Category: Євросоюз

Russia has indicated a potential new legal salvo in its trade war with Ukraine and the European Union, telling the World Trade Organization that a trade deal between Kiev and Brussels breaks the rules by penalizing Russia. Minutes of a June 29 meeting of the WTO’s committee on regional trade agreements, published on Tuesday, record Russia’s representative as saying the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement was “an exemplary case of a situation where a free trade area worsened trade conditions for other trading partners”. That meant it was a breach of the WTO rules, which say that free trade areas should …

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A British court on Monday gave the parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard a chance to present fresh evidence that their terminally ill son should receive experimental treatment. The decision came after an emotionally charged hearing in the wrenching case, during which Gard’s mother wept in frustration and his father yelled at a lawyer. Judge Nicholas Francis gave the couple until Wednesday afternoon to present the evidence and set a new hearing for Thursday in a case that has drawn international attention. But the judge insisted there had to be “new and powerful” evidence to reverse earlier rulings that barred Charlie …

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Thousands of unaccompanied and separated refugee and migrant children risk exploitation, trafficking, abuse and violence because European asylum countries have failed to protect them, according to three leading humanitarian organizations. To remedy this situation, the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR), the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and International Rescue Committee (IRC) have devised a “Roadmap for Action” to protect vulnerable children arriving and staying in Europe. ”While the total number of arrivals to Europe has decreased, the situation of unaccompanied and separated children remains an emergency,” said Diane Goodman, deputy director of the UNHCR’s Europe bureau. “It is wrong to assume …

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A call by the Israeli ambassador to Hungary for an end to the billboard campaign against George Soros wasn’t meant to “delegitimize” criticism of the Hungarian-American billionaire, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Sunday. The ministry’s statement was in response to a Facebook post by Ambassador Yossi Amrani, who said the Hungarian government’s billboards not only evoke “sad memories, but also sow hatred and fear.” The ministry said the “sole purpose” of the ambassador’s statement was to express Israel’s rejections of anti-Semitism and support “Jewish communities everywhere in confronting this hatred.” “In no way was the statement meant to delegitimize criticism …

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The strained U.S. relations with Turkey are beginning to improve, but will require much more work, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “I think we are working very hard to rebuild that level of trust that is the basis for any relationship,” Tillerson said, speaking Monday with the staff and families of the U.S. Mission in Istanbul. “It is important for so many reasons, which is why we must put the relationship on the mend, re-establish it on the proper basis and strengthen it going forward,” he said, citing the war in Syria as one of the issues on …

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The Kremlin said Monday it was unaware of a 2016 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior staff and a Russian attorney who promised to give them damaging information about Trump’s challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it does not know the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and “cannot keep track” of every Russian lawyer and their contacts overseas. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said Sunday that he, Trump’s then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with the Russian lawyer in June 2016 after Trump had clinched the Republican presidential nomination. Veselnitskaya has said …

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has marked the anniversary this week of last year’s failed coup coup in Turkey, praising the courage of the Turkish people in defending democracy but failing to mention the widespread government crackdown that has followed since. Speaking Sunday at an oil conference in Istanbul, Tillerson recalled the brief, unsuccessful attempt last July 15 to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He also said the United States sees Turkey as a partner in its push for greater energy security in the region, and “looks forward to engaging with Turkey on projects that will increase global energy …

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Top French company bosses who have for years lamented their country’s slow pace of reforms at an annual summer gathering in Provence offered glowing praise this year for the first steps taken by newly elected President Emmanuel Macron. Sixty days after Macron became France’s youngest ever president, the CEOs gathered in the southern town of Aix-en-Provence said they had sensed a radical change in the country’s image abroad. “The whole world admires France today. There is renewed confidence, optimism about the country,” Patrick Pouyanne, the head of oil major Total, France’s largest company, told reporters. “What I expect from this …

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Tens of thousands of people massed in Istanbul Sunday to protest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on critics of his government in the wake of last year’s failed military coup. The demonstrators chanted “Rights, Law, Justice” in support of the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was completing a 450-kilometer walk from the capital Ankara after a lawmaker from his party was imprisoned in June. It was the biggest protest in several years against Erdogan, whose government has arrested more than 50,000 people and dismissed at least 100,000 civil servants he has characterized as supporters of the aborted coup. …

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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he twice “strongly pressed” Russian President Vladimir Putin about Russia’s meddling in last year’s U.S. election and it was now time to “move forward in working constructively” with Moscow. In a string of Twitter comments after returning to Washington from the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump noted that Putin vehemently denied any role in interfering in the election and that he and the Russian leader “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe.” Key Republican lawmakers, however, immediately ridiculed …

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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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