Category: Євросоюз

Many countries are pinning their hopes on China and India to lead efforts to slow climate change amid a growing sense of resignation that U.S. President Donald Trump will either withdraw from a global pact or stay and play a minimal role. Delegates at the May 8-18 negotiations in Bonn on a detailed “rule book” for the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first U.N. talks since Trump took office, say there is less foreboding than when Washington last broke with global climate efforts in 2001. Trump doubts global warming has a human cause and says he will decide on a campaign …

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House was left reeling Wednesday following the stunning allegation that he sought to derail a criminal investigation into links his former national security adviser had with Russian officials on top of reports that Trump disclosed highly classified intelligence to two Moscow diplomats last week. “Nobody knows where this really goes from here,” one White House official told Politico, a Washington political news site. “What is next?” A small but growing number of Trump’s Republican colleagues in Congress, along with Democrats, called for a special prosecutor or commission to examine ties between Trump and his aides …

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Supporters and protesters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demonstrated in Lafayette Park outside the White House as U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Erdogan, in Washington on Tuesday. …

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After breaking the story about the systemic torture and extrajudicial killings of gay men by Chechen security officials in an unofficial prison outside Grozny, Elena Milashina of the Russian-language Novaya Gazeta newspaper has been forced into hiding. Faced with a fatwa by Chechen clerics who have vowed to kill the reporter along with any journalists associated with her publication, Milashina recently agreed to speak with VOA from an undisclosed location via Skype. Like her late colleague Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter who was gunned down in the doorway of her Moscow apartment building in 2006, Milashina has reported …

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How does a leading neo-Nazi website that has railed against Hispanic immigrants expand its audience beyond a loyal base of U.S. white supremacists? By publishing a Spanish-language edition, of course.   The Daily Stormer — infamous for orchestrating internet harassment campaigns by its “Troll Army” of readers — recently launched El Daily Stormer as a “news portal” tailoring its racist, anti-Semitic content for readers in Spain and Latin America.   Andrew Auernheimer, a notorious computer hacker and internet troll who writes for the English-language site, says the Spanish edition fits their mission to spread Hitlerism across the world.   “We want our …

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After meetings at the White House Tuesday, President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, praised the strength of the two countries’ relations, while at the same sidestepping their differences over strategies for confronting Islamic State extremists in northern Syria. Both Trump and Erdogan described bilateral ties as strong. “We’ve had a great relationship,” the U.S. president said, “and we will make it even better.” Neither leader mentioned Trump’s decision last week to supply heavy weapons to Syrian Kurdish rebel militias, the YPG, who make up a key part of a U.S.-backed alliance preparing to march on the …

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Ukraine ordered the blocking of access to a number of Russian websites Tuesday in the latest round of sanctions since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. President Petro Poroshenko’s office announced the decree, which he signed a day earlier, banning operations of popular Russian websites, such as search engine Yandex, for three years. The listed websites were still functioning in Ukraine Tuesday, and it is unclear how and when the government plans to block them. The Ukrainian government cited security concerns, saying the ban was imposed partly to protect against companies “whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine,” …

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French President Emmanuel Macron spent his first full day in office traveling to Germany, telling Chancellor Angela Merkel he wants to work closely with her to create “deep reforms” to the European Union. Macron said in Berlin Monday there must be a “less bureaucratic” Europe and that he is ready to change EU treaties if needed. He also said France will push for economic reforms in the country to bring down unemployment and implement a reform agenda “not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it.” Macron said he does not favor European countries taking joint responsibility for old …

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On May 15, 1988, the Soviet Union began withdrawing from Afghanistan after eight years of military intervention that cost an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Soviet soldiers their lives and killed or displaced millions of Afghans. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev described the Afghan intervention, which began in  late 1979, as a costly drain on the Soviet economy with no clear victory in sight. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan en masse in December 1979, following infighting involving communist factions that had culminated with the ouster of the country’s president, Nur Mohammad Taraki, by supporters of a more radical rival, Hafizullah Amin. The invading …

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The Trump administration has tapped the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before President Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.   Trump will nominate Callista Gingrich for the post, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said Monday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement.   Trump’s foreign trip this month includes a stop at the Vatican.   Callista Gingrich is president of Gingrich Productions and has produced a number of documentaries, including one …

