Category: Євросоюз

Days after President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip, the contentious relationship between the news media and the White House was on full display. Embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly cut short the first post-trip press briefing after once again lecturing reporters about their treatment of the president. It comes as reports circulate of an impending shakeup among White House communications staff, as VOA’s Bill Gallo report. …

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has agreed to hand over documents to the Senate intelligence committee in connection with its investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence last year’s U.S. presidential election. Flynn had previously refused a subpoena from the committee, with his lawyers asserting the request was too broad in what it was seeking.  The committee filed a more narrow subpoena, and Flynn is now expected to provide some personal documents and those related to two businesses by next week. The House intelligence committee is conducting its own investigation, and on Tuesday Trump’s personal attorney, …

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A prominent Azeri dissident and journalist who was kidnapped near his home in the capital of Georgia has turned up in custody in Baku, Azerbaijan, less than 24 hours after he disappeared. Efqan Muxtarli has been charged with illegally crossing the border from Georgia into Azerbaijan and smuggling 10,000 euros in cash, his attorney told VOA Tuesday. Known for years as a fierce critic of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Muxtarli presumably could face other charges in his homeland related to his dissident activities. Human-rights advocates have called for immediate action to investigate Muxtarli’s apparent abduction, but Georgian government officials have …

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Time stands still in a former Soviet military hospital in Budapest that was abandoned when the last Russian troops left Hungary in 1991. Soldiers wounded in Afghanistan were among those treated here. Now the 70,000 square meter (17 acre) complex lies derelict — its walls crumbling, its floors torn up, its windows broken. Traces of the Russian presence are everywhere. In one of the apartments where doctors and soldiers lived with their families, a copy of the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda has been left behind. It dates from Nov. 20, 1988, and the front page details a visit by Mikhail …

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Democracy and political legitimacy are increasingly under threat from attacks by politicians like U.S. President Donald Trump on “fake news” and free speech, former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told a conference on Tuesday. “The costs of autocracy is illegitimacy, and though none of us have wished for this, it is increasingly near,” Snowden told the Estoril Conferences, a meeting held this week in Portugal on human rights and migration. Snowden was speaking through video link from Moscow, where he has been in asylum since 2013 after he revealed secret details of surveillance programs by U.S. intelligence agencies. …

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Migrants rescued from a rubber boat that left Libya last week said as many as 30 people were trampled or drowned during their voyage as this year’s Mediterranean death toll climbed to more than 1,700, the U.N. said on Tuesday. They arrived in Pozzallo, Italy, on Monday and said their boat lost its motor and took on water hours after leaving Libya. Some fell in the sea and drowned and others were trampled during the panic, including a small child, leaving between 20 and 30 dead. Two bodies were recovered. Migrant arrivals by sea to Italy are up about a …

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France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, hosted his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Palace of Versailles near Paris Monday. In what he called “extremely frank, direct” talks, Macron criticized Russian media outlets for efforts to influence the French presidential election. He also questioned brutal treatment of the gay and lesbian community in Chechnya and Russia’s role in eastern Ukraine and Syria. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …

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Ecuador’s new President Lenin Moreno described WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a “hacker” but said he would continue to receive asylum in the South American country’s embassy in London. “Mr. Assange is a hacker. That’s something we reject, and I personally reject,” Moreno told journalists on Monday. “But I respect the situation he is in, which calls for respect of his human rights, but we also ask that he respects the situation he is in.” Moreno’s tone is a sharp break from that of his predecessor Rafael Correa, who had said Assange was a “journalist and granted him asylum in …

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The mayor of Paris said Monday that a “clear solution” has been found with organizers of a festival for black feminists, an event that had aroused her ire because four-fifths of the festival space was to be open exclusively to black women. Mayor Anne Hidalgo had strongly criticized and threatened to cancel the upcoming Nyansapo Festival a day earlier because it was “forbidden to white people.”   In a new series of tweets on the topic, Hidalgo said her “firm” discussion with organizers had yielded a satisfactory clarification: the parts of the festival held on property would be open to …

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The mosque where the Manchester bomber prayed is coming under the spotlight after it emerged at least two other British recruits of the Islamic State also worshipped there. One of the recruits, Khalil Raoufi, died fighting in Syria in 2014. The other, Ahmed Ibrahim Halane, is living in Denmark, where he holds citizenship and is banned from re-entering Britain. Halane’s sisters, Zahra and Salma Halane, who traveled to Syria to become “jihadi brides,” are believed also to have worshipped at the mosque, say local Muslims. Last week, trustees of the Didsbury Mosque and Islamic Center issued a statement condemning as …

