Category: Євросоюз

Serbia offered a 10-year-old migrant from Afghanistan, who has been nicknamed “Little Picasso” because of his talent for painting, and his family citizenship on Wednesday, after they spent eight months in a refugee camp while seeking to reach Switzerland. Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic made the offer to Farhad Nouri, which also included a job for his father, upon meeting the five-member family in his office. Nouri’s drawings and photographs were put on display last week in what was also a charity event to raise money for a Serbian boy recovering from brain tumor surgery. Nouri and his family left their …

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Ireland’s finance minister rejected the European Commission’s demand that it retroactively collect 13 billion euros in taxes from Apple, saying this was not Dublin’s job in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper. In the interview, extracts from which the FAZ published on Wednesday, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the tax rules from which Apple benefited had been available to all and not tailored for the U.S. technology giant. They did not violate European or Irish law, he added. “We are not the global tax collector for everybody else,” the paper quoted him as saying. The European Commission last …

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Ukrainian officials quickly issued strong denials of an allegation that a Ukrainian arms factory may have supplied engine technology used in North Korean missiles. VOA’s Ukrainian Service interviewed the analyst who made the allegation, Michael Elleman, who qualified his remarks first published in a New York Times article to emphasize that Russia, too, could have been the source. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Washington. …

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There should be no border posts between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland after Brexit, Britain said in an early attempt to resolve one of the most complex aspects of its European Union exit. Some 30,000 people cross the 500-kilometer border every day without customs or immigration checks, testing negotiators who have to work out how to tighten controls without inflaming tensions in a region where around 3,600 people were killed before a peace agreement in 1998. The British government said in a paper due to be published on Wednesday that it wanted a seamless and frictionless frontier …

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Firefighters battled wildfires raging northeast of Athens for a third day on Tuesday as Greece asked for help from its European partners to prevent them from spreading. The fire started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and has spread to three more towns, damaging dozens of homes and burning thousands of hectares of pine forest. A state of emergency has been declared in the area. “The blaze is advancing with great speed. Because of the scale and intensity of the wildfires, the country submitted a request for aerial means,” fire brigade …

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Italy’s interior minister said on Tuesday he saw light at the end of the tunnel for curbing migrant flows from Libya after a slowdown in arrivals across the Mediterranean in recent months. But a United Nations investigator said that Italy’s recent effort to draw up a code regulating the operations of humanitarian ships rescuing migrants at sea would cause more deaths. The subject of immigration is dominating Italy’s political agenda ahead of general elections due before May next year, with public opinion increasingly hostile to migrants. Almost 600,000 migrants have arrived in Italy over the past four years. “We are …

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In a rare visit, the head of Iran’s armed forces is in Turkey. The two neighbors have found themselves increasing rivals in Iraq and Syria, but both sides are trying to find common ground. The chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri, arrived in Ankara, leading a high-ranking military and political delegation, for three days of talks. It is the first visit by Iran’s chief of staff since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Regional rivalries Former Turkish ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz now heads the Ankara Policy Forum. He says conflicts in Iraq and Syria have …

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President Emmanuel Macron has filed a legal complaint against a photographer alleging harassment and invasion of privacy while on vacation in the southern French city of Marseille, a source in the president’s entourage said. Macron and his wife Brigitte are staying in the private residence of the prefect of Marseille, French media have reported, which overlooks the Mediterranean and is shielded from the public eye by a high wall dotted with security cameras. “A photographer followed him on several occasions… and there was an intrusion on the property, which led to the complaint for harassment and invasion of privacy being …

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New U.S. sanctions on Moscow have forced Russian business chiefs to accept that Donald Trump’s rise to power is not about to produce a “Trump Bump” in foreign investment. After Trump became U.S. president, some investors said they would be prepared to contemplate new deals with Russian firms if they saw signs that U.S.-Russian ties were improving and U.S. restrictions on business with Russia were being relaxed. But the new sanctions, signed onto law by Trump on August 2, add new measures and codify six orders signed by President Barack Obama, making them harder for Trump to revoke. For the …

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London’s Holborn underground station closed briefly Tuesday after overheating equipment on a train filled a platform with smoke. The fire service said it had sent two fire engines and 10 firefighters to the station. “It was an overheated compressor on a train not a fire,” London Fire Brigade said a statement. A witness on a train at the station said smoke filled one of the carriages. “There was a fire alert on a westbound Central line train,” a spokesman for London’s transport operator said. “We are investigating the cause.” The fire service said it dealt with the incident in less …

