Category: Євросоюз

Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union may never happen because its main political parties are too divided on the issue, said Vince Cable, a veteran lawmaker bidding to lead the fourth largest political party, the Liberal Democrats. Prime Minister Theresa May’s failure to win an outright majority in a snap national election last month has cast doubt on her capacity to lead Britain out of the EU, sharpening a debate on what sort of exit deal the government should seek. “I’m beginning to think that Brexit may never happen,” Cable told the BBC on Sunday. “The problems are so …

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Former Polish President Lech Walesa, a democracy hero, has been hospitalized with heart problems in his Baltic coast home city of Gdansk, his son said Saturday. Jaroslaw Walesa told The Associated Press via text message that his father was feeling “unfortunately weak.” It was not immediately known when he could be discharged from the heart diseases ward of the Gdansk University Clinic. Lech Walesa, 73, on Thursday attended a speech by President Donald Trump in Warsaw. He was booed by many in a crowd that supported the current government, which criticizes Walesa’s role in Poland’s politics. Walesa strongly criticizes the …

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Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters took to the streets Saturday to demonstrate against the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, hours after masked rioters clashed with police, burned cars and looted businesses. Marching on a route close to where some of the worst violence unfolded overnight, protesters chanted, sang, danced and played music as world leaders wrapped up their two-day summit in the German port city. An eclectic crowd of families with infants, Kurdish groups, Scottish socialists and anarchists waving flags and shouting anti-capitalist slogans progressed through the city, accompanied by thousands of police officers. Despite the mayhem late …

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Serbia said Saturday that six of its citizens had been arrested in Greece in the investigation of the beating death of a 22-year-old Texas man on the island of Zakynthos. Serbia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the detained Serbs were to appear before a judge. The family of Bakari Henderson of Austin, Texas, identified him as the victim. His family said Henderson was in Greece working on a photo shoot to launch a clothing line. Bakari graduated from the University of Arizona in May with a business degree. Greek police said the victim was beaten to death early Friday at a …

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The G-20 summit of the world’s richest economies wrapped up Saturday against a backdrop of angry protests, and a pledge by leaders to fight protectionism in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy and Brexit. The U.S. leader took center stage at the two-day gathering, and his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was the major headline. VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Hamburg. …

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Firefighters and police in Italy Saturday pulled the eighth and final body from the rubble of a five-story apartment building that partially collapsed in a seaside town south of Naples.    The digging through the debris for victims ended more than 24 hours after the residential building collapsed in the early morning. About 80 firefighters worked alongside police and other crews through the night.    The dead were identified as an elderly resident and two families, one with children of elementary and high school age, and one with a grown son living at home.    The cause of the collapse …

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has named former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker to serve as Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations. The announcement came ahead of Tillerson’s first official visit to Kyiv Sunday, where he will meet with President Petro Poroshenko to discuss ways to help end the conflict in eastern Ukraine and support the country’s ongoing reform efforts. “The United States remains fully committed to the objectives of the Minsk agreement,” Tillerson said in a statement Friday, referring to the cease-fire deal that Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in 2015. Watch: Tillerson Heads to Ukraine Following Trump-Putin Meeting …

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Ukraine was among the issues raised when U.S. President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday. And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be taking the issue next to Ukraine’s capital and a meeting with the country’s president. VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching previews Tillerson’s trip (narrated by VOA’s Steve Redisch.) …

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Visiting Poland this week, U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to boost exports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Central Europe and take on Russia’s stranglehold on energy supplies. “America stands ready to help Poland and other European nations diversify their energy supplies so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier,” Trump told reporters after talks with his Polish counterpart Thursday. Up to now, that supplier has been Russia. It supplied around a third of Europe’s gas demand in 2016, with an even greater share in many of the former Soviet states in Central and Eastern …

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The G-20 summit of the world’s richest economies was on its final day Saturday against a backdrop of intensifying protests and with U.S. President Donald Trump taking center stage.   The U.S. leader held a series of meetings on the sidelines with the leaders of Britain, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, and China.   Trump also took part in a discussion on partnering with Africa on migration and health and joined leaders for a session on women entrepreneurs, where he said the United States would pledge $50 million to the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, a World Bank-led effort championed by his daughter, …

