Category: Євросоюз

Hurricane Ophelia, a rare storm for the North Atlantic, was expected to bring high winds and rough seas to five western counties of Ireland this weekend. Ophelia, strengthening offshore near the Azores Islands, was a   Category 3 storm, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It had top sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour (115 mph) and was expected to produce total rain accumulations of up to 10 centimeters (4 inches) over the southern Azores. Seven of the nine islands of the Azores were on red alert as ordered by regional civil protection services. The islands were expecting …

READ MORE

The United Nations warns some 4 million people across Ukraine are facing a desperate situation as winter approaches and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance to survive the bitterly cold months ahead. Ukraine is into its fourth year of war, a war that the United Nations estimates has killed about 10,000 people and injured more than 23,500 others. No resolution is in sight to what has become a frozen conflict between the Kyiv government and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. This is causing immense suffering to millions of people living in zones close to the contact line that separates …

READ MORE

The Vatican trial over $500,000 in donations to the pope’s pediatric hospital that were diverted to renovate a cardinal’s penthouse is reaching its conclusion, with neither the cardinal who benefited nor the contractor who was apparently paid twice for the work facing trial.   Instead, the former president of the Bambino Gesu children’s hospital and his ex-treasurer are accused of misappropriating 422,000 euros from the hospital’s fundraising foundation to overhaul the retirement home of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state under Pope Benedict XVI.   Prosecutors have asked for a guilty verdict, a three-year prison term and a …

READ MORE

UNESCO’s executive board voted Friday to make a former French government minister the U.N. cultural agency’s next chief after an unusually heated election that was overshadowed by Middle East tensions. The board’s selection of Audrey Azoulay over a Qatari candidate came the day after the United States announced that it intends to pull out of UNESCO because of its alleged anti-Israel bias. The news rocked a weeklong election already marked by geopolitical resentments, concerns about the Paris-based agency’s dwindling funding and questions about its future purpose.   If confirmed by UNESCO’s general assembly next assembly next month, Azoulay will succeed …

READ MORE

Iran’s president said Friday that the nuclear deal it signed with six world powers in 2015 could not be revoked, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would not certify that Iran was in compliance with it. In a nationally televised speech following Trump’s remarks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged all signatories to the agreement to honor their commitments. He called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) “an outstanding achievement” in international diplomacy and said Iran would continue to comply with it. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will not be the first to withdraw from the deal. But if …

READ MORE

The current diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the United States, sparked by the arrest of local U.S. employee Metin Topuz at a diplomatic mission, is underscored by growing fears in Ankara that Washington is conspiring against it. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a speech Friday, warned that Turkey is the target of daily attacks and plots, and in a thinly veiled reference to Washington added, “Those who supported terror groups such as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the PKK failed to corner Turkey … [and] now are taking direct action.” In its war against Islamic State, Washington is …

READ MORE

Azerbaijan, Egypt and Indonesia have all unjustly arrested dozens of people during anti-gay crackdowns in recent weeks, subjecting many to mistreatment in custody, the United Nations human rights office said Friday. “Arresting or detaining people based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity is by definition arbitrary and violates international law,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing. In Azerbaijan, more than 80 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people have been arrested since mid-September and the U.N. has received allegations that some were subjected to electric shocks, beatings, forced shaving and other forms …

READ MORE

A Polish security official says Poland has expelled a Russian historian on suspicion that he acted against Poland’s interests. A spokesman for the minister in charge of state security, Stanislaw Zaryn, said Friday the man used his contacts among Polish historians and journalists to promote Russia’s viewpoint, to discredit Polish authorities and to undermine Poland’s ties with Ukraine. The man, identified only as Dmitry K. in line with Poland’s privacy law, taught at a college in Pultusk, eastern Poland. He was expelled Wednesday. Zaryn said he had failed to tell the college about his cooperation with the Russian Institute for …

READ MORE

Human rights group Amnesty International held events Thursday to mark 100 days since several of its Turkish staffers were detained in Istanbul. This week, Turkish prosecutors officially filed an indictment against 10 of the human rights activists detained in July, along with Amnesty’s Turkey chairman Taner Kilic, and demanded jail sentences of up to 15 years on charges of supporting terrorist organizations. Amnesty labeled the indictment “trumped-up and absurd.”   WATCH: Amnesty Marks 100 Days of Detention for Turkey Staff, as Ankara’s Rift With West Grows “They were on day three of a workshop, a very routine workshop about digital security …

READ MORE

Human rights group Amnesty International has held events to mark 100 days since several of its Turkish staff were detained in Istanbul. Prosecutors filed terror charges against the activists this week, the latest trials in a widespread crackdown that has soured relations between Ankara and its Western allies, culminating this week in the mutual suspension of visa services between the United States and Turkey. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