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Travelers on British Airways (BA) and its sister airlines in Spain faced a third day of delays and cancellations Monday, mainly on short-haul flights in Europe, after the company suffered a colossal IT failure over the weekend.   BA chief executive Alex Cruz said late Sunday that the airline was running a “near-full operation” at London’s Gatwick Airport and planned to operate all scheduled long-haul services from Heathrow. But he said there would still be delays, as well as some canceled short-haul flights.   Data from flight tracker FlightAware.com showed BA’s sister airlines in Spain, Iberia and Air Nostrum, cancelled …

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An Afro-feminist group in France says it expects a public apology from the mayor of Paris, after she condemned the group’s plan to hold a festival in late July. Mayor Anne Hidalgo characterized the event as “forbidden to whites” in a series of comments on Twitter, adding that she reserved the right to “prosecute the organizers for discrimination.” The Mwasi Collective says the festival is aimed at “organizing and building black feminist strategies to end racial, patriarchal, colonial and capitalist violence.” It plans workshops, presentations and performances with certain areas reserved for black women, another area for black people of …

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Germany’s Foreign Ministry says envoys from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France will meet this week in Berlin to try and push forward the implementation of a peace deal for eastern Ukraine.   Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters Monday that, due to the “difficult and deteriorating”‘ situation in eastern Ukraine, Germany has scheduled a meeting Tuesday with those countries and a representative from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.   The Ukrainian government has been fighting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The fighting has cost some 10,000 lives.   The …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains committed to strong trans-Atlantic relations, her spokesman said Monday, after the German leader suggested that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.                “Because trans-Atlantic relations are so important to this chancellor, it is right from her viewpoint to speak out honestly about differences,” spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday during a news conference. “The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days,” Merkel said, addressing a campaign rally in Bavaria. Merkel, among other European leaders, was sharply critical of …

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Norway is demanding that the Palestinian Authority reimburse it for funds donated to a women’s center on the West Bank because the center was named after a female militant who participated in an attack in Israel that killed 37 civilians.   The Norwegian Foreign Ministry says the country “will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists.”   Israeli Foreign Ministry officials applauded Norway’s move and urged “the international community to check closely where the money that it invests in the Palestinian Authority goes.”   The women’s center was named for Dalal Mughrabi, a …

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The Swedish satire The Square has taken the top honors at the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival. The art world satire by Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, France, Sunday. Dominic West, Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang star in the movie.  Bang plays the curator of an art museum, who sets up “The Square,” an installation inviting passers-by to acts of altruism. But after he reacts foolishly to the theft of his phone, the father of two finds himself dragged into shameful situations. Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the prize for best …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging European Union nations to stick together in the face of new uncertainty over the United States and other challenges. Merkel said Sunday at a campaign event in Bavaria that “the times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days.”   The comments follow President Donald Trump saying he needed more time to decide if the U.S. would continue backing a key climate accord.   Trump’s stance had led Merkel to describe the just-ended G-7 talks on climate change as “unsatisfactory.”   The …

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British police have arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with the Manchester bombing that killed 22 people last week. The arrest was made late Sunday during a raid in the Gorton area of Manchester on “suspicion of offences contrary to the terrorism act,” the Greater Manchester police said in a statement. Earlier in the day, police arrested a 25-year-old and searched his property. Thirteen men remain in British custody in relation to the suicide bombing by Manchester native Salman Abedi, 22, in the lobby of Manchester Arena last Monday just after American pop singer Ariana Grande finished her concert.   …

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For the second day in a row, Pope Francis has expressed his solidarity with Egypt’s Coptic Christians following an attack on a bus carrying Coptic pilgrims to a remote desert monastery.   Francis led thousands of people in prayer Sunday for the victims, who Francis said were killed in “another act of ferocious violence” after having refused to renounce their Christian faith.   Speaking from his studio window over St. Peter’s Square, Francis said: “May the Lord welcome these courageous witnesses, these martyrs, in his peace and convert the hearts of the violent ones.”   The Islamic State group claimed …

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As jittery residents of Manchester, England, try to enjoy a holiday weekend, a group of local bands have drawn 50,000 fans to the city’s first big music event since Monday’s suicide bombing at Manchester Arena. Earlier Saturday, Britain reduced its terrorism threat level from “critical” to “severe.” Extra security, however, was in place at Old Trafford Cricket Ground, on the outskirts of Manchester, for a concert by Manchester bands the Courteneers, the Charlatans, Blossoms and Cabbage. Fans attending the show were asked to arrive early and not to bring bags. Security officers in ball caps and high-visibility jackets were stationed …

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