Warsaw is on the path to unblocking €76 billion in EU cash that was frozen over rule-of-law-concerns, said Poland’s minister for funds and regional policy. Payout of the funds from the EU’s 2021-2027 budget have been blocked over legal concerns after the government led by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party implemented judicial reforms … Read more
In a remembrance, the poet Sergei Gandlevsky, one of the people who knew Rubinstein best, called him “implausibly sociable.” He was not indiscriminate—he didn’t suffer fools, careerists, and narcissists—but he had a vast range of social possibilities. He accepted every birthday-party invitation, most dinner-party invitations, and many invitations to go grab a drink. He was … Read more
LONDON — Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited Donald Trump to Kyiv, but on one condition. The Ukrainian president said the former U.S. president would be welcome to visit him in the capital — as long as Trump is able to stop the war with Russia within 24 hours, as he once promised. Trump has boasted that, … Read more
The plea came from a delegation of chairs of foreign affairs committees from six countries in Europe and Canada, meeting with U.S. lawmakers in-between their fraught negotiations over border security policy that is holding up a major funding package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. “The reality is the U.S. also needs a wake-up call,” … Read more
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia agreed on Friday to set up a common Baltic defense zone on their borders with Russia and Belarus amid growing security concerns. The defense ministers of the three Baltic countries met on Friday in Riga to approve the construction of “anti-mobility defensive installations” on their eastern frontiers. They also agreed to … Read more
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday (Jan 19) it regretted Argentina’s decision not to join the BRICS bloc of nations and hoped that Buenos Aires would reconsider. Argentina’s incoming Foreign Minister Diana Mondino said in November that his country would not join the BRICS grouping of developing nations despite being invited to do so. President … Read more
An increasingly belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin could attack the NATO military alliance in less than a decade, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day … so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” Pistorius told German … Read more
Saudi Arabia is still considering an invitation to become a member of the BRICS bloc of countries after being asked to join by the group last year, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The group in August invited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Argentina, and … Read more
China won’t be playing a mediation role between Russia and Ukraine anytime soon, Australian ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd said, as Beijing’s priority remains keeping a stable alliance with Moscow. “If [Chinese President] Xi Jinping looks at the world, he looks at Russia, he sees a neighboring state, a massive common border with whom … Read more
The UK and Ukraine have partnered to launch a new initiative that will improve the tech sectors and further protect Kyiv from Russia’s full-scale invasion. During the first year of the conflict, Kyiv lost up to 35 per cent of its GDP. The economic collapse marked the largest recession in Ukraine’s history. The project, which … Read more
