Author: staff

Friday marks the sixth meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Trump’s return to the White House in January.And while the US president has recently demonstrated more support for Ukraine, their previous meetings did not always go as planned. 28 February 2025The first meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy quickly escalated into a full-blown shouting match, in the Oval Office, on live TV. The discussion, meant to focus on US support for Ukraine and the minerals agreement, quickly turned sour, as US Vice President JD Vance accused Zelenskyy of being “disrespectful” and “ungrateful”.Trump, who earlier opted to…

Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the leader of PSL, said he does not find that the proposed civil union status mirrors marriage. “It makes life easier,” he said. “It’s not a proposal of our dreams, it’s a proposal of the coalition reality and with Karol Nawrocki as president,” Katarzyna Kotula, the Left’s minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, told a press briefing in the parliament Friday, referring to months of talks with PSL on the issue. Inoffensive legislation As officials presented the basics of the proposal, Kotula treaded carefully, making no direct mention of LGBTQ+ families, marriage, or adoption — all no-goes for…

The European Commission cautiously welcomed the announcement by US President Donald Trump to hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest in the coming two weeks to advance a possible end to the war in Ukraine. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was quick to declare the surprise choice of Budapest to hold the meeting as a vindication of his calls on EU leaders to negotiate with Moscow instead of confrontation as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine rages. Orbán, who is close to both Trump and Putin, exclaimed that “Hungary is the island of PEACE” in a post on…

The diplomatic arm of the EU, the European External Action Service (EEAS), proposes to “further activate diplomatic channels towards the U.S.” to see it implemented in a way that does not “undermine the viability” of the Palestinian Authority. Trump announced a truce brokered between Hamas and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, paving the way for the release of all surviving Israeli hostages and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. The EEAS is now seeking support from capitals to advocate for economic and financial barriers facing Palestinian institutions to be dropped and to increase pressure on…

Published on 17/10/2025 – 16:44 GMT+2 The European Commission has called on Israel to lift restrictions on the delivery of aid to Gaza, one week after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force. The agreement, brokered by US President Donald Trump, stipulates that Israel must grant passage to 600 aid trucks daily. So far, Israel has limited the flow of aid with authorities only allowing the entry of half the agreed-upon amount daily. Israel says that’s in response to Hamas allegedly breaching the truce agreement by returning the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages too slowly. For instance, 319…

Frankenstein has been a long time coming for Guillermo del Toro. The visionary filmmaker and lover of misunderstood monsters recently shared at the Lumière Film Festival that he was seven years old when he saw James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein on TV after a family trip to mass. The impact was immediate. “When I saw Boris Karloff, I understood religion in that moment,” he said. “I understood Jesus, ecstasy, the immaculate conception, stigmata, the resurrection… I understood that I had found my messiah. My grandmother had Jesus. I had Boris Karloff.” The impact lasted and set him on a path to…

But due to a ban on Russian aircraft flying through EU airspace linked to a wider sanctions regime, the Russian president would not be able to reach Budapest without defying the EU measures, taking a huge risk by flying over Ukraine, or going via a circuitous Balkan route. Under the EU’s sanctions regime, national authorities may consider exceptions to the ban for Russian travel “if the competent authorities have determined that such landing, take-off or overflight is required for humanitarian purposes or for any other purpose consistent with the objectives of this regulation,” according to the EU legal text on…

A series of online videos showing a mob of left-wing teenagers wreaking havoc inside France’s National Assembly has emerged online, sparking a debate about the conduct of the group of young adults. In the clips, a group of black teenagers wearing tracksuits can be seen running around the National Assembly — the lower house of France’s Parliament — and lighting cigarettes. One social media user, Jean-Baptiste Louguet — who posts content critical of the French left and appears to support the far-right National Rally party — amassed more than 275,000 views by resharing one of these clips on his Facebook,…

Nearly 900 million people are simultaneously exposed to the escalating impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat and flooding to drought and toxic air pollution, according to a new United Nations report. The 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, produced by the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Initiative (OPHI) ahead of next month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil, paints a stark picture of how climate change and poverty are increasingly intertwined. For the first time, researchers have overlaid global climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty indicators, revealing that poverty is not just an economic issue but one “deeply interlinked…

Published on 17/10/2025 – 14:01 GMT+2 Denmark is stepping up its investment in defence technology in a bid to “maintain peace and stability” in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans. According to a recently published report from the Danish Ministry of Defence, the country has signed a DKK 27.4 billion (€3.67 billion) agreement with its self-governing territories, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, to fund defence initiatives planned to run until 2033. This follows another investment of DKK 14.6 billion (€1.96 billion) announced earlier this year. The push comes amid political and strategic tensions in recent years, including renewed interest from…