Category: Євросоюз

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday visited an Arctic archipelago, part of Russia’s efforts to reaffirm its foothold in the oil-rich region.   On a tour on the Franz Josef Land archipelago, a sprawling collection of islands where the Russian military has recently built a new runway and worked to open a permanent base, Putin emphasized the need to protect Russia’s economic and security interests in the Arctic.   The Kremlin has named reaffirming the Russian presence in the Arctic as a top priority amid an intensifying rivalry over the region that is believed to hold up to one-quarter of the …

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Rex Tillerson is making his first visit to key NATO ally Turkey as U.S. secretary of state. The forthcoming operation to remove Islamic State from its self-declared capital of Raqqa in Syria is, according to U.S. officials, expected to top the agenda of Tillerson’s visit to Ankara. He is scheduled to meet with Turkey’s political leadership including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Washington’s support of the Syrian Kurdish rebel group the PYD and its militia the YPG in the war against Islamic State has, and remains, a point of tension with Ankara, which accuses them of being linked to the PKK, …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to sign off on a delivery of fighter jets, battle tanks and armored vehicles to Serbia, the Balkan country’s defense minister said Tuesday, in what could worsen tensions with neighboring states and trigger an arms race in the war-weary region. Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic said that Putin agreed to approve the delivery during a visit by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to Moscow on Monday. He said six MiG-29 fighter jets, 30 T-72 tanks and 30 BRDM-2 armored vehicles will be delivered soon. “The president of the Russian Federation said he will sign that …

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Scotland’s Parliament voted Tuesday to seek a new referendum on independence from Britain, clearing the way for the country’s first minister, its top lawmaker, to ask the British government to approve such a vote. The legislature in Edinburgh voted 69-59 to seek Britain’s parliamentary endorsement, which is required, for a referendum that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to hold within two years — before Britain has completed its departure from the 28-nation European Union. British voters narrowly approved a departure from the EU last year, and London will begin the formal process leading to Britain’s exit from the union on …

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Britain has launched a new pound coin that authorities say will be difficult to counterfeit. …

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The European Union peacekeeping force (EUFOR) in Bosnia warned its political leaders Tuesday that it was prepared to intervene at short notice should violence resume two decades after the end of its ethnic war that killed 100,000 people. Concerns are rising about increasing instability in the historically volatile Balkans, including secessionist pressures in Bosnia, a parliamentary boycott in Montenegro, and renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo. “A lot has been achieved but a lot can be lost again,” Major General Anton Waldner said at a ceremony in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, marking his takeover of the …

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Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.   Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.   In a speech at a speaker’s conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”   Cheney’s accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump …

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Violent clashes in Paris between baton-wielding police and protesters outraged at the police killing of a Chinese man in his home injured three police officers and led to the arrest of 35 protesters, authorities said Tuesday. The tensions have prompted China’s Foreign Ministry to express its concern to French authorities over the killing of the man, who it says was shot by a plainclothes officer.   Demonstrators from the Asian community gathered Monday night outside the multicultural 19th district’s police station in Paris’ northeast, said Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.   They were angry at rumors the man …

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Violent clashes in Paris between police and protesters angry at the police killing of a Chinese man in his home have left three police officers injured and 35 protesters arrested, authorities said Tuesday.   Demonstrators, who were from the Asian community, had gathered in the multicultural 19th district on the French capital’s northeastern edge, police official Agnes Thibault Lecuivre said.   They were paying homage to a Chinese man killed Sunday by a police officer, outraged by reports that he was shot in his home in front of his children while he was cutting up fish. Police say the officer …

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Europe’s top court on Tuesday upheld European Union sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, including on its largest oil group Rosneft, in a ruling that asserts the court’s jurisdiction over the bloc’s foreign policy. The EU slapped sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and stepped them up as Moscow went on to support a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s industrial east. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said, “Restrictive measures … in response to the crisis in Ukraine against certain Russian undertakings, including Rosneft, are valid.”   …

