Europe Watch

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Starmer is taking the UK down a dark path.

The culture of death is taking hold of the United Kingdom.

A mere two days after the UK House of Commons voted to decriminalize late-term abortion ‘up to birth’, the Labour party of failing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has approved a bill legalizing assisted suicide.

Starmer was glad to vote for the bill, and – as proof of just how committed the UK has become to the culture of death – a good deal of Tories (including failed Globalist, former PM Rishi Sunak) and even Reform UK MPs also backed the bill.

The ‘Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill’ was approved in the House of Commons by 314 votes with 291 against, a majority of 23 (down from a majority of 55 in the last reading of the bill).

The Bill now goes to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, and if approved in the upper house it will ‘pave the way for assisted dying services to be introduced by the end of the decade’.

But there’s ongoing pushback from the right-thinking decent folk of Britain.

The Telegraph reported:

“Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: ‘This should not be treated as a conscience issue. It is assisting a person to kill themselves. We need political parties and leaders to rise up who will speak clearly on this point and refuse to implement a state suicide service’ […] Ross Hendy, CEO of the charity, CARE, described the result as ‘a blow to human dignity and people whose legitimate fears have been dismissed as irrelevant’.

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Activist group Palestine Action took credit for the startling break-in at Royal Air Force Brize Norton, posting footage online that shows alleged members of their organization spray painting the runway and the inside of jet engines.

“Flights depart daily from [RAF Brize Norton] to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. From Cyprus, British planes collect intelligence, refuel fighter jets and transport weapons to commit genocide in Gaza,” the group explained as their motivation.

FILE – A British Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft carrying members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade arrives at Brize Norton, England, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool, File)

“Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets,” a spokesman for the group said.

The scooter-riding vandals committed the crime without being detected and successfully fled the scene without arrest.

<b>Macron rejects Trump's plan for Greenland, proposal for Putin to mediate Israel-Iran crisis</b>- <i> www.cbc.ca</i>

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French President Emmanuel Macron, during a visit to Greenland to offer his support to the Arctic island, said on Sunday that Russia lacked the credibility to mediate the crisis between Israel and Iran, as U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested.

In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Trump said he was open to Russian President Vladimir Putin — whose forces invaded Ukraine in 2022 and who has resisted Trump’s attempts to broker a ceasefire with Kyiv — mediating between Israel and Iran. Macron said he rejected such an idea.

“I do not believe that Russia, which is now engaged in a high-intensity conflict and has decided not to respect the UN Charter for several years now, can be a mediator,” he said.

Macron also said France did not take part in any of Israel’s attacks against Iran.

The French leader was visiting Greenland — a self-governing part of Denmark with the right to declare independence that Trump has threatened to take over — ahead of a trip to Canada for the G7 leaders’ summit.

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Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on Kyiv in over three years of war and struck a maternity ward in the southern city of Odesa in attacks that killed at least three people, officials said on Tuesday.

The overnight strikes followed Russia’s biggest drone assault of the war on Ukraine on Monday and were part of intensified bombardments in what Moscow says is retaliation for attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russia.

The Russian attack also damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site located in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said.

“The enemy struck at the very heart of our identity again,” Tochytskyi wrote on Facebook about the site he called “the soul of all Ukraine”.

Loud explosions shook Kyiv and blasts and fires lit up the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving palls of heavy smoke over the city, Reuters witnesses said. Authorities deployed two firefighting helicopters to douse flames.

One person died in the attack on Kyiv, city authorities said.

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Russia claims its forces are now pushing into previously unoccupied regions of Ukraine, with Kyiv claiming the move is part of a wider plan to seize more than half the country by the end of 2026. On Monday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its 90th Tank Division had reached the western edge of Donetsk Oblast and begun advancing into neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk – a region not included in Moscow’s 2022 annexation claims.

If confirmed, the offensive would mark a major shift, extending Russia’s invasion into previously untouched territory. Kremlin officials said the move was part of the “new realities on the ground” – a phrase repeatedly used by former president Dmitry Medvedev to describe what Russia believes Ukraine must concede in any future peace talks. The announcement follows unverified reports that Russian troops have also entered Sumy Oblast, in Ukraine’s northeast.

Videos circulating online on Monday appeared to show Russian troops crossing into the Dnipropetrovsk region, although the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said it had not seen verifiable geolocation evidence to confirm the claims.

In a further development, Russian military bloggers reported that troops had reached the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk border near the village of Horikhove.

