Chaos on the streets of France as ‘900k’ refuse to go to work | World | News– www.express.co.uk Source Link Excerpt:
France has been rocked by day of chaos and disruption, with hundreds of thousands of people joining a nationwide strike. Trade unions in the country called for a day of protests against budget cuts, as France continues to be plagued by political turmoil.
Between 600,000 and 900,000 people are thought to have attended the anti-government demonstrations, according to France’s Interior Ministry. Officials said they deployed 80,000 police officers across the country in response to the protests. Police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Lyon and Nantes, as tensions reached boiling point.
Roads and streets have reportedly been blocked by protesters in other major cities across France.
Major disruptions to public transport have been reported, with many metro lines in Paris said to be closed.
Students also gathered in front of their schools and universities in the capital and beyond, chanting slogans and blocking entrances. Around a third of teachers joined their students in taking strike action, boycotting classes.
Trump says Putin has “really let me down,” as he wraps up historic second state visit to U.K.– www.cbsnews.com Source Link Excerpt:
U.S. companies will be investing 150 billion pounds, the equivalent of over $200 billion, in the U.K. as part of a landmark package announced this week.
“I promised that my government would deliver jobs, growth and opportunity for working people. Today we have secured a historic £150bn of investment commitments from US companies into the UK. Creating 7,600 high quality jobs and driving growth across the country,” Starmer said in a social media post Thursday morning before he welcomed President Trump to his country house, Chequers.
The deal includes the equivalent of over $136 billion in investment in the U.K. from Blackstone over the next decade, according to the British government. It also includes investments from Prologis, Palantir, Amentum, Boeing and STAX.
Russia-backed network behind detonating parcels in Europe, Lithuania says– www.euronews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Fifteen people have been charged over an alleged Russia-backed operation that planned arson attacks across Europe through courier services, Lithuanian prosecutors have said.
In a statement on Wednesday, Lithuania’s prosecutor general’s office in Vilnius said investigations had revealed that suspects with ties to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, had led the operations.
The suspects included citizens from Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine.
The network is believed to have hidden home-made explosive devices, containing the highly flammable substance thermite, inside massage pillows and tubes of cosmetics.
Some of these incendiary devices exploded last year in the UK, Germany and Poland while being transported by the courier services DHL and DPD.
Four packages were posted on 19 July 2024 by a member of the network, prosecutors say.
Ukraine expects €2.9bn fund for US weapons to fight Russia, Zelenskyy says– www.euronews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Ukraine expects to have around $3.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in a fund by next month to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its war effort against Russia’s full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.
The financial arrangement known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) pools contributions from NATO members, with the exception of the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.
“We received more than $2 billion from our partners specifically for the PURL program,” Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with visiting European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
“We will receive additional money in October. I think we will have somewhere around $3.5-3.6 billion.”
Zelenskyy declined to provide details of what weapons the first shipments would include, but said that they would definitely contain missiles for Patriot air defence missile systems and munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
The Russian Camp Where Abducted Ukrainian Children Reportedly Made Drones– www.rferl.org Source Link Excerpt:
Evidence has been found for the first time that abducted Ukrainian children were used by Russia to assemble military equipment, according to the head of a Yale University team investigating the fate of nearly 20,000 minors reported to have been kidnapped or forcibly displaced.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen any such description of children involved in making devices for military operations,” Nathaniel Raymond, head of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, told RFE/RL.
Raymond said his team had seen Russian government documents which detailed how children aged 13-17 were given a class on assembling drones and other military equipment in April last year.
The incident, mentioned in a new report by Raymond’s team, took place at a beachside camp on the Black Sea called Change.
French unions strike against austerity, pressuring Macron – Reuters– news.google.com Source Link Excerpt:
Hundreds of thousands took part in anti-austerity protests across France on Thursday, urging President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to acknowledge their anger and scrap looming budget cuts.
Teachers, train drivers, pharmacists and hospital staff were among those who went on strike as part of the day of protests, while teenagers blocked dozens of high schools for hours.
