Category: Євросоюз

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has reiterated its pledge to protect Turkey, as the country opposes a recent U.S. decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters in an attempt to oust Islamic State militants from their stronghold in Raqqa. Mattis reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to its NATO ally after meeting Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, the highest level talks between the two countries since Washington announced on Tuesday plans to provide arms to the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds, also known as the YPG. Turkey is strongly opposed to the arms deal and has called for its reversal. Turkey believes the …

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Russia’s annual World War II Victory Day parade was held today in Red Square. VOA’s Daniel Schearf filed this web video. …

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A Libyan Coast Guard ship picked up more than 350 migrants at sea Wednesday after a potentially deadly encounter with a German rescue boat. No casualties have been reported, and all the migrants rescued off the coastal city of Sabratha are back in Tripoli. A Libyan navy spokesman said the migrants were packed on a wooden boat. As the Coast Guard vessel approached, another boat from the German rescue group Sea Watch came dangerously close to ramming the Libyan ship. Sea Watch was apparently attempting to drive off the Libyans. It is unclear if Libyan authorities plan to take legal …

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Keen to stem growing resentment of globalization, which it sees as one of the drivers of a wave of anti-EU populism, the European Union’s executive said on Wednesday that the bloc had to work to make free trade fairer. French nationalist Marine Le Pen secured 34 percent of votes in France’s presidential runoff on Sunday with an anti-EU platform that promised to shield French workers from “savage globalization,” and the bloc is still smarting from Britain’s vote to leave. “Europe must help rewrite the global rule book so that free trade becomes fair trade. So that globalization becomes sustainable and …

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Italian authorities suspect arson caused the deaths Wednesday of three Gypsy sisters in Rome whose camper burst into flames as they slept. The three sisters, aged 4, 8 and 20, were killed, but their parents and eight other siblings escaped the blaze in the Centocelle neighborhood. The Italian news agency ANSA said prosecutors had opened an arson investigation after family members reported that they received threats in recent days and that a nearby camper was torched last week. Italian politicians, including President Sergio Mattarella, denounced the crime, and Pope Francis sent his chaplain to comfort the bereaved family and offer …

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Tens of thousands of people rallied on Wednesday in the Czech Republic’s capital and other major cities against President Milos Zeman and Finance Minister Andrej Babis. The protesters gathered at Wenceslas Square in downtown Prague demanded Babis’ firing and Zeman’s resignation in the latest development of the Czech political crisis. The public demonstrations follow Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka asking the president last week to get rid of the finance minister over his unexplained business dealings, especially charges that he hadn’t properly explained suspicions that he avoided paying taxes. Babis, one of the richest people in the country, has denied wrongdoing …

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Three shepherd children in Portugal were jailed and threatened with being boiled alive in olive oil when they claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to them 100 years ago. The Catholic Church doubted their story too. From that unpromising start, the children’s reported visions would go on to strengthen the faith of Portugal’s persecuted Catholics and make the small farming town of Fatima one of the world’s foremost pilgrimage sites, with around 6 million visitors a year. Now, the Portuguese youngsters’ long-ago testimony is giving the Catholic Church its youngest saints who did not die as martyrs. Pope Francis plans to …

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Three women stare down from the gallery wall — colorful, defiant and imbued with a spirit of working for the many not the few. They are a brigadier, a factory worker and a youth volunteer with a hoe. They are paintings of socialist realism. They are also all Albanian women from the time of Enver Hoxha, who created one of the world’s most closed societies until his death in 1985. Visitors to Greece’s capital have a relatively rare opportunity to see Hoxha-era art on display outside its regular home in Tirana’s National Gallery of Art. The portraits are part of …

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The European Union foreign policy chief Tuesday sought to reassure the international community that the bloc remains strong, despite Britain’s planned departure and anxiety caused by elections in several member states.   In her annual briefing to the United Nations Security Council, EU High Representative Federica Mogherini said the bloc marks its 60th birthday, about to lose member Britain but as strong as ever.   “Indeed, our British friends have decided to leave us – which is very sad for all of us – but life goes on and the European Union as well goes on,” she told the council. …

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Britain’s political centrists and liberals can only look on jealously. The victory of Emmanuel Macron across the English Channel in France’s presidential race is reviving talk in Britain of a progressive alliance to deprive the Conservatives of a likely landslide win in next month’s parliamentary elections. The leaders of the country’s main opposition Labor Party, however, are rejecting out of hand any electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats and Greens, despite mounting calls from activists for them to do so. “Labor is a national party and everyone needs to have the opportunity to vote for a Labor candidate,” senior Labor …

