Category: Євросоюз

Prominent Russian political commentator and writer Yulia Latynina has left Russia fearing for her life, she told a Moscow radio station. Latynina’s car was set on fire at the beginning of September, weeks after unidentified assailants sprayed a poisonous substance on her house outside Moscow and the car. “I’m quite scared … I’m terrified that the people who did it were prepared for fatalities,” Latynina said of the arson. “I’m abroad, my parents are also abroad. It’s unlikely I’ll be going to Russia soon,” she told the Echo of Moscow radio station late Saturday. Latynina, who works as a columnist …

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U.S. and Russian envoys are to meet in Finland next week in a bid to calm diplomatic tensions that have risen to levels of the Cold War. The State Department’s third-ranking official, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon, will meet Monday and Tuesday with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Shannon and Ryabkov have held several rounds of talks this year focused on resolving irritants in U.S.-Russian relations, such as the tit-for-tat closures of diplomatic missions and expulsion of diplomats. They’re expected to address broader strategic relations and arms control as well. On August 31, in response to …

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A Spanish judge ordered police to search a printer’s shop and two offices of a regional newspaper in Catalonia as part of an investigation into alleged preparations for an illegal referendum on independence for the prosperous northeastern region. A Barcelona-based court said Saturday that the police searches took place Friday in Valls and Constanti in southern Catalonia. The court said the searches formed part of an investigation into possible disobedience, prevarication and the embezzlement of public funds by Catalan officials. The regional Catalan newspaper El Vallenc reported that “4 agents of the Civil Guard entered our newspaper.” El Vallenc said, …

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The Dalai Lama on Sunday will begin a 20-day tour of Europe, where he will give public teachings on Buddhism and also meet with scientists. The Tibetan spiritual leader arrived Friday in New Delhi, India, from which he will depart for his four-nation tour. Calling it an educational visit, he said he was looking forward to the trip, especially to a meeting with scientists in Frankfurt, Germany. “I am looking forward to the Frankfurt’s meeting. [I will be] meeting with some scientists, and also there will be some kind of commemoration [of the] late Von Weizsacker,” the Dalai Lama told …

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Turkey cautioned its citizens on Saturday to take care when traveling to Germany, citing what it said was an upswing in anti-Turkish sentiment ahead of a German national election later this month. The advisory is likely to further exacerbate tensions between the two NATO allies, whose ties have soured following last year’s failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his subsequent crackdown on alleged coup supporters. “The political leadership campaigns in Germany are based on anti-Turkey sentiment and preventing our country’s EU membership. The political atmosphere … has actually been under the effects of far-right and even racist …

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The U.N. refugee agency warns overcrowding and deteriorating conditions on Greece’s eastern Aegean islands are causing serious distress among refugees, leading to self-harm and riots in protest. UNHCR reports that refugees from Syria, Iraq and other destitute and conflict-ridden countries are arriving on Greece’s islands faster than the government can transfer them to the mainland for processing. In August, it notes, nearly 3,700 people arrived by sea – nearly 1,500 more than in July. UNHCR spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly says living conditions are particularly bad for refugees on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Leros and Chios. “Many of the people have …

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Emergency services in southern Spain say they are fighting a wildfire that has forced the evacuation of 400 residents from seven towns in the province of Seville.   Authorities said Saturday that the evacuations had taken place mostly overnight because of the smoke produced by the blaze, which broke out Friday. About 120 people have been given shelter in a public library, sports center and school.   More than 130 firefighters are combating flames that they say have reached 20 meters (65 feet) in height across a front stretching 20 kilometers (more than 12 miles).   Authorities have yet to …

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Thousands of migrants desperate to get to Europe are being held in detention centers across Libya. Some are run by foreign aid agencies, others by the myriad armed groups vying for power and money. Joanne Liu, international president of the aid group Doctors Without Borders, has recently returned from visiting detention centers in Libya and told reporters that militia groups are detaining migrants in horrific conditions where they are subject to torture, rape, starvation and killing. “Basically, I will describe those detention centers are for me, manufacturers of suffering at industrial level,” she said. Migrants picked up at sea by …

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A leading humanitarian aid group has accused the European Union of being complicit in the torture, killing and rape of migrants in detention camps in Libya. The system is partially run by armed militias and people smugglers, and critics say the EU is supporting these groups in return for stemming the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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A Georgian citizen was reported to have died Friday in a car explosion in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said an explosive device went off inside a black Toyota Camry during rush-hour traffic. Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko said the victim was identified as Timur Makhauri. Shevchenko said Makhauri’s wife was seriously injured in the blast and was hospitalized. Shevchenko told reporters a child was in the car with the couple. He said the child’s life was not in danger. Police were investigating. Interfax Ukraine reported that a murder case had been opened. Interfax quoted Shevchenko as saying …

