Author: staff

The decisions to recognize a Palestian state come amid mounting international condemnation of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer describing the “suffering and starvation” in Gaza as “unspeakable and indefensible.” Rubio said in the Thursday interview that those decisions showed Hamas that it was being rewarded for its actions. “If I’m Hamas, I’d basically conclude: ‘Let’s not do a ceasefire, we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory,’ ” Rubio said. The U.S. pulled out of the ceasefire talks on the same day that France said it would recognize Palestinian…

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier Saturday, Starmer said in the same statement.  According to a summary of that call, the two leaders agreed that the meeting taking place on Saturday in Kent would be a “vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “has been in contact with EU leaders in preparation of the meeting” and will “remain in regular contact with them also on the outcomes of the meeting,” Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper said in an emailed statement. Germany…

Amid the tranquil verdant hills of the Brecon Beacons in south Wales, one of Europe’s most special music festivals finds its home. While many festivals might turn their sites into cacophonous blurs of hedonism and noise, Green Man Festival is a little different.   Sure, there’s plenty of noise. After all, this year’s line-up includes Northern Irish rap group Kneecap, electro legends Underworld and indie rockers Wet Leg… But what sets apart Green Man is its community-led independent focus. Ahead of the sold-out 2025 edition (14-17 August), Euronews Culture caught up with festival director Fiona Stewart.   Started in 2003, the festival…

The Israeli plan, approved early Friday by the government’s security cabinet, involves disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, establishing Israeli security control of Gaza, and setting up a new administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.  The military escalation comes amid increasingly urgent international condemnation over the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Even Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest European allies, has suspended some arms exports to Israel in response.  Huckabee referred to events of the Second World War in his response to Starmer, saying: “Did [the] UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? Ever…

Dmitriev did not name the countries, though he made the comments in response to a post on X by Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which Caldwell said he expects a “concerted effort” to undermine the meeting by “forces in Europe and Ukraine who have a vested interest in the war continuing.” European governments are likely to be strongly opposed to any deal that involves handing over Ukrainian territory to Russia, a prospect raised by Trump on Friday but rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday. Dmitriev’s pre-emptive accusation regarding disinformation is…

Five foreign ministers have issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s plans to further escalate the ongoing war in Gaza and take control of Gaza City. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand said in the statement that the plan, announced by the Israeli Security Cabinet on Friday, “will aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians.” “Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law,” the statement added. The foreign ministers called for an immediate end to the war, emphasising that a “worst-case scenario of…

Poland’s president has a national mandate and can propose and veto legislation (which Tusk’s coalition doesn’t have the votes to override), but the country’s domestic and foreign policies are largely under the control of the government run by the prime minister. Nawrocki used his inaugural speech to slam Tusk’s centrist government, saying: “It is impossible to continue governing in this manner, and Poland should not look like it does today.” The new president is expected to stall Tusk’s reform agenda until the next parliamentary election, which is set for 2027, meaning Poland is likely to see two years of political…

Some 18 per cent of the nearly three million motorhome owners in Europe will travel to Portugal this summer, according to Camping-Car Park, the European network of Motorhome Service Areas (ASA). The country, with 13,000 registered motorhomes, is attracting more and more European tourists who want to travel in this way. They spend an average of €52 per night. They are mainly Spaniards, French, Italians and Germans who spend at least three weeks touring the country from June to September. We spent 20 days travelling around Portugal in a motorhome, starting in Lisbon and then along the southwest coast, including…

Under the proposal being floated by the Trump administration, Russia would agree to a freeze of the war along the contact line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Moscow controls less land than in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO. In return, Russia would be allowed to keep the Donbas, said the person, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, as others in this article. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff returned from a meeting with Putin earlier this week and told Trump that the Russian president had presented the terms under which the Kremlin would…

Published on 09/08/2025 – 9:08 GMT+2 In his workshop overlooking the Austrian town of Dornbirn, Elmar Kalb usually designs and creates objects that many other carpenters also make: benches, tables, chairs, wooden trays and bookshelves. But in 2018, the carpenter started working on a very different project: reinventing instrument cases for flutes. Kalb had been approached by Korean-born flutist Jasmine Choi after the musician had experienced an unfortunate incident with her flute. Running to catch a flight to a concert, Choi didn’t notice her flute case slipping out from her bag. The case fell to the ground, opened, and the…