Category: Євросоюз

European scientists are taking part in the March for Science demonstration taking place in hundreds of cities around the world to commemorate Earth Day. Science and research skeptics are becoming more mainstream in an era of populist and Eurosceptic movements. And on both sides of the Atlantic, there is less funding to support independent research. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a professor at the University of Leuven, says shifting priorities in Europe has had an impact on the work of scientists.   “Now funds for fundamental research are much more difficult to get. Even if the budget remains the same or sometimes …

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Michele Scarponi, the 2011 Giro d’Italia champion, has been killed in a road accident while training close to his home in Filottrano, his Astana team said Saturday. Scarponi, 37, left home early on Saturday morning for a training ride and was hit by a van at a crossroads. “This is a tragedy too big to be written,” Astana said in a statement. “We left a great champion and a special guy, always smiling in every situation, he was … a landmark for everyone in the Astana Pro Team.” Scarponi, who completed the Tour of the Alps on Friday, after winning …

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The co-founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid and voiced fears that the political climate in the US and Britain could see aid budgets cut. In a speech in London this week, he warned that withdrawing aid would create a ‘leadership vacuum that others will fill.’ Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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The son of a Russian lawmaker was sentenced Friday by a U.S. federal court to 27 years in prison after being convicted of a cyber assault on thousands of U.S. businesses, marking the longest hacking-related sentence in the United States. Roman Seleznev, 32, was found guilty last year by a jury in Seattle of perpetrating a scheme that prosecutors said involved hacking into point-of-sale computers to steal credit card numbers and caused $169 million in losses to U.S. firms. The Russian government has maintained that his arrest in 2014 in the Maldives was illegal. It issued a statement Friday criticizing …

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Greece far exceeded its international lenders’ budget demands last year, official data showed on Friday, posting its first overall budget surplus in 21 years even when debt repayments are included. The primary surplus — the leftover before debt repayments that is the focus of International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors — was more than eight times what they had targeted. Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT — to be confirmed on Monday by the EU — showed the primary budget surplus at 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015. This …

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Challenges are growing to the validity of Sunday’s referendum in Turkey to extend the country’s presidential powers. “Referendum won by cheating,” declared Osman Baydemir, spokesman of the pro-Kurdish HDP, Turkey’s second-largest opposition party. An HDP report on the vote said 2,462 “No” campaigners were detained and 453 jailed during the 85-day campaign. HDP’s honorary president and deputy, Ertugrul Kurkcu, said the past two months were a “total violation of democratic principles.” Kurkcu said the investigation revealed widespread abuse on voting day. “It’s obvious,” he said. “Fraud is extensive. Invalid ballots and envelopes were very widely deliberately used, as well as …

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Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Friday that a gunman had burst into one of its regional offices in the far east of the country and opened fire, killing one of its employees and a visitor. The region where the incident happened is close to China. The FSB, the successor organization to the Soviet KGB, said the attacker had been killed and that another person had been injured in the incident. “An unknown person entered the reception of the FSB’s Khabarovsk regional branch and started shooting at people inside,” the FSB said in a statement. The Site Intelligence Group, a …

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Senior French officials say Thursday’s shooting in Paris and a planned attack foiled by police in Marseilles earlier this week are part of an effort by radical Islamists to influence the result of France’s upcoming election. They fear more terrorism is being planned — including possibly an attack on polling day. “They want to influence French political life by directly impacting the course or even the organization of the polls,” Thibault de Montbrial, former head of the French foreign ministry’s internal think tank, the Center for Analysis and Prevision, told French newspaper Le Figaro. French authorities say the gunman, named …

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German police arrested a man Friday who is suspected of planting explosives targeting the bus of soccer team Borussia Dortmund last week, the office of the German federal chief prosecutor said. The 28-year old man, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., had bought options on Borussia Dortmund’s stock before the attack, hoping to make a profit, it said in a statement. The players’ bus was heading to their stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco April 11 when three explosions occurred, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day. The …

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Holocaust denial just got a little harder. The Wiener Library for the Study of Holocaust & Genocide is making the United Nations’ files on World War II war crimes more accessible by allowing the general public to search an online catalog of the documents for the first time beginning Friday. People will still have to visit the library in London or the U.S. Holocaust Museum to read the actual files. The move is expected to increase interest in the archives of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, including the names of about 37,000 people identified as war criminals and security …

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the world’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch, celebrated her 91st birthday in a usual low-key fashion Friday. Artillery gun salutes in London’s Hyde Park and at the Tower of London will mark the occasion although the queen, who normally spends her birthday privately, has no formal engagements planned. Elizabeth was born April 21, 1926, in Bruton Street in central London when Calvin Coolidge was U.S. President and Joseph Stalin had just taken control in the Soviet Union. She became queen in 1952 at 25. Despite her age, she regularly carries out official duties although she has cut back …

