Interesting Global News

This community started as a way to share what I found interesting and help promote the instance. I had no expectations of it growing to the size it is right now. As a result, the basic rules of the community are no longer seem to be enough to keep up with the activity. I'm grateful to people who post, comment and have honest discussions, but lately more and more discussions are going off into off-topic and leads to personal attacks.

I am of a strong opinion that discussions and disagreements on the merit lead to real conversations and stronger positions. But, all of that is lost, when conversations devolve into ad hominem attacks.

Likewise, I believe in evaluating each individual article or source on its own merit. As a result, all sources are welcome here, and each of you can evaluate what do you think about it. Voting and commenting should be used to express those thoughts, not report button.

Lastly, misinformation. The whole concept of misinformation is impossible to enforce. I'm just a single person, who is not a subject expert in every single field. Use your brain and do your own research, verify information with multiple sources. If you find something that can lead to immediate danger, report and include as much information as possible so that it can be appropriately evaluated.

New rules

1. English only: Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. No social media posts: Avoid all social media posts. Try searching for a source that has a written article or transcription on the subject.
3. Respectful communication: All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity: Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks: Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents: Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply: If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.

Thank you everyone who participates, and I hope you continue participating in the future.

> Climate activists from Last Generation disrupted Munich airport by gluing themselves to a runway, leading to flight cancellations and delays over a busy weekend.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/OaVXl

> During a bombastic speech in Dallas, GOP frontrunner asks: ‘Are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?’

Archived version: https://archive.ph/lE9vW

> By using WhatsApp, people are risking their lives," one human rights advocate said.

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> Cast member of Palme d’Or contender shot in Kent says the high number of chaperones and intimacy coordinators on set was over the top

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> Milford Haven, Southampton and Immingham top the list for emissions of gases and particulates

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> Israeli planes and tanks pounded areas across the Gaza Strip overnight, residents said, as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan travelled to the region amid U.S. calls for a more focused military campaign.

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> ‘Heavy-handed’ crackdown ignores underlying reasons for failure to attend classes, say critics

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> Taliban says four arrested over attack at Bamiyan heritage site that killed three Spanish visitors and an Afghan

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> The biggest free-trade zone in the world will not come into being before the EU elections in early June. So what's holding it up? Will the agreement ever be finalized — and, if so, when?

Archived version: https://archive.ph/7PWjw

> French police trying to restore order in the island territory of New Caledonia after days of deadly unrest have cleared dozens of barricades that had been blocking the main road linking the airport to the capital, Noumea, a French official said on Sunday.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/MjB3s

> Gender stereotypes at home may hamper female students’ ability to progress in the classroom, research suggests

Archived version: https://archive.ph/YJ1RU

Rescuers are trying to locate the helicopter on which President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian were traveling, state media reported. Their status is unknown.

Estonian MPs passed a law that enables the use of Russian assets frozen under international sanctions to compensate Ukraine for war damages.

The president must now promulgate the legislation for it to enter into force.

It enables assets of individuals and companies that have contributed to Russia's wrongful acts, which have been frozen under sanctions, as an advance payment for damages owed by Russia to Ukraine.

To seize Russian assets, Estonia would need to receive a request, and the connection of their owner to illegal acts must be sufficiently proven. The asset owner can challenge their use for Ukraine in Estonian courts.

Estonia's move is seen as an important first step as the vast majority of Russia's frozen and largely euro-denominated sovereign assets, which are worth €300 billion, are located in Europe.

> Russia is increasingly using budget "glide bombs" to advance its offensive in Ukraine.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/JTqcW

Archived link

- A St Petersburg court seized more than EUR 463mn in assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit and EUR 238mn belonging to Germany's Deutsche Bank.

- The court also seized assets of Germany's Commerzbank, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

- The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.--

A St Petersburg court has seized over EUR700 mln worth of assets belonging to three western banks - UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank - according to court documents, the Financial Times and Reuters reported Saturday.

