Category: Євросоюз

Turkish police said they were working with Australian authorities to investigate a foiled plot to bomb an Etihad Airways flight using explosives which Canberra said were flown in from Turkey. In a statement issued late on Saturday police said they had contacted Australian authorities as soon as they received news of the foiled plot. The two sides have “started working to clarify unclear and unconfirmed matters regarding the possibility that explosive substances were sent from Turkey three months ago,” said the statement carried by Turkish media. Australian police said on Friday that an Australian man sent his unsuspecting brother to …

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Emmanuel Macron’s honeymoon didn’t last long.   Less than three months after his election, France’s energetic and image-conscious president has seen his popularity drop after announcing budget cuts, launching a divisive labor reform and engaging in a damaging dispute with the military.   A series of opinion polls last week showed the percentage of French citizens who said they were satisfied with Macron’s policies and trusted their young leader to deal with the country’s problems plunging. The reversal might not affect the visible international profile he has cut since taking office, but it could hurt Macron’s ability to secure his …

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Britain is prepared to pay up to 40 billion euros ($47 billion) as part of a deal to leave the European Union, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing three unnamed sources familiar with Britain’s negotiating strategy. The European Union has floated a figure of 60 billion euros and wants significant progress on settling Britain’s liabilities before talks can start on complex issues such as future trading arrangements. The government department responsible for Brexit talks declined to comment on the Sunday Telegraph article. So far, Britain has given no official indication of how much it would be willing to pay. The …

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The shift this Saturday morning starts early — to catch male weekend vacationers heading to the beach. The first women on the main road running through the decaying Italian seaside resort of Castel Volturno, 30 kilometers north of Naples and home now to an estimated 20,000 African migrants, are older Central Europeans, but younger Nigerians aren’t far behind. By 9 a.m. there are about 30 sex workers touting for business along the strip — a small fraction of the nighttime contingents. Castel Volturno is one of Italy’s ground zeros when it comes to a migration crisis roiling Italian politics and …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin stripped to his waist to brave the cold waters of a mountain lake as part of a three-day fishing and hunting trip in the Siberian wilderness, the Kremlin said. Putin, 64, is renowned for his strong-man publicity stunts, which have contributed to his sky-high popularity ratings. The trip comes eight months before Russia’s presidential election next March and, though he has yet to announce his candidacy, Putin is widely expected to run and to win comfortably. The hunting and fishing expedition took place on Aug. 1-3 in the republic of Tyva in southern Siberia, on the …

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Russia’s former ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, said on Saturday his conversations with former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn had been transparent and focussed on matters of U.S.-Russia cooperation. Kislyak ended his tenure in Washington in July but remains a key figure in ongoing U.S. investigations into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Flynn was forced to resign in February after it became known that he had failed to disclose the content of conversations he had with Kislyak and misled U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence about their meetings. “We only spoke about the most simple things… but …

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A new study shows that deaths that result from extreme weather in Europe could increase 50 times by the end of the century if the effects of global warming are not curbed. In the study published Saturday by The Lancet Planetary Health journal, scientists say weather-related disasters could kill more than 152,000 people a year by 2100, up from 3,000 per year recently. The researchers say the toll could be especially high in southern Europe. “Unless global warming is curbed as a matter of urgency and appropriate adaptation measures are taken, about 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful …

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Alaska is the biggest – yet one of the least populated American states. There are just over 741,000 people living there – oil industry workers, adventurers from all over the U.S., Native Alaskans, immigrants. Within this complex cultural mosaic there is a group known as Russian Old believers. Nearly 50 years ago, they established a village called Nikolaevsk on Alaska’s Kenai peninsula. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya reports from there. …

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Top U.S. intelligence officials are refusing to back down over concerns about Russia, even as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian officials lament what they describe as deteriorating relations between the two countries. “Our values and our interests are not aligned naturally,” Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a small group of reporters this week. “Russia desires to be the center of influence in the European theater,” Stewart said. “There will be a perpetual contest between us and the Russian state for either regional or global dominance.” Stewart, who spoke before the latest public sparring …

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Mikheil Saakashvili, since last week the world’s only stateless former president, says he could have remained safely in the United States, or perhaps settled with his family in his wife’s home nation, the Netherlands. But instead, the former Georgian leader, who last week was stripped of his adoptive Ukrainian citizenship, turned up without notice Thursday in Poland, where he stands at risk of being deported to Georgia to face criminal charges that he says are politically motivated. “No, I could have [received residency in the United States], I was even offered to do it, but I didn’t want to take …

