DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
EU sees results as Ukraine enacts changes advised by bloc n Brussels it is largely agreed that Ukraine has introduced more positive measures in the past four years than it had in the previous 20. EU officials are pleased, but they say the country, where some state structures date to the Soviet era, has a long way to go. The European Union and Ukraine hold a summit once a year to check the countryʼs progress on measures called for by the bloc. This yearʼs meeting, the 20th, will take place in Brussels on Monday. Participants include European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The last two summits were the first and second to end without a final declaration. In 2016, the planned visa-free regime became a contentious issue. France did not want to discuss the issue before the French presidential elections. Ukrainian citizens have only been allowed to enter the EU without visassince June 2017.
Thailand cave rescue: First boys rescued from trapped soccer team Four members of a Thai soccer team have been brought out from a flooded cave where they have been for two weeks in the first phase of the rescue operation. Rescue teams are to begin the next phase in the coming hours. The first members ofa youth soccer team trapped with their coachin a flooded cave in northern Thailand have been rescued and are on their way to the hospital, local officials said on Sunday. Four out of the 12 boys made it out of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex, Narongsak Osotthanakorn, the governor of Chiang Rai province and the head of the rescue mission, told reporters in the evening. Other Thai officials initially told reporters that six boys had been rescued.
154/2018 • 09 JULY, 2018
Germany must increase defense spending NATO chief:
Transgender refugees in Greece reclaim their dignity A couple of months ago, Natasha (pictured above) was anxiously waiting for her court hearing to start. Natashaʼs case was unique: Apart from the fact that she is a transgender woman, she is also a refugee from Pakistan who has received asylum in Greece. She is also the first transgender refugee woman who has applied for a gender identity correction in a Greek courtbased on a recent lawthat allows her to correct her gender and name from male to female in her legal documents. Gabi, from Tunisia, was sitting right next to Natasha, holding her hand, until the moment the judge ordered everyone to leave the room. Gabi is also a transgender refugee woman who has been granted asylum in Greece. When Natasha decided to change her gender identity, Gabi was very skeptical, she was not sure if she wanted to do the same. Now she is certain she wants to follow suit.
Severe rainfall leaves dozens dead in Japan Germany spends 1.24 percent of its GDP on defense and has promised to increase that figure to 1.5 percent by 2024. But Jens Stoltenberg, the head of the NATO alliance, says Berlin needs to spend much more than that. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said Germany should be more vigilant in increasing its defense spending, as 29 countries prepare to meet for a NATO summit on Wednesday. Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Stoltenberg (pictured) said hewelcomed the German governmentʼs pledge to increase the defense budget to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024. But he said he expected the country "to do even more" to meet the 2024 alliance target of 2 percent of GDP that Germany and other NATO countries agreed on during a 2014 summit. "I assume Germany will continue aiming to meet that goal," he said. Berlin, he added, "had a particularly important role" to play in defense spending because of the large size of its economy. US President Donald Trumphas regularly
criticized Germanyʼs meager defense budgetand accused Berlin of taking advantage of the US, which spends more than 3 percent of its GDP on defense and stations tens of thousands of troops in Europe. The presidentʼs tone has worried some German officials who fear the US could turn its back on the decades-old NATO alliance. But Stoltenberg said the US was still devoted to the organization, citing commitments Trump personally voiced to him and a more than 40 percent increase in funding for US forces in Europe since the president assumed office in January 2017. But he warned that the transAtlantic relationship underlying the alliance was not "a given." "The relationship must be reinvented every single day," he said. "Politicians and everyone in Europe and North America have a role to play."
The death toll in western Japan continued to climb on Sunday, after days of unrelenting rain caused severe flooding and triggered landslide warnings. The city of Kurashiki and the Hiroshima prefecture are among the affected areas. The heavy rainfall stemmed from the remnants of a typhoon that hit south-western Japan last week. Since Thursday, landslides and flooded rivers have trapped many people in their houses or on rooftops. 83 people have died since Thursday and 57 others are unaccounted for.In Kurashiki, 2,310 people have been rescued by authorities and the search still continues.
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