World

The Biden administration lifts USD 10 million bounty on Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is said to have been pragmatic at a personal meeting in Damascus and has repeatedly promised to lead an inclusive government, al-Sharaa who was formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani was earlier presented by the US government's Rewards for Justice as the leader behind multiple terrorist attacks often targeting civilians such as the kidnapping of 300 Kurdish civilians and the massacre of 20 Druze villagers

US armed forces kill IS terrorist leader Abu Yusif in precision strike in the formerly Russian-controlled Syrian Dayr az Zawr Province, General Michael Erik Kurilla says ISIS has the intent to free over 8,000 operatives currently being held in Syrian facilities and that the US will not allow them to take advantage of the current situation

9 out of 10 drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries according to a WHO report, 68% drop in drowning death rate between 2000 and 2021 in the European Region but only a 3% drop in Africa which has the highest regional rate with 5.6 deaths per 100 000 people, deaths during migration journeys not included in the report

US bans issuance of visas to about 20 people accused of undermining democracy in Georgia, does not name the individuals but says sitting ministers and members of parliament were among them as well as law enforcement and security officials, the move follows anti-Western Mikheil Kavelashvili's presidential election win

Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway freeze all pending asylum requests from Syrians after the fall of Assad, Austria where about 100,000 Syrians live says all asylum grants will be reviewed and that they will prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation programme

Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow along with his family and has been granted asylum for humanitarian reasons, according to a Kremlin source to the TASS news agency

Ukraine expands access to militarized satellite network Starshield from 500 to 3,000 terminals after SpaceX signs contract with the Pentagon, contract valid during 2025

Rebels storm the Syrian presidential palace and announce on state TV that President Bashar al-Assad is ousted, as the capital fell a Syrian airplane with unknown passengers left the Damascus airport and flew towards Assad's coastal region stronghold before making a U-turn and disappearing off the map, unclear if the plane was shot down or the transponder was switched off

Ukrainian trained Syrian rebel forces lead the assault on Aleppo along with among others Turkish backed former Al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, only connection between the disparate Islamist groups is said to be hatred of the Russian-backed Assad regime, more than 20 villages and the Aleppo airport among what has been captured

New NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says during visit in Greece that the alliance needs to go further to support Ukraine and accuses Russia of dangerously escalating the conflict by bringing in North Korean troops and Iranian drones, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says the country backs a more functional relationship between NATO and the EU to further strengthen the European pillar of the alliance

Russia fires hypersonic ballistic missile with multiple warheads at targets in the city of Dnipro, Putin says in televised address that what was once a regional conflict now has elements of a global character after Western long-range missiles were used for attacks on Russian territory

US opens military base in Poland less than 160 km from Kaliningrad, is the first US base in the country and will focus on air defense

Donald Trump wins the presidential election and becomes the first person in over 120 years to lose the White House and win it back again, won in all swing states and also won the popular vote

Greenland court extends the detention of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson for additional three weeks pending possible extradition to Japan, was arrested in July connection with refueling of his ship in Greenland's capital Nuuk on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant stemming from a 2010 incident in which Watson is accused of causing damage to a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic

Elon Musk has held several conversations with Vladimir Putin since the end of 2022 according to anonymous sources to the Wall Street Journal, the article points out that Putin allegedly asked Musk not to activate Starlink in Taiwan as a favor to China's leader Xi Jinping but does not write anything about whether the request was obeyed

Russia hosts BRICS summit with leaders from over 30 countries such as China, India and Turkey as well as UN Secretary General António Guterres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, says Russia is increasingly isolated on the world stage

Supposed secret US intelligence documents revealing details of Israel's preparations for a potential attack on Iran are published by the Iran-linked Telegram account Middle East Spectator, no comments yet from either the Pentagon or the US Director of National Intelligence and the authenticity has not been independently verified by the publication Axios

The case regarding the European Commission's refusal to allow the New York Times access to text messages between Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen regarding the vaccine agreement will be brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union in November

French authorities declare a curfew and ban protests in its overseas territory of Martinique in the Caribbean after riots over high food prices left one dead and 26 injured police, protests began in early September

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, which comprises survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, for their efforts toward achieving a world free from nuclear weapons

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić discuss the two countries' possible military cooperation at a meeting in Belgrade, 2023 Serbia canceled plans to buy drones from Turkey since they had been delivered to Kosovo

US warships on site days before the Nord Stream blasts, according to John Anker Nielsen, harbor master at Christiansø, Denmark's easternmost point northeast of Bornholm, who says he launched rescue efforts after suspecting an accident in connection with ships turning off their radios and then being ordered to turn back immediately when they got closer

