Category: Євросоюз

The United States and Britain urged Russia on Friday to bring to justice all those responsible for the slaying of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. A Russian court on Thursday convicted five men of murdering Nemtsov, but allies of the politician have said the investigation was a cover-up and that the people who had ordered his killing remained at large. “We call once more on the Russian government to ensure that all involved in the killing of Boris Nemtsov, including anyone involved in organizing or ordering the crime, are brought to justice,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, calling …

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French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was charged Friday with allegedly misusing European Parliament funds to pay two parliamentary aides who also work at her National Front headquarters. Her lawyer said she denies the charges and will fight to get the investigation suspended.   Investigators suspect some National Front lawmakers used legislative aides for the party’s political activities while they were on the European Parliament payroll. Le Pen is president of the far-right National Front party.    The prosecutor’s office said Le Pen was summoned and handed preliminary charges of breach of trust and complicity in breach of trust concerning …

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Families in Kosovo are appealing to national authorities and the international community to learn the fate of their loved ones who went missing during the Kosovo war, fought from March 1998 to June 1999. At the end of 2002, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported more than 6,000 people from Kosovo were unaccounted for. That number has gradually been reduced to 1,650. At a conference Thursday and Friday in Geneva, the U.N. Mission in Kosovo sought to clarify the fate of these people.   Families of the missing include members of the Albanian and Serbian communities in Kosovo. …

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The leader of the United Nations has joined the reconvened Cyprus negotiations to encourage the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to grasp the opportunity for peace and end a stalemate that has kept their island divided for more than four decades. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres got off the plane from New York early Friday morning and immediately set to work at the negotiating table. As cheer leader in chief, Guterres says he is encouraged by the determination and commitment of the participants to find a solution to this thorny problem.  He says the conference offers an historic opportunity to …

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The European Union has pledged to support Italy as it continues to admit thousands of migrants who are crossing the Mediterranean every day from North Africa.  So far this year nearly 80,000 people have made the journey, and more than 2,000 have died Poor health Most of the tens of thousands of people plucked from the Mediterranean this week have been taken to ports on the Italian coast. They are severely dehydrated, usually malnourished and suffering from infections and skin diseases. But there are other troubling signs. Marcella Kraay of Doctors Without Borders spoke to VOA via Skype from the …

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The European Union has pledged to support Italy as it continues to admit thousands of migrants crossing every day from North Africa across the Mediterranean. Italy has threatened to shut its ports to foreign-registered boats carrying migrants. So far this year nearly 80,000 people have made the journey, and more than 2,000 have died. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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A top adviser to Pope Francis was charged with multiple historical sex crimes in his native Australia on Thursday, bringing a worldwide abuse scandal to the heart of the Vatican. Appointed Vatican economy minister by Francis, Cardinal George Pell is the highest-ranking Church official to face such accusations. He asserted his innocence and said the pontiff had given him leave of absence to return to Australia to defend himself. “I am looking forward finally to having my day in court. I repeat that I am innocent of these charges. They are false,” the 76-year-old told a news conference at the …

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France is known worldwide for its wine, food and culture, but under its new president, the French are aiming to be the new global hub for tech startups. President Emmanuel Macron has said he wants to build a version of Silicon Valley in France. His administration has launched pro-business initiatives that are loosening government restrictions and encouraging entrepreneurs to launch their startups in the country. “The tradition has been in Europe and in France to invest in big, traditional companies and not specifically [in] tech startups. So we will dedicate a €10 billion fund to the investment in tech startups …

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Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has told Greek Cypriots to stop dreaming that 35,000 Turkish forces will leave the divided island. “This is their dream. They should wake up from this dream and they should abandon this dream,” he said Thursday at U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. Cavusoglu said the current round of talks should be the last attempt to resolve the decades-old dispute over Cyprus. “We cannot continue negotiating forever,” the Turkish diplomat said. His Greek counterpart, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, said the Turkish side has been repeating the same positions over and over. The Greek Cypriots’ demand …

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Australian police charged a top Vatican cardinal Thursday with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offenses, a stunning decision certain to rock the highest levels of the Holy See.   Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ chief financial adviser and Australia’s most senior Catholic, said in an early morning appearance at the Vatican that he would take a leave of absence as the Vatican’s finance czar and would return to Australia to fight the charges. He denied the accusations and denounced what he called a “relentless character assassination” in the media. Victoria state Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said police have …

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Voice of America correspondent Hediye Levent studied the changing conditions Irbil, Iraq. …

