Category: Євросоюз

The U.S. State Department said Monday it had taken note of concerns by European monitors of Turkey’s referendum and looked forward to a final report, suggesting it will withhold comment until a full assessment was completed. An initial assessment by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Sunday’s referendum, which granted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, did not meet democratic norms. “We look forward to OSCE/ODIHR’s final report, which we understand will take several weeks,” acting spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. …

READ MORE

As France’s unpredictable presidential campaign nears its finish with no clear front-runner, centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen hope to rally big crowds in Paris with their rival visions for Europe’s future. Meanwhile, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, enjoying a late poll surge, is campaigning on a barge Monday floating through the canals of Paris. And conservative candidate Francois Fillon is taking his tough-on-security campaign to the southern French city of Nice, which was scarred by a deadly truck attack last year that killed 86 people. The race is being watched internationally as an important gauge of …

READ MORE

Germany said on Monday the close result in Turkey’s referendum on expanding Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers was a big responsibility for him to bear and showed how divided Turkish society was. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also said Turkish authorities needed to address concerns about the content and procedure of Sunday’s referendum raised by a panel of European legal experts. Erdogan declared a narrow victory in the vote, which marked the biggest overhaul of modern Turkish politics. Opponents said it was marred by irregularities and they would challenge the result. Merkel and Gabriel, whose country …

READ MORE

 It is an image those who saw it will never forget: Prince William and Prince Harry — just boys, really — walking silently behind their mother’s cortege as the world mourned Princess Diana’s death in 1997. Now Harry has revealed for the first time that losing his mother when he was only 12 left him in emotional turmoil for 20 years, filling him with grief and rage he could only manage after he sought counseling.   Breaking sharply with the royal tradition of maintaining a stoic silence about mental health, the 32-year-old prince told The Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday …

READ MORE

Turkey’s ruling party is celebrating victory after a referendum granting sweeping new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The opposition says it will contest Sunday’s vote, which it says was riddled with fraud. Erdogan’s victory would give him new powers undermining the parliament, and Cabinet ministers would be directly appointed by the president and accountable to him. …

READ MORE

Easter dawned in Jerusalem with a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb, where the faithful sang hymns of the resurrection. This holy site seeks to recreate the setting of the burial place of Jesus according to biblical accounts: “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid” (John 19:41). Facing an empty tomb carved into a rock in antiquity, the congregation proclaimed that “The Lord is risen!” A short time later, bells rang out in the narrow cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old …

READ MORE

Millions of Orthodox Christians around the world have celebrated Easter in overnight services and with “holy fire” from Jerusalem, commemorating the day followers believe that Jesus was resurrected nearly 2,000 years ago.   This year the Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on the same Sunday that Roman Catholics and Protestants mark the holy festival. The Western Christian church follows the Gregorian calendar, while the Eastern Orthodox uses the older Julian calendar and the two Easters are often weeks apart.   Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christian faithful, delivered a message of peace during …

READ MORE

Christians around the world on Sunday celebrated Easter – the day they believe Jesus arose from the dead.  It is the holiest day of the Christian calendar.   Throngs of the faithful endured heavy security checks to secure a place in the Vatican’s flower-filled Saint Peter’s Square for Pope Francis’ celebration of Easter Mass and his delivery of his annual “Urbi et Orbi” –  “to the city and to the world” – Easter address. Pope Francis denounced how migrants, the poor and the marginalized are treated.  He said they see their “human dignity crucified” every day through injustice and corruption. …

READ MORE

Turkey’s ruling party has claimed victory in a referendum granting broad new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, authorities announced late Sunday.   With 99 percent of the ballots counted, official Turkish media placed the “yes” vote at more than 51 percent, and the “no” vote at just under 49 percent. The head of Turkey’s electoral board later confirmed those results and said official tallies would be released within the next 12 days. Erdogan told cheering supporters outside his official residence in Istanbul that the “yes” camp had secured 25 million votes – 1.3 million more than those cast by …

READ MORE

Christians around the world Sunday celebrate Easter — the day they believe Jesus rose from the dead. It is the holiest day of the Christian calendar. Easter is Christianity’s “moveable feast,” falling on a different date each year. Western Christian churches celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. Easter marks the end of Holy Week, which is the week before Easter and includes Maundy Thursday, the day of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, and Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Authorities in Egypt have beefed up security this year for Easter …