The seizure marks one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted most international lenders to wind down their businesses in Russia.

The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.

The court seized EUR463mn-worth of assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank's main Russian subsidiary.

The frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.

According to another decision on the same date, the court seized EUR238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank's assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia.

The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was "taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia".

On Friday, the court decided to seize Commerzbank assets, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

The dispute with the western banks began in August 2023 when Ruskhimalliance went to an arbitration court in St Petersburg demanding they pay bank guarantees under a contract with the German engineering company Linde. The banks were among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with Germany's Linde which was terminated due to Western sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance is the operator of a gas processing plant and production facilities for liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. In July 2021, it signed a contract with Linde for the design, supply of equipment and construction of the complex. A year later, Linde suspended work owing to EU sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance then turned to the guarantor banks, which refused to fulfil their obligations because "the payment to the Russian company could violate European sanctions", the company said in the court filing.

The list of guarantors also includes Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, against which Ruskhimalliance has also filed lawsuits in the St Petersburg court.

UniCredit said it had been made aware of the filing and "only assets commensurate with the case would be in scope of the interim measure".

Deutsche Bank said it was "fully protected by an indemnification from a client" and had taken a provision of about EUR260mn alongside a "corresponding reimbursement asset" in its accounts to cover the Russian lawsuit.

Commerzbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Italy's foreign minister has called a meeting on Monday to discuss the seizures affecting UniCredit, two people with knowledge of the plans told the Financial Times.

UniCredit is one of the largest European lenders in Russia [it is the second largest Western bank in Russia after Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International], employing more than 3,000 people through its subsidiary there. This month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of EUR213mn in the first quarter, up from EUR99mn a year earlier. It has set aside more than EUR800mn in provisions and has significantly cut back its loan portfolio.

Legal challenges over assets held by western banks have complicated their efforts to extricate themselves. Last month, a Russian court ordered the seizure of more than $400mn of funds from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) following a legal challenge by Kremlin-run lender VTB. A court subsequently cancelled part of the planned seizure, Reuters reported.

> Finland will propose a law next week allowing border agents to block asylum seekers trying to enter from Russia, the prime minister said on Sunday, a decision that could cause Helsinki to temporarily breach its international commitments.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/sfbme

> From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/xxSIr

> Initial reports indicate that a helicopter carrying the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi faced a rough landing, Iranian state TV said on Sunday, adding that rescue teams are on their way to the site.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/VhNWM

> Anthony Olubunmi George, 61, has been refused leave to remain despite living most of his adult life in Britain

Archived version: https://archive.ph/IBWlL

> A controversial mobilisation law took effect on Saturday as Kyiv struggles to recruit troops amid a new Russian offensive threatening Kharkiv, the second-largest city.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/cDlsX

> Hungarian police called to scene of accident on shore of the River Danube near Verőce

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> Severe flooding caused by heavy rainfall has inundated Voeren and Liège in Belgium, as well as parts of France and Germany.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/qIrTf

> A British court could give a final decision on Monday on whether WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States over the mass leak of secret U.S. documents, the culmination of 13 years of legal battles and detentions.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/oXXXa

When Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's President who soon leaves office after eight years and hands over to her successor William Lai, swept to power in 2016, she was dismissed as a dull bureaucrat. But she stood up to an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping; she held on to a vital US alliance under Donald Trump and buttressed it under Joe Biden. At home, she expanded the island’s defence and legalised same-sex marriage, the latter a first for Asia.

Good examples of the brand Taiwan – a democracy that the world should care about losing. “People say we are more important than Ukraine - strategically our position is more important and our place in the supply chain - and that they should shift support to Taiwan. We say no. The democratic countries need to support Ukraine,” Tsai says.

Rather than Taiwan’s wildly successful chip industry, which could be replicated, instead Tsai wields the one thing she has and the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t: the soft power of democracy. --

It is a well-known fact that the diminutive, soft-spoken president of Taiwan does not like doing interviews.