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Amid rising German-Turkish diplomatic tensions, Ankara has allowed seven German lawmakers to visit German servicemen deployed at Turkey’s Konya NATO air base. For several months, Ankara had banned such visits, saying the climate in bilateral relations was inappropriate. “The way the Turkish side is billing it is that it’s a multilateral visit, it’s not bilateral,” said political columnist Semih Idiz of the al-Monitor website. “They say this visit comes from NATO, therefore Turkey has to oblige, being a NATO member.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly had been lobbying intensively to allow the German lawmakers’ visit. The ban on German lawmakers …

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Britain announced Thursday it is stepping up support of the Lebanese army, providing funds for defensive barriers to be used along Lebanon’s border with Syria. The move is being seen as a vote of confidence by London in the Lebanese army and encouragement of the ambition of its commanders to emerge as the dominant military force on the frontier with Syria — a goal that would complicate Iran’s forging of a so-called ‘land bridge’ through Iraq and Syria and of assisting its allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said Thursday, “Our ambition is for Lebanon to have …

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Hungary’s prime minister says that a ruling by the European Union’s top court upholding the relocation of asylum-seekers opens the way to a “mixed culture and population” on the continent.  Prime Minister Viktor Orban says Hungary, which is refusing to take part in the EU scheme to temporarily relocate refugees from Greece and Italy, is not an “immigrant country” nor does it want to be one.   Orban has kept immigration on top of his political agenda since 2015. He said Friday on state radio that he “took note” of the European Court of Justice ruling which rejected legal arguments …

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Spain’s Constitutional Court on Thursday blocked the prosperous Catalan region’s plan to vote on independence from Spain. The ruling was expected after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vowed earlier in the day to “stop at nothing” to prevent the independence referendum called by the regional leaders from taking place. According to court regulations, the suspension lasts five months while judges come up with a ruling. The pro-independence coalition ruling Catalonia claims that the universal right to self-determination overrules Spain’s laws. The regional parliament on Wednesday approved a law to legitimize the independence vote and set an October 1 date for it. …

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Germany said on Thursday that Russia was planning to send more than 100,000 troops to war games on NATO’s eastern flank this month, disputing Moscow’s version that only 13,000 Russian and Belarussian servicemen would participate. The Sept. 14-20 exercises known as Zapad, or “West,” in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are stirring unease in NATO despite Moscow’s assurances troops would rehearse a purely defensive scenario. “It is undisputed that we are seeing a demonstration of capabilities and power of the Russians,” German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at an EU …

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Forensic experts began searching a ravine in central Bosnia on Thursday for the remains of around 60 Bosnian Muslims and Croats killed by Serb forces early in the 1992-95 war. The search began hours after the Bosnian war crimes court ordered the exhumations at Mount Vlasic where between 160 and 220 prisoners of war were shot dead on August 21, 1992. Bosnian Serbs told the prisoners from detention camps for non-Serbs near the town of Prijedor that they would be released in a prisoner exchange but instead drove them away by bus, lined them up by the edge of a …

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French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the International Monetary Fund should step back from its role in European bailouts – breaking with a widely accepted policy adopted when Greece sought international help seven years ago. On a two-day visit to Athens, Macron said the eurozone rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, should play the lead role in financial rescue within the currency zone.   France, Europe’s No. 2 economy, had previously backed Germany’s insistence in involving the IMF to enforce austerity measures that came with bailout programs in Greece and other rescued economies including Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus.   …

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Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla fighter who has twice stood trial for war crimes, was chosen Thursday to form a new government in Kosovo, ending a political deadlock that has persisted since elections on June 11. President Hashim Thaci gave Haradinaj the mandate after his coalition struck an agreement with a smaller party that paved the way for them to take power. Haradinaj’s PAN coalition comprises his AAK party and others made up of former guerrillas who fought Serbian forces in 1998 and 1999. That campaign led to accusations of war crimes against him, but he was acquitted twice by …

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Parliament in Spain’s prosperous Catalonia region has approved an independence vote for October 1, which Madrid has vowed to stop. Separatist parties, which hold a slim majority, backed the referendum legislation and legal framework needed to set up an independent state. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ordered government lawyers to file a complaint with the country’s constitutional court in hopes of annulling the referendum. Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans say they do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain. The vote will …

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The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, has defended the expulsion of Russian diplomats from seized consular property in the United States amid an increasing strain in diplomatic ties. In a joint interview Wednesday in Moscow with the Russian services of VOA News and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tefft rejected statements in Russian media that the seizing of diplomatic property in San Francisco, New York and Washington was done in what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “boorish and unprecedented” fashion. Putin accused U.S. authorities of threatening to “break down the entrance door” of the Russian Consulate in San …

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