READ MORE

Traditionally built houses in old Europe are vulnerable to earthquakes, which again was demonstrated last August when a 6.2 magnitude quake devastated an area in central Italy. Italian engineers are researching ways to minimize the damage. VOA’s George Putic reports. …

READ MORE

Pope Francis, leading the world’s Roman Catholics into Easter, urged them Saturday not to ignore the plight of immigrants, the poor and other vulnerable people. In his homily at an Easter vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis recounted the biblical account of Jesus Christ’s mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene, filled with grief, as they went to visit his tomb following the crucifixion. Their grief, he said during the solemn ceremony, could be seen in the faces of many women today. “In their faces we can see reflected all those who, walking the streets of our cities, feel the pain …

READ MORE

Responding to threats by the Islamic State group to disrupt Turkey’s constitutional referendum on Sunday, Turkish authorities have detained scores of people nationwide suspected of links to the outlawed terror group. IS called on its followers to attack polling places during the referendum, in which voters will make a yes-or-no choice on whether Turkey should shift from its current parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration has been campaigning hard and marshaling media resources to press for a “yes” vote, which would greatly expand the president’s powers. In a directive to its followers, IS …

READ MORE

Turks are voting in a referendum on turning Turkey into an executive presidency from the current parliamentary system.  If approved, the 18-article constitutional reform package will greatly enhance presidential powers, creating one of the most powerful elected presidencies in the world. Supporters argue it is essential to meet what they call unprecedented threats facing the country. Detractors warn the measures will turn Turkey into an autocracy. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been at the forefront of the “yes” campaign, argues the reforms will ensure political stability and efficiency following July’s failed coup and continuing threats by both the Islamic …

READ MORE

Regardless of whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan succeeds in bolstering his increasingly authoritarian clout in Sunday’s constitutional referendum, one thing is clear: despite a crackdown on his critics and the media, the country is deeply divided, with signs that the gap is growing. That is bad, not only for Turkey, but for just about everyone with interests in the region, given the country’s economic power and historically strategic location as a bridge between East and West – particularly with Syria’s civil war and the fight against so-called Islamic State raging on its border. Despite the government’s efforts to severely …

READ MORE

Pope Francis, presiding at a Good Friday service, asked God for forgiveness for scandals in the Catholic Church and for the “shame” of humanity becoming inured to daily scenes of bombed cities and drowning migrants. Francis presided at a traditional candlelight Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) service at Rome’s Colosseum attended by some 20,000 people and protected by heavy security following recent attacks in European cities. Francis sat while a large wooden cross was carried in procession, stopping 14 times to mark events in the last hours of Jesus’ life from his sentencing to his death and his burial. …

READ MORE

France’s presidential race looked tighter than it has all year Friday, nine days before voting begins, as two polls put the four frontrunners within reach of a two-person run-off vote. The latest voter surveys may raise investor concerns about the outside possibility of a second round that pits the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen against hard-left challenger Jean-Luc Melenchon. The election is one of the most unpredictable in modern French history, as a groundswell of anti-establishment feeling and frustration at France’s economic malaise has seen a growing number of voters turn their backs on the mainstream parties. An Ipsos-Sopra Sterna …

READ MORE

In the face of growing international concern about reported detentions and killings of gay men in Chechnya, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says the Kremlin does not have confirmed information on the targeted violence. The respected Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported this month that police in the predominantly Muslim republic rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three of them have been killed. Chechen authorities have denied the reports. But the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights and prominent international organizations have urged the Russian government to investigate the reported abuse. But Putin …

READ MORE

Russia’s leading state broadcaster has announced plans to boycott the Eurovision 2017 song contest after the host country, Ukraine, barred Russia’s contestant, wheelchair-bound singer Yulia Samoylova, from entering the country. Kyiv’s decision in late March to ban the 28-year-old Russian paraplegic vocalist stemmed from her June 2015 performance in Crimea, where she appeared without the approval of Ukrainian authorities after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula. Announcing the boycott Friday, Channel One, the state broadcaster that transmits the competition to large Russian audiences, said event organizers had offered the option of sending a different contestant or having Samoylova perform via …

READ MORE

Russia on Friday hosted a trilateral foreign ministers meeting with Iran and Syria, as well as an international conference on Afghanistan, just days after a chilly Moscow reception for U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Russia’s increasingly assertive foreign policy in Syria and Afghanistan is clashing with U.S. goals, but analysts say both countries are needed for a negotiated peace. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Moscow. …

READ MORE