Author: staff

Pro-West independent candidate Nicusor Dan staged a dramatic comeback on Sunday to win the Romanian presidential elections with a firm 54% of the votes. His contender, hard-right candidate George Simion, with 46% of votes, at first refused to concede in an unprecedented political thriller which transfixed and polarised the country on NATO’s eastern flank, but then relented, congratulating Dan on his victory late on Sunday night.“It’s a bitter feeling, but this election is just the beginning,” Simion said, congratulating his opponent.Romanians have chosen to continue their current pro-Western course by turning out in record numbers to vote for the unassuming…

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Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters march through The Hague on Sunday to demand government action to seek a halt to Israel’s campaign in Gaza.Organisers called it the country’s biggest demonstration in two decades, with human rights groups and agencies — including Amnesty International, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders — estimating the peaceful crowd at more than 100,000 people.The streets of the Dutch political capital were packed with the old, young and even some babies on their first protest.“We hope this is a wake-up call for the government,” said teacher Roos Lingbeek, attending the march with her husband…

Loïc Mougeolle is a defense contractor whose ties to the military go back a generation. His father worked in nuclear deterrence for the French navy; he, in turn, worked nine years for a defense firm until co-founding his own defense company, Comand AI, in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We will never be able to produce more than a strategic adversary like China,” said Mougeolle, who is chief executive of the Paris-based Comand AI. “What we need to do is to be able to conduct operations, 10 times, 100 times more efficiently than them. This is the starting point…

Dan beat ultranationalist candidate George Simion to win the election, as the hard-right candidate cozied up to U.S. President Donald Trump, ripping pages from his MAGA agenda, while threatening to stop military support for Ukraine. “Congratulations Nicușor Dan! Long live free Romania,” exulted center-right Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose party candidate also won a narrow election victory Sunday night in Poland. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also thrilled by the outcome, as Dan promises to keep Romania on its pro-EU, pro-NATO pathway. “For Ukraine — as a neighbour and friend — it is important to have Romania as a…

Living close to the frontline means more than surviving the constant threat of an attack —it is also a daily battle for basic needs, like medical care.In the liberated areas of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, one organisation named Dignitas Ukraine is stepping in where many clinics were forced to close following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.Despite the dangers, which include drone attacks and mined roads, the team of volunteers works seven days a week, covering 27 communities in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.Some villages become inaccessible due to harsh winter conditions cutting off roads, isolating them.In the community of the…

Last year, Socialist Party leader Pedro Nuno Santos opted for constructive collaboration and ordered his party to abstain in critical votes, which enabled Montenegro to both form a minority government and, later, pass a crucial budget bill. Relations between the two main parties have soured in the wake of last March’s failed confidence vote, and it’s unclear if the center left will be willing to permit the center-right to govern this time around. Portugal’s constitution doesn’t set a deadline for the formation of a new government, nor does it include any clause that would force the dissolution of parliament if…

Jannik Sinner failed to triumph in the Internazionali di Roma tournament. The winning streak, which began in Beijing, came to a halt once again in front of Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. The world number two won the Internazionali for the first time, overcoming Sinner in two sets with a score of 7-6 6-1, in one hour and 43 minutes of play.For Sinner, this was his return to the court after a 104-day absence. Despite the defeat, the balance of his direct clashes with Alcaraz is now four wins and seven losses. Italy will still have to wait to see one of…

German archaeologists have made a spectacular discovery in Iraq. During excavations in the ancient metropolis of Nineveh, a team from Heidelberg University came across large parts of a monumental relief. It shows King Assurbanipal (668 to 627 BC), the last ruler of the Assyrian Empire, accompanied by two important deities and other figures.The relief was unearthed in the throne room of the North Palace. It was carved on a massive stone slab measuring just over five metres in length and three metres in height and weighs around 12 tonnes.The find is extraordinary for the scientists not only because of its…

WARSAW — Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski narrowly won the first round of Poland’s presidential election on Sunday against his right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki, setting the two up for a nail-biting campaign for the second round on June 1. Trzaskowski, part of PM Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 30.8 percent of the vote while Nawrocki, supported by the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, took 29.1 percent, according to an exit poll by Ipsos released on Sunday evening after the polls closed. The projections are not official results, which will start coming in from Poland’s election authority in…