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The head of German automaker Volkswagen’s engineering and environment office pleaded guilty Friday in a U.S. court to charges connected to an emissions scandal involving the company. Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges that could land him in prison for up to seven years. He will be forced to pay a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000 for his role in a scheme, dubbed Dieselgate, to mislead U.S. environmental regulators. In March, the company admitted to using software to fool regulators into believing Volkswagen cars complied with U.S. emissions standards. It was ordered to pay …

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Italian outreach workers say there has been a significant shift in the migration pattern from Africa with many more young Nigerian women coming. And they add that many, if not most, of the young Nigerians arriving on Italian shores know they will be expected to engage in sex work. But the women have little idea how harsh their living conditions will be and how long it will take for them to pay off the debts they owe the traffickers who recruited them and got them to Italy. Few of them break free from the work, according to Appiah, a 37-year-old …

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An idyllic country manor set among the vineyards of the Loire River Valley, known for producing some of the world’s finest wines, is where France sought to pioneer its efforts to combat the radicalization of Muslim youth. The efforts were late in coming, compared with other European nations. Britain launched its campaign shortly after the 2005 London attacks. Denmark has had largely successful programs in place for years. France’s first efforts were in 2013, when it started an online campaign and a telephone hotline where relatives and teachers could report teenagers showing changes in behavior that pointed to radicalization. Watch: …

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Analysts estimate 1,700 French nationals have joined the Islamic State, responsible for attacks in France that have killed more than 200 people in the last two years. France has Europe’s largest Muslim population and a long history of extremist attacks, but it was only two years ago that it launched an effort to stop the radicalization of Muslim youth, much later than other European nations. France’s project is off to a slow, troubled start. VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez explores why. …

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Three firefighters have been hurt battling a large brush fire south of the Greek capital, Athens. Authorities have ordered the evacuation of dozens of homes in two communities in Lagonissi, a coastal area 30 kilometers from Athens, after several homes and cars were destroyed in the fire. Dozens of firefighters and fire engines are taking part in the operation. Winds up to 60 kilometers per hour were hampering the firefighting effort, while temperatures in the area reached 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit). Albanian fires In Albania about 300 firefighters and military personnel are working to keep under control about 25 …

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Turkey, once considered the model of an open, secular democracy in the Muslim world, now seems to be stuck in reverse. The government is cracking down on dissidents and erasing the line between religion and state in a country that has served as the bridge between East and West. Founded nearly a century ago, the overwhelmingly Muslim republic incorporated Western thought and philosophy and focused on science. It became an early member of NATO and aimed for European Union membership. But President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, riding a wave of domestic conservatism, is turning toward increasingly authoritarian rule. The once-vibrant news …

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U.S. President Donald Trump blamed Congress Thursday for creating new tensions with Russia by approving sanctions against Moscow, and the Kremlin agreed the penalties would thwart improved relations. “Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low,” Trump said on his Twitter account, overlooking the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis a half century ago that brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare. “You can thank Congress,” he said, describing lawmakers as “the same people that can’t even give us HCare!”, referring to the Senate’s failure last week to support his effort to dismantle …

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Father Carlo Ladicicco, a 65-year-old Catholic priest could be enjoying retirement after 35-years as a missionary in a remote region of Peru. Instead he is using his pension to subsidize his pastoral outreach to some of the poorest and most exploited African migrants in Italy — just a 40 minute drive from his birthplace in the country’s southern region of Campania. Sitting in his cramped, sparsely furnished rented bungalow decorated with keepsakes from his decades in the Peruvian jungle, the bustling silver-haired priest with an easy laugh says, “The mission is the same. Here is where I can really help.” …

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The German government has condemned Vietnam’s “unprecedented and blatant violation” of German and international law by kidnapping a Vietnamese citizen seeking asylum in Berlin and returning him to Hanoi to face criminal charges. The German foreign ministry expelled a Vietnamese intelligence officer and summoned Vietnam’s ambassador to hear a complaint that the incident “has the potential to have a massive negative impact on relations between Germany and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” A statement issued in Berlin Wednesday said senior German officials have “no reasonable doubt” that Vietnamese security services and embassy staff carried out the kidnapping last week of …

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Centers like Pontourney in Beaumont-En-Veron were to be opened in France as reintegration centers, and were to be set up in every region of France. But that will not happen now: At the end of July, officials said Pontourney is closing. …

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