It’s taken months of quiet negotiations to sit down at Tsai Ing-wen’s dining table in her Taipei residence, not long before she leaves office after eight years and hands over to her successor William Lai.

Even so, the president seems keener to ask about me than talk about herself. She is certainly more comfortable showing us her cats and dogs than answering questions in front of a rolling camera.

“That’s Xiang Xiang,” she says, pointing to the large, grey tabby eyeing me suspiciously through the open doorway. “Would you like to meet her?”

When Tsai Ing-wen swept to power in 2016, she was dismissed as a dull bureaucrat and ridiculed as a “cat lady” - a swipe at her for being middle-aged and unmarried. She embraced the image, appearing on magazine covers holding Xiang Xiang in her arms. Soon, her supporters adopted a new sobriquet: Taiwan’s Iron Cat Lady.

Tsai admits to a sneaking admiration for Margaret Thatcher, although she’s quick to add it’s because of her toughness as a female leader, not her social policies.

In Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan found an unlikely champion. During her two terms, she carefully yet confidently reset the relationship with Beijing, which has claimed the independently governed island as its own for 75 years.

She stood up to an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping; she held on to a vital US alliance under Donald Trump and buttressed it under Joe Biden. At home, she expanded the island’s defence and legalised same-sex marriage, the latter a first for Asia.

While Tsai shied away from the spotlight in Taiwan’s boisterous politics, Xiang Xiang became a celebrity. She played a starring role in Tsai's 2020 re-election campaign, along with the president’s other cat, a ginger tom called Ah Tsai.

Tsai has her detractors. Beijing is no fan, and neither are the many older Taiwanese, who want better relations with China, where they have family and business interests. Domestically, she has been criticised for not doing enough for the economy – the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing and a lack of jobs cost her party young voters in January's election.

And her biggest critics fear that she has made the island of 23 million more, rather than less, unsafe.

Put crudely, this is what any Taiwan leader faces: a much bigger, wealthier, and stronger neighbour, who says he owns your house, is willing to let you hand it over without a fight, but is ready to use force if you refuse. What do you do?

Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, chose conciliation and a Beijing-friendly trade deal.

But he miscalculated how young Taiwanese would react to what they saw as appeasement. In 2014, thousands took to the streets in what became known as the Sunflower Movement. When President Ma refused to back down, they occupied parliament.

Two years later Tsai Ing-wen was elected on a very different calculus: that the only language Beijing understands is strength.

Now, as she prepares to step down, she says she has been vindicated: “China has become so aggressive and assertive.”

Dear Beijing - back off

“Wow, you’re really tall,” the president exclaims, craning her neck at a lanky, young soldier standing stiffly to attention.

He tells her he is 185cm and she asks, with genuine concern, “Are the beds here big enough for you?” They are, he reassures her.

This was on a recent morning in April at a new special forces training centre on the outskirts of Taipei, which Tsai had just opened.

The relaxed and chatty president disappears when she enters the cavernous dining hall, where hundreds of crew-cut recruits stand to attention and shouted “Zong Tong Hao!”, or “Hello, President!”

She almost looks out of place in these settings. Her speech is worthy and matter of fact, with no soaring rhetoric. And yet such visits are quite frequent, to make sure the military reforms she has pushed through are paying off.

One of the most difficult was a return to a year of military service for all men over the age of 18. While she admits it is not popular, she says the public accepts it is necessary: “But we have to make sure that their time spent in the military is worthwhile.”

For a former law professor and trade negotiator, Tsai has spent a surprisingly large amount of time as president donning camouflage fatigues. In one famous image she’s seen shouldering a rocket launcher. The reason: she believes Taiwan cannot hope to fend off Beijing without a modern, well-trained military in which young Taiwanese are proud to serve.

