Europa & Palestine News « Europa & Middle East News
The Foreign Ministers of all 47 member states representing of the Council of Europe met today at the Hofburg in Vienna. The meeting was chaired by Sebastian Kurz, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria and Chairman of the Committee of Ministers.
Earlier, when he arrived at the morning, the British Foreign Minister William Hague told reporters that Russia was trying to disrupt Ukraine’s planned presidential election. He said: “Russia seems to be intent to hinder and prevent the elections in Ukrania”. He added: “I think there will be a very strong message from the great majority of countries here today that Ukrainian elections must be allowed to go ahead”.
Ukraine Crisis Dominates the European Ministers' Talks in Vienna
The Foreign Ministers of all 47 member states representing of the Council of Europe met today at the Hofburg in Vienna. The meeting was chaired by Sebastian Kurz, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria and Chairman of the Committee of Ministers.
The meeting was also attended by the Russian foreign Minister Mr. Sergei Lavrov and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia. As side of the meeting, the Russian and the Ukrainian ministers held separate press conferences in which the general atmosphere reflected that peace between the two conflicted countries is far a way.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We are confident that an exit from the crisis exists. It may be found only on the basis of nationwide dialogue”. He added that the dialogue must be held between the western and eastern parts of Ukraine and that it would be “unusual” to hold a presidential election in Ukraine while the government was deploying the army against some of its people.
Minister Lavrov also demanded that Ukrainian government troops end their armed assaults on rebel strongholds, as fighting flared for control of the strategic eastern city of Slovyansk.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Deshchytsia stated that Ukraine is ready to back a new round of talks in Geneva in a bid to de-escalate a political crisis with Russia as long as the government in Moscow supports presidential elections on 25 May.
He added: “If Russia is ready to commit itself to support these elections and to eliminate this threat and eliminate its support for the extremist elements in Ukraine, we are ready to have such a round of meetings,” he told a news conference.
Earlier, when he arrived at the morning, the British Foreign Minister William Hague told reporters that Russia was trying to disrupt Ukraine’s planned presidential election. He said: “Russia seems to be intent to hinder and prevent the elections in Ukrania”. He added: “I think there will be a very strong message from the great majority of countries here today that Ukrainian elections must be allowed to go ahead”.
Minister Hague also criticized the executions sentences in Egypt, in which an Egyptian court sentenced over 1200 people to death. He said that the EU countries have a unified view against the death penalty and the violation of human rights. He called on the Egyptian authorities to reconsider the death sentences and to not implement them.
Ukraine’s presidential election is set to take place on May 25 but Moscow has called the vote “absurd”, while separatists in Ukraine are preparing their own independence referendum on Sunday.
Austrian Foreign Minister Kurz said that nearly all ministers called for free and fair elections as a step to stabilize Ukraine.He told reporters: “You cannot expect miracles from the conference because there won’t be any, but hopefully, and this is my expectation, there will be clear backing from most countries for orderly and free (presidential) elections on May 25, because this could be a small step towards stabilizing the country”.
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Editorial -May 1st 2014 – A look at the labor offices and social affairs centers is enough testimony to the growing problems of unemployment in Austria and Europe, and more importantly, to the disintegration of society. Streets and public parks have all but been turned into venues for unemployed, vagrants, “migrants”, to socialize. Native Europeans, especially women, can no longer walk or simply sit in the parks and enjoy the quite. Even walking in the streets of Vienna as a woman is an invitation to harassment, and this city was not that way ten years ago. The negative influences on Austrian society by unbridled immigration of unskilled labor, criminals and skimmers of the social system, massive and growing unemployment due to bad policies of politicians increasingly perceived asincompetent, can be seen and felt everywhere.
I repeatedly called the attention of the EU and member countries, in past articles, to the corruption of the PA and the transfer huge sums of EU tax-payer money to the so-called PA, which is run by professional thieves, to the looting these funds, which have been provided as support for the Palestinians since even before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority during the era which was called the “Palestinian Revolution”. See: 
In addition, I pointed out how the PA is paying fictitious salaries to people who reside in Arab countries outside of Palestine, or to others with duplicated names, or to people who receive multiple salaries from several different PA institutions, or PA elements who use Palestinian funds to travel abroad and stay at luxury hotels to dancing parties celebrated under the names of occasions which concern Fatah, Abbas party, and lastly the practice of paying salaries to deceased people. For example, the transfer of payments to the (former) mistress of the deceased President Yasser Arafat, Rashida Mahran, an Egyptian woman who carried several names and who had personal and financial ties with several PA elements. Mahran had been living in Egypt for decades but was still receiving a monthly salary from the PA, even after she died on past November 2 2012. See: 
On the other hand, a group of United Nations human rights experts is urging all parties in Egypt to take immediate steps towards political reconciliation.