The Libertarian Party and two independent candidates who have spoken out against smart cities get 11 seats in the local parliament in the state of New South Wales in Australia, in their manifesto it says that if we don't take a stand now, we are headed for a 24/7 government surveillance and a social credit system similar to China

The former Chancellor of Germany, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, says in an interview with the Swiss Die Weltwoche that it may sound a little strange that he now hopes that Donald Trump will win, but he thinks it can be a solution to reduce the risk of even greater conflicts in the world, he also says that he does not necessarily support Hungary's Viktor Orbán but that his peace mission was very useful and reasonable

The British territory of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean is transferred to Mauritius as announced jointly by the Prime Ministers of both countries, and the American and British military base on the included Diego Garcia atoll will continue to operate as before

Hezbollah's leader for 32 years, 64-year-old Hassan Nasrallah, is confirmed dead after an Israeli air attack in Lebanon, and most of the organization's leaders are now elimnated according to the Israeli military

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis meets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the sixth time in a year in connection with the UN General Assembly, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides has expressed optimism about the possibility that the meeting in New York will lead to the restart of talks on the Cyprus issue

The organization Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which is described as far-right, is through legal action attempting to stop the Canadian government's plans to disclose the names of 900 Nazi war criminals who immigrated to the country after the second world war, they justify their position by arguing that such a disclosure would provide Vladimir Putin with ammunition for his claim that the war in Ukraine is about purging Nazis

Volodymyr Zelensky critical of Great Britain and the United States' failure to decide on permission for Ukraine to attack Russian territory with weapons from the West, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in the White House and afterwards it was communicated that no change in the countries' policy had taken place

Pakistani imam Muhammad Ashraf Asif Jalali is sentenced by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in absentia to 14 years in prison for having issued a fatwa against Dutch politician Geert Wilders, but no extradition agreements between the countries exists

The governments of the United States and Iraq when agreement on the final withdrawal of all American and its allied forces from Iraq when the last of them are to leave by the end of 2026, the presence began in 2003 with the invasion and bombing of the capital Baghdad

Ukraine's success in the Russian region of Kursk may give the country an advantage in possible peace talks with Moscow, says US Senator Mark Kelly (D) in connection with the American delegation's meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, and points out that the operation surprised the US

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to send a team to ceasefire talks scheduled this week after a three-hour meeting on Monday in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who says it is now up to Hamas to do the same

Pakistan's former prime minister, the imprisoned Imran Khan, is seeking the role of chancellor at Oxford University in the UK, which he graduated from in 1975 after studying philosophy, politics and economics, other candidates are former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair

Sweden reports the first case of the new variant of monkeypox in Europe after the World Health Organization earlier this week declared a global emergency due to the increasing spread in Africa, the Danish company Bavarian Nordic says that they can supply ten million doses of vaccine against the virus by the end of 2025

Wall Street Journal: Volodymyr Zelenskyj knew about and at first approved the sabotage of Nord Stream but then, after warning from the CIA, ordered the plan to be stopped, Germany is the second largest donor to Ukraine since the outbreak of war and an attack of the scale is, according to unnamed German senior official, a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO

Chinese authorities confirm that a Chinese-owned ship accidentally broke the Balticconnector underwater pipeline between Finland and Estonia in October 2023 by accidentally leaving a broken anchor trailing behind it, Finland's Minister of European Affairs Anders Adlercreutz said in December that he thinsk everything indicates that it was intentional and that he believes that you would notice that you're dragging an anchor behind you for hundreds of kilometers

The 44-year-old Ukrainian diving instructor Volodymyr Zhuravlov is the subject of an international arrest warrant from Germany for his involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, Polish authorities were reportedly contacted by Germany in June but are said not to have complied with the request, and Zhuravlov is believed to have returned to Ukraine from Poland in July

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba ends three-day visit to China, says he and Chinas foreign minister Wang Yi discussed matters that it is not yet the time for them to talk about publicly

The European Union expropriates 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from frozen assets belonging to the Central Bank of Russia and is to be used for Ukraine's military capacity and the country's reconstruction, according to the EU's press release, the proceeds do not belong to Russia

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg answers yes to the question of whether allies need to prepare for the conflict in Ukraine to last for more than ten years and says that Donald Trump's criticism of European countries not spending enough on defense was correct and valid but that has now changed

Singapore's former ambassador to Russia, Bilarhari Kausikan, says Ukraine may be divided in two like Korea after World War II and that Donald Trump will likely do something dramatic with the conflict to distinguish himself from the current administration

