In Rome, residents concerned about air quality may soon be able to use a smog tracker to monitor pollution levels as they travel around the city. A device is being tested that indicates which parts of the city have good or bad air quality. VOA’s Deborah Block has more. …
Opposition parties in Kosovo have filed a motion of no confidence in the government, potentially deepening an 18-month political crisis over legislation to draw a border with Montenegro that is needed to ease travel to the EU. More than 40 deputies, including 12 from parties that are part of the ruling coalition and some independent MPs, signed the motion, which accuses the government of failing to meet its campaign pledges and creating public distrust. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, whose conservative LDK is the second-largest party in the 120-seat parliament, has enough votes to survive the no-confidence motion provided all or …
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka abruptly changed tack in his battle to remove Finance Minister Andrej Babis on Friday, taking back a pledge to resign and instead seeking only the dismissal of his main political rival. The country is in political crisis over Babis, a billionaire who faces questions over past business practices but is also the most popular party leader before an election due in October. The battle pits Sobotka’s center-left Social Democrats not only against Babis’s ANO party but also President Milos Zeman who took Babis’s side, something Sobotka said could be overstepping the constitutional powers of the …
Turkey dismissed 107 judges and prosecutors over alleged links to a failed coup in July last year, Turkish television reported Friday, in the third major purge since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was granted sweeping new powers. Turkey has now fired about 145,000 civil servants, security personnel and academics, local media reported. The number of ousted judges and prosecutors has reached 4,238. Ankara has blamed the network of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for a coup attempt last July in which he has denied all involvement. Detention warrants were issued for the dismissed judges and prosecutors, Turkish TV said. More than …
Relatives and lawyers of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez want the Red Cross to verify his health and are seeking to bring President Nicolas Maduro’s government before a Spanish court for alleged terrorism crimes. Spain’s laws allow judges to take on cases for crimes committed outside of the country as long as the victims are Spanish, although very few have succeeded. The family’s lawyers said Friday that at least two opposition leaders with Spanish passports are being held in Venezuelan prisons in circumstances similar to Lopez’s. Lopez ‘unrecognizable’ in video Lopez’s father and sister also said they doubt …
For the first time in recent history, French voters on Sunday will cast ballots in a presidential election with no candidates from traditional establishment parties. Their choice: Emmanuel Macron, a centrist from the left who is pro-business and pro-Europe and Marine Le Pen, a nationalist who wants France out of the European Union and an end to most immigration, especially from Muslim countries. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Paris. …
A Turkish court on Friday rejected an appeal filed by Wikipedia after Turkey banned access to the website last week. Turkish authorities said the website was “acting with groups conducting a smear campaign against Turkey” after Wikipedia refused to remove a page accusing the country of collaborating with jihadists in Syria. Free speech advocates in Turkey blasted the ban and said Turkey is forbidding access to websites and social media at an increasing rate. They question the move to ban the entire Wikipedia website, in all languages, when Turkey’s objections only pertains to two pages on the English-language version. The …
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Russia’s human rights ombudsman he will speak with law enforcement officials about the reported torture of gay men in Chechnya. Tatyana Moskalkova asked Putin on Friday to support her request to form a group in Moscow to investigate the treatment of gays in the southern Russian region. Putin agreed to her proposal for investigating what he called “the well-known information, or rumors” about what is happening to people “with a non-traditional sexual orientation.” The abuse was first reported in April by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which said about 100 suspected …
Russia says the proposed “de-escalation” zones in Syria will be closed to aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition. Alexander Lavrentyev, Russia’s envoy to the peace talks in Kazakhstan, said Friday in remarks covered by Russian media that “the operation of aviation in the de-escalation zones, especially of the forces of the international coalition, is absolutely not envisaged, either with notification or without,” he said. “This question is closed.” Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed to a Moscow-proposed deal Thursday to establish the so-called “de-escalation” zones in Syria to try to end the six-year conflict. Representatives of the three Syria cease-fire guarantor nations …
Albania’s political leaders on Thursday failed for the second time to reach a compromise as the opposition has boycotted the parliament and the June 18 parliamentary election. Following intensive meetings with Western diplomats, Prime Minister Edi Rama, leader of the Socialist Party, and Lulzim Basha of the main opposition Democratic Party met again Thursday night. Rama said the government offered direct monitoring of the voting with a task force of opposition representatives accompanied by monitors from the European Union, the United States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. “That’s our position. There is not much time left,” …
