Author: staff

Published on 07/07/2026 – 15:11 GMT+2 NATO must become more European to reduce its long-standing reliance on the US security umbrella, Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte said on Tuesday as leaders of the 77-year-old alliance gathered in Ankara, Turkey, for their annual summit. “We both know how important close cooperation between the European Union and NATO is,” the European Commission president said alongside the NATO secretary general at an industrial forum ahead of the summit. “But to make this possible, what we need is interoperability.” Rutte echoed von der Leyen’s remarks, highlighting the “clear division of labour” between…

Published on 07/07/2026 – 18:37 GMT+2•Updated 18:42 The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has eased restrictions on Russian athletes ahead of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The IOC said on Tuesday that it had “provisionally lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee,” meaning Russian athletes could be able to compete for their country in the US. Russia’s Olympic Committee had been suspended in 2023 amid Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the IOC said that following a “thorough analysis,” it had determined that ban was “no longer applicable”. Any Russian athletes looking to return to international competition will now…

Security-Update vom NATO-Gipfel in Ankara: Milliardendeals und Merz’ NATO-Mission – POLITICO Skip to main content

Published on 07/07/2026 – 15:18 GMT+2•Updated 15:32 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country should be member of NATO because it already possesses some of the most advanced battlefield capabilities in Europe. Addressing NATO’s Summit Defence Industry Forum in Ankara, he insisted that Ukraine is no longer a security recipient, but now a provider. Kyiv’s military has become a “source of extraordinary defensive capability” for Europe, Zelenskyy said, due to Ukraine’s rapid technological adaptation. “Do you really believe it would be right to leave outside NATO, a country and people with this level of defensive capability?” he asked. “If…

Published on 07/07/2026 – 17:01 GMT+2•Updated 17:26 A British maritime agency reported strikes on two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in less than an hour on Tuesday. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said late on Tuesday afternoon that it had received a report of a tanker sustaining “minor structural damage” after being hit by a drone while passing through the waterway, which is one of the world’s most crucial gas and oil transit chokepoints. The agency said no casualties or environmental impacted had been reported so far and that the vessel was “continuing to its next port…

The Tories lost Clacton on a huge swing to Farage at the 2024 general election, but now face an opportunity to snatch the seaside constituency back. However, Badenoch repeatedly declined to say if the Tories would stand a candidate, saying only that the party’s plans would be revealed in due course. “I don’t need to respond to what is one man’s gimmick. This is a gimmick,” the Tory leader said. “It’s a waste of taxpayers’ money. He doesn’t want to follow due process.” Farage is hoping to turn the contest into an anti-establishment fightback amid a probe into his finances,…

The European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund has poured €43 billion into improving the energy efficiency of private homes, but a damning report from the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published on Tuesday concludes the program has failed to maximise energy savings, monitor results properly or ensure taxpayers received value for money. “EU renovation funding for private homes should go to those projects with the greatest potential for cutting energy use. However, we saw all too often that Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funds went where they were easiest to spend, not where they would make the biggest difference”, said Nikolaos…

A giant Lego replica of the FIFA World Cup trophy has gone on display at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, where Brazilian football legend Cafu joined Lego designer Christophe Vietti to unveil the model. Children placed the final bricks on the 8.5-metre structure before Cafu cut the ribbon. The trophy stands nearly 8.5 metres tall and is made from more than 1.36 million Lego bricks. The model was built in the Czech Republic and transported to Manhattan after a team of 56 builders spent more than 7,000 hours on the project. Cafu said football and Lego both bring people together,…

The eurozone’s top banking supervisor, the ECB, on Tuesday told major European banks to draw up action plans to address cybersecurity risks posed by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems. The emergence of AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos, which is particularly effective at identifying weaknesses in computer systems, has raised concerns among European governments and policymakers. The ECB’s supervisory board sent a letter to the 110 banks it directly supervises, arguing that the latest AI models represent a “long-term shift in the threat landscape rather than a temporary phenomenon”. “While these developments do not introduce entirely new risks, they significantly…

Published on 07/07/2026 – 15:42 GMT+2 Swedish-made aircraft are set to replace NATO’s ageing US-built surveillance fleet. At the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum in Ankara, NATO and the Swedish government announced that the military alliance had chosen GlobalEye, an Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) system made by Swedish defence company Saab, as the replacement for NATO’s current Boeing E-3A aircraft. NATO plans to open negotiations with Saab to purchase up to 10 GlobalEye aircraft, according to an announcement by the Swedish government. What is the Early Warning & Control System? An Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) system is…