Author: staff

“Our friend Trump, the Trump tornado, has changed the world in just a couple of weeks. An era has ended. Today, everyone sees that we are the future,” crowed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the most senior of the leaders at the really in the Spanish capital. “We’re facing a global tipping point,” said France’s Marine Le Pen, while celebrating that, since Trump’s inauguration, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “has all but disappeared from the screens.” The guests, mostly Vox’s most loyal supporters and political muscle from across Spain, descended on Madrid Airport’s Marriott Conference Center to fill a…

Meanwhile, three civilians were injured after the Russian army shelled the city of Kherson on Saturday morning, local media reported. One person was reportedly killed and 10 wounded on Saturday in a Ukrainian strike on the city of Makiivka, a town in Ukraine’s partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, officials installed by Russia said.And three civilians, including a child, were injured after the Russian army shelled the city of Kherson on Saturday morning, Ukrainian media reported.The head of Kherson’s Military Administration said several houses were damaged, with one catching fire.Moscow sent 139 drones into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukrainian officials said.…

President Joseph Aoun has accepted the resignation of the former caretaker government and signed a decree with the new prime minister to form the new government. Lebanon’s new prime minister on Saturday formed the country’s first full-fledged government since 2022.President Joseph Aoun announced in a statement that he had accepted the resignation of the former caretaker government and signed a decree with new Prime Minister Nawaf Salam forming the new government.Salam’s cabinet of 24 ministers, split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, was formed less than a month after he was appointed, and comes at a time where Lebanon is…

Trump has previously expressed skepticism of U.S. military backing for Ukraine, but more recently he said that he was open to a deal with the country provided that Kyiv opens up its mineral resources, including rare-earth elements, to U.S. exploitation. The minerals — which have also fuelled the administration’s recent interest in Greenland — have a wide range of uses, including in defense, electronics, and energy production. Kyiv has been keen to flaunt its natural resources as a way to reel in partners and strengthen its position ahead of any peace talks with Russia. In an interview with Reuters on…

Hamas freed three Israeli hostages on Saturday morning in a televised event in central Gaza in the latest exchange under the cease-fire agreement in the region. The Palestinian militant group freed Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, who were captured in the Oct. 7. 2023, attack on Israel. The three men appeared on stage, flanked by armed and masked militants, before being released to Red Cross ambulances waiting nearby. The captives were swapped in a deal for 183 Palestinian prisoners.

Milo Janáč, 49, told POLITICO that he had been returning to his home town of Gelnica (pop. 6,202) by train two weeks ago from a protest in Bratislava when a newspaper interview caught his eye. In it, teacher Eva Wolfová explained that “it’s no big thing to have 50,000 people demonstrating in Bratislava and 15,000 in Košice. But the moment they get 300 people protesting in Gelnica, it’s all over [for the Fico government].” Gelnica, an impoverished mining town settled in the 13th century by ethnic Germans from Bavaria, lies in the Slovak Ore Mountains in the east of the…

The investigation comes a few days before the AI Summit in Paris, where Musk has been invited and which U.S. Vice President JD Vance will attend. The news came a day after X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered a legal defeat in Germany, where a court ruled on Thursday that the platform must immediately provide researchers with access to data on politically related content ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 election. The German court decision, seen by POLITICO, raises fresh questions about X’s compliance with European regulations ahead of Germany’s federal election and marks one of the first major judicial tests…

A federal judge has blocked Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing sensitive US Treasury Department material. A federal judge early on Saturday blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans.U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the preliminary injunction after 19 Democratic attorneys general sued President Donald Trump. The case, filed in federal court in New York City, alleges the Trump administration allowed Musk’s team access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system in violation of federal law.The payment system…

“Since February this year, we’ve observed a different approach from the Russian special services,” said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center, the government agency tasked with managing emergencies and building resilience. “Instead of so-to-speak ‘soft measures’ like disinformation or cyber, they’ve turned to more kinetic actions.” According to Vitkauskas, giving Russian-linked vessels unfettered access to the Baltic Sea threatens critical energy infrastructure.  He suggested “a concentrated passage in the sea where exactly those ships can cross,” making it “easier for us to monitor.” Gravel or other materials could reinforce undersea cables in the area. “The power grid…

Moscow continues to transport its oil and dodge sanctions by relying on an ever-growing “shadow fleet” — aging vessels with obscure ownership and unknown insurance. Russia’s oil and gas exports generate around half of the Kremlin’s revenues. “Close to 50 percent of sanctioned trade [in Russian seaborne oil] is going through the Gulf of Finland,” said Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna. “There are the environmental threats, there are the attacks we’ve had against our undersea infrastructure.” “Now the question is … what can we do with these ships?” he told POLITICO. “We cannot block all the sea, but we can…