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A Belgium man wanted in connection  with the terrorist attack on Paris’ Champs Elysees has turned himself in to authorities in Antwerp. A Belgium prosecutor said Friday the “man came to police late yesterday after he saw himself appear on social media as terror suspect Number One . . .”  Further information about the suspect and his connection with the attack was not immediately available. Islamic State, which claimed responsibility through its news agency, identified the shooter as “Abu Yussef the Belgian,” calling him “one of Islamic State’s fighters.” Paris police said the dead gunman has been identified, but they …

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Atlantic salmon farming companies are designing huge pens to raise fish in the open seas in a radical shift from calm coastal waters where marine lice have slowed growth of the billion-dollar industry. The drive for new designs by Norway, producer of 54 percent of all farmed Atlantic salmon in 2016, will have to cope with ocean storms that can rip cages and free thousands of fish. Escapees disrupt natural stocks by breeding with wild cousins. “The industry has to develop and to solve the environmental challenges it has, especially linked to salmon lice,” Norwegian Fisheries Minister Per Sandberg told …

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Pope Francis confirmed Thursday he will use his upcoming visit to the Portuguese shrine at Fatima to canonize two Portuguese shepherd children who say they saw visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago.   Francis convened his cardinals to formally set the May 13 date for the saint-making Mass.   Originally, Francis had planned to travel to Fatima on May 12-13 to merely mark the anniversary of the apparitions, which turned the tiny northern Portuguese town into one of the world’s most popular Catholic pilgrimage sites.   But last month, Francis signed off on the miracle needed to make …

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U.S., Russian and U.N. trilateral talks on Syria scheduled for Monday have been postponed, says U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. De Mistura says he does not know why the United States has decided against attending the meeting early next week, but believes Washington remains committed to the three-way discussions on the Syrian situation.    “I would say that the indication I got from Washington is exactly that, that there is clearly an intention to maintain and resume these trilateral meetings,” he said. “And, the date and the circumstances were not conducive for this to happen on Monday, but …

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Ukraine is urging the West to back its efforts at reform, despite accusations the government has failed to tackle corruption three years on from the revolution that toppled the regime of president Viktor Yanukovych. Visiting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London Wednesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko implored the West to back his efforts to tackle corruption. Speaking at London policy institute Chatham House, the Ukrainian president said, “What is in need is your firm support of Ukraine’s reform,” adding that “…it is not easy to make a transformation during the time of war, and against Russia’s attempt to …

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Organizers from the Free Russia Foundation, a U.S.-based NGO founded by Russian dissidents, have opened what they call “an Embassy of the Civil Society of Russia in Ukraine,” in Kyiv’s trendy Podil district. Housed in a red brick building with a small blue sign that reads “Free Russia House,” its founders plan to transform the now-bare office into a cultural center and think tank, as well as a support service for Russians who fled to Ukraine for political reasons. Vladislav Davidzon, chief editor of Odessa Review, an English-language monthly, is a member of the center’s advisory board and was present …

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Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates is urging British leaders not to back down from their commitment to foreign aid, saying it could cost lives in Africa. Gates on Wednesday was in London, where campaigning has started for early elections called by Prime Minister Teresa May. May has so far declined to say whether she will heed calls by fellow Conservatives to slash British foreign aid as part of her party platform. Gates told the Guardian newspaper Wednesday that a British refusal to commit itself to targeted spending on foreign aid could hurt efforts to wipe out malaria in Africa. “The …

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A feel-good Paris concert, a meeting with Muslim leaders and a blowout rally in Marseille – France’s presidential candidates are blanketing the country Wednesday with campaign events to try to inspire undecided voters just four days before a nail-biting election.   Crowds danced on a Paris plaza as Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon held what is seen as a last-chance rally and concert. Hamon is polling a distant fifth place ahead of Sunday’s first-round election and has little chance of reaching the decisive May 7 runoff – a failure that could crush his party.   French far-right presidential candidate Marine …

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Russia Wednesday blocked a draft U.S. statement in the U.N. Security Council condemning the latest North Korean missile test. The statement said North Korea’s illegal ballistic missile activities are leading to a nuclear weapons delivery system and “greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond.” The council also would have demanded that the North “immediately cease further actions in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and comply fully with its obligations under these resolutions.” Members said they are concerned Pyongyang is diverting resources toward building missiles and bombs while the population has “great unmet needs.” It is unclear why …

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