While China's threat of invasion is not new, it is only recently that President Xi Jinping has gained the military capability to mount what would still be a huge and risky operation. His threats have also become more urgent and ominous. He has said twice that a resolution over Taiwan cannot be passed down from one generation to another, which some have interpreted to mean that he wants it done in his lifetime.

On the other side of the strait, Tsai has set about rebuilding Taiwan’s outdated, demoralised and ill-equipped ground forces. It has been an uphill struggle, but results have begun to show. Yearly defence spending has risen significantly to about $20bn (£16bn).

“Our military capability is much strengthened compared to eight years ago. The investment we have put in to military capacity is unprecedented,” Tsai says.

I have spoken to many in Taiwan’s opposition who genuinely believe Tsai’s strategy of building up the military is naive, if not dangerous. They point to China’s powerful navy, the world’s largest, and more than two million active troops. Taiwan’s forces are not even a tenth of that.

To Tsai and her supporters that is missing the point. Taiwan is not trying to defeat a Chinese invasion, they say, but dramatically increasing its price to deter China.

“The cost of taking over Taiwan is going to be enormous,” Tsai says. “What we need to do is increase the cost.”

Tsai was no stranger to Beijing, or the Chinese Communist Party, when she became president. Her unorthodox rise to power began in the mid-1990s, when she cut her teeth as a trade negotiator. She then caught the eye of Chen Shui-bian, the first president from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). He appointed her to run Taiwan’s top body for dealing with China. There she rewrote the book on how Taiwan should handle Beijing.

She has long known where the red lines are - and she believes that to resist China, Taiwan needs allies: “So strengthening our military capacity is one and working with our friends in the region to form a collective deterrence is another.”

Many in Tsai’s party, the DPP, now talk of a new alliance that stretches from Japan and South Korea to the north, through the Philippines to Australia in the south – with the US as quarterback, holding the team together. But this is theoretical at best. There is no Asian Nato and Taiwan enjoys no formal military alliances. Despite mutual antipathy towards Beijing, Tokyo and Manila are both deeply reluctant to vow support for Taiwan. Even that most important ally, Washington, has stopped short of guaranteeing it would put boots on the ground.

But Tsai is optimistic. “A lot of other countries in the region are alert and some of them may have a conflict with China,” she says, referring to rival claims by Beijing, Tokyo and Manila over disputed waters and islands.

“So, China is not an issue for Taiwan only. It is an issue for the whole region.”

The power of soft power

Painting China as a big, bad bully is not hard for a Taiwan president. The trickier job is to find allies who would risk irking the world’s second largest economy.

And that’s why Taiwan leads such an increasingly lonely diplomatic existence. In the last decade China has put the squeeze on many of the island’s allies who still recognise it – only 12 remain now, most of them tiny Pacific Island and Caribbean micro-states.

Tsai believes the way out of this diplomatic isolation is to build alliances with what she calls “like-minded democracies”.

To that end she hosts dozens of parliamentary delegations from all over the world, a loophole for meeting foreign dignitaries from countries that don’t see Taiwan as one. Last month I attended Holocaust Memorial Day. There was music and poetry, and an impassioned speech to never forget by the representative from Germany.

There are also more unusual events. Earlier this week, while Xi Jinping was getting ready to welcome Vladimir Putin in Beijing, Tsai Ing-wen hosted a drag performance by Taiwanese-American Nymphia Ward. “This is probably the first presidential office in the world to host a drag show,” Nymphia reportedly told Tsai.

Both are examples of brand Taiwan – a democracy that the world should care about losing.

“People say we are more important than Ukraine - strategically our position is more important and our place in the supply chain - and that they should shift support to Taiwan. We say no. The democratic countries need to support Ukraine,” Tsai says.

Rather than Taiwan’s wildly successful chip industry, which could be replicated, instead Tsai wields the one thing she has and the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t: the soft power of democracy.

In the run up to January’s election, the rainbow flag was hard to miss at every DPP rally.

“In Taiwan we are free to live how we choose. We could not do this in China,” one couple told me.

It’s a remarkable change from when I was a student here more than 30 years ago. Taiwan was still emerging from four decades of military rule. I remember a gay friend desperately looking for a way to get to America. Back then, if you were found to be homosexual during your military service you could get thrown in jail or a psychiatric ward.

That changed but Tsai Ing-wen’s government went further than any in Asia when it pushed through legislation legalising same-sex marriage in 2019. A little over half the population still opposed it. Some, including church and family groups, ran a vociferous campaign against it. It was a big political risk, and one that could have cost her re-election.

Tsai calls it a “very difficult journey” but one she saw as necessary: “It's a test to society to see to what extent we can move forward with our values. I am actually rather proud that we managed to overcome our differences.”

Taiwan is still conservative and patriarchal. I ask Tsai if she’s worried it might return to being a “boys club” once she, the island’s first female president, steps down. “I have a lot of opinions about that boys club!” she says but does not elaborate.

The island’s strength, in her opinion, is its mixed heritage – it’s a society of immigrants.

The Chinese came in many waves, sometimes centuries apart, and they joined hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples.

“In… [such a] society, there are a lot of challenges,” Tsai says. “People are less bound by the traditions. The main goal is to survive [as a society]. This is why we have been able to move from an authoritarian age to democracy.”

And that is why she hopes Taiwan’s most important alliance – with the world’s most powerful country and democracy - will last no matter who makes it to the White House after November.

Best friends forever?

After Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016, Tsai Ing-wen rang to congratulate him – and she was put through. No US President since Jimmy Carter had taken a call from the president of Taiwan. Tsai has described the call as short but intimate, and wide-ranging.

The truth is Trump is a wild card for Taiwan. He’s criticised the island for “stealing America’s semiconductor industry”, but, as Tsai points out, he has also approved more arms shipments to Taipei than any of his predecessors. But she doesn’t want to discuss him, or the possibility of his return to the Oval Office.

What she does want to emphasise is the perception of a growing China threat.

“The rest of the world is telling China that you can't use military means [against Taiwan]. No unilateral action is allowed and no non-peaceful means is allowed and… I think China got the message,” she says.

That might be wishful thinking. There has been no noticeable decrease in military pressure. Rather, China regularly sends dozens of military aircraft and ships across the median line that divides the waters and airspace of the Taiwan strait. In 2022, Beijing declared that it no longer recognises what was effectively the border. The trigger was one of Tsai’s diplomatic coups.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit in 2022 was celebrated in a Taiwan starved of international recognition. But China was furious, firing ballistic missiles over the island, and into the Pacific Ocean, for the first time ever.

It was a warning. Even some inside Tsai’s own administration worried quietly that Pelosi’s visit had been a mistake.

“We’ve been isolated for such a long time,” she says. “You just can't say no to a visit like that of Speaker Pelosi. Of course it comes with risks.”

You can feel the tension in her voice. Her opponents say the Pelosi visit was reckless and left Taiwan more exposed. Even President Biden is thought to have opposed the trip.

But Tsai says this is the line Taiwan must walk.

“I had to turn a party of revolutionaries into a party of power,” Tsai Ing-wen says of her time at the DPP’s helm.

When she took over, she was an economics graduate leading a party of older, male radicals who had spent their early lives fighting for Taiwan independence – or behind bars for it.

There is no need for Taiwan to hold a referendum or declare independence, she says, because it is already an independent, sovereign nation.

“We are on our own. We make our own decisions; we have a political system to govern this place. We have a constitution, we have laws, we have a military. We think that we are a country, and we have all the elements of a state.”

What they are waiting for, she says, is for the world to recognise it.

> A tourist couple was injured in India's Kashmir after militants fired on them late on Saturday night, police said, ahead of voting scheduled in the volatile region for India's ongoing election.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/i1NkK

> Violence in New Caledonia turned deadly once again as clashes between protesters and security forces continue in the French Pacific territory.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/p1tqF

> Salome Zourabichvili's said a law that has sparked weeks of protests was "fundamentally Russian".