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With four weeks to go before an election that is too close to call, Norway’s Conservative prime minister, Erna Solberg, pledged on Monday to cut taxes to boost growth and job creation if she was re-elected. In power as head of a minority coalition government since 2013, Solberg is attempting to become the first right-wing prime minister to win re-election since 1985. While taxes, unemployment and a rural backlash against government reforms are hotly debated, opinion polls show a near dead heat between Solberg’s right-wing coalition and center-left parties seeking to replace it in a Sept. 11 vote for parliament. …

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Firefighters battled more than 90 forest fires across Greece on Monday, an outbreak fed by dry winds and hot weather that saw blazes burning near Athens, in the Peloponnese, and on the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia. The fire near Athens was burning unchecked for a second day, damaging dozens of homes. It had started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and spread overnight to three more towns. A state of emergency was declared in the area. On Zakynthos, an island popular with foreign tourists, several fires continued to burn …

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Russia’s top domestic security agency said Monday it has thwarted suicide bombings in Moscow planned by the Islamic State group in Syria. Four people have been arrested on suspicion of plotting attacks on Moscow transit system and shopping malls, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement. Those arrested included two would-be suicide bombers along with an Islamic State envoy and an expert in explosives. One of them is a Russian national and three others are from ex-Soviet Central Asia, the FSB said. The agency released a video in which its agents inspect a house used by the …

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Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is voicing alarm its leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu could face prosecution and jail in an ongoing crackdown in Turkey, which has seen more than a dozen parliament deputies jailed. “There is a big plot against the CHP,” warned Bulent Tezcan in an interview Monday with Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper, “Any steps taken against the main opposition party may open an era where the ruling party would not be able to have their way in peace,” added Tezcan. Tezcan’s comments follows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestion Kilicadaroglu could be implicated in an ongoing espionage investigation …

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The bongs will soon be gone. Big Ben — the huge clock bell of Britain’s Parliament — will fall silent next week as a four-year restoration project gets underway. The bongs of the iconic bell will be stopped after chiming noon on Aug. 21 to protect workers during a 29-million-pound ($38 million) repair project on the Queen Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben and its clock. It isn’t due to resume regular service until 2021. Steve Jaggs, keeper of the Great Clock, said Monday that the clock mechanism will be dismantled piece by piece and its four dials will be …

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Police in Denmark have intensified their hunt for a missing Swedish journalist who allegedly disembarked from an amateur-built submarine a day before the vessel sunk. Copenhagen police continued their search Monday on land and at sea for 30-year-old freelance journalist Kim Wall. The search also will cover parts of Swedish territorial waters. Wall was on a reporting assignment aboard the UC3 Nautilus submarine owned by 46-year-old Danish inventor Peter Madsen. He made a last-minute escape from the sinking vessel Friday and has denied any responsibility for Wall’s fate. Madsen was arrested on preliminary manslaughter charges. Copenhagen police suspect that Madsen …

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More than 3,000 firemen struggled to put out forest fires across Portugal on Sunday, after the country requested assistance from Europe to fight blazes that threaten to spread with more hot weather in the coming days. Exceptionally dry and hot weather ignited Portugal’s worst fire disaster in memory early this summer, killing 64 people, and fires have continued to flare up in recent weeks with the arrival of each new hotter spell of weather. Interior Minister Constanca Urbana de Sousa said the country sent the request for help to Europe late on Saturday because of concerns that high temperatures and …

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Danish police say they have not found the body of a missing Swedish journalist inside an amateur-built submarine that sunk off the Nordic country’s eastern coast last week. Copenhagen police spokesman Jens Moller Jensen says Sunday that investigators uncovered no trace of 30-year-old freelance journalist Kim Wall in the UC3 Nautilus sub, which was raised and transported for investigation Saturday.   Police will now continue to search for Wall in the waters near the island in Copenhagen’s harbor where the sub’s owner Peter Madsen allegedly dropped her off late Thursday.   Madsen made a last-minute escape from the sinking sub …

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The British government tried to fight back Sunday against criticisms that it is divided and unprepared for Brexit, saying it will set out detailed plans for the U.K.’s exit from the European Union and issuing a joint statement by two Cabinet rivals over Europe.   Trade Secretary Liam Fox, a strong supporter of leaving the European Union, and the more pro-EU Treasury chief Philip Hammond, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that they agreed there should be a “time-limited” transition period after Britain formally leaves the bloc in 2019, to avoid a “cliff-edge” for people and businesses.   Fox and Hammond …

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s reluctant support for tighter sanctions against Russia, and recent comments about Russia, have been interpreted in Moscow as a turning point in hopes for improved relations. The tougher line, despite Trump’s continued apathy on alleged Kremlin interference in the U.S. election, dismissal of possible collusion, and flattery of President Vladimir Putin, raise the question: What is Trump’s Russia policy? VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Washington. …

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