunately, one [blast victim] could not be saved. He died on the way to the …

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European counterterror officials say they are taking no solace in the liberation of Raqqa from Islamic State, with some warning that the terror group’s communication and planning units remain “very active.” The fall of IS’s Syrian capital this month has been heralded as a crushing blow to the group’s aspirations, with U.S. President Donald Trump calling it a “critical breakthrough.” But counterterrorism officials say there is broad consensus that IS still has considerable reach, especially in the near term. “We all share the same opinion. The military defeat, the so-called caliphate being scattered, does not mean that the terrorist organization …

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A top U.S. State Department official on Wednesday urged Kosovo officials to ratify a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro, the last remaining criteria to be fulfilled before Kosovo can benefit from visa-free travel to the European Schengen zone. Shortly after meeting with Kosovar President Hashim Thaci in Pristina, Hoyt Brian Yee, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told VOA’s Albanian Service that he encouraged the new government “to seize the opportunity where the last government was not able to.” Kosovo’s opposition prevented the previous parliament from voting on the border agreement, which was signed with …

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All incoming flights to the United States will be subject to new security screening procedures before takeoff, including both American citizens and foreigners possibly facing security interviews from airline employees, the U.S. government said Wednesday. Both American air carriers and global airlines must comply, affecting all the 2,100 flights from around the world entering the U.S. on any given day. The directive is far broader than an earlier Trump administration ban on laptops inside the cabins of some airliners, which only targeted 10 Mideast cities and their airlines. Carriers confused   Confusion greeted the new rules. While five global long-haul …

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France’s famed film institute La Cinematheque Francaise says it will go ahead with a retrospective of works by director Roman Polanski despite opposition by feminist groups.   La Cinematheque said Wednesday that calls to cancel the Polanski screenings – attended by the director – only began “in the last few days” as the sexual harassment accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein gained force. The statement said it would not change the program that begins Monday.   Weinstein denies the allegations.   The institute said its role was not to moralize – in regard to the Polish-born director who in the …

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Three-quarters of the world’s people live in countries that either restrict the right to religion or belief or have “a high level of social hostility involving religion or belief,” the U.N. special investigator on religious rights said Tuesday. Ahmed Shaheed told the General Assembly’s human rights committee that religious intolerance is prevalent globally – and rising around the world. He said over 70 countries currently have anti-blasphemy laws that can be used to suppress dissenting views, in violation of international human rights standards. Shaheed, a former politician and human rights expert from the Maldives, urged those countries to repeal the …

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Serbia’s defense minister on Tuesday criticized remarks by the top U.S. diplomat in the region, who recently called on Belgrade to choose between aligning itself with either Washington and Brussels or Moscow if it intends to secure European Union status. Addressing Serbian news outlets, Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, who has been known to advocate a pro-Russian stance, said comments by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee represent “the greatest pressure against Serbia yet.” The “statement was not made by a friend or a person respecting Serbia, respecting our right to decide independently,” Vulin said, …

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