Sweden raises defence budget by 18% for 2026– www.army-technology.com Source Link Excerpt:
The Swedish Government has unveiled plans to significantly increase its defence budget in the 2026 budget bill, allocating an additional Skr26.6bn ($2.87bn).
This funding surge represents an 18% hike from 2025. It is the largest boost to the nation’s defence capabilities since the Cold War era, the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said…
Projections based on current gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts and the proposed allocations in the Budget Bill indicate that defence spending will rise to 2.8% of GDP in 2026, aligning with NATO’s benchmark.
By 2028, this figure is expected to reach 3.1% of GDP.
Ukraine may soon add warheads, interceptor drones to digital marketplace– www.army-technology.com Source Link Excerpt:
Arsen Zhumadilov, director of Ukraine’s Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), revealed that the Ministry of Defence plan to introduce a new range of systems to the Ukrainian military’s digital marketplace, the DOT-Chain Defence platform, in 2026.
Last week, during DSEI 2025 in London, Zhumadilov revealed that the online marketplace may soon offer interceptor drones and warheads to Ukrainian military units for the first time.
What is the DOT-Chain Defence digital platform?
DOT-Chain Defence was launched in pilot mode only two months ago. Access to the IT system has only been granted to 12 brigades (deployed in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions) out of more than a hundred.
Commanders can independently select and acquire systems using funds from the DPA.
The platform operates much like an online store but instead of civilian commodities it offers a range of weapons systems. Initially, DPA focused on supplying first-person view (FPV) uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), but this soon expanded to include other autonomous systems and radio electronic warfare (EW) devices. Currently, the marketplace offers products from 25 companies.
Putin responsible for murder? Navalny’s wife claims he was ‘poisoned’ in prison; demands laboratory report to be made public– timesofindia.indiatimes.com Source Link Excerpt:
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny‘s wife claimed that independent lab tests on biological samples secretly taken abroad indicate he was poisoned while incarcerated in an Arctic prison in February 2024. Navalny, who was President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, died under mysterious circumstances died under mysterious circumstances while serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as political retribution, AFP reported. In a video statement, Yulia Navalnaya said laboratories in two countries had concluded he was “killed, specifically poisoned,” but withheld details about the substance or the labs involved, urging them instead to release their findings independently.She said his allies “were able to obtain and securely transfer biological samples of Alexei abroad”.”Laboratories in two countries came to the conclusion that Alexei was killed. Specifically: poisoned,” she said in a video posted on social media.“I demand that the laboratories that conducted the analyses publish their results,” she said. “I assert that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the murder of my husband, Alexei Navalny,” she said in the video. “Stop appeasing Putin for some higher ‘considerations’.
Putin spokesman makes chilling WW3 comments as NATO ‘at war with Russia’– www.mirror.co.uk Source Link Excerpt:
NATO countries are “at war with Russia” over Ukraine, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
“NATO is at war with Russia,” Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Monday. “This is obvious, and it does not require any additional evidence. NATO provides direct and indirect support to the Kyiv regime.” Peskov’s comments reiterated a familiar Kremlin narrative that Western backing of Ukraine amounts to active participation in the conflict.
Tensions soared last week between NATO’s Eastern European allies and Russia. A total of 19 Russian drones flew over Poland overnight on Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, adding that at least three were shot down by Polish and NATO aircraft.
“This situation brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two,” Tusk warned. The incident marked the first time Russian drones were downed over NATO territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
In response to the incursion, Warsaw invoked NATO’s Article 4 on Thursday, which calls for discussions among allies over threats to territorial security. This is a step short of Article 5, which requires collective military defence from allies if a member state is attacked. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski described the drone attacks as a test of the alliance’s resolve by Russia.
Spain’s Supreme Court Moves Closer to Indicting Ruling Socialist Party – The European Conservative Source Link Excerpt:
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), currently leading the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, is facing its most serious judicial threat in decades. According to judicial and police sources, Spain’s Supreme Court now has sufficient “indications” to indict the party itself on charges of illegal financing.
The move would mark an unprecedented escalation in the so-called ‘Koldo case’, a corruption scandal that has already implicated several senior Socialist figures. The investigation is being led by Supreme Court justice Leopoldo Puente, who handles a sealed case concerning an alleged criminal organization tied to two former Organization Secretaries of the PSOE: José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán.
