Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Estonian president apologises after Mart Helme questions Marin’s capability
Estonia’s president has apologised after his country’s interior minister mocked Finland’s new prime minister – the world’s youngest serving government leader – as a “sales girl” and questioned her fitness for the post.
Mart Helme, 70, the leader of the populist far-right party Ekre, ridiculed Finland’s Sanna Marin, 34, and her government – in which four out of five coalition leaders are women under 35 – on his party’s radio talkshow on Sunday.
France’s far-right National Rally leader asks ally to remove controversial selfie from Facebook
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally, has asked an Estonian ally to remove a selfie from Facebook in which the pair made a controversial “OK” hand gesture, which has been linked to white-power messaging.
Le Pen was in Tallinn to meet MPs from Estonia’s far-right EKRE party, which recently became part of the country’s coalition government, as part of cross-continent negotiations on setting up a new bloc of nationalist and far-right forces after European elections next week.
Russian interference in elections and corruption scandals prompt rethink
The Baltic states can no longer cast themselves in the role of a bridge between Russia and the west, the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has said in an interview with the Guardian.
Successive crises have shown Russian determination to interfere in western democracy or use Baltic banks to launder corrupt money, Rinkēvičs said after a visit to London during which he met Dominic Grieve, the chairman of the UK intelligence and security committee.
Coalition-building begins after Kaja Kallas’s centre-right party wins 28.8% of vote
Estonia’s opposition liberal Reform party won Sunday’s general election, outpacing centre-left prime minister Juri Ratas’s party and a surging far-right that was buoyed by a backlash from mostly rural voters.
Led by former MEP Kaja Kallas, Reform garnered 28.8% of the vote, well ahead of Ratas’s Centre party on 23%. The far-right EKRE more than doubled its previous election score, at 17.8%, according to the full results posted on Estonia’s official state elections website.
Poland the worst offender as global justice index identifies decline in checks on government power for second successive year
Autocratic rule is on the rise throughout the world, with a growing number of authoritarian leaders “hijacking” laws to consolidate their own power, a study of global justice has found.
Poland demonstrated the most significant turn towards authoritarianism over the past four years, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. In all, 64% of 126 countries surveyed made similar moves towards autocratic rule in the past year alone, according to an annual rule of law index published by the World Justice Project.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017. I just got off one of those ginormous cruise ships, 1,000-plus feet, 18 decks high, with nearly 5,000 souls aboard.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says the vodka shots story as embellished by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., isn't true. File/Mic Smith/AP U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says the vodka shots story as embellished by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., isn't true.
Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser met with a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren, on August 10th in Tallinn, and discussed cooperation in the fields of cyber defense and security as well as trade relations between the European Union and the U.S., reports LETA/BNS.... Read more...
The senior U.S. Navy officer overseeing military operations in the Pacific says U.S. naval forces in the region are capable of defending themselves against any missiles North Korea may fire at them. During congressional testimony Wednesday, Adm.
Alexander Filinov, a suspected member of a group of hackers involved in blackmailing Russian officials, seen in a video link, attends hearings in the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The court extended Filinov's arrest until early April pending official probe.