Category: Євросоюз

The U.S. State Department said a clash in Washington this week in which Turkish security personnel apparently attacked demonstrators was “deeply disturbing.” A State Department statement Friday promised a “thorough investigation’’ to hold those responsible accountable. Tom Shannon, the acting deputy secretary of state, met Wednesday with Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kilic to discuss the altercation. “The State Department has raised its concerns about these events at the highest levels,” the statement said. Watch: Turkish President Erdogan Watched Violent Clash Near Embassy The clash broke out Tuesday between Turkish security personnel and protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence during Turkish President …

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he cannot “forgive or forget” what Sweden has put him through, following an announcement by Swedish prosecutors that they have dropped their rape case against him. Assange has been living at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 under virtual house arrest to avoid being detained in connection with the Swedish rape investigation, which began seven years ago. He said he has suffered a “terrible injustice,” without ever being charged with a crime. Despite Friday’s announcement in Sweden, the Australian-born former journalist and computer programmer remains at the Ecuadorean Embassy. British police say they will …

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French President Emmanuel Macron made his first official trip outside Europe on Friday, visiting French troops stationed in Mali and pledging to be uncompromising in the fight against Islamist terrorism. Macron said at a joint news conference in Gao with Malian counterpart Ibrahim Boubacar Keita that terrorists in West Africa were “clearly a risk for Europe.” He vowed that French troops would remain in Mali until the extremists were eliminated. He also praised an “exemplary” relationship with the United States on counterterror efforts in Africa’s Sahel region. Without it, “we would not be able to operate in the area,” he …

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A group of top French officials and ministers from President Francois Hollande’s outgoing government drafted an emergency plan to manage the consequences of a win by Marine Le Pen in the recent presidential election and to weaken her, if she were elected, according to French media. The secret plan, which was seen as a bid to protect France’s Fifth Republic and to keep public order by the officials who drew it up, included delaying the handover of power from Hollande to Le Pen and keeping the outgoing president as head of state until after next month’s parliamentary elections. That way, …

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Swedish prosecutors have dropped their investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange, almost seven years after it began and five years after the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge inside Ecuador’s London embassy.   Assange’s Swedish lawyer Per E. Samuelson declared Friday that “this is a total victory for Julian Assange. He is now free to leave the embassy when he wants.”   But the picture is more complicated than that.   Has Assange been exonerated?         No. The investigation began after two women accused Assange of sexual offenses during a 2010 visit to Stockholm. Sweden asked Britain to …

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Donald Trump begins his maiden international trip as U.S. president Friday, leaving the White House awash in a slew of controversies that has some politicians invoking comparisons to the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. “We look forward to getting this whole situation behind us,” Donald Trump told reporters Thursday. The controversies include the firing of former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey amid allegations Trump wanted Comey to stop investigating former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The president is also facing questions about his ties with Russia during the presidential election and allegations he …

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Emerging from her crushing defeat in France’s presidential contest, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Thursday she will run for a parliamentary seat in June elections and that her National Front party has “an essential role” in a new political landscape. Le Pen will run for a seat in a district in her northern stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, a hardscrabble former mining region where she lost a similar bid in 2012. A new failure could jinx her bid to unite the National Front and to make it France’s leading opposition party. “I cannot imagine not being at the head of my …

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After years of stagnation and high unemployment, the eurozone countries appear to be bouncing back with growth in the shared currency bloc, soaring higher than in the United States and Britain. The eurozone grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent during the first three months of 2017, while the bloc’s trade surplus doubled in March from the previous month. Unemployment is falling, albeit still stubbornly high at 9.6 percent. “For a change, Europe is leading this upswing. It’s partly because of the connection between Europe and China, demand from China. But at the same time, we have also some …

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After years of stagnation and high unemployment, the eurozone countries appear to be bouncing back, with growth in the shared currency bloc soaring higher than the United States and Britain. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Europe’s politicians hope economic growth could help stop the march of anti-EU populism that saw Britain vote to leave the European Union. …

