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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has criticized those, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who praise Britain’s secession from the European Union (EU), and champion similar movements in other member nations. Leaders of the European People’s Party met on Malta Thursday, a day after Britain triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, officially starting the process known as Brexit. Zlatica Hoke has more. …

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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected. Ninety percent of the world’s trade is carried by sea. Every vessel has an identification number administered by the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization or IMO. But crews are able to change the digital identity of their ship, making it possible to conceal previous journeys. The Israeli firm Windward has developed software to track the changes. Its CEO, Ami Daniel, showed VOA several examples of suspicious shipping activity, including one vessel that changed its entire …

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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern that the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected. New technology enables authorities to follow the routes of suspect vessels, but security experts say taking on the smugglers will require greater coordination. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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A top police official says a recent hacking attack on the German Parliament may have led to a “significant drain of data” which may be used to try influence the outcome of the country’s general election in September. Holger Muench, the head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, didn’t tell reporters Thursday who might have been behind the most recent hacking attack. The offices of at least 10 members of Parliament were attacked last month, the German news agency dpa reported. In the summer of 2015, the Bundestag suffered another hacker attack, which meant several networks and servers had to …

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Prince William, his wife Kate and his brother Prince Harry are spearheading a campaign to encourage people to talk openly about mental health issues.   The young royals released 10 films Thursday as part of their Heads Together campaign to change the national conversation on mental health.   The videos feature celebrities and members of the public talking about the breakthrough conversation that helped them come to terms with their mental health problems.   The former England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff and former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell are among those seen speaking about their experiences of …

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Britain’s chief negotiator in the country’s divorce from the European Union on Thursday rejected suggestions the U.K. has threatened to end security cooperation unless it gets a good trade deal, as the U.K. announced plans for the huge task of replacing thousands of EU laws and regulations with domestic law. Brexit Secretary David Davis said Prime Minister Theresa May’s letter triggering talks on Britain’s departure made clear Britain wants to continue to work with the EU on a range of issues, including security, for both sides. “We want a deal, and she was making the point that it’s bad for …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he would be willing to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking at an Arctic forum, Putin and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, said they were open to the idea of such a meeting, and Niinisto said he would be honored to host the summit in his country. Putin said Russia has many friends in Washington and relations between the two countries would get better at some point. He denied involvement in any efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election last year and called the allegations of Russian meddling “lies” and “provocations.” Putin said any …

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A group of strawberry pickers from Bangladesh has won a case against Greece at Europe’s highest human rights court, after being shot at by employers for demanding unpaid wages. The Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday in favor of 42 Bangladeshi nationals, and ordered the Greek state to pay them damages of 12,000-16,000 euros ($13,000-$17,000) each for having “failed in its obligations to prevent the situation of human trafficking, to protect the victims.”   The 2013 incident occurred near the southern Greek town of Manolada, 260 kilometers (160 miles) west of Athens, when more than 20 migrant …

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Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a prominent ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to New York this week to school investors on his state bank’s plans to sell new dollar bonds. Instead, he was placed under arrest by U.S. authorities and accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by teaming with wealthy Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S. banks to Iran’s government. “United States sanctions are not mere requests or suggestions; they are the law,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement in …

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Russian high school student Roman Shingarkin had some explaining to do when he got home after becoming one of the faces of anti-Kremlin protests at the weekend. His father is a former member of parliament who supports President Vladimir Putin. At the height of a protest in Moscow on Sunday against what organizers said was official corruption, 17-year-old Shingarkin and another young man climbed onto the top of a lamp-post in the city’s Pushkin Square. Hundreds of protesters in the square cheered and whistled as a police officer, dressed in riot gear, shinned up the lamp-post and remonstrated with the …

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The United States is examining its next steps in the campaign to defeat Islamic State militants and stabilize the refugee crisis with regional allies, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson embarks on trips to Turkey and NATO headquarters this week. The top U.S. diplomat will press NATO allies to demonstrate a clear path to increase defense spending, in his first meeting with counterparts from this security bloc. U.S.-led forces are increasing their campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State militants. Stabilizing areas where militants have fled and allowing refugees to return home is high on the …

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Hundreds of people joined together on Westminster Bridge on Wednesday to remember the four killed in last week’s London attack. A large crowd, which included police, hospital staff and relatives of victims, stretched across the bridge where Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians last Wednesday. Masood went on to fatally stab a policeman before being shot dead in the grounds of Britain’s parliament. As well as the four dead, more than 35 people were injured in the attack. The crowd included members of the Islamic charity organization Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, who held up banners reading “Love for all, …

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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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