As NATO races to supply Ukraine before Trump takes office, Europe is struggling to touch two percent of its GDP on defence expenditure while Russia plans to spend more than 32 percent of its national budget on its military.
Damage to submarine communication cables between new NATO members Finland and Sweden and their alliance partners Germany and Lithuania was likely sabotage, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday. “No one believes that these cables were cut by mistake,” Pistorius said in Brussels at an EU defence ministers meeting to discuss the different threats facing the European Union.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that the Bundeswehr needs around €58 billion ($63 billion) in 2025 to quickly close capability gaps. “As things stand, we will be allocated around €52 billion”, he said, adding, “That means we will be short of almost €6 billion next year.”
The Pentagon said last week the U.S. will indefinitely postpone a military exercise in Georgia ‘due to the Georgian government’s false accusations against the United States and other western entities, to pressure Georgia to open a second front against Russia to alleviate pressure on Ukraine, and of participating in two coup attempts against the ruling party.’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is resisting a possible Western expansion in military backing for Ukraine, saying on Sunday he does not favour allowing Kiev to use German weapons to hit targets in Russia as German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Saturday in Italy the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized democracies still have “a lot of work to do” on using interest generated from frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.
Norway, Spain and Ireland will recognize an independent Palestinian state, their leaders said in near simultaneous announcements on Wednesday, defying staunch opposition from Israel. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in Oslo he hoped other countries would join in the initiative, believing it will advance the prospects for peace after more than seven months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
This meeting is significant as Karim is the first envoy of a Muslim majority country to meet Modi and is also a sign of growing international recognition of the Gujarat chief minister’s influence on national issues in New Delhi, in this case the Land Boundary Agreement.
“The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement.
The first batch of Indians evacuated from the strife-torn north African nation of Libya will land here in a special Air India flight close to midnight Saturday, officials said, while three Indian warships set sail to Libya to help in the evacuation of the 18,000 Indians in the country.
US diplomats also feared that Chinese companies were selling materials to Iran that could be used to build nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday, citing secret US cables leaked by WikiLeaks.
