Author: staff

Despite concerns of a backlash from Israel and the US, Belgium’s Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot told Euronews the country had no option but to commit to recognise Palestine given the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.   “We have concerns, but frankly speaking it’s quite difficult to refuse to act according to our legal obligation when we face the current situation in Gaza,” Prévot told Euronews’ the Europe Conversation.   Belgium announced on Monday it would join France and the UK in a commitment to recognising Palestine in New York later this month.   The five-party coalition government also announced plans to discontinue imports of…

LONDON — Angela Rayner resigned as Britain’s deputy prime minister Friday after an investigation into her controversial property arrangements. Rayner was subject of an investigation by the government’s ethics watchdog after admitting she failed to pay the correct amount of tax — known as stamp duty — on the purchase of a second property. Her exit is the latest blow for Britain’s center-left Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is floundering in the polls and tried to reset his administration with a backroom shake-up just this week. Rayner, who has served as housing secretary and deputy PM since Labour entered government…

There’s a Norwegian proverb, brent barn skyr ilden, that translates as: “A burned child avoids the fire.” This is at the heart of Joachim Trier’s latest seriocomedy, Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value), as the character Nora (Renate Reinsve) has been burned by her father, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård). A famed director, he abandoned both Nora and her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) when they were young, to better prioritise his career. He comes back into their lives at their mother’s wake, and instead of emotional support, presents his eldest with a proposition. In a bid to revive his career and secure his artistic legacy,…

Putin was commenting on the readiness of the West’s so-called coalition of the willing to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, which could include the deployment of troops and air patrols to the country, as well securing maritime traffic in the Black Sea. Crucially, the precondition for that to happen is a ceasefire or peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.  However, Putin repeated he doesn’t see the point in meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “it will be almost impossible to agree with the Ukrainian side on key issues.” He also ruled out that unlikely meeting taking place in any…

It was a scene that might have provoked outrage in Brussels. Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, joyfully holding hands with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia and chief promoter of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while attending the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The two-day meeting in Tianjin, China, was carefully choreographed to portray an alternative to the Western rules-based order – a declaration of intent that its host, President Xi Jinping, underlined when he joined in the Modi-Putin handshake. But instead of condemnations and recriminations, Brussels chose conciliation. On Thursday, just a few days…

The first trailer for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 classic novel “Wuthering Heights” came out this week and it’s proving to be divisive, shocking fans of the source material and getting many online to call it out for being “soft porn”. Fennell, whose film Promising Young Woman won her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2021, also directed the 2023 thriller Saltburn, which went viral due to scenes involving graveyards and bathtubs. If you know, you know.   For her third feature film, she’s adapting a literary classic, starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi and Adolescence star Owen…

The strike on the 18th, however, could paralyze French transportation networks as it will involve unions representing railway workers, air traffic controllers and staff at Air France. Civil servants, including teachers, are also expected on the picket lines. “The real problem [for Emmanuel Macron’s staff] is whether it will continue on the 19th, the 20th,” said one of the individuals. “They’re freaking out, they’re calling everywhere to find out.” One minister told POLITICO that the government needs a new prime minister in place by those strikes so “someone can face the unions on Sept. 18.” Bayrou’s minority government looks certain…

Ribera, in the EU’s strongest condemnation of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, on Thursday told students at Sciences Po that “the genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to act and speak with one voice.” Ribera, just like her home country Spain, has been one of the staunchest critics of Israel’s war on Gaza, but Thursday’s speech marked the first time she explicitly described the situation as genocide. In an interview with POLITICO last month, Ribera said that the starvation, displacement and killing in Gaza “looks very much” like genocide, calling on the EU to consider suspending its Association Agreement…

Large protests organised by hostage families are planned across Israel on Saturday to mark 700 days since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. The gathering marking the attack, which killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, is set to take place in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the southern city of Kiryat Gat. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which campaigns for the release of hostages captured and taken by Hamas into the Gaza Strip, posted on X that this weekend marks an “incomprehensible 700 days that our loved ones have been held in captivity.” Out of the…

Reform has painted Connolly as a political prisoner of Keir Starmer’s government, with Farage even flying to Washington this week to slam Britain’s online safety rules and likening the UK to North Korea on free speech.  Cabinet ministers blasted Farage’s U.S. trip as a “Talk Britain Down” tour. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds called it “as anti-British as you can get. More in Common polling shows that while voters are split on whether Connolly’s sentence was too harsh or too lenient, 51 percent want politicians to distance themselves from her, including more than a quarter of Reform voters. “The transnational neoconservative…