Category: Євросоюз

DNA tests done on the remains of Spanish surreal artist Salvador Dali revealed he is not the father of a Spanish psychic who claimed to be his only child and heir. The Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation said in a statement released Wednesday that the results showed “the exclusion of Salvador Dali as the biological father of María Pilar Abel Martínez.” In June, a court in Madrid ordered the artist’s body to be exhumed after previous attempts to determine paternity had failed. A month later, experts entered the crypt beneath the museum Dali designed for himself in his home town of Figueres …

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Judges at the European Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected an attempt by Hungary and Slovakia to block mandatory quotas of refugees, which the bloc wants to resettle from Greece and Italy. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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Catalan lawmakers were voting Wednesday on a bill that will allow regional authorities to officially call an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, making concrete a years-long defiance of central authorities, who insist the referendum as illegal. In an effort to rein in one of the country’s deepest political crises in recent years, Spain’s conservative government threatened to challenge the Catalan parliament’s decision to allow the vote at the country’s top court. The public prosecutor’s office also said it was preparing a lawsuit to punish the Catalan speakers’ committee for disobeying previous court orders and for abusing power. …

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The European Union’s top court ruled Wednesday that member states can be forced to take in asylum seekers, rejecting challenges by Hungary and Slovakia to stay out of the system the EU began two years ago. The European Council approved the resettlement plan over the objection of some eastern European nations. The system was meant to relocate 160,000 refugees who have fled to Greece and Italy in order to help prevent those countries from being overwhelmed. So far only about 24,000 people have been resettled. The European Court of Justice said Wednesday that the council was not required to unanimously …

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France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term. France has six Reapers France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger’s capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism operation in Africa, …

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Spain is pushing for the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government as a way of encouraging a return to constitutional order in the crisis-hit country, the Spanish foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The head of Venezuela’s opposition-led congress, Julio Borges, visited Spain on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of a European tour seeking support against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government has been criticized by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease an economic crisis, while it overrides congress …

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A Spanish audit office has demanded the former leader of Catalonia and other politicians from the region pay 5 million euros ($5.96 million) for holding a consultative independence ballot in 2014, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday. The report, which cited judicial sources, came a day before Catalonia is expected to approve plans to hold an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain. The 2014 vote was non-binding, a symbolic ballot by pro-independence campaigners that was declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court. Catalonia, along with Britain’s Scotland and Belgium’s Flanders, has one of the most active independence movements in …

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France’s financial prosecutor said Tuesday the son of the president of track and field’s global governing body was at the center of large corruption investigations. “The investigations revealed a large-scale system of corruption around Papa Massata Diack, son of Lamine Diack, former IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) president and influential members of the International Olympic Committee,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The IAAF has regulatory and sanctions authority over IAAF competitions. The prosecutor’s office said it has evidence showing that payments were made in exchange for votes of IAAF and International Olympic Committee members over the selection …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference in China on Tuesday, but said a decision to shutter Russian diplomatic outposts in the U.S. was poorly handled. Speaking at a news conference during a summit in China on Tuesday, Putin dismissed as “naive” a question about whether he was disappointed in Trump. In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Putin said Trump is “not my bride, and I’m not his groom.” Asked how Russia would feel if Trump were impeached, Putin said it would be “absolutely wrong” for Russia to discuss domestic U.S. …

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A string of Western politicians have visited Libya in recent weeks, the latest being French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian, who arrived Monday in Tripoli for talks with the strife-torn county’s rival politicians and militia leaders. With the warlord Khalifa Haftar consolidating his position in the eastern part of the oil-producing nation and Fayez al-Seraj strengthening his internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west, European diplomats say a fragile balance of power is beginning to emerge between two of the chief rivals for power. And that’s increasing, they argue, the opportunities for sealing a breakthrough agreement reconciling …

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British police have arrested four army soldiers on suspicion of being members of an outlawed neo-Nazi group and planning terrorist acts. The Ministry of Defense confirmed the men were army members. Authorities allege the men belong to National Action, a neo-Nazi group that was banned in Britain last December after it praised the murder of parliament member Jo Cox, who died at the hands of a far-right nationalist. Police say the arrests were made in the cities of Birmingham, Ipswich, Northampton in England and in Powys, Wales. They also say the suspects, whose names have not been disclosed, are between …

