Browsing: International – UK/Europe
The Proteus, UK’s first truly autonomous full-size helicopter, flies as on the day it completed its maiden flight operating from Predannack airfield in Cornwall, Britain. The Royal Navy yesterday said its first full-sized autonomous helicopter, designed to track submarines and carry out other high-risk missions amid rising North Atlantic tensions, had completed its maiden flight. The British navy said the helicopter, named Proteus, had successfully completed a short test routine. Developed under a £60mn ($80.46mn) programme, it was key to defending Britain and Nato allies against what it called “evolving threats” in the North Atlantic. Source link
France began charging non-EU visitors to the Louvre Museum 45% more than Europeans yesterday, in a controversial bid to raise money for renovations at the beleaguered Paris landmark. The move is one of the boldest adoptions in Europe of so-called “dual pricing” at museums – charging visitors different prices depending on their origins. The practice is common in many developing countries, but until now was largely absent in Europe and has been criticised for being discriminatory and reducing access for some low-income foreign visitors to the home of the Mona Lisa. Tourists who spoke to AFP on Wednesday had mixed reactions. Kevin Flynn, an Australian in his 60s in Paris for a week with his wife, said the new 32-euro (37-dollar) tariff for non-Europeans was “acceptable”.“It’s the same price for many things in Italy, many things in Malta … of such magnitude,” he said. But others, such as Joohwan Tak from South Korea, thought it was “unfair.” “We’re all human beings. It’s a big difference,” he added. “If I go to India, people from India pay less than people from abroad – it’s fair because they have less money,” added Marcia Branco from Brazil. “But because I’m in Paris and it’s supposed to be a rich country I think it’s not fair.” Other state-owned French cultural tourist hotspots are also hiking their fees for non-EU visitors, including the Versailles Palace, Chambord Palace in the Loire region and the national opera house in Paris. The government has justified the increases on financial grounds, saying the change at the Louvre would raise 20-30mn euros annually for the museum which needs repairs and suffered a major robbery last October. Trade unions at the Louvre have denounced the policy as “shocking philosophically, socially and on a human level” and have cited the change among complaints that have sparked recent strike action. They argue that the museum’s vast collection of around 500,000 items, including many from Egypt, the Middle East or Africa, hold universal human value. While rejecting discriminatory pricing on principle, they are also worried for practical reasons, as staff will now need to check visitors’ identity papers. French academic Patrick Poncet has drawn a parallel between France’s move and the “America First” policies of US President Donald Trump, whose administration hiked the cost for foreign tourists of visiting US National Parks by $100 on January 1. The French policy was “symptomatic of the return, as elsewhere in the world, of unabashed nationalism”, Poncet wrote in Le Monde newspaper last month. It remains to be seen whether the break with European convention by the continent’s most-visited country will spur other cultural destinations to follow suit. Source link
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu speaks during a debate before votes on two no-confidence motions at the National Assembly in Paris, Wednesday. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu survived two no-confidence votes in parliament Wednesday, clearing the way for the government to focus on yet another budget showdown in the coming days.The no-confidence motions, filed by the far-right National Rally (RN) and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), aimed to protest the European Union’s trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc.Despite French opposition, EU member states last week approved the signing of the long-debated deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The RN and LFI accused the government of not doing enough to block it.”Inside the country, you are a government of vassals serving the rich. Outside, you are humiliating our nation before the European Commission and the U.S. empire,” chief LFI lawmaker Mathilde Panot told the government, speaking in parliament ahead of Wednesday’s no-confidence motion votes.The Socialist Party had ruled out backing the no-confidence motions and the conservative The Republicans also said they would not vote to censure the government over Mercosur.As a result, both motions failed. The one tabled by LFI received only 256 votes in favour, 32 votes short of what was needed for the motion to pass. The second motion, put forward by the far right, received 142 votes in favour and also failed.Lecornu said time spent on the no-confidence votes was further delaying fraught debates on the country’s 2026 budget, which he said political leaders should instead focus on.”You are acting like snipers lying in wait, firing into the executive’s back at the very moment when we must confront international disruptions,” he said.Now, one of several options regarding the 2026 budget would be for Lecornu to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution to push through the finance bill without a vote, after negotiating a text with all groups except the RN and LFI, one government source said. That would almost certainly lead to more motions of no-confidence.Lawmakers are eager to end weeks of wrangling over the budget, even if it means the country’s deficit remains near 5%, sources said.President Emmanuel Macron, according to his entourage, wants a budget adopted in January and is “neutral” on how to achieve that.Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said on Tuesday that “nothing is excluded” to pass the budget.France’s political situation has been fragile since 2022, when Macron lost his majority in parliament.His problems worsened when he unexpectedly called early legislative elections in mid-2024, only to deliver a hung parliament split between three distinct ideological blocs: his centre-right alliance, the left, and the RN. Related Story Source…
Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair. Low-cost airline Ryanair Wednesday announced it is mulling a cut to flights in Belgium, especially at its major European hub of Charleroi Airport, because of Belgian authorities’ “stupid” taxes.”What’s extraordinary about the stupidity of the Belgian government is that they’ve come up with this visionary idea to raise taxes on passengers, at a time when almost every other European country is abolishing travel and environmental taxes,” chief executive Michael O’Leary told reporters in Brussels.O’Leary pointed to European countries cutting taxes to fuel growth, such as Hungary, Slovakia and Sweden.Charleroi authorities is demanding three euros ($3.50) per passenger departing from the airport in the city.”The aircrafts can move, the jobs can move, the passengers can move, and they will move to those countries who are abolishing taxes and lowering airport fees,” O’Leary said.The Irish no-frills airline said it would reduce its capacity at Charleroi airport by 1.1mn seats by the end of 2026. The hub serves several destinations especially in the warmer Mediterranean region.Ryanair says it was the leading airline in the Belgian market with 11.6mn passengers travelling with the airline in 2025.The company warned this figure would fall by around 10 percent if the city of Charleroi maintains its plan to impose the tax on airports.At the national level, the Belgian government led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever raised taxes on air transport in 2025, including on passengers departing via Brussels-Zaventem, the country’s main airport.Belgium is also engaged in a massive effort to consolidate its public finances.Contacted by AFP, the prime minister’s office did not wish to comment.Ryanair called on De Wever in a statement “to reverse these silly tax rises, which will damage Belgium’s competitiveness, and cost Belgium millions of passengers, thousands of flights, and thousands of jobs in tourism”.The new tax will cost the airport around 16 million euros a year “without us being able to pass this (money) onto the airlines as our contracts don’t allow for it”, Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) spokeswoman Nathalie Pierard told AFP.She said the tax risked limiting the airport’s investments, especially a planned expansion from which Ryanair was set to benefit. Related Story Source link
Newly-appointed Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov addresses lawmakers during a session of Ukrainian parliament, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Wednesday. Ukraine’s parliament appointed young technocrat Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister Wednesday as the government seeks to drive innovation to strengthen the military during a difficult phase of the nearly four-year war.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had ordered Fedorov, 34, to implement fast decisions to protect Ukraine’s skies, strengthen supplies to the front line and introduce other technological solutions to stop Russian advances.”We immediately identified the first priorities for the ministry of defence. The main one is air defence,” Zelenskiy said in a post on X after meeting Fedorov.The exhausted Ukrainian army is outmanned and outgunned on the battlefield after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Russian forces are steadily grinding forward in the eastern Donetsk region and trying to punch through defence lines in the south and northeast.With diplomatic efforts to end the war failing to produce tangible results, Kyiv needs to strengthen its armed forces, which total around 1 million personnel.Zelenskiy said “much broader changes” were needed in the system for mobilising troops for the war.”Decisions have already been made to ensure a more equitable distribution of personnel among combat brigades,” he said.Parliament voted to extend martial law and mobilisation until May, the 18th time since Russia’s full-scale invasion.Fedorov has already played an important role in shaping Ukraine’s high-tech response to Russia’s invasion in previous roles as the first deputy prime minister and digital transformation minister.”Today, it is impossible to fight with new technologies using an old organisational structure,” Fedorov told lawmakers before the vote, promising sweeping changes.”Our goal is to change the system: to reform the army, improve infrastructure on the front lines, eradicate lies and corruption, and make leadership and trust a new culture.”Fedorov was instrumental in creating a “drone line” – a defensive line of drones meant to inflict maximum damage on Russian troops. He also helped improve connectivity for Ukraine’s forces at the front line by deploying Starlink terminals.Along with strengthening its defence efforts, Ukraine needs to implement big changes to stabilise the battered energy sector. Parliament appointed Denys Shmyhal, a former prime minister, as the new energy minister.Shmyhal, one of the country’s most experienced government officials, faces the dual challenge of keeping Ukraine’s lights on despite heavy Russian attacks while also cleaning up the energy sector.His predecessor was dismissed in November after anti-corruption agencies uncovered a scheme to skim $100mn from Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company.Both new ministers take up their positions weeks after a corruption scandal in the energy sector that caused Ukraine’s biggest wartime political crisis and led to widespread public anger at Zelenskiy’s government. Following that, Zelenskiy replaced several security officials and placed a popular spy chief at the centre of his administration as his chief of staff. Related Story Source link
United Nations monitors recorded more civilian deaths in Ukraine in 2025 than in any other year except 2022, as hostilities flared along the frontline and Russia expanded its use of long-range weapons, the UN’s top rights body said yesterday. The data comes as US-led diplomatic attempts to end the war have stalled, with Russia last week rejecting a draft plan that would see European countries deploy soldiers in Ukraine once the war ends. “The total civilian casualties in Ukraine in 2025 reached at least 2,514 killed and 12,142 injured, which is a 31% increase compared to 2024,” the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a report published yesterday. “Our monitoring shows that this rise was driven not only by intensified hostilities along the frontline, but also by the expanded use of long-range weapons, which exposed civilians across the country to heightened risk,” the head of the OHCHR’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, said in a press release attached to the report. There is no reliable figure as to the total number of civilians killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. The UN has verified almost 15,000 civilian deaths, it said in the report, but added that the “actual extent of civilian harm … is likely considerably higher” since it is impossible to verify many cases and there is no access to areas that have come under Russian occupation. Those places include the port city of Mariupol, where thousands are estimated to have been killed during a weeks-long siege by Russian forces at the start of the war.Russia’s battlefield gains in Ukraine last year were also higher than in any other year except 2022, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War, as Moscow pressed its advantage against outgunned and overstretched Ukrainian troops. Source link
Executive Director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) Cindy McCain warned of a worsening global hunger crisis in 2026, stressing that more than 318 million people face acute levels of food insecurity. According to the UN News Centre, McCain said that the WFP cannot end hunger on its own, noting that today’s crises require “swift, strategic and decisive action.” The UN official called on world leaders to take urgent action to end human-made famines, increase humanitarian funding, and address the conflicts that are at the heart of escalating hunger around the world. “Barely two weeks into the new year the world is already confronting the risk of a dangerous and deepening global hunger crisis”, she stressed. “WFP’s resolve remains unshaken. We will seize every opportunity to rally the support and resources needed to reach those who depend on us for their survival”, McCain added. Source link
Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner for Defence and Space. The European Union can help provide security for Greenland, should Denmark request it, the European Commissioner for Defence and Space said Monday, warning that a US military takeover of Greenland would be the end of NATO.Trump has said the United States must own Greenland, an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, to prevent Russia or China occupying the strategically located and minerals-rich Arctic territory. He says a US military presence there is not enough.Denmark and the US, both NATO members, are scheduled to meet this week to discuss Greenland. Greenland and Denmark have said that Greenland is not for sale, but Trump has not ruled out taking it by force.”I agree with the Danish prime minister that it will be the end of NATO, but also among people it will be also very, very negative,” Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told Reuters at a security conference in Sweden.He said it would have a “very deep negative impact among the people and on our transatlantic relations”.Trump said “I’m the one who SAVED NATO!!!” on Truth Social Monday, without giving further details or context.Kubilius said he did not think a US military invasion was coming but that the European Union Treaty article 42.7 obliged member states to come to Denmark’s assistance if it was faced with military aggression.”It will depend on very much on Denmark, how they will react, what will be their position, but definitely there is such an obligation of member states to come for mutual assistance if another member state is facing military aggression,” he said.Kubilius questioned the rationale of occupying Greenland by force and warned that it would have impacts on all aspects of the relations between Europe and the United States.”Who will recognise that occupation and what impacts on all the relationship in between of