Новости за 16.04.2018

The first ever India-Nordic summit will be held in Stockholm on Tuesday (17 April), when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi meets the prime ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The summit is part of a two-day official visit to Sweden by the Indian leader who also travels to the UK for bilateral talks with prime minister Theresa May, amid looming uncertainty over Brexit and US steel tariffs.

In a speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday and then at a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, the French president will try to get support for his EU reform proposals.

British prime minister Theresa May claims that "there is no practicable alternative' to the use of force in Syria following another chemical weapons attack. However, this is simply not true.

"The Council is supportive of all efforts aimed at the prevention of the use of chemical weapons," EU foreign ministers said jointly in Luxembourg Monday after France, the UK, and the US bombed Syrian military facilities on Saturday. The "targeted" strikes had "the sole objective to prevent further use of chemical weapons ... by the Syrian regime to kill its own people," they said, blaming Syria for a recent massacre.

Barley possesses unique characteristics and qualities that make it perfectly suited to our biotechnology needs.

EU foreign ministers to back Western air strikes on Syria, the same way they backed the UK over Russia's chemical attack on an ex-spy in Britain.

Albania and Macedonia should start accession talks, but human rights abuses mean Turkey should stay on hold, EU says in draft report seen by EUobserver.

Around 315,000 people participated in street protests on Sunday, Barcelona police estimated, demanding the release or return of 16 Catalan leaders who are in prison or have fled Spain following October's independence referendum. Spanish and German prosecutors met last week at the headquarters of Eurojust in The Hague. The Spanish presented new evidence to support an arrest warrant issued for Catalan former premier Carles Puigdemont, who is currently in Germany.

Thousands of protestors in Slovakia's capital city Bratislava on Sunday demanded the resignation of the national police chief as part of a bigger drive to expose high-level government corruption, following the murder Slovak investigative reporter, Jan Kuciak. Protestors say the police chief, Tibor Gaspar, is politically compromised and unable to carry out a proper investigation into Kuciak's murder.

Marking the six months anniversary of the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, 250 leading PEN-writers from Europe and around the world have written an open letter to the European Commission, expressing concern regarding the investigation into her assassination and reprisals against her family and sources. A group of 45 journalists representing 18 news organisations will publish from Tuesday onwards her 'Forbidden Stories' series.

Montenegro is set to have a pro-EU president following preliminary election results on Sunday. The Balkan country's ruling party leader Milo Djukanovic obtained some 54 percent of the ballots on Sunday, far ahead of his main opponent who obtained 33 percent. Djukanovic favours EU integration over closer ties with Russia.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Budapest on Saturday to protest against prime minister Viktor Orban's sweeping re-election. The demonstration included grievances against government corruption, alleged ballot rigging, and demands for more non-partisan media. The BBC reported up to 100,000 attended the demonstration, many of them young.

The third edition of EUobserver's Business magazine looks at the bioeconomy – the parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources.