Category Archives: Europe

Trump’s Ukraine envoy pick proposed forcing peace talks by withdrawing US weapons

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In a co-authored document presented to Trump in April, Keith Kellogg also said US should give Ukraine more weapons if Russia doesn’t join negotiations

Donald Trump’s plan to tap the retired US lieutenant general Keith Kellogg as US envoy to Ukraine and Russia has triggered renewed interest in a policy document he co-authored that proposes ending the war by withdrawing weapons from Ukraine if it doesn’t enter peace talks – and giving even more weapons to Ukraine if Russia doesn’t do the same.

Trump is said to have responded favorably to the plan – America First, Russia & Ukraine – which was presented to him in April and was written by Kellogg and the former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz, who both served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s national security council from 2017 to 2021.

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Why has France’s austerity budget caused a political storm?

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Country is at risk of fresh turmoil with its government on the brink amid soaring sovereign borrowing costs

France is at risk of being plunged into fresh political turmoil as its minority government teeters on the brink of collapse amid opposition anger over a planned austerity budget.

Reflecting growing unease in financial markets, French sovereign borrowing costs have risen sharply, reaching the highest premium over German bonds since the height of the eurozone debt crisis in 2012.

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French PM abandons electricity tax rise amid pressure from far right

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Michel Barnier makes concession over budget but may still face confidence vote

The French government has promised to scrap proposed tax increases on electricity as it scrambles to calm the far right and prevent a political crisis that could lead to the prime minister, Michel Barnier, being toppled in a confidence vote as early as next week.

“I’ve decided not to raise taxes on electricity,” Barnier told Le Figaro on Wednesday in a major concession to opposition parties who are threatening to bring down the unpopular government over its belt-tightening budget.

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Romanian court orders recount of presidential election’s first-round votes

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Recheck of result of the first round, won by Călin Georgescu with Elena Lasconi second, likely to take days

Romania’s constitutional court has ordered a recount of all first-round votes to rule out a suspicion of fraud in the country’s presidential election, which was won in a major upset by a little-known far-right candidate.

The court said on Thursday it had decided unanimously to order Romania’s central electoral bureau to “recheck and recount all valid and invalid ballots” cast in Sunday’s election, won by the Moscow-friendly ultranationalist Călin Georgescu.

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Putin threatens to target Kyiv ‘decision-making centres’ with new missile after US and UK-made weapons used in Russia – as it happened

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Reuters has a quick snap that there are power cuts in Ukraine’s southern region of Mykolaiv as a result of Russia’s missile attack. It cited regional governor Vitaliy Kim.

Zhitomir and Chernihiv region have ended their air alarms in Ukraine.

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Putin threatens Ukraine’s ‘decision-making centres’ amid missile attacks

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More than a million households without power across the country as strikes on energy infrastructure continue

Russia has continued its assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as Vladimir Putin threatens to strike “decision-making centres” in Kyiv with Moscow’s new ballistic Oreshnik missile.

More than 200 missiles and drones were fired by Russia on Thursday morning, leaving more than a million households without power, according to reports from Ukrainian officials.

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Iran says it could end ban on possessing nuclear weapons if sanctions reimposed

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Comments made after nuclear inspectorate board passed motion censuring Iran for building uranium stockpile

The nuclear debate inside Iran is likely to shift towards the possession of its own weapons if the west goes ahead with a threat to reimpose all UN sanctions, the country’s foreign minister has said.

Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that Iran already had the capability and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, but said they did not form part of its security strategy. He also said Tehran was prepared to keep supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Swedish PM says Baltic sea now ‘high risk’ after suspected cable sabotage

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Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.

The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.

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Russia’s sabotage of western targets ‘could trigger Nato defence clause’

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German intelligence chief warns continued hybrid warfare by Moscow increases risk of alliance invoking Article 5

Russia’s acts of sabotage against western targets may eventually prompt Nato to consider invoking the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has warned.

Speaking at an event of the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGAP) think tank in Berlin on Wednesday, BND chief Bruno Kahl said he expected Moscow to further step up its hybrid warfare.

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France says Netanyahu is immune from ICC warrant as Israel is not member of court

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Claim comes after Paris signalled it would fulfil obligations as signatory to Rome statute after arrest warrant issued

The French government has claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu has immunity from arrest warrants issued by the international criminal court for war crimes on the grounds that Israel is not an ICC member.

The claim came soon after Netanyahu’s cabinet agreed to a French-backed ceasefire in Lebanon and is in contrast to Paris’s attitude towards last year’s ICC war crimes warrant issued against Vladimir Putin, another leader of a non-member country.

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Romania regulator calls for TikTok suspension amid vote interference fears

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Far-right, pro-Moscow candidate Călin Georgescu came from 5% in polls to win presidential election’s first round

Romania’s telecoms regulator is asking for TikTok to be suspended as the country’s defence council prepares to discuss cyber risks to its elections, after a little-known ultranationalist came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote.