READ MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday that Russia was preparing lawsuits to reclaim what Moscow says was illegally seized property in the United States, Russia’s foreign ministry said. Lavrov, in a telephone conversation with Tillerson, also said it was unacceptable that U.S. authorities had removed Russian flags from its seized diplomatic buildings in the United States, the ministry said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, asked about the accusations later, told reporters that U.S. actions at the shuttered Russian facilities were “perfectly legal” and were carried out with “a lot of thought” …

READ MORE

Full Name: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Created: 1945. Mission: To build a culture of peace, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. How does it work? UNESCO’s primary decision-making body is the General Conference, comprising all 195 member states. It meets every 2 years to set the policies and programs of the agency. It is overseen by a Director-General, who is appointed every four years. Programs: UNESCO’s activities are focused on five areas.     Attaining quality education for all and promoting lifelong learning     Mobilizing scientific knowledge and policy for …

READ MORE

The foreign ministers of Hungary and Ukraine clashed on Thursday over Ukraine’s new law banning teaching in minority languages, with Budapest threatening to retaliate by blocking Ukraine’s aspirations to integration in the European Union. Hungary said on Tuesday it would ask the EU to review its ties with Ukraine over Kiev’s decision to stop secondary school instruction in ethnic minority tongues including Hungarian. Ukraine, which has sizable Hungarian, Russian and Romanian minorities, passed legislation on Sept. 5 obliging teachers to use only Ukrainian in secondary schools, saying it wanted to help minorities integrate and get public sector jobs. The move …

READ MORE

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator said Thursday that that little progress was made with the U.K. in a fifth round of talks on the country’s departure from the EU in 2019, and that he cannot yet recommend broadening negotiations to include trade.   Michel Barnier said that despite the “constructive spirit” shown in this week’s negotiations in Brussels, “we haven’t made any great steps forward.” On the question of how much Britain has to pay to settle its financial commitments, he said: “We have reached a state of deadlock, which is disturbing.”   Barnier said he would not be able …

READ MORE

Several prominent German foreign policy experts on Thursday urged the incoming German government not to turn away from the United States despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s unilateral “America First” stance. The group of leading experts published a manifesto in the weekly Die Zeit saying the “success and security of Germany and Europe is based on the system” of a liberal, international order and multilateral institutions, which Trump is fundamentally questioning with his “power-based, nationalist politics.” They wrote that because of America’s current course, Germany – which recently held national elections and is still in the process of forming a new …

READ MORE

Spain is holding its annual national day celebration Thursday under the cloud of the country’s biggest political crisis since a failed coup four decades ago. Spaniards lined the streets of Madrid carrying national flags as unionists used the holiday military parade to show unity in the face of moves by Catalonia to declare independence. The wealthy region’s intention to break away has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis since an attempted military coup in 1981. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy issued Wednesday an ultimatum to Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont to clarify by Monday whether he has formally declared independence for …

READ MORE

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, said on Thursday a landmark arms control treaty that helped end the Cold War was in peril and called for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to save it. Gorbachev, 86, said U.S.-Russia relations were in the throes of a “severe crisis” and that the treaty, which banned all Soviet and American short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles, was now at serious risk. Gorbachev signed the pact — the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty — in 1987 along with then U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington. Russia, …

READ MORE

Nerves are fraying in the Brexit talks, negotiators are trying to work out if the other side is bluffing about walking away, and a ticking clock is fast narrowing British options come March 2019. Philip Hammond, Britain’s finance minister, echoed recent EU assertions when he said that a transition period to some new relationship was a “wasting asset,” the value of which would “diminish significantly” for both sides if its form remains unclear to businesses much after the start of the New Year. As negotiators in Brussels make little progress before Prime Minister Theresa May meets EU leaders next week, …

READ MORE

Turkey is calling for a normalization of relations with the United States following rising diplomatic tensions between the NATO allies. “Our wish is that relations between the two allies get back to normal soon. We, as Turkey, will not give up on common sense at a time when regional and global tensions have been rising,” said Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in a speech to provincial governors in Ankara. Relations are deeply strained following the arrest of local U.S. consulate employee Metin Topuz on terrorism and espionage charges in relation to a failed coup last year against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. …

READ MORE

Russia’s domestic security agency said Wednesday it detained six people in Crimea accused of involvement in an extremist organization, a move described by one of the suspects’ lawyer as part of Moscow’s crackdown on the Crimean Tatars. Emil Kurbedinov, a lawyer for one of the six detainees, said that police also rounded up nine other Crimean Tatars who protested the detentions in the Crimean town of Bakhchisarai. The Federal Security Service or FSB, the main KGB successor agency, said it has stopped the activities of a local cell of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist group which Russia and several other ex-Soviet …

READ MORE