Category: Євросоюз

Tbilisi, Georgia — Thousands of Georgians marched through the capital, Tbilisi, on Sunday, as protests built against a bill on “foreign agents” that the country’s opposition and Western countries have said is authoritarian and Russian-inspired. Georgia’s parliament said it would hold the bill’s second reading on Tuesday, with opposition parties and civil society groups calling for mass protests against its expected passage. If passed, the draft law would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents” or face fines. Protester Nika Shurgaia said he feared many non-government organizations would be shuttered because of …

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Rome — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Sunday she will be a candidate at June’s European elections in a bid to boost support for her Brothers of Italy party, though she will not take up a seat if elected.  The June 6-9 European Parliament vote is a key test of strength for her 18-month-old rightist coalition.  “We want to do in Europe what we did in Italy… create a majority that brings together the center-right forces and send the left into opposition,” Meloni told cheering party faithful at a party conference in the coastal city of Pescara to set out …

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BEIRUT — French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné arrived in Lebanon Sunday as part of diplomatic attempts to broker a de-escalation in the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border.  Séjourné was set to meet with United Nations peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon and with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, army chief, foreign minister and caretaker prime minister.  The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged strikes near-daily with Israeli forces in the border region — and sometimes beyond — for almost seven months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza.  Israeli strikes have killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, most …

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KYIV — Russian drones early Sunday struck the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv, setting a hotel ablaze and damaging energy infrastructure, the local Ukrainian governor reported, while ammunition shortages continued to hobble Kyiv’s troops in the more than 2-year-old war.  Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv province, said that Russian drones “seriously damaged” a hotel in its namesake capital, sparking a fire that was later extinguished. Kim also reported that the strike damaged heat-generating infrastructure in the city, but gave no details. He added that there were no casualties.  Russian state agency RIA carried claims that the strike on …

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KYIV, Ukraine — Even amid war, Ukraine finds time for the glittery, pop-filled Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps now even more than ever. Ukraine’s entrants in the pan-continental music competition — the female duo of rapper alyona alyona and singer Jerry Heil — set off from Kyiv for the competition Thursday. In wartime, that means a long train journey to Poland, from where they will travel on to next month’s competition in Malmö, Sweden. “We need to be visible for the world,” Heil told The Associated Press at Kyiv train station before her departure. “We need to show that even now, during …

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london — Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he is ready to renew a right-wing alliance with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban if he wins the presidential election in November.     The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee made the comments in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Europe, which was held in Budapest on Thursday and Friday.  The conference has long been a powerful force in right-wing American politics. The first European edition of the conference was held in Budapest in 2022 and has been an annual fixture since.     Orban, the host and keynote speaker, received a …

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LONDON — Two Russian journalists were arrested by their government on extremism charges and ordered by courts there on Saturday to remain in custody pending investigation and trial on accusations of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin both denied the charges. They will be detained for at least two months before any trials begin. Each faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organization,” according to Russian courts. They are the latest journalists arrested amid a Russian …

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ISLAMABAD — Germany’s ambassador to Pakistan faced backlash on social media Saturday for asking pro-Palestinian demonstrators to leave a human rights conference instead of “shouting” and interrupting his speech. Alfred Grannas was speaking on civil rights at the live-streamed event in the eastern city of Lahore when a young man rose from his seat and spoke to the German diplomat. “Excuse me, Mr. ambassador. I am shocked by the audacity that you are here to talk about civil rights while your country is brutally abusing the people speaking for the rights of the Palestinians,” the protester said. The participants cheered and …

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LONDON — British troops may be tasked with delivering aid to Gaza from an offshore pier now under construction by the U.S. military, the BBC reported Saturday. U.K. government officials declined to comment on the report. According to the BBC, the British government is considering deploying troops to drive the trucks that will carry aid from the pier along a floating causeway to the shore. No decision has been made, and the proposal hasn’t yet reached Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the BBC reported, citing unidentified government sources. The report comes after a senior U.S. military official said on Thursday that there …

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine overnight, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia said its air defense systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region. Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that Russia had launched 34 missiles against Ukraine overnight, of which 21 had been shot down by Ukrainian air defenses. In a post on Telegram, Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko said energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk in the south of the country and Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv in the west had been attacked and that an engineer …

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SYDNEY — The Asian Development Bank holds its annual meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, next week, with discussions on climate change and the world’s aging population high on the agenda. The four-day summit, starting Thursday, marks the first time that the ADB’s 68 members have gathered for a meeting in Georgia, which joined the multilateral development bank in 2007. “Georgia sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia,” said Shalini Mittal, a principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “This meeting signifies ADB’s agenda of bridges to the future where technology and expertise from the West can be used to …

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KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwanda says it’s ready to receive migrants from the United Kingdom after British Parliament this week approved a long-stalled and controversial bill seeking to stem the tide of people crossing the English Channel in small boats by deporting some of them to the East African country. There is even a place ready and waiting for the migrants — a refurbished Hope Hostel in the vibrant upscale neighborhood of Kagugu, an area of the Rwandan capital of Kigali that is home to many expats and several international schools. The hostel once housed college students whose parents died in the …

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Lausanne, France — Between six and eight Palestinian athletes are expected to compete at the Paris Olympics, with some set to be invited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) even if they fail to qualify, its head, Thomas Bach, said. Bach told AFP on Friday that qualification events for the Paris Games, which start July 26, were ongoing for a number of sports. “But we have made the clear commitment that even if no (Palestinian) athlete would qualify on the field of play … then the NOC (National Olympic Committee) of Palestine would benefit from invitations, like other national Olympic Committees …

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Washington — British officials formally charged two men Friday with spying on behalf of China in the latest in a series of European arrests of suspected Chinese intelligence agents. The two men, Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, were charged with violations of the Official Secrets Act by “providing prejudicial information to a foreign state, China” between 2021 and February 2023. Their arrests on Monday occurred at the same time that German authorities arrested three people suspected of spying for China and leaking information on military technology. German authorities separately arrested an assistant to a far-right European Parliament member. The Chinese Embassy …

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced a military aid package for Ukraine valued at up to $6 billion. Analysts say the aid is desperately needed to help Ukraine regain the upper hand after months of having to ration ammunition. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details. …

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ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s planned meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, set for May 9 at the White House, has been postponed because of changes in the Turkish leader’s schedule, a Turkish official said on Friday.  A new date will soon be set, the official said, requesting anonymity.  The White House had not formally announced the visit, but a U.S. official told Reuters in late March that the White House had offered, and Ankara had accepted, May 9 for the meeting.  …

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Warsaw, Poland — Olga drew her index finger abruptly across her neck as she recounted the threats her husband leveled at her after he returned to Russia, wounded from fighting in Ukraine. “I’m going to cut your head and hands off and beat you up. I’ll burn you in acid,” he threatened her, she said. Even before her husband went off to fight in Ukraine, he was a violent alcoholic, Olga — not her real name — told AFP. When he returned home seven months later, he was even worse. And now he was a war hero, endowed with a sense …

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