Category: Євросоюз

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has formally extended the state of emergency declared after a failed 2016 military coup, saying the decree will remain in place until the country finds “welfare and peace.” Erdogan spoke Sunday in Ankara to tens of thousands of his followers and members of his ruling (AK) Justice and Development Party, which convened to re-elect their party co-founder to the post. The state of emergency permits Erdogan and his Cabinet to issue decrees without parliamentary approval or judicial review.   Erdogan’s announcement and his return as party chief came four weeks after Turkish voters narrowly approved …

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. has expressed its “dismay” to Turkish officials about last week’s clash in which Turkish security personnel apparently attacked demonstrators in Washington. Tillerson told Fox News Sunday that Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S. has been told that last Tuesday’s violence was “simply unacceptable.” “There is an ongoing investigation,” he said, adding that he will wait on the outcome of that probe before deciding on a more formal response. The clash broke out between Turkish security personnel and protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington. Protesters …

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Germany’s Social Democrats raised pressure on conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, saying if she could not resolve a row with Turkey over access to the Incirlik air base, German troops should move. Merkel’s defense minister, tacitly admitting the possibility said she had been looking for other locations and hinted that Jordan could be one. Turkey, which has refused permission for German lawmakers to visit their troops at Incirlik, has said Berlin is free to move its soldiers from the base. That would, however, be a significant snub to a NATO ally. Already strained bilateral ties have deteriorated further over …

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In a surprise announcement Sunday, Pope Francis named five new cardinals, for Spain, El Salvador and three countries where Catholics are a tiny minority: Mali, Laos and Sweden. “Their origin, from different parts of the world, manifests the universality of the Church spread out all over the Earth,” Francis said, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace to thousands of faithful in St. Peter’s Square. Those chosen are Monsignor Jean Zerbo, archbishop of Bamako, Mali; Monsignor Juan Jose Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain; Monsignor Anders Arborelius, bishop of Stockholm; Monsignor Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos; and …

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Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party on Sunday kicked off a congress to re-elect President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as its chairman after last month’s referendum. Erdogan will return to lead the party he co-founded after Sunday’s extraordinary congress in Ankara, since last month’s referendum removed a constitutional requirement that presidents be neutral and cut ties with their political parties. Erdogan welcomed the tens of thousands of people outside the arena. “My dear fellow travelers … we were separated but today we are together once again,” he said. Erdogan and the AKP won a narrow victory on the April 16 referendum …

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Recent studies suggest that as many as 400 million people around the world do not have access to basic health care. In some cases it’s because of conflict, but in some cases it’s just geography: humans live in some very far away places, Siberia for instance. That’s where the medical ship comes in handy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s lead in the opinion polls has narrowed after her Conservatives and the Labour opposition published their policy plans this week, with one survey showing the gap between the two parties halving to nine points. May had been on course for a landslide with a majority of up to 150 seats, opinion polls had indicated in the early stages of campaigning ahead of the June 8 national vote. Four polls Saturday however showed the Conservatives with an expected vote share of between 44 and 46 percent, still easily ahead of the Labour Party at 33 to …

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Rescuers pulled 2,121 migrants to safety from boats in the Mediterranean late Friday and early Saturday and recovered one dead body, the Italian coast guard said. More than 45,000 people have reached Italy by boat from North Africa this year, up more than 40 percent from the same period in 2016, and 1,222 people are known to have died on the crossing, according to the International Organization for Migration. The rescue operations involved two ships operated by the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Sea Eye and Jugend Rettet, and a Spanish vessel participating in the EU’s EUNAVFOR mission in the Mediterranean, the …

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Evidence of far-right extremism within the German armed forces is growing following the arrest Friday of four students at a military university in Munich. Police are trying to establish whether they have links to another soldier accused of plotting to frame refugees in a terror attack. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the allegations remain sensitive in a country where the 20th century Nazi history casts a long shadow. …

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During President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip, he will meet in Brussels with the other leaders of NATO member states. Some of them are nervous about the president’s commitment to the defense alliance in which the United States has played a central role since NATO’s formation at the start of the Cold War. VOA White House Bureau Chief Correspondent Steve Herman reports. …

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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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