Category: Євросоюз

Madrid — Spain will host Brazil in an international football friendly at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium on March 26 to raise awareness of racism, the Spanish football federation said Monday. The Spanish and Brazilian football federations announced plans for the match last June, a month after Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinicius Junior, who is Black, was racially abused by Valencia fans in an incident which provoked worldwide outrage. The match will serve “to strengthen the commitment against violence and racism in football” with “a great celebration of football between two of the most powerful teams on the international scene,” the Spanish …

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Davos, Switzerland — The world’s wealthiest five men have more than doubled their fortune since 2020, the charity Oxfam said on Monday, calling on nations to resist the ultra-rich’s influence over tax policy. A report from the charity, published as the global elite hobnob at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, said their wealth rose from $405 billion in 2020 to $869 billion last year. Yet since 2020, nearly five billion people worldwide have grown poorer, Oxfam said. Billionaires are today $3.3 trillion richer than they were in 2020, despite many crises devastating the world’s economy since this decade …

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Frankfurt — The German economy shrank slightly in 2023, official data showed Monday, as costly energy, high interest rates and cooling foreign demand took their toll on Europe’s export giant. Output contracted by 0.3 percent year-on-year, federal statistics agency Destatis said in preliminary figures. “Overall economic development faltered in Germany in 2023 in an environment that continues to be marked by multiple crises,” the agency’s Ruth Brand told a Berlin press conference. Europe’s largest economy likely saw a 0.3-percent drop in gross domestic output in the final quarter of the year, the agency calculated, again in preliminary figures. It also revised …

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WASHINGTON — The year ahead will be “very tough” for fiscal policy — especially for countries holding elections — the IMF chief told AFP before departing for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “This is going to be a very tough year, because fiscal policy has to rebuild buffers and deal with the debt that was accumulated in many countries,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview in Washington. “About 80 countries are going to have elections, and we know what happens with pressure on spending during election cycles,” she continued. Billions of people in dozens …

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Bucharest, Romania — Romanian truck drivers and farmers on Sunday slowed traffic around several cities, including the capital Bucharest, voicing a string of grievances from high tax rates to slow compensation payouts. In their fifth day of action, protesters also gathered at border areas, temporarily blocking the northeastern border with Ukraine.   The truck drivers are complaining over high insurance and tax rates and long waiting times at the borders. At the same time, the farmers are seeking speedier payment of subsidies and compensation for those affected by drought or by disruptions caused by the import of Ukrainian cereals. Farmers complained …

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Sydney — Campaigners will gather Sunday at Sydney Town Hall for a rally to urge Australia to send unwanted helicopters to Ukraine. The Australian Defence Force plans to decommission 45 Taipan helicopters later this year and replace them with U.S.-made Blackhawks.  Australia’s entire fleet of MRH-90 Taipan helicopters was grounded after a crash during a multinational military exercise off the coast of Queensland state in July. Officials have said that the aircraft will not return to “flying operations” before they are due to be withdrawn from active service in December of this year. The Taipans will be replaced by U.S.-made Blackhawk …

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Sydney — While Denmark was preparing to celebrate the coronation of a new king, there are festivities too, half a world away, in Australia. Crown Princess Mary was born on the Australian island of Tasmania and met Prince Frederik in a chance encounter in a busy Sydney bar during the 2000 Olympic Games. Before she was a princess, Mary Donaldson graduated with a degree in law and commerce from the University of Tasmania in Australia. A career in advertising and real estate followed. In 2000, she met Denmark’s Prince Frederik in a bar in central Sydney during the Olympic Games. The …

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BUCHAREST — Romanian farmers and truck drivers continued sporadic protests across the country on Sunday as negotiations with the coalition government over high insurance rates and slow subsidy payments resumed. Convoys of tractors and trucks began gathering five days ago on national roads, mainly near large Romanian cities, slowing or blocking traffic. Farmers and haulers also briefly blocked a border crossing with Ukraine in northeastern Romania on Saturday, and tried to prevent entrance to the Black Sea port of Constanta. They are demanding the government address high insurance premia and excise levels on diesel fuel, loan moratoriums, the time taken to …

