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Behind the scenes, officials attempt to bridge a widening funding gap Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his government needs tens of billions of additional dollars to keep fighting and pay bills through the end of the year. The request couldn’t come at a worse time for European governments, the main donors to Kyiv’s defense against Russia. European officials privately warn they might not be able to foot the bill for everything Ukraine wants. Last weekend, the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, stormed to victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections on a platform of ending assistance for Ukraine...

When Britain confirmed last September that it would recognize a Palestinian state, it was pulled in the wake of France, which had signaled a few months earlier that it planned to take the symbolically freighted step. On Tuesday, almost a year later, Britain was the one to seize the initiative. The British government announced, followed by France and Canada, that it would stop trading with Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It went so far as to accuse some settlers of engaging in the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. This diplomatic sequencing speaks partly to domestic politics in each country. Last...

Germany will send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine from its national ​stocks, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday, warning that ‌Russia was likely to intensify its air campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure as winter approaches. Speaking at a videoconference of nations supporting Ukraine, Pistorius said he had decided to "deliver urgently" additional PAC-2 ​interceptor missiles. Patriot missiles are currently the only effective defence against Russian ​ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine, officials say. "Since Russia is only ⁠advancing very slowly at the front line, it is trying to destroy ​Ukraine's economic base and critical infrastructure by way of air raids...

Trump's unpredictability has been previously cited as a key reason as to why the Netherlands should remove their gold from the US. The director of Goudwisselkantoor – a Dutch auction house that specialises in auctioning gold, jewellery, diamonds, silverware, coins and banknotes – said in January that Trump could 'refuse to extradite [the gold reserves], impose additional tariffs, or delay the repayment for decades'.

Western media are reporting that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow, Russia, to warn his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), about striking back against Baltic states. {CITATION} However, that’s only half of the story.Director Ratcliffe wasn’t simply telling Naryshkin not to hit back; he was telling Naryshkin that European NATO provocations against the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (between Poland and Lithuania) were not ‘fully’ sanctioned by the United States. {CITATION Aug 18}EU NATO members have been conducting provocative military operations and psychological warfare via NATO exercises all around Kaliningrad. They have been getting...

Die Welt and other outlets broke a story about Chancellor Merz drawing up plans to isolate German states where AfD may win a majority in the future, so that Germany can retain its role as key central NATO transport hub in the war against Russia being stirred by European elites: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/30/merz-plan-to-prevent-putin-friendly-afd-state-blocking-nato/From the Telegraph piece above: Friedrich Merz is drawing up secret plans to prevent German pro-Kremlin “traitor states” from obstructing Nato’s plans to defend against a Russian invasion. German officials fear the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could frustrate the movement of allied forces through two eastern states it is...

Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party are dismantling democratic Hungary as we have known it since 1990. A large crowd attends a demonstration organised by the former government party-coalition Fidesz–KDNP (Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) to protest against the 17th amendment to Hungary’s constitution, in front of the Sándor Palace in Budapest on July 9, 2026. - ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP I belong to the generation that brought about genuine regime change in Hungary. I had the privilege of being part of the overthrow of the communist regime, when, in 1990, after decades...

Follow the Money Toward WWIIIJuly 28, 2026 | SundanceIt has been said that all wars are “bankers wars,” however, against the modern era of inverted fascism where corporations tell the govt what policies take priority, the more accurate truism ‘is all wars being controlled by money’, not necessarily banks.The European Commission has constructed a very special kind of proactive financing for Ukraine that doesn’t require them to give their own €uros to the historically corrupt country. Partly because the EU doesn’t have their own money, and partly because everything the EU does in the sphere of finance is always a...

Hungary's new prime minister says he's enacting the will of the people by doing everything in his power to oust his predecessor's allies. Parliament on Monday approved a constitutional amendment that will allow the government to fire President Tamas Sulyok, who Prime Minister Péter Magyar calls a "puppet" of former prime minister Viktor Orbán. It's part of a broader package of reform aimed at dismantling the political system Orbán left behind, and removing his allies from positions of power. Some human rights advocates have accused Magya of trampling over due process and rule-of-law in his rush to usher in Hungary's...

On July 7, the European Parliament voted 414-224 to open a formal review of whether a small pan-European political alliance called Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) still qualifies for EU registration and EU funding. Brussels insists this is a routine compliance matter. It is not. It is the first time in the history of the EU’s party-financing regime that this mechanism has been aimed at a party of the populist right, and everyone involved knows exactly which national party it is really about: Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD). You would be forgiven for never having heard of ESN. It is...

