Category: Євросоюз

Istanbul’s governor has banned a gay pride parade in the city for the second straight year, citing threats from conservative Muslim groups. Last week, the ultra-nationalist Alperen Hearths group said it would stop the march from happening Sunday in Taksim Square if authorities took no action to cancel the parade. On Saturday, the governor’s office announced it would not give permission to the parade organizers out of concern for the safety of the marchers and tourists in the city. It said a number of groups had “serious reactions” to the march, which was planned to coincide with the first day …

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With snipers on the roof and armored vehicles surrounding the Council building, Europe’s leaders met in Brussels with security topping the summit agenda. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said leaders had agreed on greater cooperation in intelligence sharing and defense spending. “We are spending half of the military budget of the U.S. but our efficiency is 15 percent. So there is room for improvement and that’s exactly what we decided today,” Juncker said. Migrants issue Outside a band of refugees called “Syrians Got Talent” aimed to send a musical message to EU leaders — that they should stand up for …

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European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed to greater cooperation on defense and intelligence as the continent grapples with a series of terror attacks. But little progress was made on Brexit and the migration crisis. The latest numbers show 81,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2017, with more poised to make the challenging journey. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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The Muslim leader in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska says security is improving for his followers, although harsh poverty remains an intractable issue as they prepare to observe Eid al-Fitr, the religious holiday marking the end of Ramadan. “There is no more desecration of the Muslim tombstones, which used to happen often after the war,” Mufti Osman Kozlic told VOA’s Bosnian Service in an exclusive interview. However, if Muslim youths remain impoverished, he said, they’ll be increasingly vulnerable to extremist ideologies and recruitment by radical groups such as the Islamic State (IS). ​Hundreds had gone to Syria In previous years, IS leaders …

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Albania holds parliamentary elections Sunday after the country’s two largest political parties set aside decades of bitter rivalry and reached a landmark agreement aimed at furthering efforts to eventually join the European Union. The country of 2.9 million people, slightly smaller than Belgium, joined NATO in 2009 and earned EU candidate status in 2014 but has struggled with key reforms vital for the bid to advance — with the election process at the top of the list.   Seeking a second term, 52-year-old Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama argues that Sunday’s vote — closely watched by international observers — could …

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Several residential high-rise buildings in London are being evacuated because of fire safety concerns following a huge blaze at an apartment building that killed at least 79 people last week. The London borough of Camden said it was providing hotel rooms for residents of 800 apartments in high-rise buildings in the area known as Swiss Cottage, after fire authorities said they would be unsafe in case of fire. The buildings evacuated Friday are all part of government-run, low-cost public housing developments, as was the one that burned last week. The Camden buildings have the same combustible exterior insulation that was …

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Soaring temperatures and a lack of rainfall across Italy have cost farmers 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) so far this year, the national agricultural association said on Friday. The government declared a state of emergency in the gastronomic heartland around the northern cities of Parma and Piacenza, a usually lush valley that produces tomatoes, cheese, and high-quality ham. Wine grapes growing near Venice will be harvested early, mozzarella makers near Naples have been thrown into crisis, and Sardinian shepherds have taken tractors onto main roads to call for help to save their livelihoods, the Coldiretti group said. The group’s chairman, …

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In preparation for a 2024 Olympic bid, Paris transformed the area around the river Seine into an Olympic park, hosting events on Friday and Saturday to make one final push for the rights to host the games. The last time the French capital hosted the event would be 100 years earlier, in 1924. Paris and Los Angeles are the only two cities competing to host the games. Los Angeles last hosted the event in 1984. With the Eiffel Tower in view, Paris residents and Mayor Anne Hidalgo took to the water in canoes and kayaks to showcase what the 2024 …

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A fire that engulfed a London tower block killing at least 79 people started in a Hotpoint fridge freezer and cladding on the building failed all safety tests, London police said on Friday. Police Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack said the Hotpoint model, FF175BP, was not subject to recall and that the manufacturer was doing further tests. “We now have expert evidence that the fire was not started deliberately,” McCormack said. Police said both the insulation and tiles used in cladding at the 24-story Grenfell Tower block failed all post-fire safety tests. “Preliminary tests show the insulation samples collected from Grenfell …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May says the offer she has made on the rights of European Union citizens living in Britain after Britain leaves the EU is “very fair” and “very serious.” May has offered to allow an estimated 3 million EU citizens living in the United Kingdom to remain in Britain post-Brexit. Speaking Friday in Brussels on the second day of an EU summit, May said the government “will set out more detailed proposals on Monday.” EU leaders are not convinced her proposals are adequate, saying many questions remain. “We won’t be seeing families split apart,” May said before …

