Thursday, December 12, 2019
A court in Estonia jailed Vladimir Kulikov, former employee of the Internal Security Service (ISS) arrested in March, for a period of five years for spying for Russia. The Tallinn-based Harju County Court issued the ruling in September and it has entered into force, the Office of the Prosecutor General told the Russian-language news portal of public broadcaster ERR. Kulikov was accused of engaging in relations against the Republic of Estonia…
The conflict between Iran and the U.S. that has created tensions throughout much of the Middle East is now also being felt in Lebanon, where Washington has slapped sanctions on the Iran-backed Hezbollah and warned they could soon expand to its allies, further deepening the tiny Arab country’s economic crisis. The Trump administration has intensified sanctions on the Lebanese militant group and institutions linked to it to unprecedented levels, targeting…
A growing number of Lithuanians believe that many refugees are actually economic migrants and that they increase crime in the country, a new survey indicates. Lithuania has not People fear what they don’t understand, says the European Commission’s representative Arnoldas Pranckevičius, and Lithuania largely stood aside when Europe was dealing with the refugee crisis. Zabi Ahmad came to Lithuania from Afghanistan five years ago. He left his country, because the…
Scientists have chosen an ice floe on which to begin setting up a research camp for a year-long international expedition to study the Arctic, Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute said Friday. After several days of searching, researchers found a suitable floe measuring about 2.5 kilometers by 3.5 kilometers (1.5 miles by 2.2 miles) in the Arctic Sea north of Russia that will serve as a base for the mission, the institute…
It would be good if the tax debate could avoid dogmas and all proposals would be given a chance. We must definitely tax polluting the environment more and introduce a tax on sugar, Indrek Neivelt said on Vikerraadio’s daily comment section. Prime Minister Jüri Ratas encouraged a public debate on taxes a few weeks ago. It was the right thing to do. Our tax system is stuck in the nineties,…
An industry association says orders for German machinery, an important export, plummeted in August, adding to signs of a recession in Europe’s biggest economy. The VDMA group said Friday that orders were down 17% compared with a year earlier, with demand from abroad dropping 19% and orders from inside Germany falling 12%. Orders from countries outside the eurozone fell a particularly sharp 21%. VDMA’s Olaf Wortmann said the figures suggest…
Friday is the final day of a national nuclear emergency exercise that Lithuania has conducted in southeastern municipalities this week. The four-day drill was intended to test how the country’s services are ready to respond to a potential nuclear accident at the Atsravyets Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus. On the final day, the Interior Ministry is convening a meeting to review how the drill went. The exercise started on Tuesday…
Pope Francis has accepted a New Zealand bishop’s resignation over what church officials said was “completely unacceptable” sexual behavior with a young woman. Palmerston North Bishop Charles Drennan offered to resign following an independent investigation into the woman’s complaint, according to Cardinal John Dew, head of the New Zealand church. The Vatican said Friday that the pope had accepted the resignation. The removal is significant since the Catholic Church has…
Chairman of the supervisory board of Swedbank Göran Persson gave a press conference in Tallinn on Friday where he said that the Swedish bank will not be leaving Estonia and is looking at expansion instead. Göran Persson said that while the money laundering scandal has given rise to rumors of extensive changes to be made, the latter are false and Swedbank remains committed to the Estonian market. The chairman of…
Irish republicans are expressing renewed hopes of reunifying their island in the wake of the U.K.’s recent Brexit proposals, seeing that as a solution to the problems that Britain’s departure from the European Union is bringing. What to do about the border between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland has been the biggest stumbling block in Britain’s attempts to negotiate a departure deal with the EU. The…