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia could use Iranian military bases to launch air strikes against militants in Syria on a “case by case basis.” Russia and Iran are both key allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and have played decisive roles in the past 18 months to turn the tide of the Syrian conflict in his favor. …

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Islamic State propagandists are seeking to capitalize on last week’s terror attack in London, which left five people dead and 40 injured, by flooding YouTube with hundreds of violent recruitment videos. The online propaganda offensive comes as Britain demands social media companies scrub their sites of jihadist postings. Amber Rudd, the country’s interior minister, has vowed to “call time” on internet firms allowing terrorists “a place to hide” and has summoned some of the leading social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, for what is being dubbed by British officials as “showdown talks” later this week. Rudd says she is …

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A Belarusian human rights group says more than 1,000 people have been arrested for weekend protests in the former Soviet Republic and that about 150 of them have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 25 days. Opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko held unsanctioned demonstrations Saturday in Minsk, the capital, and other Belarusian cities, at which arrests were widespread. Other arrests took place in Minsk on Sunday when demonstrators demanded to know the detainees’ whereabouts.   Authorities have made no comment on the arrests.   Vladimir Lobkovich of the Vesna human rights group on Monday called the sentencings …

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The United States, Russia, China and more than a score of other countries are sitting out new talks at the United Nations toward a treaty that would ban nuclear weapons.   U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and colleagues from Britain, France and about 20 other nations gathered Monday outside the General Assembly to show opposition to the talks starting inside. Haley says the U.S. wants a nuclear-weapons-free world but has to be “realistic” about how to get there while protecting its people.   She says the U.S. has already reduced its nuclear weapons by 85 percent under the decades-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation …

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Russian protesters have demonstrated by the thousands in cities across the country in support of a call by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for accountability among Russia’s elite.  More than 100 people were detained around Moscow’s Pushkin square, including Navalny, for protesting without permission.  VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from the protest in Moscow. …

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Britain’s Northern Ireland minister must decide whether to call another election, return to direct British rule of the province or give parties more time after talks to form a new regional government failed. Northern Ireland’s parties had until Monday at 1500 GMT to form a new power-sharing government but all said a deal would not be reached after making little progress on a range of issues deeply dividing the two main nationalist and unionist parties. The failure to restore the province’s administration after its collapse in January prolongs a period of political paralysis just as Britain starts talks to leave …

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The leader of Bulgaria’s Socialist party has conceded defeat after exit polls showed her party placing second in the parliamentary election held Sunday. Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova congratulated former Prime Minister Boiko Borisov’s GERB party as the election’s winner. An Alpha Research exit poll said GERB won 32.2 percent of the vote, with the Socialist Party coming in second with 28 percent. A separate exit poll by Gallup International Balkan had GERB with 32.8 percent and the Socialists with 28.4 percent.   Official results are expected Monday.   The election had been seen as a test of Bulgaria’s loyalties to …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party won a state election by large margin, exit polls said Sunday, in an early setback to center-left hopes of unseating her in the September national vote. Early results from the voting in Saarland state had Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) leading with 40 percent while the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had around 30 percent. The SPD was facing its first electoral test since nominating Martin Shultz to face off against Merkel in September. The party has seen a recent surge in popularity. Merkel is expected to run for fourth term as chancellor. …

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The U.S. State Department has “strongly condemned” the detention of hundreds of protesters throughout Russia including the country’s opposition leader on Sunday. Tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated in cities across the country in support of a call by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for accountability among Russia’s elite.  Nearly 500 people were detained around Moscow’s Pushkin square, including Navalny, for protesting without permission. “Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. He said the United States was “troubled” by the arrest of …

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Interior minister Amber Rudd said on Sunday the British government did not yet know what kind of cost there may be for trying to get the “widest possible access” to the European Union’s single market. Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday, hoping to secure what she calls a “good deal” of close cooperation on the economy and security while being able to control immigration. “I certainly do think that we should try to have the widest possible access to the single market … we don’t know what that cost would be, …

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