A Hungarian conservative influencer was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, July 8th and has since been released after spending several hours in custody, in a case that seems to confirm the new, pro-Brussels Hungarian government’s authoritarian tendencies. István Szakács was taken into custody in the western city of Győr after police searched his home. Eight officers arrived shortly after 6 a.m., carried out a house search, and took him away for questioning. The police said they were investigating Szakács on suspicion of making threats related to a terrorist offence. The allegation stems from a Facebook video in which...

A long-awaited bill banning Israeli goods from the occupied territories in Palestine has passed the final stage in the Dáil without including services from the region. The Government-drafted Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) bill passed through its report and final stages in the Dáil (lower house) on Tuesday without a vote. It will now be sent to the Seanad (Senate) next week and, if it as likely is also passed by the Upper House, will be signed into law at that point. The bill is a renewed version of the original Occupied Territories...

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s debt-fuelled spending not seen since Germany reunification. Germany plans to borrow more than €800bn by 2030, breaking with decades of fiscal restraint to bring defence spending to levels not seen since the cold war. Next year alone, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government plans to raise more than €200bn from markets, 12.5 per cent more than this year, the finance ministry said on Monday. Between 2027 and 2030, Germany is expected to borrow about €838bn, according to projections. The budget marks a sharp break with the country’s deep-rooted aversion to debt and with Merz’s own party line on fiscal...

BRUSSELS, June 30 (Reuters) - The European Union has transferred €3.9 billion ($4.44 ​billion) to Ukraine to ‌finance drone procurement, the Commission said on Tuesday. The disbursement is ​part of a €90 ​billion loan approved by the ⁠EU earlier this year. This ​disbursement follows the Commission's ​first €3.2 billion instalment to Ukraine made on June 25 to help ​with the country's ​government financing. "We are releasing a first ‌tranche ⁠of €3.9 billion for advanced drone technology to strengthen Ukraine's defence. And more will ​follow. ​These ⁠investments will help Ukraine protect its citizens, ​defend its sovereignty, ​and ⁠reinforce Europe's security," European...

The EU says protecting Europe's identity is against its values. Eva Vlaardingerbroek - Eva Vlaardingerbroek on X. Campaigners behind the ‘Save Europe Act’ say the European Commission is preparing to reject their European Citizens’ Initiative after receiving a letter warning that its proposals appear to violate the European Union’s fundamental rights and values. In a video published on Tuesday, June 30th, the initiators of the act—Dutch conservative commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek and Austrian identitarian activist Martin Sellner—said they had received a letter from the European Commission, warning them that the Save Europe Act appears to be “manifestly contrary” to the Charter...

July 1 (Reuters) - Ukraine has struck a Russian oil refinery in the city of Ufa, more than 1,300 km (800 miles) from the frontline for the second time, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday, as Kyiv steps up its strikes deep in Russia. "Every day, our plan for imposing Ukrainian long-range sanctions is being implemented," Zelenskiy said on X, referring to Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russian territory. "This is an entirely just response to everything Russia is doing against us." Zelenskiy also reported a strike on what he said was a "strategic" Russian military-industrial facility in the Penza region,...

Private jets can now qualify as green investments under EU rules after the bloc's second-highest court overturned a decision to exclude them from its sustainable finance framework. On Wednesday, the EU General Court ruled that the manufacture of private jets cannot automatically be considered environmentally harmful and should not be barred from the EU's list of activities eligible for green investment. The case was brought by French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation, which challenged a 2023 European Commission regulation excluding private jets from the list of activities deemed environmentally sustainable. But judges have now found that the environmental impact of private...

The head of Germany's air force has said the country is "ready to fight Russia tonight", and will "protect every inch of Nato" if Moscow were to launch an attack on allied territory. Lt Gen Holger Neumann, the Luftwaffe's commanding officer, delivered among the most blunt statements from a senior German military figure in years during his first interview with a British newspaper. He said devastating air strikes would be unleashed on Russia should it move against any Nato member, and that defensive action would be "32 against X", referencing the power of combined air forces. "Fight tonight means if...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a lying Fritz, a Pinocchio, a varnished monkey, a foppish dandy, and a showboat. I live in the U.S., so he can't prosecute me like he just did with German citizens who called him those things. #FriedrichMerz #Germany #Politics #News

Tommy Robinson was detained by police on Saturday at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism laws, after a week in which he rose to further prominence on social media. It was understood the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was stopped and had his phones seized under section 3 of the Counter-Terrorism Border Security Act 2019. Robinson used social media to claim he was detained for almost three hours and had his iPhone and Samsung Galaxy phones taken, and to ask his supporters to donate money to fund his legal defence. A spokesperson for Robinson posted on X: “They likely...