Section: Voice of America (USA)
Ukrainian Channel Under Fire Over New Year’s Concert
Ukraine’s biggest television channel is under fire after broadcasting a New Year’s Eve concert featuring Russian singers who have publicly supported separatists in eastern Ukraine. National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov has urged the National Council on Television and Radio to immediately consider...
Russians Worried, Defiant Amid Financial Crisis
Despite dire predictions about Russia’s economy for 2015, many Russians welcomed the New Year with cheers and hopes for a better future. With the sinking value of the ruble, some people say they crave stability more than they do prosperity. But the troubles, including political tensions with the West, seem to have spurred a surge of...
Latvia Takes EU Reins Focused on Growth Plan, Border Defense
Latvia took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on Thursday, pledging to launch a 315 billion euro ($381 billion) investment plan for the bloc and hoping to start a review of Europe’s border defense. Latvia, which became an EU member in 2004 and adopted the euro a year ago, has said the investment plan unveiled by...
Ukraine Says Rebels Keep Up Attacks Into New Year
Ukrainian separatists carried out sporadic attacks on government forces as the New Year began, wounding three soldiers, the Kyiv military said, as President Petro Poroshenko told the nation to brace for a year that would “not be easy.” The military said rebels had carried out several mortar and small arms attacks on Ukrainian positions in the...
With Eyes on Russia, Lithuania Joins Eurozone
Lithuania joined the eurozone Thursday, hoping to anchor itself in Europe as its former master Russia flexes its military muscle in the region. The first Soviet republic to declare independence, in 1990, Lithuania is the last of the three Baltic states to join the currency union and will be the last country to do so for the foreseeable future. By...
Energy Deals Keep Lights On for Ukraine’s New Year Festivities
Ukraine will have stable enough imports of coal and electricity to welcome the New Year with well-lit festive trees in homes and illuminations on the streets, national energy authorities said Wednesday. “All Ukrainians will be able to greet the New Year with light. There will be no outages in the near future,” Volodymyr Demchyshyn...
Putin Praises Crimea’s ‘Return Home’ in New Year Address
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised New Year’s address on Wednesday that the “return home” of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula to Moscow’s control would forever remain an important chapter in Russia’s history. Putin is facing the biggest challenge of his 15-year rule as the Russian economy is sliding...
Russian Opposition Leader Detained for Trying to Join Protest
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained after trying to join his supporters in central Moscow Tuesday protesting his sentencing on fraud charges earlier in the day. The court gave the lawyer and blogger a suspended jail sentence, but ordered his brother, Oleg Navalny, who also was on trial, to serve three-and-a-half years in...
Russian Opposition, US, EU Condemn Navalny Brothers’ Verdict
Prominent Russian opposition leaders and officials of the United States and European Union have condemned the verdict against Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg as a disturbing and politically motivated decision intended to silence the main critic of President Vladimir Putin. Earlier Tuesday, a Russian court found Navalny guilty of defrauding a...
Merkel Urges Germans to Welcome Refugees, Spurn Racism
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to turn their backs on a growing grassroots movement of anti-Muslim protesters, calling them racists full of hatred, and said Europe’s biggest economy must welcome people fleeing conflict and war. In an unusually strongly worded New Year address that also condemned Russia for its actions in Ukraine,...