32-year-old Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich is sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison for espionage, on Monday Russian-American Jew Masha Gessen, who uses the they/them pronouns, was sentenced to prison in absentia for dissenting comments since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine

Some 45 heads of government gather in the English countryside, in Blenheim Palace where Winston Churchill was born, to discuss Ukraine and the way forward if Donald Trump were to be re-elected as president of the United States, Britain's newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Labour) believes a new storm gathers over our continent

NATO appoints its representative in Ukraine, Briton Patrick Turner, who is expected to take up the role in Kiev in September this year, stationing a civilian official was one of the organization's promises during the summit on the war

Intelligence about Iranian plans to assassinate Donald Trump in recent weeks led the Secret Service to increase security around the former president, according to sources CNN, no known connection to Saturday's assassination attempt

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thinks Russian representatives should be present at a second peace conference, Russia was not invited to the June conference in Switzerland which meant that China decided not to come

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visits Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, calls it the Peace mission 5.0 and writes on X that they discussed ways to make peace and that the good news is that Trump will solve it

Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli publicly supports French nationalist politician Marine Le Pen, saying it would be good for the Israeli state if she were president and that it seems as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are of the same opinion, the Israeli minister also attended Spanish nationalist party Vox's event in Madrid in May

Tucker Carlson says he has received consent to an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he has been trying to for two years, but the presidential press secretary denies the information as he says that no interview has been scheduled

16-year-old Iraqi girl strangled to death while beeing raped in front of her mother on sinking boat off Italy by man who had just seen his wife and daughter drown, the 27-year-old Iraqi man arrested after the surviving mother reported him to police

Julian Assange expected to go free after plea deal with US Justice Department, to be sentenced to 62 months in prison which are cancelled out by the time he has already spent behind bars in UK

The Israeli government is for the third time relaunching a program with the stated purpose of carrying out what they themselves call mass consciousness activities aimed primarily at Europe and the United States, the relaunch was first disclosed in a budget document from November 1, 2023, with the comment that all previous campaigns should be freezed in order to winning the war over Israel's story, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy cited by several Republican members of the US House of Representatives during congressional hearings on antisemitism at universities in December was 2018 largely funded by the program

Javier Milei in Madrid receiving an award from the Juan de Mariana Institute for his contribution in spreading of libertarian ideas and the President of the Madrid Region, Isabel Díaz Ayus, political opponent of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and who has led the region in the direction towards a free market, awards the Argentine President the International Medal of Madrid

The leader of New Caledonian pro-independence activist group CCAT, Christian Tein, is charged over the deadly riots on the island last month, to where France sent 3,000 soldiers and police, and will be held in custody in France 17,000 kilometers away, 10 more people arrested

Dutch politician Geert Wilders writes on X that Pakistan is a medieval retarded terrorist country after 36-year-old tourist is lynched and burned to death after allegedly desecrating the Koran

Israel now requires visas for Ukrainians after the countries agreed on visa-free travel for its citizens in 2010, Ukraine's ambassador to Israel says Ukraine will have to introduce similar requirements in response but remains open to dialogue on the issue

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance is actively engaging in discussions regarding the readiness and potential deployment of its nuclear arsenal, expresses concern about China's modernizing where they are predicted to have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and the possibility of confronting two nuclear-armed adversaries simultaneously, stresses the necessity of increasing defence expenditures in response to rising tensions

The US military ran a secret anti-Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine campaign in the Philippines as payback for Beijing's efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic, Reuters' investigation finds at least 300 X accounts created in 2020 focusing on the slogan #Chinaangvirus which is Tagalog for "China is the virus", the campaign ended in 2021 when the National Security Council ordered the military to stop all anti-vaccine messaging

Vladimir Putin puts forward a peace plan that calls for Ukraine to remove all troops from the four Ukrainian regions in question, a neutral demilitarized and de-Nazified Ukraine, and for Western sanctions against Russia to be lifted, pointing out that this ends the conflict forever, not pausing it as the West wants so it could build up Ukraine's military and that if the offer is denied again, the settlement conditions will be stricter

Jewish Gidi Markuszower is denied the post of migration minister in the new government in the Netherlands as he failed a background check by the country's security service and former interior minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin, son of a Jew who survived World War II, wrote according to media reports to party leader Geert Wilders that Markuszower likely reports to a foreign power

Sweden and Iran exchange prisoners as the Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus was imprisoned in Iran for two years on suspicion of espionage, as well as Iranian Saeed Aziz with Swedish citizenship is swapped with the Iranian Hamid Nouri, who was arrested as a tourist in Sweden in 2019 and sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes committed in 1988

