Another week, another set of dilemmas for Europe’s beleaguered political class to deal with. On Wednesday Brussels is due to outline the terms of the €90bn loan it has promised to Ukraine, amid internal tensions over whether Kyiv can use the money to buy US as well as EU weapons. On the same day, the … Read more
The EU is reportedly demanding guarantees the UK will compensate the bloc if a future government reneges on the Brexit “reset” agreement Keir Starmer is currently negotiating. The termination clause is a stark reminder of the painful and costly divorce in which the EU set up a colossal €5.4bn (£4.7bn) fund to help its member … Read more
Zahawi tried, and failed, to get a peerage from Badenoch before defecting to Reform UK, Tory sources claim Nadhim Zahawi approached Kemi Badenoch’s team about trying to become a Tory peer – only to defect to Reform UK after being told he would not get one, Pippa Crerar reports. ❤️🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi … Read more
The new year is still young, yet Donald Trump’s fixation on expanding his homeland signals a troubling geopolitical shift. From Venezuela to Greenland, the world is unmistakably moving away from the relative stability of the post-cold war era – not least also because of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This erosion of long-established norms has severe … Read more
When the European Union made its 2020 commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century, there was a wave of excitement about what that might mean for the continent’s most romantic form of travel. The golden era of night trains had, it was previously assumed, gone for good amid the … Read more
Keir Starmer will exclude financial services from negotiations on closer alignment with the EU, prompting a sigh of relief from Brexit-weary City lobbyists. A government spokesperson said officials would continue to explore cooperation “where it is in our economy’s interest”, but it is understood there will be no push for City firms to return to … Read more
An end to Russia’s war against Ukraine is still not in sight. The frequency of high-level meetings of Ukrainian, US and European representatives in recent weeks, as well as the intermittent US-Russia exchanges, have not changed this fundamental reality. There is no ceasefire in place, European and US military support is not confirmed and, most … Read more
Donald Trump made 30,573 “false or misleading” claims during his first term, according to calculations published in 2021 by the Washington Post. That’s roughly 21 fibs a day. Second time around, he’s still hard at it, lying to Americans and the world on a daily basis. Trump’s disregard for truth and honesty in public life … Read more
Pacing inside the Kremlin last weekend, as news feeds churned out minute-by-minute reports of Donald’s Trump’s Venezuelan coup, Vladimir Putin may have been wondering what it would mean for the price of oil. Crude oil has lubricated the Russian economy for decades – far more than gas exports to Europe – and so the threat … Read more
Kosovo has seen prolonged, intense rainfall this week leading to widespread flooding. Cities, towns and villages were inundated as rivers overflowed their banks. Communities were cut off and emergency services rescued people trapped in their homes. People lost their water supply as well as electricity in the Drenas, Malisheva and Rahovec municipalities after flood water … Read more