the United States and Europe, including, for example, trade, where also Americans can face quite painful negative consequences,” he said.Kubilius said the EU could provide more security for Greenland, if Denmark requested it, including troops and military infrastructure such as warships and anti-drone capabilities.”That’s for military people to say what Greenland or the Arctic defence needs. Everything is possible,” he said.Kubilius also said Europe needed to build up its military capabilities, regardless of whether they could rely on US help – but that any US withdrawal from NATO would be very tough.”It will be a very big challenge to be ready to defend Europe, being independent, being without the United States,” he said.”The question would be how we can use in that case NATO structures, how they can be, you know, become a basis for European pillar of NATO. But NATO such as it is now definitely will not exist anymore.”Trump said last week the US would always support NATO and that Russia and China only feared the alliance as long as the United States was a member.Many NATO countries have substantially increased military spending in recent years, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and demands by Trump for European allies to invest more in their own defence. Related Story Source link
Kristersson: Sweden, the Nordic countries, the Baltic states, and several major European countries stand together with our Danish friends. Germany and Sweden have pushed back as US President Donald Trump again suggested using force to seize the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland.The US general who is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato)’s supreme commander in Europe said meanwhile that the military alliance was having “healthy” talks on Greenland’s importance.Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned the US’s “threatening rhetoric” after Trump repeated that Washington was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not”.”On the contrary, the United States should thank Denmark, which over the years has been a very loyal ally,” he said at a conference on Swedish defence. “Sweden, the Nordic countries, the Baltic states, and several major European countries stand together with our Danish friends.”Kristersson stressed that a US takeover of the mineral-rich Arctic territory would be “a violation of international law and risks encouraging other countries to act in exactly the same way”.”It is a dangerous path to take,” he added.Meanwhile, Germany reiterated its support for Denmark and Greenland ahead of meetings in Washington today.Before talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadehpul was due to stop in Reykjavik to address the “strategic challenges of the Far North”, according to the foreign ministry statement.”The legitimate interests of all Nato allies, as well as those of the inhabitants of the (Arctic) region, must be at the centre of our discussions,” Wadehpul said in the statement.”It is clear that it is exclusively up to Greenland and Denmark to decide questions of Greenland’s territory and sovereignty,” he previously told Germany’s *Bild daily.”We are strengthening security in the Arctic together, as Nato allies, and not against one another,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said ahead of a global summit on critical raw materials in Washington.European capitals have scrambled to co-ordinate a response after the White House said this week that Trump wanted to buy Greenland and refused to rule out military action.Trump says controlling the island is crucial for US national security given the rising military activity of Russia and China in the Arctic.Nato Supreme Allied Commander General Alexus Grynkewich told the Swedish defence conference that alliance members were having talks on Greenland’s future.The US general added that while there was “no immediate threat” to Nato territory, the Arctic’s strategic importance is fast growing.Grynkewich said he would not comment on “the political dimensions of recent rhetoric” but that the 32 member alliance was holding talks on Greenland within its North Atlantic Council.”Those dialogues continue in Brussels. They have been healthy dialogues from what I’ve heard,” the general said. “Members of the alliance, who have worked together for so many years, are talking together and working through these thorny issues.”A Danish colony until 1953, Greenland gained home rule 26 years later and is contemplating eventually loosening its ties with Denmark.The vast majority of its population and political parties have said that they do not want to be under US control and insist Greenlanders must decide their future.”I don’t think there’s an immediate threat to Nato territory right now,” Grynkewich told the defence conference.However, he said Russian and Chinese vessels had been seen patrolling together on Russia’s northern coast and near Alaska and Canada, seeking to work together to get greater access to the Arctic as ice recedes from global warming.Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported Sunday that Nordic diplomats rejected Trump’s claims of Russian and Chinese vessels operating near Greenland.There have been no signs of Russian or Chinese ships or submarines around Greenland in recent years, the *FT said, citing two senior Nordic diplomats with access to Nato intelligence briefings.Reuters could not immediately verify the report.The White House and Nato did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.”It is simply not true that the Chinese and Russians are there. I have seen the intelligence. There are no ships, no submarines,” the *FT quoted one senior diplomat as saying.Another Nordic diplomat said claims that waters around Greenland were “crawling” with Russian and Chinese vessels were unfounded, adding that such activity was on the Russian side of the Arctic.Trump has repeatedly said Russian and Chinese vessels are operating near Greenland, a claim Denmark disputes.He has not provided evidence to support it.Vessel tracking data from MarineTraffic and LSEG show no Chinese or Russian ship presence near Greenland. Related Story Source link
