Category: Світ

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s “Smart Voting” app has disappeared from the Telegram messenger following similar moves by Apple and Google on Friday at the start of a three-day parliamentary vote in Russia.   The app, which advised Navalny supporters on which candidate they should back to unseat Kremlin-aligned politicians, was removed after Telegram announced …

Britain’s food industry called on the government to subsidize carbon dioxide (CO2) production during a spike in gas prices or risk the collapse of the country’s meat industries.   A surge in gas prices has forced two British fertilizer plants to shut down, stripping food producers of the CO2 by-product that is used to stun …

This week’s nuclear submarine deal between the United States and Australia threatens to become divisive in Australia, where some critics already are saying it risks Australian security rather than enhances it in the face of China’s militarization of the South China Sea. Under the deal, the U.S. will help Australia build at least eight nuclear-powered …

France has recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia after Australia ended a deal to buy French submarines in favor of one to pursue nuclear-powered vessels using U.S. technology. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a written statement Friday that the move “is justified by the exceptional seriousness” of the matter. He …

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday celebrated the 40th anniversary of France’s Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) — “high-speed train” — system, by unveiling a more efficient and environmentally friendly next-generation train.  During a ceremony at the Gare de Lyon rail station in Paris, Macron hailed the history of the original TGV, inaugurated at the …

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin provoked chuckles earlier this month from school kids in the Russian city of Vladivostok when a 10-year-old asked him to subscribe to his YouTube channel. “Sign up please. I’d be very glad,” the kid said.   Russia’s 68-year-old leader seemed baffled.     “What do I have to sign?” Putin asked. …

The tourism industry in Turkey has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and until recently several wildfires. Several sites, however, have again started to attract local and international visitors. VOA’s Arif Aslan reports from Van, Turkey, in a story narrated by Sirwan Kajjo. …

France has suspended 3,000 health care workers who were not inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine by a government-mandated Sept. 15 deadline. “Several dozens” of the country’s 2.7 million health workers, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday, opted to resign rather than receive the inoculation against the coronavirus. Tens of thousands health workers were unvaccinated in …

Taiwan’s government called on the European Union to quickly begin trade talks after the bloc pledged to seek a trade deal with the tech-heavyweight island, something Taipei has long angled for. The EU included Taiwan on its list of trade partners for a potential bilateral investment agreement in 2015, the year before President Tsai Ing-wen …

Russians in the Far East began voting in a three-day parliamentary election in which vocal Kremlin critics have been barred from running following a historic crackdown on the opposition. Parliamentary and local polls in the world’s largest country spread over 11 time zones began at 8 a.m. Friday. So as Muscovites prepared to go to …

Ukraine and the United States will start joint military exercises in western Ukraine next week, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Thursday, days after Belarus and Russia staged large-scale drills that raised neighboring countries’ concerns. The “Zapad-2021” war games ran on Russia’s and Belarus’ western flanks, including sites close to the European Union’s borders, and …

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned five al-Qaida supporters for allegedly helping the militant group with financial assistance. The department said the operatives supporting al-Qaida were working out of Turkey.  “We will continue working with our foreign partners, including Turkey, to expose and disrupt al-Qaida’s financial support networks,” Treasury Department official Andrea Gacki said in a …

As Germany prepares to elect a new leader, climate change is high on the agenda. Floods blamed on global warming killed hundreds in July. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from Germany, the country is also Europe’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and is struggling to wean itself off fossil fuels …

The European Union’s executive arm asked its member countries Thursday to better protect journalists amid a rise of physical attacks and online threats against media professionals. According to the European Commission, 908 journalists and media workers were attacked across the 27-nation bloc in 2020. A total of 23 journalists have been killed in the EU …

Security forces in Istanbul detain unregistered Afghans as Turkey’s government faces growing public pressure to not accept any more refugees …

The Speaker of the British House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, has banned China’s ambassador to Britain, Zheng Zeguang, from entering Parliament until Beijing lifts sanctions it imposed six months ago on five Conservative lawmakers and two peers.     The ban — the first ever imposed on a foreign envoy by a House of Commons …

On September 26 Germans will go to the polls in a federal election to apportion seats in the Bundestag and decide who will succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. Marking the end of the Merkel era, many view this electoral contest as Germany’s most important election in decades. But one wouldn’t be able to guess that …

The United States is backing Lithuania in the face of what American officials describe as China’s “coercive behavior” after Vilnius recently became the first European country since 2003 to allow Taiwan to open a representative office.On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis met for talks at the State …

Three British Afghan women are on a hunger strike near the British Parliament to protest the treatment of women in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Yalda Baktash reports. …

Campaigning to elect a new German leader this month is being clouded by concerns that the country will face a new influx of refugees — this time those fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan.  In 2015, more than 1 million migrants, many of them Syrians escaping their country’s civil war, traveled across the Mediterranean and Europe …

Six years ago, more than a million migrants traveled across the Mediterranean and Europe to reach Germany — many of them Syrians escaping the civil war. So, could history repeat itself as refugees try to flee Taliban rule in Afghanistan? As Henry Ridgwell reports from Berlin, immigration is high on the agenda as Germany prepares …

Russia is preparing for parliamentary and local elections Sunday in what the opposition says is an atmosphere of repression in which a number of candidates not aligned with the ruling party have been excluded.  Jon Spier narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Moscow.Camera: Ricardo MarquinaVideo editor: Henry Hernandez …

Pope Francis said Wednesday that Catholic bishops should minister to politicians who support abortion rights, such as U.S. President Joe Biden, with “compassion and tenderness,” not condemnation.The pontiff, returning to Rome from Slovakia, warned that Catholic Church leaders should not let politics enter into questions about whether observant Catholics like Biden should be refused the …

Authors of theCluster Munition Monitor 2021report say great progress toward the elimination of these lethal weapons has been made since the Cluster Ban Treaty came into force in 2010.The Monitor finds there has been no new use of cluster munitions by any of the 110 states that has joined the treaty, nor by the 13 …

Dozens of Polish news outlets have expressed anger over a media ban at the border with Belarus, part of a state of emergency imposed by Warsaw following an influx of migrants.    Thousands of migrants — mainly from the Middle East —  have crossed or tried to cross the border from Belarus into the eastern EU …

U.S. warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over shielding cybercriminals holed up in Russia appear to have made little impact, according to top U.S. law enforcement and cyber officials. “There is no indication that the Russian government has taken action to crack down on ransomware actors that are operating in the permissive environment that they’ve created …