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Russia will ask the U.N. Security Council to send peacekeepers to patrol the front line in eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, a development greeted by Germany as a new opportunity for detente.   Fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in the region has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. A 2015 peace deal brokered by Germany and France helped reduce the scale of fighting, but regular clashes have continued.   The separatists have opposed Ukraine’s suggestion to deploy peacekeepers in the war zone.   Putin told reporters Tuesday that peacekeepers could help ensure safety for international …

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A 106-year-old woman thought to be the world’s oldest refugee is set to be deported after being denied asylum in Sweden. Bibihal Uzbeki’s son and grandson carried her on their backs as they fled from Kunduz in northeastern Afghanistan via Iran and Turkey in the hopes of finding haven in Europe. Their journey made headlines in 2015, when they were part of a huge influx of people who came to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. They traveled by foot and on trains through the Balkans before reaching Sweden. Two years later, she and her 11 family members …

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In an apparent bid to raise his profile as Russia’s most influential Muslim, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of the capital Grozny on Monday to protest what he called the “genocide of Muslims” in Myanmar. Violence over the past few days in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has killed nearly 400 people and prompted thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The Russian government has not been clear in its stance on the Myanmar violence, giving Kadyrov an opportunity to criticize it for inaction. State television footage showed tens of thousands …

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Russian media say Egypt has finalized a deal to build a nuclear power plant with funding from Moscow after nearly two years of negotiations.   The reports Monday came after Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in China, where they were attending a summit.   The nuclear plant will be built in Dabaa, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.   Egypt’s presidency says el-Sissi has invited Putin to Egypt to mark the start of construction.   In 2015, Egypt signed an agreement with Russia to build a four-reactor power plant. …

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France’s foreign minister is visiting Libya to encourage the implementation of a reconciliation agreement reached by the main Libyan rivals in Paris in July.   Jean-Yves Le Drian met on Monday with Fayez Serraj, the prime minister-designate of the U.N.-backed government, in the capital, Tripoli. He is also visiting Misrata and Benghazi, where he will meet with factions opposed to Serraj.   In July, Serraj and Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the commander of Libya’s self-styled national army, committed to working toward presidential and parliamentary elections and finding a roadmap to secure the lawless country against terrorism and trafficking.   Libya was …

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French President Emmanuel Macron, who last week called Venezuela a dictatorship, will on Monday meet with opposition representatives, including the president and vice-president of the opposition-governed congress, Macron’s office said. The situation in Venezuela has a particular resonance in France, where the far-left France Unbowed party, currently Macron’s most vocal opponent, backs Maduro. Human rights activist Lilian Tintori, the wife of Venezuela’s best-known detained political leader, Leopoldo Lopez, said on Saturday she had been barred from flying out of the country to go to France and other EU capitals. “The dictatorship does not want my voice to be head abroad. …

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The French government said on Thursday it would cap unfair dismissal payouts and give companies more flexibility to adapt pay and working hours to market conditions in a labor reform France’s biggest union said was disappointing. The reform, President Emmanuel Macron’s first major policy step since his election in May, is also the first big test of his plans to reform the euro zone’s second-biggest economy. For decades governments of the left and right have tried to reform France’s strict labor rules, but have always diluted them in the face of street protests. The government said in a document presenting …

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People gathered Thursday at Britain’s Kensington Palace and a site in Paris to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. Those paying their respects left flowers and lit candles outside the palace where Diana once lived with her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. On Wednesday, William, Harry and William’s wife, Kate, toured a garden at the palace dedicated to Diana. They also met with representatives from some charities Diana supported, as well as some of the well-wishers who had come to remember the late princess. William and Harry were expected to spend Thursday in private. …

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Turkey’s foreign ministry says the country protests “in the harshest way” a U.S. court decision to indict 19 people, including 15 Turkish security officials. The statement published late Wednesday follows Tuesday’s grand jury decision in Washington to charge the defendants with attacking peaceful demonstrators during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 16. Turkey has repeatedly told U.S. officials that security outside the ambassador’s home was negligent and didn’t ensure the safety of Erdogan’s entourage amid sympathizers of an outlawed Kurdish militant group, according to the statement. The ministry called the indictment “biased” and “regretful,” claiming it …

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