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At least 10 people are dead following a mass shooting at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school in Graz, Austria, according to state police.

Among the dead were eight students, one adult, and the suspected gunman in the deadliest mass shooting in Austria’s postwar history.

Mayor Elke Kahr called the shooting a “terrible tragedy” and Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said in a statement on X that it “has deeply shaken our entire country.” Stocker has cancelled all appointments today and is on his way to Graz.

Local media reported that 28 people injured in the attack are also being treated in hospital, according to the BBC.

Special forces were among those sent to the school after police received a phone call at 10 a.m. local time in Austria’s second largest city. The school has been evacuated and police wrote on X that everyone has been taken to a safe meeting point and the situation is “secured,” AP reported.

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Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian President Vladimir Putin faces criminal charges for the “unlawful deportation and transfer of children”.

That is the definition of the 2023 arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, the intergovernmental tribunal based in The Hague.

On June 2, as ceasefire talks rumbled on, Ukrainian diplomats handed their Russian counterparts a list of hundreds of children that they said were taken from Russia-occupied Ukrainian regions since 2022.

The return of these children “could become the first test of the sincerity of [Russia’s] intentions” to reach a peace settlement, Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, told media. “The ball is in Russia’s corner.”

But Ukraine claims the number of children taken by Russia is much higher. Kyiv has so far identified 19,546 children who it says were forcibly taken from Russia-occupied Ukrainian regions since 2022.

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RUSSIA’S ambassador to the UK has blamed Britain for Ukraine’s “historic” drone attack – and chillingly warned of World War Three.

Moscow diplomat Andrei Kelin said that Ukrainian attacks “are bringing the conflict to a different level of escalation”.

Over the weekend, Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Ukraine’s daring drone blitz on Russian airbases as one for the “history books”.

It marked Kyiv’s longest range operation of the conflict so far with at least 40 aircraft being attacked as part of the expert operation codenamed “Spiderweb”.

In an embarrassing result for a raging Vladimir Putin 34 per cent of his cruise missile carriers at the targeted airfields were blasted, Zelensky said.

A £260million AWACS aircraft and bombers capable of dropping nuclear weapons were also struck.

Ukraine said the sneak attack was worth $7bn (£5.2bn) in damage to Russia.

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Referring to the attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine‘s interior minister Ihor Klymenko said three emergency workers had been killed during the barrage.

Posting on X, he said: “This night, missiles and drones targeted civilian and critical infrastructure. Emergency services – the State Emergency Service and the police – responded to every call for help.

“Unfortunately, we have losses in the Ministry of Internal Affairs family again. In Kyiv, three State Emergency Service rescuers were killed while eliminating the consequences of enemy strikes. They worked under fire to help people.

“Another 9 emergency workers were injured. Some are serious, doctors are fighting for their lives. Also, 5 rescuers were injured while extinguishing a fire in the Ternopil region. All are receiving medical care. A low bow to our fallen heroes without weapons. Courageous, faithful to the Oath, dedicated to the cause of rescue. Speedy recovery to the wounded.”

Putting the death toll at one fewer than Mayor Vitali Klitschko, he added: “In total, 3 people died in Ukraine this night as a result of the Russian attack, about 40 more were inju

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Merz arrives at White House for high-stakes Oval Office talk with President Donald Trump in the same format as recent clashes with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.

Update 11:59 ET — Joke at Germany’s expense 

President Trump says he’s happy about Germany spending more on defence, but jokingly citing the Second World War says that while he wants Germany to re-arm, he doesn’t want it to re-arm too much. This gets a smile out of Merz.

Germany’s military spending, which has been rock-bottom for many years, has long been a matter of contention with President Trump, who wants Europe to take on more responsibility for its own defence. As Trump himself has expressed, the contradiction between Germany’s historically low military spending and its position of Europe’s greatest economy had been too much to bear.

Germany has launched an emergency spending package to boost its armed forces but this tranche of funding is only due to run to 2027.

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Vladimir Putin intends to retaliate “very strongly” against Ukraine for a surprise drone strike on Russian airfields over the weekend, a declaration that provoked alarm in Washington and abroad even as Trump touted his efforts to bring peace to the region.

The revelation came in a social media post shortly after Trump spoke with the Russian President for more than an hour by phone—a call he described as “a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace.” In his statement, Trump appeared to accept Putin’s warning at face value and offered no indication that he had urged restraint.