US and Ukraine agree to 10-year security pact including continued military training, defense industry and intelligence cooperation, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan calls the deal a milestone that for many years will defend against and deter future Russian aggression

US lifts ban on the Azov Brigade using American weapons, The State Department comments that they found no evidence of gross violations of human rights committed by the unit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the decision shows that Washington will resort to anything to suppress Russia including flirting with neo-Nazis

Russia is participating in exercises with Cuba in the Caribbean Sea with the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan and three other warships between June 12 and 17, according to Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which clarifies that none of the vessels carry nuclear weapons and therefore do not pose a threat to the region

The attitude of foreign media during Vladimir Putin's meeting with international news agencies gives reason for some optimism as they are more constructive, asking questions and investigating, as part of information gathering rathen than hysteria, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who also points out that the foreigners asked the president about nuclear weapons but that they covered it as if Putin had spoken about it proactively

The US threatens restrictions on Georgia and the Hungarian EU commissioner Oliver Varhelyi refers to what happened to Robert Fico in talks with the country's Prime Minister Irakli Kobachidze after their parliament approved a law that means that organizations and media with more than 20 percent of their funding come from abroad must declare where the money comes from

Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate an end to the war with the current battlefield lines as borders, but also ready to continue in the absence of negotiations, according to four sources to Reuters, and he is saying during a visit to Belarus to let peace talks resume, while Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says Putin has not the desire to end his aggression and that only a united majority in the outside world can force him to stop

Norway, Ireland and Spain recognize Palestine as a state, join more than two-thirds of the member states of the United Nations, Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz recalls ambassadors and says history will remember that Spain, Norway and Ireland decided to award gold medal to Hamas murderers and terrorists

Klaus Schwab will step down as chairman of the World Economic Forum in January 2025 and will be succeeded by Norwegian former foreign minister Børge Brende, during whose time in government Norway sent millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation

Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Karim Khan, files application for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for war crimes and now the decision is at the hands of the court's judges

France declares state of emergency and bans TikTok on Melanesian island of New Caledonia in the Pacific after four deaths and hundreds injured in violent riots after French parliament authorizes French citizens who've resided in New Caledonia for 10 years to vote in local elections

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken performs playing the guitar to the song Rockin' in the Free World on stage with a band at the bar Barman Dictat in Kiev, Ukraine, gave speech earlier in the day where he noted that Ukraine is moving forward while Russia is moving backwards, at the same time Russian forces continued their advance towards Kharkiv in the north-eastern parts of the country

Russian ships find oil and gas reserves ten times the size of the North Sea's output in the last 50 years in British Antarctica, which since 1959 has been protected by the Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits all exploitation of oil

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, meets with Alexander Soros and discusses the upcoming peace conference in Switzerland on June 15-16, Ukraine's priorities in international politics and the upholding of democratic principles

Briton Dominic Cummings, former top adviser to Boris Johnson, believes that Ukraine's corrupt mafia state has deceived us all, that we will all be fucked as a consequence of that, that the West pushed Russia's towards the world's largest manufacturer China and that the only lesson we have taught Putin is that we are a bunch of total fucking jokers

16-year-old Muslim shot dead by police in Perth, Australia after stabbing a man, participated in government deradicalization program for two years

Argentina's government publishes, in response to Spain's transport minister claiming during a panel debate that Argentine President Javier Milei ingested substances during the election campaign, that the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has endangered the safety of Spanish women by allowing illegal immigration and endagered the middle class with his socialist policies that only bring poverty and death

The Israeli National Security Council raises the threat level for travel to Malmö, Sweden, during the Eurovision Song Contest from level 2 (potential threat) to level 3 (moderate threat), citing that the city is known to be a hub for anti-Israel protests with a large population of immigrants from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran and that the ordinary Israeli traveler does not get the extra protection that the Swedish police gives the Israeli delegation

Legislation being drafted in the US Congress to counter the International Criminal Court in The Hague's potential decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders as a result of the court's investigation into war crimes, the White House annouces it does not support the investigation and that the court has no jurisdiction in this situation

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly asked Joe Biden for help to prevent the International Criminal Court in The Hague from issuing arrest warrants against the prime minister himself and the country's defense minister for war crimes, according to Israeli sources to Axios

Jamaica plans to remove British King Charles III as head of state according to the country's foreign minister Alando Terrelonge, British monarchs have ruled over Jamaica since 1655