The country’s constitutional court will also examine two allegations of electoral fraud after Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly, EU-sceptic and anti-Nato independent, topped the ballot in a result that upended Romanian politics.

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French sovereign borrowing costs rise to highest premium in 12 years

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Government faces risk of collapse over planned austerity budget

French sovereign borrowing costs have soared to the highest premium since the eurozone debt crisis amid political turmoil as the government faces the risk of collapse over a planned austerity budget.

The gap between French 10-year government bond yields and their German equivalent ballooned to as much as 90 basis points on Wednesday, the widest level in 12 years, while shares listed on the Paris stock exchange also tumbled.

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Dominique Pelicot has split personality caused by trauma, defence argues

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Lawyer for man who drugged wife and invited strangers to rape her says she has felt like ‘devil’s advocate’

Dominique Pelicot, the French man on trial for drugging his wife and inviting strangers to rape her, has a split personality caused by the effect of childhood trauma, his defence lawyer has argued.

In her summing up on Wednesday, Béatrice Zavarro told the court in Avignon there were “two Dominiques”, one a man apparently devoted to his family and the other with a “certain perversity”.

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Trump’s return raises questions over future of CIA’s Russian recruitment drive

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Intelligence agency has been trying to entice Russians disaffected by invasion of Ukraine but president-elect is likely to want to make an ally of Kremlin

For the past three years, the CIA has run an unusually bold outreach programme. It targeted Russians within the country’s government and security services, attempting to turn them into double agents.

Slickly produced recruitment videos portrayed cooperation with the US secret agency as the patriotic choice for officials disaffected with Vladimir Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine. The videos ended with instructions on how to contact the CIA in a secure manner.

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Plan to cut Berlin arts budget will ‘destroy’ city’s culture, directors warn

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Leading theatre figures warn ‘drastic’ reduction in funding will cause bankruptcy and harm city’s tourism appeal

Plans to slash Berlin’s culture budget by tens of millions of Euros have led to a huge backlash, with leading venues saying they have been forced to cut performances and others warning they will be pushed into bankruptcy.

About 450 institutes that are reliant at least in part on state subsidies, from theatres and opera houses to nightclubs and galleries, have formed an alliance in an attempt to force a rethink over the €130m (£108.6m) cuts. At around 12 to 13% of the current annual budget, they have been described even by those proposing them as “brutal”.

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UK cabinet ministers barred from visiting Russia amid missile row

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Moscow bans Labour figures including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves under new sanctions

Russia has banned cabinet ministers including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves from entering the country under new sanctions announced by Moscow’s foreign affairs ministry.

More than a dozen other senior Labour politicians are among the 30 British citizens on the Russian “stop list” after tensions between London and Moscow rose following Ukraine’s recent use of British missiles to strike deeper into Russia.

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Trump’s tariff threat sets stage for bitter global trade war

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Trade experts hail ‘new era of protectionism’ with targeted countries retaliating with their own tariffs

Donald Trump’s threat to impose steep tariffs on goods imported into the US has set the stage for a bitter global trade war, according to trade experts and economists, with consumers and companies warned to brace for steep costs.

The president-elect announced on Monday night that he intends to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs on all their exports to the US – until they reduce migration and the flow of drugs into the country.

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Irish PM’s party drops six points in pre-election polls amid ‘Simon slump’

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Fine Gael had looked sure of victory on Friday before Simon Harris’s disastrous interaction with care worker

Ireland’s three main parties are almost neck and neck in the polls ahead of Friday’s general election, as the taoiseach, Simon Harris, struggles to contain the damage inflicted on his campaign by a disastrous interaction with an angry care worker.

In what has been called the “Simon slump”, Fine Gael, the centre-right party which Harris leads, and which seemed almost certain to top the polls, is now under pressure. An Irish Times poll on Monday showed FG had lost its commanding lead of two weeks ago and was down six points.

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Russia preparing to retaliate after it says Ukraine hit it with US-made missiles – as it happened

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Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly independent candidate with a nationalist background, has taken a surprise lead in the first round of Romania’s presidential election.

As my colleague Jon Henley notes in this report, with 99.98% of votes counted, Georgescu, who has praised Vladimir Putin as “a man who loves his country”, was on 22.9%, with the reformist Elena Lasconi, of the Save Romania Union (USR), second on 19.17%.

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Power cuts in Ukraine after Russia’s biggest drone attack yet

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Moscow is pushing hard on eastern frontline amid uncertainty as to how Trump taking office will affect war

Russia launched its biggest ever drone attack on Ukraine on Monday night and Tuesday morning, sending a reported 188 drones into the country against various targets, resulting in power cuts in part of western Ukraine and damage to residential buildings outside Kyiv.

Russian forces are pushing hard along the frontline in the east of the country, amid uncertainty as to how the dynamics of the war might change once Donald Trump takes office in January. Russia also vowed “retaliatory actions” for fresh Ukrainian strikes on military targets inside Russia that used long-range missiles sent by the US.

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