“President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to Ukraine’s surprise drone strike that targeted five Russian airbases and damaged or destroyed at least 41 military aircraft, including strategic bombers. The Ukrainian operation, which spanned five time zones and caused an estimated $7 billion in damage, marked one of Kyiv’s boldest assaults deep inside Russian territory since the war began more than three years ago.

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Rally is held as British PM Keir Starmer calls Israel’s actions ‘intolerable’, addressing lawmakers in Parliament.

Pro-Palestine campaigners have rallied against Israel’s punishing war on Gaza, gathering outside the British Parliament in London and demanding a full arms embargo and that hard-hitting sanctions be imposed on the Israeli government.

Wednesday’s march, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), came as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer took weekly questions from parliamentarians.

Thousands of protesters created a “Red Line for Palestine”, wearing red while encircling the building.

Starmer told Parliament that Israel’s actions in the besieged and bombarded enclave are “appalling” and “intolerable”.

“It is right to describe these days as dark,” Starmer said. “We have strongly opposed the expansion of Israeli military operations, and settler violence, and the blocking of humanitarian aid.”

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SIR Keir Starmer said Israel’s recent military action in Gaza was appalling — as he again called for a ceasefire.

The PM said Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach was counterproductive, as he hinted more sanctions would be imposed.

It came after at least 27 Palestinians were killed in shootings near Gaza’s food distribution centres.

Britain has already suspended talks with Israel over a free trade deal.

Three MPs raised the situation at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday.

Sir Keir said one MP was “absolutely right to describe these as dark days”.

And he went on: “Israel’s recent action is appalling and, in my view, counterproductive and intolerable.”

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The bloc’s members are concerned that the topic could lead to a public rift between the EU and US, the agency’s sources have said

NATO leaders convening for a key summit this month will deliberately avoid discussing membership for Ukraine, AFP reported on Wednesday, citing sources. The bloc’s members are reportedly wary of raising the issue due to fears it could exacerbate tensions between the EU and US.

Members of the US-led military bloc are highly likely to “steer clear of its previous strong statements that Ukraine is on course to join the alliance” when the summit takes place in The Hague in late June, the agency said.

One diplomatic source told AFP that the final declaration is expected to omit any mention of Ukrainian membership to maintain unity among member states. “There will be nothing on that,” a NATO diplomat said. “My expectation is we will be absolutely silent.”

US President Donald Trump has expressed firm opposition to Ukraine’s bid to join NATO. In February, he suggested that Ukraine “can forget about NATO,” adding that Kiev’s bid was “probably the reason the whole thing started,” referring to the conflict with Russia.

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Over the weekend, a conservative Polish historian named Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice opposition (and President Trump), narrowly won the Polish presidential election. For the European political establishment, Nawrocki’s victory was a catastrophe — a harbinger of right-wing fascism looming over the continent.

Why? Because Nawrocki campaigned against the mass immigration policy of Brussels while promoting conservative Catholic values and Polish nationalism. During his victory speech Sunday night, Nawrocki said, “My Poland is a Poland without illegal migrants. It is a Poland where, instead of integration centers, there are deportation centers for those who want to destroy our safety.”

It turns out, this sentiment is increasingly popular not just in Poland but all across Europe. Last week in Portugal, the right-wing populist Chega party overtook the center-left Socialist Party as the country’s main opposition. Six years ago, Chega had only a single seat in the Assembly of the Republic. It now has 60. In Germany, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is one of the most popular political parties in the country, yet Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified AfD a right-wing extremist group. Why? Because AfD opposes mass immigration and promotes German national identity. In France’s national elections last year, only a desperately cobbled-together coalition of left-wing parties prevented the right-wing National Rally (RN) and its allies from winning.

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The UK is pressing France to change how it polices small boat crossings, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said.

Her comment in the House of Commons on Monday came after more than 1,100 migrants reached the UK on Saturday — the highest number to have crossed the English Channel in a single day this year.

Cooper has faced criticism from opposition politicians, who say that criminal gangs are exploiting a loophole in French law that prevents the authorities there from intervening once migrants are afloat.

Conservative MP Chris Philp, who is the shadow home secretary, said the “French prevention rate on land is lamentably under 40%”.

“The French are not stopping these boats at sea, as the Belgians do,” Philps wrote on X.

Cooper said the UK government has urged the French authorities to allow police to intervene when migrants are in shallow waters.

“The French interior minister and the French cabinet have now agreed their rules need to change,” Cooper said in the House of Commons.