Greenland’s parliament will bring forward a meeting to discuss its response to US threats to take control of the Arctic island, the leaders of the five political parties in the Greenlandic assembly said in a joint statement.President Donald Trump has said that the United States must own Greenland, an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, to prevent Russia or China occupying the strategically located and minerals-rich territory in the future.Both Russia and China have increased military activity in the region in recent years, but neither has laid any claim to the vast icy island.”We emphasise once again our desire for the US contempt for our country to end,” the leaders of all five political parties elected to Greenland’s parliament said in their joint statement late on Friday.”We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” they said in the statement, posted on social media by Greenland’s premier, Jens-Frederik Nielsen.A meeting of Greenland’s parliament, the Inatsisartut, will be brought forward to ensure that a fair and comprehensive political debate takes place and that the people’s rights are secured, the leaders said.The date of the meeting has not yet been determined.Greenland’s parliament last met in November and had been scheduled to meet again on February 3, according to its website.Trump said on Friday that he would “do something on Greenland whether they like it or not” and that the US military presence in the island under a 1951 agreement with fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) member Denmark is not enough to guarantee the island’s defence.Trump’s renewed push for Greenland, after US military intervention in Venezuela, worries many of the island’s 57,000 inhabitants, whose widely held goal is to eventually become an independent nation.A 2009 agreement between Greenland and Denmark explicitly recognised Greenlanders’ right to independence if they choose, but while all five parties say they want independence, they differ on how and when to achieve it.”We must decide the future of our country ourselves, without pressure for a quick decision, delay or interference from other countries,” the party leaders said, adding that they sought dialogue based on diplomacy and international principles.Julius Nielsen, a 48-year-old fisherman in the capital Nuuk, told AFP: “American? No! We were a colony for so many years. We’re not ready to be a colony again, to be colonised.”A Danish colony until 1953, Greenland gained home rule 26 years later and is contemplating eventually loosening its ties with Denmark.Many Greenlanders remain cautious about making this a reality.”I really like the idea of us being independent, but I think we should wait. Not for now. Not today,” Pitsi Mari, who works in telecoms, told AFP.”I feel like the United States’ interference disrupts all relationships and trust” between Denmark and Greenland, said Inaluk Pedersen, a 21-year-old shop assistant.The coalition currently in power is not in favour of a hasty independence.The only opposition party, Naleraq, which won 24.5% of the vote in the 2025 legislative elections, wants to cut ties as quickly as possible but it is also a signatory of the joint declaration.”It’s time for us to start preparing for the independence we have fought for over so many years,” said MP Juno Berthelsen in a Facebook post.According to a poll published Saturday by Danish agency Ritzau, more than 38% of Danes think the United States will launch an invasion of Greenland under the Trump administration.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an invasion of Greenland would end “everything”, meaning the transatlantic Nato defence pact and the post-World War II security structure.Trump has made light of the concerns of Denmark, a steadfast US ally that joined the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”I’m a fan of Denmark, too, I have to tell you. And you know, they’ve been very nice to me,” Trump said. “But you know, the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean that they own the land.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due to meet next week with Denmark’s foreign minister and representatives from Greenland.A flurry of diplomacy is under way as Europeans try to head off a crisis while at the same time avoiding the wrath of Trump, who is nearing the end of his first year back in power.Trump had offered to buy Greenland in 2019 during his first presidential term but was rebuffed.The head of Nato’s forces in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich, said on Friday that the military alliance was far from being in “a crisis”, following Trump’s threats to bring Greenland under US control.”There’s been no impact on my work at the military level up to this point… I would just say that we’re ready to defend every inch of alliance territory still today,” Grynkewich said. “So I see us as far from being in a crisis right now.” Related Story Source link