The European Union said Thursday that it’s preparing new regulations that could force a key financial market — and potentially thousands of jobs — to move away from London once Britain leaves the bloc. The EU Commission said it will present next month new rules on the oversight of this market, the so-called clearing of euro-denominated trades. In financial markets, clearing is the business of acting as an intermediary in a trade to reduce the risks from defaults by ensuring funds are delivered to the seller. Some 75 percent of euro-denominated interest rate derivatives are cleared in the U.K. — …
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has postponed tendering his cabinet’s resignation until the second half of May, his office said on Thursday, buying time to push through a plan for a new government before stepping down. Sobotka announced on Tuesday he and the government would step down, less than six months before its term ends, to resolve a long-running dispute with billionaire Finance Minister Andrej Babis, founder of the popular anti-establishment ANO movement. The prime minister wants to form a new cabinet without Babis due to questions over Babis’ business practices, even if that means stepping aside himself. A new …
Romania’s constitutional court on Thursday upheld a law preventing people with convictions from serving as ministers, a victory for the country’s anti-corruption fight. The ruling deals a blow to the powerful chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, who cannot be prime minister because of a conviction last year for vote rigging. Dragnea has called the law unfair, and many Social Democrats want him to be prime minister. The court had postponed making a ruling four times. The law, introduced in 2001 as Romania prepared for membership in NATO and the European Union, bars people with convictions from serving …
Macedonia’s parliament speaker urged the country’s president on Thursday to recognize a new majority of Social Democrats and parties representing ethnic Albanians so they can form a government and end a volatile political stalemate. Almost five months after a December 11 parliamentary election, Macedonian nationalists unhappy about the inclusion of minority Albanians are blocking the formation of a new government, compounding the worst crisis in the small Balkan country since it narrowly averted an ethnic civil war in 2001. The election last week of Talat Xhaferi, a former ethnic Albanian guerrilla, as speaker prompted nationalists to storm into parliament where …
There is no cause for alarm about the welfare of Queen Elizabeth or her husband Prince Philip after all senior royal staff were summoned to a meeting at Buckingham Palace, a well-placed source told Reuters Thursday. The Daily Mail newspaper had earlier reported that senior aides from across the country had been called to Buckingham Palace for an emergency meeting, leading to wide speculation on social media about the health of the royals. “There’s no cause for alarm,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. Buckingham Palace had no comment on the Mail report, but the source …
French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron met face to face for a crucial pre-election debate Wednesday. The two won the most votes in the first round of the election on April 23, but neither won a majority. Opinion polls ahead of the final vote Sunday show Macron, the centrist candidate, ahead of the ultra-conservative Le Pen. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …
Hundreds of Romanians rallied outside government headquarters in Bucharest late on Wednesday to protest against a proposal to widen a draft bill on prison pardons to include corruption offenses. Romania is seen as one of the European Union’s most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring. While the European Commission has repeatedly praised the judiciary for progress stamping out graft, it has noted parliament has a track record of trying to weaken legislation. On Wednesday, the senate’s legal committee approved amendments to the bill to include influence peddling and bribe-taking on the list of pardonable offenses. …
French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron faced off in a scathing two hours of televised debate Wednesday, just days before they face each other in a runoff election. Le Pen portrayed her opponent as a heartless capitalist who is weak on terrorism, while Macron called his opponent a liar and a dangerous extremist. Le Pen in her opening statement called the former economy minister Macron “the candidate of savage globalization.” Macron called Le Pen, who once was forced to kick her extreme-right father out of their National Front political party, the heir to France’s far-right faction. The …
A Norwegian press advocacy group says it has finally given an award to Edward Snowden in Moscow after several failed attempts to win a legal guarantee in Norway that the former National Security Agency contractor could travel freely without risk of being extradited to the United States. Hege Newth Nouri, head of Norway’s chapter of the free speech and literary organization PEN, said Wednesday she met with Snowden in the Russian capital April 21 to give him the award. In May 2016, the prize was awarded to Snowden, who leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance, for being the “Ossietzky …
Britain wants to boost trade ties with Africa after it leaves the European Union — a project some have called “Empire 2.0.” British plans to build on historical links with its former empire could face resistance in many African countries, as exporters face years of uncertainty over future trading relations with the UK. Britain says leaving the EU will allow it to “go global” and throw off the shackles it claims the EU has imposed on its trading ambitions. On a recent visit to Uganda, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the first stop would be Britain’s former colonies. “We are …