Author: staff
Israel should halt actions that “threaten” Syria’s stability and work towards a “calm and comprehensive” security agreement, the country’s foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani said in an exclusive interview with Euronews. Al-Shaibani made the remarks coinciding with a high-level political meeting in Brussels as Israel and Syria pursue efforts to improve relations after decades of conflict. In January, the two countries resumed US-mediated talks aimed at easing tensions along their border and restoring a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone between their forces. “We want to have a security agreement with Israel,” Al-Shaibani told Euronews’ morning show Europe Today. “We hope that these…
Putin has 14 days to sign the bill into law. This year, various European intelligence agencies have labeled Russia as a direct threat to the West and to NATO. EU defense officials and lawmakers fear that the Kremlin could view the next year or two as the ideal time to test the West’s commitment to the military alliance. That window will remain as long as Donald Trump is in the White House and Europe has yet to reinforce its military capacity, according to three EU politicians with direct knowledge of the discussions, interviewed by POLITICO earlier this month. Moscow has…
The European Commission is looking for ways to help Hungary unlock billions in EU funding, dispatching a delegation to Budapest next week as the clock ticks. While Brussels has warned Budapest the receiving the full envelop €10 billion in recovery funds before an August deadline, suggesting that it may receive the full cashout of grants, but not the loans. Still, the Commission will send a team of senior officials to make a more detailed assessment with the now-in-office government. One of the options the Commission is exploring is using the country’s investment bank Exim Bank to channel the funding, but…
The strategy also condemns the “instrumentalization” of health and says closing “the emerging gaps in global health resilience” is crucial. The U.S. has come under fire from global health advocates for offering funding deals with developing countries that formerly received USAID support, in return for them boosting disease surveillance and providing America with access to disease data and in some cases rare minerals. “Health is increasingly instrumentalised in the pursuit of geopolitical and geoeconomic interests,” writes the Commission. “Global health governance is shifting away from multilateral cooperation and humanitarian principles towards at times overtly transactional bilateral approaches.” Staying the course…
For Europe, the Trump-Xi summit is not just about US-China relations. It’s about whether the European Union ends up squeezed between two superpowers cutting tactical deals over trade, technology, energy and security – while European interests are treated as secondary (if at all). In fact, Europe might be watching the summit from a lose-lose position. The most immediate concern in Brussels and Berlin is probably nothing less than industrial survival – and it comes in the form of rare earths. China still dominates the supply chain for these critical minerals used in a wide range of goods from electric vehicles…
More than 90 Labour MPs called for Starmer to quit, including four ministers who resigned to demand his demise. Streeting is seen as a major agitator for the PM’s ousting. Starmer held private talks in Downing Street with Streeting on Wednesday morning lasting less than 20 minutes. It didn’t take long after Streeting emerged from the meeting for a report in the Times to land, in which his allies said he planned to resign as health secretary in order to run for the leadership. Three Labour MPs told POLITICO they had been informed by Streeting’s camp that he plans to…
From conspiracy theories claiming that the term “hantavirus” is derived from Hebrew, to claims that big pharma groups created the virus to drive up vaccine profits, a slew of false claims about the pathogen have emerged on social media in recent weeks. The hantavirus outbreak occurred aboard the MV Hondius ship, which set sail from Argentina on 1 April, before it docked on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands on 10 May. Eleven people aboard the MV Hondius fell ill, with at least nine confirmed cases. Three passengers on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple who health…
“I think nearly any observer is flabbergasted that two years after winning a landslide majority, he can find himself in this situation. Her challenge came from the parliamentary arithmetic and the Gordian knot of Brexit. Neither of those exist in this situation.” 5) Don’t go abroad Prime ministers in peril can be tempted to project business-as-usual with a bit of international summitry — but this can cut valuable face-to-face time with persuadable MPs and allow plotters to plot. With a leadership contest already underway, Margaret Thatcher infamously pressed ahead with attending a Paris meeting on the future of Europe. She…
European Union countries must take immediate action to end “barbaric” conversion practices targeting LGBTIQ+ people, Hadja Lahbib, the European Commissioner for Equality, said on Wednesday as she announced a non-binding recommendation. “Conversion practices are built on a lie. The lie that LGBTIQ+ people need to be fixed,” Lahbib said on Wednesday. “You cannot torture away a person’s identity.” The recommendation, she added, sends a “powerful signal that these practices are harmful but also must be illegal”, and will cover actions to increase societal awareness, help victims seek legal action, and strengthen medical and psychological support. It will be formally presented…
Iran is likely preparing for a resumption of hostilities with the US and Israel, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank assessed on Tuesday, pointing to a series of military movements and internal security exercises as signs of active preparation for renewed war. The Washington-based institute, which has been publishing daily assessments of the war, said the Iranian regime appeared to view preparations for renewed fighting as inseparable from preparations to suppress domestic unrest. The Tehran Province IRGC Mohammad Rasoul Ollah Unit — one of the regime’s primary internal security formations and the main IRGC command responsible…