Author: staff

Israel attacked Iran’s highly protected nuclear facilities with drones and warplanes in mid-June, aiming to prevent the regime in Tehran from building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. initially sought to stay out of the conflict, but waded into the fighting a week later by bombing key Iranian nuclear sites.   The strikes have triggered counterattacks by Iran on Israeli cities and an American airbase in Qatar, although U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week. Questions remain over whether Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium prior to the strikes, and whether centrifuges remain intact at…

In December 1918, the HMS Cassandra was headed towards Tallinn to support Estonian efforts to break away from Bolshevik rule at the end of World War I. She hit a mine and sank off the island of Saaremaa. Most of her 400 crew survived, but 11 went down with the cruiser. Around 100 metres deep, the site of the wreck of the Royal Navy ship was only discovered in 2010. Inside it, a hidden environmental time bomb in the form of oil. Matt Skelhorn, who is currently on board a ship surveying the HMS Cassandra, says it is “exceptionally preserved”,…

The agreement comes as the EU and the U.S. are locked in high-stakes trade talks ahead of a July 9 deadline, when U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to jack up tariffs on European goods to as high as 50 percent if no deal is reached. In a sign of détente, the EU, Canada, Japan and the U.K. agreed to exempt the U.S. from applying the 15 percent minimum tax on multinationals in a bid to avert Washington’s countermeasures. The minimum tax was a key plank of a deal, brokered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, that was…

It’s embarrassing that European and British pleas for deescalation were ignored and worse that America’s supposed allies were kept out of the military loop. But the most egregious suggestion is that Trump was actively using the diplomatic efforts of his supposed “friends” across the Atlantic to mislead Iran into thinking any attack was potentially weeks away.  According to a lengthy report by the New York Times, Trump’s statement that he would take as long as two weeks to decide on whether to strike Iran — because of a “substantial” chance for diplomacy — was always merely a calculated misdirection. At around 5…

The Vatican’s income is mainly derived from property assets and donations including from bishops and Peter’s Pence, the annual June collection by churches for the pope’s “mission” and charitable works. But donation revenue has fallen with increasing secularism and financial scandals. Donors from the U.S., the number one contributing country, were put off by Francis’ more liberal teachings on LGBTQ+ and marriage as well as corruption scandals including a botched investment by the Vatican’s top financial institution in London real estate, said John Yep, president of Catholics for Catholics, a conservative NGO.   ‘Very equilibrated’ The momentum behind Leo as a…

The Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union will officially end on 30 June. At a press conference in Brussels, Donald Tusk summed up the six months of the Presidency, referring above all to defence. European and Polish politicians also commented on the Presidency.Donald Tusk on Europe without war: naïve European faithDonald Tusk summed up the six months of the Polish Presidency, drawing attention above all to defence. As he stated, during the presidency Poland managed to “convince Europe that the current geopolitical situation requires bold and unprecedented decisions”, crediting Poland with changing the EU paradigm.”The European Union…

Opposition parties were quick to criticize the appointment of Plevris. “The far-right line of Mitsotakis continues unabated with the choice of Thanos Plevris, an inhumane, dead-end and frightening line overall for the refugee issue and the image of the country,” the Syriza party said in a statement. The New Left party called his appointment “a message of hatred, racism, authoritarianism.” In a statement, the party recalled comments by Plevris in the past that “border security cannot exist if there are no casualties and, to be clear, if there are no deaths.” The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is pursuing dozens of cases…

Iran decided to ban the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency from its nuclear facilities and to remove surveillance cameras from them, claiming it discovered Israel’s government obtained “sensitive facility data,” according to media reports Saturday.  The vice speaker of the Iranian parliament, Hamid Reza Haji Babaei, announced the decision to bar IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on Saturday during funerals of top military officials and nuclear scientists killed by recent Israeli strikes, Mehr news agency reported. A ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Iran, after a war that lasted 12 days. Israel had attacked Iranian highly protected…

‘Words are not enough’ Díaz’s colleague, Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, who also joined the march in Budapest, said Spain’s government is “very, very concerned” about the issue. “It is a duty” of all progressive governments to “stand in the way” when there are attacks against fundamental rights, he added.  Echoing Díaz, Uratsun said the government in Madrid expects “the European Commission to be strong in defending EU law.” “We would like the European Commission to be much stronger than it has been doing in the last months,” Uratsun said. The Spanish delegation was joined in Budapest by government representatives from…

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the international legal order should be part of German identity but suggested Berlin avoid putting the country in a potential conflict with the International Criminal Court over the ICC’s arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“We, in particular, should make the international legal order part of our own identity,” Steinmeier said in a radio interview with Deutschlandfunk. But he hinted that a potential conflict with the ICC should be avoided. “This is a plea not to ignore international law but to avoid testing it in this case,” Steinmeier said. The interview, to be broadcast…