Russia will not let a US decision to confiscate Russian assets go unanswered and that the confiscation undermines the principle of private and state property according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the statement comes after the US Congress approved a possible transfer of assets to Ukraine

Michael Kabuni, lecturer in political science at the University of Papua New Guinea, says Joe Biden's claim that his uncle, Ambrose J Finnegan Jr, was eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea when he crash-landed there and the body was never recovered, is offensive, not because of the cannibalism which is a fact but that the president implies that the islanders thought it would have been a good meal

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel who was stabbed during mass last Thursday in Sydney says he forgives the perpetrator on the grounds that Jesus never said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and that you should never return evil for evil but for good

15-year-old Muslim stabs Assyrian Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, during ongoing mass on Monday night that was broadcast live on the Internet, the church writes that they ask for your prayers at this time and that it is the bishop’s wish that you also pray for the perpetrator

Norway and the US are building a satellite station on the island of Andøya in northern Norway, where a base for long-range drones is also planned, located 800 kilometers west of the capital of Russia's Northern Fleet, Severomorsk, outside Murmansk

The Canadian intelligence service CSIS says in a report that Pakistan and India probably tried to influence elections in Canada, the Indian influence is said to be in regards to concerns that diaspora Indians in Canada will be sympathetic to the Sikh separatist Khalistani movement or harbor pro-Pakistani political views

French President Emmanuel Macron writes on X that some have compared the photos of him together with Brazilian President Lula da Silva as wedding photographs, which he admits it was because he thinks France loves Brazil and Brazil loves France

Black wheelchair-bound Ade Adepitan visits the whites-only village of Orania in South Africa on behalf of Britain's Channel 4 for the documentary Whites Only: Ade's Extremist Adventure and says first, in disappointment after being kicked out of the church, that he thought this was just about friendship and community, and then that it is too simplistic to brand everyone in Orania as racist but that if you live in the desert for 30 years not mixing with anyone, that’s going to lead to prejudice

Chairman Alexander Soros appoints Indian-Kenyan human rights lawyer Binaifer Nowrojee as president of the Open Society Foundations and outgoing Briton Mark Mallock-Brown says he is very proud of what they have done to prepare the organization for a future where all the obvious truisms of the international liberal order have been turned on their head and that they have had to reinvent how they promote human rights and open societies

US Senator Chuck Schumer says in a speech as a lifelong supporter of Israel it has become clear to him that the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits Israel's needs since October 7 and that he believes a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel

Sweden becomes NATO:s 32nd member state on Thursday and thus officially leaves its historic policy of neutrality behind, Ulf Kristersson (M) in Washington and will attend as guest of honor during Joe Biden's State of the Union address

European Commission will pay EUR 50 million to the UN organization for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, next week, as part of the planned total support of EUR 150 million during 2024, in addition to the support to UNRWA, the EU will this year send EUR 68 million to Palestine

The New York Times writes that for the past eight years the CIA has financed and established at least twelve spy bases in Ukraine along the Russian border, that in 2016 they began training an elite group to defeat Russian drones and their encryption, and that director William Burns visited Kiev for the tenth time in February, the collaboration is said to have started in 2014 when the pro-American government took over in Ukraine after Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup

Hungary, as the last country of the 31 member countries, approves Sweden's application to NATO on Monday and now only formalities remain, Victor Orbán says that being a member of NATO together with another country means that we are ready for each other and Ulf Kristersson (M) writes on X that it is a historic day and that Sweden is ready to shoulder its responsibility for Euro-Atlantic security

American and British fighter jets strike 18 targets in Yemen on Saturday in response to the Houthi rebels' attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says there will be consequences if they do not continue their illegal attacks, while the Houthi rebels write in a statement that they will confront the escalation with more military operations to defend their country, their people and their nation

US, UK and Germany support Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as a candidate for NATO's next Secretary General, to be elected approval is required from all member states, former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says that it can be confirmed as early as April 4 when the countries' foreign ministers are to meet in Berlin for the alliance's 75th anniversary

China's imports of manufacturing equipment used in semiconductor production record high in 2023, including 270 percent increase in imports of lithography machines and Dutch lithography maker ASML's sales to China rose from 14 percent in 2022 to 29 percent in 2023 despite overall sales growth of 42 percent, The US is trying to reduce China's imports through export bans among other things

Australia's parliament votes to allow Julian Assange to return home by 86 votes for and 42 against and the country's prime minister since 2022, Anthony Albanese, raised the issue with Joe Biden in October, next week Assange will appear before the UK High Court in connection with the final appeal against extradition to the US