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Gibraltar is preparing for a post-Brexit setup in which its firms will have no longer access to the European Union market but will maintain a preferential relationship with Britain, a top Gibraltar financial official said on Tuesday. The tiny British enclave on Spain’s southern tip, with a population of 30,000, is home to around 15,000 companies and is a major provider of insurance and gambling services. “We are currently planning for a hard Brexit,” James Tipping, director at Gibraltar’s government body for financial promotion, told EU lawmakers in a hearing in Brussels. He said Gibraltar did not expect to obtain …

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Italy will open new detention centers across the country in the next few months as part of its push to speed up deportations of illegal migrants, despite critics saying that the centers are not only inhumane but also do not produce the desired result. Violent protests and difficulty identifying migrants has led to the closure of similar centers over the past few years, but on Tuesday the Interior Ministry asked regional governments to provide a total of 1,600 beds in such centers. Interior Minister Marco Minniti says migrants must be detained to stop them from slipping away before they can …

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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has appealed to Jews and Arabs in the Middle East to keep the window open for peace. Steinmeier is on his first foreign trip outside Europe since he was elected president in February. His visit coincides with the election of a new Hamas leader who is based in Gaza, unlike his predecessors. Zlatica Hoke reports. …

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Wednesday in Washington to discuss Syria, Ukraine and other issues. “On Syria, the secretary intends to discuss efforts to de-escalate violence, provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, and set the stage for a political settlement of the conflict,” the State Department said in a statement Monday. The announcement comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the U.S. will closely examine Russia’s plan to establish “de-escalation” zones in Syria. “The devil is always in the details,” Mattis said Monday when asked about the …

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Reactions continue to pour in as newly-elected president Emmanuel Macron whose business-friendly vision of European integration defeated Marine Le Pen, the far-right French nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union. Mariama Diallo reports. …

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Reactions continue to pour in for newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron, whose business friendly vision of European integration defeated Marine Le Pen, the far-right French nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union. In Germany, newspaper headlines read “It’s a boy”… “The winner is Europe.” Some commuters reacted with relief while others were less overjoyed that Macron was the only alternative. “I think it’s sad that it had to be decided like this because Macron wasn’t who everyone wanted to vote for. It was basically a choice between pest and cholera. But for Europe it’s a …

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Facebook must remove postings deemed as hate speech, an Austrian court has ruled, in a legal victory for campaigners who want to force social media companies to combat online “trolling.” The case — brought by Austria’s Green party over insults to its leader — has international ramifications as the court ruled the postings must be deleted across the platform and not just in Austria, a point that had been left open in an initial ruling. The case comes as legislators around Europe are considering ways of forcing Facebook, Google, Twitter and others to rapidly remove hate speech or incitement to …

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The Vatican is celebrating the big-bang theory. That’s not as out of this world as it sounds.   The Vatican Observatory has invited leading scientists and cosmologists to talk black holes, gravitational waves and space-time singularities as it honors the late Jesuit cosmologist considered one of the fathers of the idea that the universe began with a gigantic explosion.   The Tuesday-Friday conference honoring Monsignor George Lemaitre is being held at the Vatican Observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to help correct the notion that the Roman Catholic Church was hostile to science. The perception has persisted in …

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A beach that was swept away more than 30 years ago from a remote island off the west coast of Ireland has reappeared after thousands of tons of  sand were deposited on top of the rocky coastline. The 300 meter beach near the tiny village of Dooagh on Achill Island vanished in 1984 when storms stripped it of its sand, leaving nothing more than a series of rock pools. But after high spring tides last month, locals found that the Atlantic Ocean had  returned the sand. “It’s enormously significant,” Sean Molloy of Achill’s tourism office told the Irish Times newspaper, …

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Russia is for the first time rolling out President Vladimir Putin’s Yunarmiya, or “Youth Army,” for the annual World War II Victory Day parade in Red Square. Putin created the military’s “patriotic” youth organization in 2015, but its national TV debut as a force of more than 30,000 members comes just weeks after nation-wide anti-corruption protests that drew many young people. As VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Moscow, Yunarmiya is seen as the Kremlin’s latest effort to encourage support from Russia’s next generation. …

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