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London — A volcano has erupted in southwestern Iceland for the second time in less than a month, sending semi-molten rock spewing toward a nearby settlement.  The eruption just before 8 a.m. Sunday came after a swarm of earthquakes near the town of Grindavik, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. The community was evacuated overnight, Iceland’s RUV television reported.  “Lava is flowing a few hundred meters north of the town, this is 400 to 500 meters,” Kristín Jónsdóttir from the Icelandic Meteorological Office told Iceland’s RUV television. “Lava flows towards Grindavik.”  Residents of Grindavik were previously evacuated from their homes in November …

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washington — China’s car industry groups have said the country is set to surpass Japan to become the world’s top car exporter for 2023, driven by the Russian market and a growing global appetite for electric vehicles (EVs).    The official China Daily newspaper reported the Association of Automobile Manufacturers on Thursday said China’s vehicle production for the first time reached 30 million units last year, 4.91 million of them exported. The exports are a 58% increase from 2022’s 3.11 million vehicles exported, appearing to overtake Japan as the world’s top car exporter.    Japan’s NHK news agency reported Thursday that …

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MOSCOW — A huge fire tore through a large warehouse used by Russia’s largest online retailer south of St. Petersburg on Saturday morning. The blaze covered an area of 70,000 square meters (more than 750,000 square feet), with 50,000 square meters (around 540,000 square feet) of the Wildberries warehouse collapsing, according to Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry. No casualties were reported. Videos posted to social media appeared to show employees running down fire escapes and fleeing the scene. A video shot from a passenger jet flying nearby showed flames totally engulfing the warehouse, sending huge plumes of smoke into the sky. The …

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LONDON — Children joined thousands of other demonstrators making their way through central London for a pro-Palestinian march Saturday, part of a global day of action against the longest and deadliest war between Israel and Palestinians in 75 years. The plight of children in the Gaza Strip after nearly 100 days of the Israel-Hamas war was the focus of the latest London march, symbolized by the appearance of Little Amal, a 3.5-meter (11.5-foot) puppet originally meant to highlight the suffering of Syrian refugees. The puppet had become a human rights emblem during an 8,000-kilometer (4,970-mile) journey from the Turkish-Syrian border to …

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london — An unlikely refugee from the war in Ukraine — a rare Asiatic black bear — arrived at his new home in Scotland on Friday and quickly took to a meal of cucumbers and watermelon.  The 12-year-old Yampil was named for a village in the Donetsk region where he was one of the few survivors found by Ukrainian troops in the remains of a bombed-out private zoo.  Yampil, who had previously been called Borya, was discovered by soldiers who recaptured the devastated city of Lyman during the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, said Yegor Yakovlev of Save Wild, …

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TALLINN, Estonia — A Belarusian journalist went on trial Friday on charges linked to his professional work covering protests, the latest move in a government crackdown on dissent.  Photojournalist Alyaksandr Zyankou faces up to six years in prison if convicted on charges of “participation in an extremist group” at Minsk City Court. Such accusations have been widely used by authorities to target opposition members, civil society activists and independent journalists.  Zyankou has been in custody since his arrest in June, and his health has deteriorated behind bars, according to the independent Belarusian Association of Journalists.  “Zyankou was just taking pictures to …

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istanbul — Five Turkish soldiers were killed Friday in an attack on a military base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the Turkish Defense Ministry said. Authorities blamed Kurdish militants. Eight soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously, when the attackers attempted to infiltrate the base, the ministry said on social media. It indicated 12 militants had been killed and that operations were continuing in the area. The wounded troops were hospitalized for treatment. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan later expressed condolences for the families of the slain soldiers. “We will fight to the end against the PKK terrorist organization within and …

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In its annual report published Thursday, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of war crimes and said many governments were expressing “selective outrage” over atrocities committed in the conflict in Gaza. Henry Ridgwell reports …

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