The scandal led to the preventive detention of Santos Cerdán, one of Sánchez’s closest allies until just months ago. Judicial documents describe a “multi-million-euro loot” managed by companies and intermediaries.
Investigators point to two key sources of evidence: documentation seized in police raids on Spanish construction companies earlier this year, and irregular expenses and donations linked to Ábalos and Cerdán during their time running the party’s powerful organizational machinery.
According to the Guardia Civil’s Central Operative Unit (UCO), donations allegedly linked to kickbacks from public contracts may have been funneled into the PSOE’s accounts. Since 2014, the Supreme Court has demanded detailed financial records from the party, including membership fees, voluntary contributions, and payments.
Drone neutralised flying over government buildings in Warsaw, PM Donald Tusk says– www.euronews.com Source Link Excerpt:
Poland’s State Protection Service (SOP) has neutralised a drone flying that was flying over sensitive government locations in Warsaw, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a post on X.
Two Belarusian citizens were detained in connection with the incident and police have launched an investigation into the incident, Tusk said.
The incident comes at a time of heightened regional tensions following a string of airspace violations.
Poland says its airspace was violated in the early hours of Wednesday by a record 19 drones, believed to be from Russia.
In response, the Armed Forces of Ukraine said it would send a team to Poland to provide anti-drone training.
The Polish government has traditionally been a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s war effort.
Total support to Ukraine from Warsaw totals approximately €3.3 billion, in both military and humanitarian assistance.
Spanish government calls for sports ban on Israel, threatens to boycott Eurovision– www.france24.com Source Link Excerpt:
PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, September 16: We look at reactions from the Spanish press after the government calls for a sports and Eurovision boycott of Israel. Also, it’s been three years since Mahsa Amini died at the hands of Iran’s morality police – what has changed in the country? Plus: Armand Duplantis is celebrated for his new world record. Finally, in Britain, locals band together and save the world’s smallest theatre from demolition.
EU Delays New Sanctions on Russia – Politico– www.themoscowtimes.com Source Link Excerpt:
The European Union has indefinitely postponed the adoption of its 19th sanctions package against Russia, Politico reported on Tuesday, citing officials familiar with the decision.
European capitals were informed of the delay on Monday afternoon, though it remains unclear when the package might be finalized or what prompted the holdup. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had said that the bloc’s latest measures “should be ready” by the end of the month.
Some member states have pushed for the new sanctions to include tighter restrictions on visas for Russian citizens. Visa issuance currently falls under the authority of individual countries, leading to wide variation. Poland and the Netherlands, for example, stopped issuing tourist visas to Russians after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while Spain and Slovakia recently reopened application centers in Moscow.
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Putin crony threatens full scale war if NATO shoots down Russian drones– www.mirror.co.uk Source Link Excerpt:
Russian officials appear to have been rattled by proposals for NATO to police the airspace above Ukraine, preventing Putin drones from flying into member state nations
Russia has threatened the West with WW3 if NATO shoots down its drones(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Vladimir Putin’s top crony has threatened full-scale war with NATO if the military organisation shoots down Russian drones – less than a week after one strayed into two member states’ airspace.
Spooked Russian officials have reacted with alarm to renewed proposals from Poland for the military pact to enforce a no-fly zone over parts of Ukraine after a drone strayed into the country last week. The major incursion, dubbed a test by Moscow of NATO’s resolve, sparked immediate World War Three fears, and pact members have spent days discussing a response.
Proposals for a no-fly zone and for an enhanced aerial presence in Ukraine have been branded a “provocative idea” by Putin’s attack dog, who sensationally warned of “a war between NATO and Russia“.
Poland pours cold water on ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine — RT World News– www.rt.com Source Link Excerpt:
There are “no volunteers” to fight Russia if the conflict reignites after a settlement, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said
Western ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine could end up being hollow, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has warned, arguing that Kiev’s backers have so far shown no willingness to go to war with Russia if the conflict flares up again after a potential ceasefire.