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Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov and opposition leader Aleksei Navalny have exchanged bitter, strongly worded video attacks as they rejected a Moscow court’s proposed settlement in a defamation case.  Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire with ties to the Kremlin, filed the lawsuit in April against Navalny and his Anticorruption Foundation. The defamation claim stems from a March 2 report by Navalny’s foundation that focused on Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and included allegations that Usmanov gave expensive property to a foundation linked to Medvedev at no cost. Hours before a scheduled preliminary hearing in the case on May 17, Usmanov released a video …

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U.S. officials and lawmakers may have been outraged when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bodyguards attacked and beat peaceful protesters in Washington as their leader watched. Back in Turkey, however, that hard-line approach is welcomed by many of the president’s nationalist supporters. The clash Tuesday began when Erdogan’s motorcade pulled up in front of the Turkish ambassador’s residence, returning from a visit to the White House and a meeting with President Donald Trump.  Erdogan, emerging from his limousine, stood and watched as his guards and supporters began punching and kicking their way through a group of mostly Kurdish protesters across …

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The Greek Parliament approved another round of tough economic cuts and austerity measures Thursday to assure itself another installment payment of European bailout funds. Greece may have again faced bankruptcy in July without the payment. More cuts for pensioners All 153 lawmakers in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist coalition voted for the cuts; all 128 opposition members voted no. More than 10,000 Greeks weary of the nation’s economic problems, including elderly pensioners facing more cuts, marched outside Parliament against the measures. Several dozen young marchers wearing masks broke away from the crowd to throw gasoline bombs at police, who responded …

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NATO’s chief says members are discussing whether to join the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group but insists the alliance will not deploy combat troops. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that “no decision has been taken. The discussion is going on.”   He told reporters in Brussels that it “is absolutely out of the question for NATO to go into combat operations.”   U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to pressure NATO to do more to fight extremists in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan when he meets his allied counterparts in Brussels on May 25.   NATO supports the coalition …

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Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters. The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Trump advisers, …

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Support for French President Emmanuel Macron’s new centrist party is growing before legislative elections next month, a poll found Thursday, raising the chances that he will be able to win parliamentary backing for his reform plans. A Harris Interactive poll found Macron’s Republic on the Move party, together with allies, set to win the largest share of the vote in the first round of the National Assembly elections June 11. Thirty-two percent of 4,600 registered voters questioned planned to vote for Macron’s party, it said. That was up three points from a similar poll May 11 and up six points …

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Some Dutch passengers on KLM flights might have recognized the co-pilot’s voice when he introduced himself on the airline’s Cityhopper services.   It was not just their co-pilot telling them weather conditions and estimated time of arrival. It was their king. Regular guest pilot  King Willem-Alexander told national newspaper De Telegraaf in an interview published Wednesday that he has ended his role as a regular guest pilot after 21 years on KLM’s fleet of Fokker 70 planes and before that on Dutch carrier Martinair. He will now retrain to fly Boeing 737s as the Fokkers are being phased out of …

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The United States has expressed concern about Tuesday night’s violence outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington. At least two people were arrested and 11 people were injured in the altercations involving protesters and Turkish security personnel. The incident took place while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Donald Trump at the White House. Zlatica Hoke reports. …

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The Philippine government has told the European Union it will no longer accept development aid from the bloc, putting at risk programs to assist poor and conflict-hit regions in the country’s south, Europe’s ambassador said on Wednesday. Ambassador Franz Jessen said the decision to cut aid from the EU, a strong critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drugs war, would mean the loss of about 250 million Euros ($278.73 million) worth of grants mostly allocated to Muslim communities. Manila’s move comes days after Duterte won billions of dollars in pledges from China after attending the Belt and Road summit in Beijing. …

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U.S. and European Union officials will meet next week in Washington, D.C., to further discuss risks to air travel and solutions for protecting passengers, the European Commission said on Wednesday after the two sides met in Brussels. “At the meeting, both sides exchanged information on the serious evolving threats to aviation security and approaches to confronting such threats,” the EU executive and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement. …

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The German Air Force this month sent the U.S. military a written request for classified data on the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet as it gears up to replace its current fleet of fighter jets from 2025 to 2035. The letter, sent by the Air Force’s planning command and seen by Reuters, makes clear that the German government has not yet authorized a procurement program and is not committed to any particular aircraft to replace its current warplanes. It said the Defense Ministry would carry out “an in-depth evaluation of market available solutions, including the F-35, later this year,” …

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