Author: Sevil Hazan

The first to come up with the idea was French President Emmanuel Macron – long before it was clear that Donald Trump would win the US elections. As early as March 2023, he proposed not only new weapons, but ground troops in the Ukraine to send. They were supposed to relieve Ukrainian front troops in the hinterland, train the Ukrainian army on site, but not fight themselves. Macron has been heavily criticized for this in France and abroad. At that time nobody was ready to jump to his side. Now against it, reports Le Monde citing confidential sources, secretly negotiated Paris and London through a coalition of states…

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies on Saturday repeated a pledge to keep “imposing severe costs on Russia” for its invasion of Ukraine. In a statement marking 1,000 days since the Kremlin launched its assault on its neighbor, they said they would maintain sanctions, export controls and other “effective measures” targeting Moscow. What else did the statement say? The leaders said they stood together in helping Ukraine “fight for sovereignty, freedom, independence, territorial integrity and its reconstruction.” The statement said they also recognized that Russia’s actions had an impact “on vulnerable people across the world.” The Russian…

Evidence from the European Parliament’s graft investigation provides a record of more than 300 alleged attempts to manipulate EU democracy. Call them the Qatargate annual reports. A vast cache of leaked documents from the police investigation into the biggest corruption case to hit the EU in decades — seen by POLITICO — uncovers the full extent of the European Parliament’s money- Over four years the files suggest that key suspects, including former Member of the European Parliament Pier Antonio Panzeri and his aide Francesco Giorgi, meticulously recorded alleged attempts to manipulate the Parliament, the EU’s foremost democratic body, and wider…

Casablanca (14/11 – 50). In a recent scan of the local left-wing press, an unsettling trend of pseudo-journalism was uncovered, aimed at manufacturing a scandal using the typical playbook of disinformation. The target? A concoction of conspiracy-laden narrative that blends elements of real-world controversies, celebrity gossip, geopolitical issues, and unfounded claims—essentially, an elaborate form of astro-turfing designed to mislead and create fake influence. At the heart of this questionable journalism is Philippe Engels, a reporter who seems to have drawn inspiration from various disjointed and unrelated stories. The method is familiar: take an American scandal, such as Scientology, mix it…

With its thousands of islands and islets grouped into archipelagos, Greece is home to some uniquely beautiful destinations. For a week’s getaway or longer, here is our list of the most beautiful Greek islands by archipelago, from the classics of Santorini and Mykonos in the Cyclades to Rhodes and Patmos in the Dodecanese. The Saronic Islands, the archipelago at the doors of Athens Located in the Aegean Sea, between Attica and the Peloponnese, the Saronic Islands are closest to Athens: the nearest is less than 40 minutes from Piraeus by hydrofoil, the furthest 2h30 at most. Hydra, the elegant, arty…

Europe’s new “Iron Lady”, Estonia’s Kaja Kallas, is one of the strongest voices for an uncompromising stand against belligerent Russia. Brussels (30 June – 28). Having grown up under the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Kaja Kallas was urging EU leaders to take the Russian threat seriously long before the invasion of Ukraine On Saturday, the Reform Party chose climate minister Kristen Michal to replace outgoing Kaja Kallas, who is the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The unanimous decision to nominate Michal was made following a closed-door meeting by the party’s governing board only two days after…

Moscow 22/5 (57.14) According to NATO’s top military official, Russia does not have enough troops to make a significant advance in the north-east of Ukraine. “The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters last week. “They don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said. According to earlier statements by Putin, Russia’s intention is not to take the city of Kharkiv, but rather to create a security zone, a sanitary…

Turkish President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on May 3 stated that he was content with the visit of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel and said that he would pay a return visit as soon as possible. In his remarks after the Friday prayers, Erdoğan referred to his meeting with a main opposition leader after eight years and said that it was a positive development between the government and the main opposition that Özel made such a visit after he became the CHP’s chair. Pointing out that such steps were…

Jake Paul and Mike Tyson have been encouraged to cancel their ‘mismatch’ showdown. ‘Iron Mike’ is set to step back in the ring aged 58 to take on YouTube star Jake Paul in a blockbuster summer fight, a fight which has seen him given medical warnings given their 31-year age difference. Tyson has been documenting his training in footage posted to social media, with some fans surprisingly impressed by his punch power and suggesting he will beat Paul. And his new footage crushing the pads with trainer Rafael Cordeiro, has been met by new pleas from fans for Paul to abandon the fight…

Polls show that a large percentage of Israeli citizens have lost faith in the future of their nation Major General (Reserve) in the Israeli Army, and former ombudsman for the occupation forces, Yitzhak Brick, has sounded an alarm over the growing inefficacy of the country’s army to win a possible war. Warning that the Israeli occupation forces have turned into an “air force army,” Brick criticized the leadership in Tel Aviv for their “sensitivity” towards human losses on the ground. “Whoever wants to completely avoid losing on the battlefield, completely loses the deterrence of the army and the ability to…