Category: Євросоюз

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. …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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 …

READ MORE

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. …

READ MORE

The British government is fighting back against criticism that it is divided and unprepared for Brexit, announcing it will publish a set of detailed proposals on customs arrangements, the status of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border and other issues. The Department for Exiting the European Union said Sunday that it would release the first set of position papers this week, more than a year after Britons voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. The government says it hopes to persuade the 27 other EU nations to start negotiating a “deep and special” future relationship that would include a free …

READ MORE

Child beggars have long been part of the social fabric in Ashgabat, where some families acknowledge that they depend on such income for survival. However, Ashgabat police have begun clearing the streets of those children as the Turkmen capital gears up for the Asian Indoor And Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in September, according to residents and parents interviewed by RFE/RL. Police officers, raiding the city in vans, order such children home and warn them not to return to the streets, said Ashgabat resident Amanmyrat Bugaev.  An Ashgabat police officer within the juvenile-affairs department, who requested anonymity because he was not …

READ MORE

Residents of St. Petersburg on Saturday paid homage to sailors from the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea exactly 17 years earlier. Relatives and friends of crew members gathered for a memorial service and a commemorative meeting at St. Petersburg’s Serafimovskoye Cemetery. All 118 crew members aboard the nuclear-powered Kursk submarine died on August 12, 2000, after an explosion occurred as the crew was preparing to fire a practice torpedo. The Russian Navy’s final official report concluded that the explosion was caused by the failure of a torpedo. The Kursk was raised from the bottom of the …

READ MORE

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday it was suspending its migrant rescues in the Mediterranean because it felt threatened by the Libyan coastguard and the Italian government’s policies have made its job harder. The aid group’s decision is the latest development in mounting tensions between Rome and NGOs as migration dominates Italy’s political agenda ahead of elections early next year. “We are suspending our activities because now we feel that the threatening behaviour by the Libyan coastguard is very serious … we cannot put our colleagues in danger,” the president of MSF’s Italian arm Loris De Filippi told Reuters. …

READ MORE

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is appealing to the government of Ukraine in Kyiv and Russian-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine to provide basic services and pension benefits to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people struggling to survive in the rebel-held parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.   With the conflict in Ukraine in its fourth year, more than 10,000 people have been killed as sporadic fighting continues between Russian-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine, and the death toll continues to mount. Among the living, those who are suffering the most include nearly 1.6 million …

READ MORE

Sixteen months after deadly clashes erupted in Azerbaijan’s autonomous breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, international mediators are saying it’s time for all parties to undertake confidence-building measures to jump-start the political settlement process. Russia led mediation to settle the four days of shelling and rocket strikes between Azerbaijan’s military and Armenian-backed separatists over Nagorno-Karabakh. The clashes were the deadliest incidents since a 1994 cease-fire established the current territorial division. The brief but intense fighting of April 2016 claimed dozens of lives. Since then, the United States, Russia and France, which co-chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group …

READ MORE

The next presidential election in Slovenia will be held on October 22 and the incumbent is expected to run for a second term.   Parliamentary speaker Milan Brglez on Friday formally set the date for the vote which must be held in the autumn. Recent opinion polls predict that President Borut Pahor will likely be re-elected if he chooses to run.   The 53-year-old Pahor is a former fashion model who has become known for his use of social media while in office.   The Alpine nation of 2 million people is the homeland of U.S. first lady Melania Trump. …

READ MORE

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is warning people against returning prematurely to war-torn Syria as the number of displaced going back to their homes reaches a record high. An IOM report found more than 600,000 displaced Syrians have returned home in the first seven months of this year, nearly as many as the total number of returnees for all of 2016. IOM spokeswoman Olivia Haedon said most of the returns are spontaneous, but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable. “As the security situation changes in different parts of the country, displacement can occur again,” she said. “As you noted, …

READ MORE

Opponents of Britain’s departure from the European Union are floating the idea of setting up a new anti-Brexit political party. James Chapman, a former aide to Brexit Secretary David Davis, has become an outspoken critic of Britain’s looming departure from the 28-nation bloc. He is calling for a new centrist political party because both the governing Conservatives and main opposition Labour parties say they will go through with the decision to leave. Chapman said Friday “there is an enormous gap in the center now of British politics” that could be filled by an anti-Brexit force. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair …

READ MORE

A year on from when a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck the mountainous heartland of Italy, killing 300 people and leaving thousands homeless, local mayors of a string of hilltop towns and villages that were left in ruins remain frustrated by the sluggish pace of reconstruction. Three-quarters of the once postcard-perfect towns of Amatrice and Accumoli remain in ruins. Pescara del Tronto, another medieval hilltop settlement, is a pile of rubble. The recent opening in Amatrice, which gave its name to the pasta sauce, all’amatriciana, of a food village, an innovative facility built of low-cost timber, has been touted by its …

READ MORE