Western capitals have for months debated over the commitments that could accompany a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. According to media reports, leaders in France and the UK have floated proposals for a ‘reassurance force’ on the ground far from the front line, as well as aerial assets to help monitor the ceasefire.
A number of other EU states have pushed back against sending troops to Ukraine, proposing instead to focus on other types of support. US President Donald Trump has also ruled out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said America could contribute in other ways.
Britain’s Spirit of Freedom Is Dying – PJ Media– pjmedia.com Source Link Excerpt:
… British politics has gotten frustrating in recent years for true conservatives, and watching Britain slide into authoritarianism on free speech is something even a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile like me can’t support. And I’m not alone.
Last week, Lee Cohen wrote a column in The Spectator that resonated deeply with me:
Today, for the first time, I find Britain indefensible. The affection and historical respect remains. The confidence is gone.
Britain now prosecutes her own citizens, not for violence or treason, but for words. Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison for a tweet in the wake of the Southport murders last year. Her crime was expression, harsh perhaps, but still speech. This week, Graham Linehan, the award‑winning creator of Father Ted, was arrested at Heathrow Airport by armed officers for online comments defending women’s spaces. Arrested, by police carrying weapons, for his opinions. This is the country that gave the world John Stuart Mill.
“Such cases expose what Britain has become: a two‑tier system of justice. Those branded far‑right, nationalist, or ‘Islamophobic’ are persecuted with zeal,” Cohen added. “Those spreading incendiary rhetoric from Islamist or minority factions are, all too often, met with indulgence.”
French Government Collapses – Geller Report– gellerreport.com Source Link Excerpt:
Well deserved.
“Those who bless the Jews will be blessed and those who curse them will be cursed.”
French lawmakers voted to oust Prime Minister François Bayrou Monday, plunging the country into a new political crisis and leaving it without a government at a time of increasing economic strain and geopolitical tensions.
BREAKING – The French government collapses.
And now they are now demanding impeachment or resignation of Macron.
The entire country will be brought to a standstill in 2 days time as the people take to the streets to demand change.
France faces disruption as new PM starts job– www.yahoo.com Source Link Excerpt:
France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu was to take office on Wednesday facing a day of protests disrupting transport, education and other services in a show of grassroots anger against President Emmanuel Macron.
The protests, led by a loose left-wing collective called “Block Everything”, are a baptism of fire for Lecornu, 39, a close ally of Macron who has served the last three years as defence minister.
Demonstrators gathered across the country from the early hours, with 80,000 police deployed to keep the peace.
Groups of demonstrators, many masked, built barricades with dumpsters and pelted police with rubbish on the outskirts of Paris, according to AFP journalists.
In the southeastern city of Lyon, protesters blocked a highway running through the city and set bins on fire, while in the western city of Nantes police used teargas to disperse protesters.
Zelensky accuses Trump of ‘giving Putin what he wanted’ — RT World News– www.rt.com Source Link Excerpt:
US President Donald Trump handed Russian President Vladimir Putin a public relations victory during their one-on-one summit in Alaska last month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claimed.
Trump met with Putin on August 15 as part of efforts to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev. Although the meeting produced no breakthroughs, both sides described it as a positive step.
“It’s a pity that Ukraine was not there, because I think that President Trump gave Putin what he wanted,” Zelensky told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz in an interview aired on Sunday.
“He wanted very much to meet with President Trump, with the president of the United States. And I think that Putin got it. And, it’s a pity,” Zelensky added.
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin strikes kills child and hits Kyiv government building in massive drone attack– www.independent.co.uk Source Link Excerpt:
Hopes for peace talks wane as Russia strikes Kyiv
Sunday’s attack is the second mass Russian drone and missile attack to target Kyiv in the span of two weeks, as hopes for peace talks wane.
The attack comes after European leaders pressed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to work to end the war after 26 of Ukraine’s allies pledged to deploy troops as a “reassurance force” for the war-torn country once the fighting ends.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is ready to meet Putin to negotiate a peace agreement, and has urged U.S. President Donald Trump to put punishing sanctions on Russia to push it to end the war.