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As the dust from Oliver Stone’s politically explosive (or not, depending upon which American you ask) “Putin Interviews” begins to settle, Russian viewers were just finishing the concluding episode Thursday. In the United States, where the controversial series — four hourlong episodes — was made available to Showtime subscribers June 12-15, critics largely panned it as blatantly hagiographic. “Natural Born Buddies: The Shared Ideology of Oliver Stone and Vladimir Putin,” wrote the left-leaning New Republic; “Oliver Stone stinks” was the blunt summation of conservative Daily Caller blogger Jim Treacher, who described it as one of the only times he saw …

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When President Emmanuel Macron reshuffled his cabinet after four ministers with judicial probes hanging over them said they were quitting, he snubbed well-known heavyweights to fill the posts. As his chief of staff read out the names for vacant portfolios including defense, justice and European affairs, the reaction of many French was: who? It was unusual in a country where politics has long been perceived as the preserve of an old boys network, where political careers begin at an elite school for civil servants and last decades. And it pointed to Macron’s inclination to run government more like a business. …

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German lawmakers on Thursday approved a plan to annul the convictions of thousands of gay men sentenced for homosexuality under a Nazi-era law that remained in force after World War II. The parliament’s lower house voted unanimously for the bill, which calls for canceling convictions under what’s known as Paragraph 175. The legislation criminalizing homosexuality was introduced in the 19th century, toughened under Nazi rule and retained in that form in both East and West Germany. In all, more than 68,000 people were convicted under various forms of Paragraph 175 in both German states before it was scrapped in 1994. …

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The Church of England “colluded” to hide long-term sexual abuses committed by one of its former bishops, the head of the church said Thursday. “The Church colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said, following the release of a report on assaults committed by former bishop Peter Ball. “This is inexcusable and shocking behavior,” Welby said. Ball was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office and indecent assaults against teenagers and young men over a period of 20 years. …

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Britain’s Prince Harry has suggested that no one in the royal family really wishes to rise to the throne.   Harry says in an interview with Newsweek magazine that it is duty, rather than desire, that prompts the family to continue serving the British people. The prince says that the House of Windsor is “not doing this for ourselves but for the greater good of the people.”   Harry also revealed his distress at having to walk behind his mother’s coffin as a 12-year-old child following her death in a 1997 car accident. Harry and other members of the family, …

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U.S. President Donald Trump is questioning why his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, and his administration didn’t block Russia from meddling in last year’s presidential election. In a Twitter comment Thursday, Trump posed a question: “By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took place during the Obama Admin. Why didn’t they stop them?” In another remark, Trump noted that Jeh Johnson, Obama’s Homeland Security chief, “is latest top intelligence official to state there was no grand scheme between Trump & Russia.” Johnson told a House Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday that he has …

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Food exporters including the United States and European Union are stepping up pressure on China to scale back plans for intensive inspections of imports that they say would hamper access to its fast-growing market.   The group, which also includes Japan and Australia, sent a joint letter to Chinese regulators asking them to suspend a proposed requirement, due to take effect Oct. 1, for each food shipment to have an inspection certificate from a foreign government. They say that would disrupt trade and ask Beijing to follow global practice by applying the requirement only to higher-risk foods.   The dispute, …

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Estimates from the British government show that 600 other high-rise buildings in the country could be covered in similar cladding to that used on Grenfell Tower, which became engulfed in flames last week in London. Following the June 14 fire, the British government asked owners of tower blocks around Britain to send in samples of any cladding material used on their buildings for testing. As of Thursday morning, authorities have found combustible cladding on at least three tower blocks, according to British officials. Samples of cladding tested British Prime Minister Theresa May said the government can test at least 100 …

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Firefighters extinguished the deadliest forest fire in Portugal’s recent history on Wednesday, though blazes persisted in nearby central and other areas of the country. The main fire, which erupted on Saturday and spread with breathtaking speed, killed 64 people as they tried to flee in cars or were engulfed in flames in remote villages in a hilly region about 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Lisbon. More than 150 people have been injured. Victor Vaz Pinto, commander of the civil protection agency, said the fire in the area near the town of Pedrogao Grande had been put out. It was …

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Romania’s ruling Social Democrats will nominate a new prime minister on Monday, their leader said, after ousting their six-month-old cabinet and edging closer to ending political deadlock. With opposition parties abstaining, the Social Democrats (PSD) and their junior coalition partner ALDE voted 241-7 to topple Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu in a no-confidence motion on Wednesday. They withdrew their support from him a week ago, saying he had failed to uphold an ambitious governing program that had won the coalition a sweeping election victory in December and a comfortable parliamentary majority. A push by Grindeanu’s government to decriminalise some corruption offenses …

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