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A Ukraine official claimed Wednesday that Russia was behind the previous day’s cyberattack that crippled computers in government ministries and power grid facilities, banks, even at Kyiv’s international airport.  Oleksandr Turchinov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, made the allegation after Tuesday’s cyberattack that ultimately hit companies around the world in an incident that was similar to a ransomware attack last month that targeted hospitals in Britain. The cyberattack, which Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman called “unprecedented,” was caused by a variant of a computer virus known as Petya, which threatens to wipe the infected computer clean of data …

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European security officials are increasingly worried that Islamic State’s reach will not fade even as the terror group loses its grip on Mosul and Raqqa, the twin capitals of its now-collapsing, self-declared caliphate. Instead, they warn of an organization that has carefully reinvented itself in order to take the fight directly to the West, with Europe in the crosshairs. “Despite the recent setback for the Islamic State on the battlefield, the group has reached a new level of capability,” Manuel Navarrette, the head of Europol’s European Counterterrorism Center, warned during a recent visit to Washington. “ISIS has shown the capability …

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Italian officials say their government has told the European Commission in Brussels it is considering stopping ships that are not Italian-registered from disembarking at its ports migrants who were rescued while trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya. The dramatic move comes after nearly 11,000 asylum-seekers and economic migrants, mainly from African nations, arrived on Italian shores in a four-day period from war-wracked Libya. In a letter to the commission, Italy’s ambassador to the EU, Maurizio Massari, said the situation has become “unsustainable.” In a meeting Wednesday, Massari informed Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s commissioner for migration, that his government is …

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Britain’s Conservative minority government faced its first test in Parliament since the June 8 election on Wednesday — an opposition demand for an end to public spending cuts. The main opposition Labour Party called for a pay raise for public-sector workers, whose salaries have been capped during seven years of austerity, and an end to cuts to police and firefighting budgets. Labour’s proposal came after several days of debate on last week’s Queen’s Speech, which laid out government plans for the next two years. A vote will take place in Parliament at around 7 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT). …

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President Donald Trump will attend Bastille Day celebrations in Paris on July 14, according to a statement from the White House. Trump accepted the invitation from French president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday and “looks forward to reaffirming America’s strong ties of friendship with France.” The two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday, when Macron offered the invitation. During the call, the White House said “the two leaders also discussed the current situation in the Middle East and reviewed the agenda for the upcoming G-20 Summit” in Hamburg. The two presidents last met in May, when they both traveled to Brussels …

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The United Nations is urging rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to seize this “historic opportunity” to reunify their island, which has been divided since 1974. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was not at the opening session of the resumed Cyprus talks Wednesday, but he sent his personal representative, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, to deliver a message to the two Cypriot leaders and the guarantor powers in attendance. “This is a historic opportunity to solve a problem that has been there for decades,” Feltman said. “And, what we heard this morning gave us the hope and the conviction that …

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Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk, owner of the world’s largest container shipper Maersk Line, has been hit by the global Petya cyberattack, preventing it from accepting new orders. The cyber extortion campaign, which has disrupted businesses around the world, has also caused congestion at some of the 76 port terminals run by Maersk’s APM Terminals unit, including in the United States, India, Spain and the Netherlands. “Right now, at this hour, we’re not able to take new orders,” Maersk Line Chief Commercial Officer Vincent Clerc told Reuters on Wednesday. “It will have an impact on vessels or cargo that loaded yesterday, today …

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The United States has yet to say whether President Donald Trump will accept an invitation by President Emmanuel Macron to attend France’s annual July 14 Bastille day celebrations, government spokesman Christophe Castaner said on Wednesday. “We confirmed this week the invitation and our services are working on the basis that president trump comes,” Castaner told reporters at a weekly news conference. “It’s neither confirmed today nor rejected.” Macron’s office said on Tuesday it had invited Trump on two occasions to attend the celebrations next month during which the U.S. military will take part to mark 100 years since it joined …

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A new exhibition will examine the overlapping worlds of two figures bound together by history on different sides of the Atlantic — King George III and President George Washington. Britain’s Royal Archives and the U.S. Library of Congress said on Wednesday that a new “Two Georges” exhibit, to be first shown in Washington in 2021, would tap into the libraries’ rich sources of historic knowledge to find parallels and contrasts between the two men. A venue in Britain has yet to be decided. “Linked and then ultimately separated by empire, the two Georges offer a distinctive perspective on this vital …

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