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The European Union is pressing Venezuela’s government and opposition groups to resume negotiations toward peacefully resolving the political crisis that has convulsed the country for nearly two months.     In a statement issued Monday, the EU repeated concerns it had expressed last July seeking “an urgent, constructive and effective dialogue.” The EU’s current statement calls for “all Venezuelan political actors and institutions to work in a constructive manner” and to “avoid violent acts.” Since early April, at least 38 people have died and many more have been injured in clashes between opponents and backers of President Nicolas Maduro’s government. The …

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Cyber security researchers on Monday pointed to code in a “ransomware” attack that could indicate a link to North Korea. Symantec and Kaspersky Lab each cited code that was previously used by a hacker collective known as the Lazarus Group, which was behind the high-profile 2014 hack of Sony that was also blamed on North Korea. But the security firms cautioned that it is too early to make any definitive conclusions, in part because the code could have been merely copied by someone else for use in the current event. The effects of the ransomware attack appeared to ease Monday, …

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In most nations, having a billionaire financier and philanthropist would be a source of great pride, a person many elected officials would want to cozy up to.   Not for George Soros.   The demonization of the American-Hungarian billionaire and Holocaust survivor has spread across Central Europe, with the 86-year-old increasingly accused by nationalists of using his money to force his liberal values, including support for refugees, on their societies.   And it’s not just those on the fringes, but elected officials who are attributing all manner of sins to Soros, a political strategy that seems aimed at de-legitimizing projects …

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European Union and U.S. transport and security officials will meet in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss U.S. plans to broaden an in-flight ban on laptops and tablets to include planes from Europe.   European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said Monday that the high-level talks are “to jointly assess any new threats and work toward a common approach to address them.”   Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke is expected to lead the U.S. delegation.   Alarmed at the proposal, which airline officials say is merely a matter of timing, European governments held talks with their U.S. counterparts on …

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A cyberattack that has already taken over computers in 150 countries could spread further Monday, as people return for the start of a new work week and use computers that may not have been updated with a security patch. Europe’s police agency Europol said Sunday the attack had already affected more than 100,000 organizations with so-called ransomware, which locks computer files unless the user pays money. “I’m worried about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn on their machines on Monday,” Europol director Rob Wainwright told Britain’s ITV television. Computer security experts have …

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The Czech Republic’s political crisis is nowhere near an end after Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka rejected a proposal for a new finance minister. Sobotka asked President Milos Zeman to fire Finance Minister Andrej Babis, one of the country’s richest people, over unexplained business dealings. Babis has denied wrongdoing, saying he won’t resign. Zeman has so far refused to fire his ally and says he considers Babis a successful minister. In an effort to resolve the crisis, Babis proposed his deputy, Alena Schillerova, who isn’t affiliated with any political party, as a replacement Friday. ANO is favored to win October’s parliamentary …

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U.S. support for Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria is expected to dominate the first official meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is fiercely opposed to that alliance, saying Kurds in Syria are linked to the Kurdish terrorist group PKK in Turkey, which is fighting for an independent Kurdish state. VOA’a Zlatica Hoke has more. …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives defeated their center-left rivals in a key state election Sunday in the country’s most populous region. Exit polls showed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union with a strong surge of support in North Rhine-Westphalia, the home state and traditional stronghold of her chief rival, Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who is challenging the German leader in the national election in late September. Schulz conceded Sunday’s loss, saying, “This is a difficult day for the Social Democrats, a difficult day for me personally as well.  I come from the state in which we took a really stinging defeat today.” …

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Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Moscow on Sunday to rally against a bill to tear down Soviet-era low-rise apartment buildings. Protesters, mostly young and middle couples, gathered on a central street to rally against arguably Russia’s largest redevelopment project to pull down entire neighborhoods of Soviet-era prefabricated buildings. City Hall has insisted the buildings are too dilapidated and outdated, while many residents and activists see the plans as a ruse to make way for high-rises in some of Moscow’s leafiest neighborhoods.   The State Duma rushed to pass the first reading of a bill on the demolition …

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Pope Francis said on Saturday he would be “sincere” with U.S. President Donald Trump over their sharp differences on subjects such as immigration and climate change when the two hold their first meeting at the Vatican later this month. But the pope also told reporters aboard a plane returning from Portugal that he would keep an open mind and not pass judgement on Trump until first listening to his views at their meeting on May 24. “Even if one thinks differently we have to be very sincere about what each one thinks,” Francis said in a typically freewheeling airborne news …

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