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British police say they have arrested a 19-year-old man over the Manchester concert bombing, as the hunt continues for accomplices of attacker Salman Abedi. The Greater Manchester Police force says the man was arrested Friday at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport on suspicion of terrorism offenses. He is being held in custody. Twenty-two people were killed May 22 when Abedi, a Briton of Libyan heritage, detonated a homemade knapsack bomb as crowds were leaving an Ariana Grande concert. In the days after the attack, police arrested 22 people on suspicion of terrorism offenses, but all were subsequently released without charge. Counterterrorism …

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was released from jail Friday after serving 25 days for organizing a wave of protests. “We will, of course, not bend under any pressure,” Navalny said after he returned to the office of his Fund for Fighting Corruption. Navalny was arrested June 12 as thousands of protesters gathered for an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow. Protests in response to Navalny’s call occurred in more than 100 Russian cities and towns that day, one of the strongest showings by the marginalized opposition for several years. Nearly 2,000 people were detained at the protests, most of them in …

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A court in Lithuania has found a Russian national guilty of spying and sentenced him to 10 years in prison for attempting to recruit local officials to plant listening devices at the offices of the Baltic nation’s president. The Vilnius district court said Friday that Nikolay Filipchenko was an officer with the Russian Federal Security Service and intended to spy on President Dalia Grybauskaite’s office for Moscow. Filipchenko pleaded not guilty during his trial and has 20 days to appeal the verdict. He was arrested in April 2015 at a Lithuanian-Russian border crossing while carrying a forged passport. In recent …

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German prosecutors said Friday they have arrested a former employee of the Volkswagen unit Audi in connection with the company’s diesel scandal.   The office of the prosecutors of the city of Munich said the man worked in engine development in the southern German city of Neckarsulm and is accused of fraud and unfair advertising.   The prosecutors did not confirm whether the individual was Giovanni Pamio, who was accused Thursday by U.S. authorities of giving the orders to program diesel engines to cheat on emissions tests. Pamio, 60 and an Italian citizen, is a former Audi executive and based …

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London is a hotspot of modern slavery, with workers in hotels, restaurants and on construction sites at particular risk of exploitation, said the head of the Metropolitan police’s anti-slavery unit. Modern slavery cases surged in the first half of this year to about 820 by the end of June, compared to about 1,013 in the whole of 2016, Detective Inspector Phil Brewer told Reuters. The growth in cases is partly due to increased awareness about slavery, and as police and local authorities are now more often considering whether those involved in potential slavery crimes are victims rather than suspects, said …

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The international community is watching in anticipation as Donald Trump, five months into his presidency, holds his first meeting with the man seen as his rival for the title of “most powerful leader” on the planet, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their formal bilateral discussion late Friday is overshadowing the two-day gathering in Hamburg, Germany, of heads of state of the world’s 20 strongest economies. The meeting is fraught with symbolism as Trump, still new to the world of international diplomacy, sits down with Putin, who came to power in what amounted to a Kremlin palace coup 17 years ago, and …

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U.S. President Donald Trump warns that the values of the West are under attack and questions whether its people have the will to fight for them. During a speech in Poland to mark his second trip to Europe, Trump delivered some of his strongest remarks yet about Russia, warning Moscow that it must stop what he termed its ‘destabilizing’ actions in Ukraine and Syria. Henry Ridgwell reports from Warsaw. …

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European Union officials on Thursday reaffirmed the need to tackle Europe’s migrant crisis in Libya and surrounding countries, amid continued resistance in Europe to welcome refugees. Italy announced some 30 million euro (US$34 million) in new investments aimed at preventing migrants from ever reaching or leaving Libya’s lawless shores where smugglers operate. And EU interior ministers warned they might sanction migrants’ home countries with visa restrictions if they refuse to take their people back when their European asylum bids fail. Europe’s migration crisis was on the agenda at two meetings Thursday: an informal EU-wide interior ministers meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, …

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U.S. President Donald Trump is now in the German port city of Hamburg for the start of the G-20 summit of the world’s leading economies. After a successful visit to Poland, the U.S. leader faces a difficult scenario at the G-20 that includes meetings with leaders of China, Germany, and Russia and a long list of contentious issues.  VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Hamburg. …

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U.S. President Donald Trump urged the leaders of central and eastern European nations Thursday to enter into agreements to purchase U.S. energy exports, instead of relying heavily on imports from Russia. “America stands ready to help Poland and other European nations diversify their energy supplies, so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier,” Trump said in Warsaw, Poland, where he attended a meeting of 12 European nations. Trump did not mention Russia, but many observers believed his remarks were meant to get the leaders to view the U.S. as a viable alternate source of energy. In …

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