Archived version: https://archive.ph/CmwGc

Media is barred from hearing as 71-year-old man appears in closed session over attempted assassination of prime minister.

While the attack on PM Fico has sparked fears in other European capitals that similar incidents could occur there, some in Slovakia say they were anxious the attack would embolden the authorities to launch assaults on the media, civil society and the opposition parties.

Other European leaders close to Fico like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán have appeared to be eager to capitalise on his shooting, raising conspiracy theories. Fico is widely considered a divisive and populist official who has been criticised by the opposition for lashing out at independent media outlets and scrapping a special prosecutor’s office. --

The suspect in the shooting of Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico appeared in a closed court hearing on Saturday outside Bratislava amid growing fears about the future of the deeply divided nation.

The media was barred from the hearing, and reporters were kept behind a gate by armed police officers wearing balaclavas.

Fico, shot several times at point-blank range during a rally in the mining town of Handlová, had more surgery on Friday as the country reeled from the most serious attack on a European leader in decades.

The government has released only sparse details about the assailant or the health of the prime minister , who remains in a stable but serious condition.

Slovak media identified the attacker as Juraj Cintula, 71, who the authorities described as a “lone wolf” who had recently been radicalised.

A poet and former security guard, Cintula was known in his home town of Levice in provincial Slovakia as an eccentric but likable man.

His political views appear to have developed erratically. He is seen railing against violence in one YouTube clip, but later praising a violent pro-Russian paramilitary group on Facebook for their “ability to act without approval from the state”. He later adopted staunchly pro-Ukrainian views, which grew increasingly strong after Russia’s invasion.

In his published writing and personal conversations, Cintula expressed xenophobic views about the Romany community in Slovakia, a popular topic among the country’s far-right parties.

Neighbour and friend Mile L’udovit said the pair would occasionally discuss politics and that Cintula had been angry about the growing attacks on free speech under Fico’s leadership, a major topic of concern for the Slovakian leftwing opposition.

“No one knows why he did it, but I think it was a ticking timebomb before something like this would happen,” said Pavol Šimko, a 45-year-old history teacher, speaking in central Bratislava on Friday.

Wednesday’s assassination attempt in Handlová, 112 miles from the capital, has shone a light on what officials and many Slovaks say should be seen as a wider symptom of the country’s polarised political environment.

“We are now truly becoming the black hole of Europe,” added Šimko, referring to comments made by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who coined the phrase to describe Slovakia in 1997 after the abduction of the son of then president Michal Kováč and the murder of a key witness in the case, police officer Róbert Remiáš.

Acts of political violence have become a grim fixture in recent Slovak history, but this latest is by far and away the most serious.

Other European leaders close to Fico, a divisive and populist official who has been criticised by the opposition for lashing out at independent media outlets and scrapping a special prosecutor’s office, have appeared to be eager to capitalise on his shooting.

Speaking on state radio on Friday morning, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, drew a link between Fico’s views on the war in Ukraine and the attempted assassination.

Since Fico’s return to power, “Slovakia started on the path of peace, and this was a big help for Hungary,” Orbán said. “We have now lost this support. We know that the perpetrator was a pro-war person,” he added, without providing any evidence.

The Hungarian prime minister, who often employs conspiratorial narratives, has spent more than a decade nurturing a relationship with the Kremlin and has repeatedly argued the west should stop providing support to Ukraine.

> *"Of course [Fico] he became the target. There are only a few like him in Europe. And they need to take care of their own safety." *- Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president

In his radio interview, he suggested – again without evidence – that the shooting in Slovakia was part of a geopolitical struggle. “The combinations that connect the assassination attempt with the war are not unjustified,” he said.

“The pro-war parties are negotiating with each other, which is why the head of the [George] Soros empire and the US secretary of state also went to Kyiv,” Orbán said.

In Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev praised the Kremlin-friendly Fico, also implying that he was targeted for his views on the Ukraine war. “Of course, he became the target. There are only a few like him in Europe. And they need to take care of their own safety,” he said.

Ľudovít Ódor, opposition party Progressive Slovakia’s lead candidate for the European parliamentary elections, said that foreign politicians “should not misinform foreigners and should not make political capital out of this for themselves”.

In an interview with independent Hungarian news outlet Partizán, Ódor, who briefly served as Slovakia’s caretaker prime minister last year and comes from Slovakia’s Hungarian-speaking minority, warned that “we have seen how this just comes back like a boomerang to us”, noting that many people in southern Slovakia watched Hungarian media.

The attack has also raised questions about a possible failure by the Slovak security services and sparked fears in other European capitals that similar incidents could occur there.

Slovak authorities have opened an investigation into the response of security forces at the scene. A source said that the security services were caught off guard and that Cintula was not known to them.

“Other European security services will be looking at their measures, realising that the danger can come out of nowhere,” the source said.

Polish PM Donald Tusk said on Thursday he received threats after the assassination attempt on his Slovakian counterpart, with a media outlet reporting his security protection would be strengthened.

In Belgium, prime minister Alexander De Croo filed a police complaint against a radio presenter who urged listeners to “take him out”.

“You see that it is possible to shoot down a prime minister. So I would say: Go ahead,” the radio presenter told his listeners on a station that airs from the Belgian province of West Flanders.

Some in Slovakia said they were anxious the attack would embolden the authorities to launch assaults on the media, civil society and the opposition parties.

“I worry that the ruling coalition will now use the shooting as a pretext for a big crackdown. They already started blaming the opposition and the media for it,” said Lenka Szabóová, a student in Bratislava. “This should be a time of coming together. But it seems like it will only tear us apart.”

> Australians stranded in New Caledonia are rationing food as they wait for a way out of the Pacific island territory, amid unrest that has killed six people, a traveller from Sydney said on Saturday.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/emQU6

> Some of Donald Trump's allies are assembling proposals to curtail the Justice Department's independence and turn the nation's top law enforcement body into an attack dog for conservative causes, nine people involved in the effort told Reuters.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/Duriw

> The attack on foreign nationals took place in Bamyan province of Afghanistan. Some foreigners visit the site with the remnants of massive Buddhist statues mostly destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/MsEfG

> Some Canadian provinces have logged a jump in unclaimed dead bodies in recent years, with next of kin citing funeral costs as a growing reason for not collecting loved ones' remains.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/4hPsP

TLDR: - China's president Xi wants to maintain an alliance with Putin's Russia, while also knowing that close ties with a pariah puts at risk his stable ties with the West which he needs to help his ailing economy.

- The costly war in Ukraine has changed their relationship, exposing the weaknesses in Russia’s army and its economy.

- China’s interests are not Russia’s interests. As the senior partner in this relationship, Mr Xi will likely co-operate when it suits him – even if his “dear friend” and ally needs him.

Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China this week was a show of strength. It was a chance for the Russian president to prove to the world that he has a powerful ally in his corner.

The Russian leader is widely regarded as a pariah after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. But to China’s President Xi Jinping, he is a key partner in seeking a new world order that is not led by the US.

And Mr Xi made his guest welcome. He rolled out the red carpet, the band played old Red Army songs, and cheering children greeted both leaders as they strolled through Tiananmen Square. There was even a brief hug for the cameras.

Russian and Chinese state media focused heavily on the camaraderie between the two leaders. But in truth, this is no longer a partnership of equals.

Mr Putin came to China cap in hand, eager for Beijing to continue trading with a heavily sanctioned and isolated Russia. His statements were filled with honeyed tones and flattering phrases.

He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public.

He declared that he and Mr Xi were “as close as brothers” and went on to praise China’s economy, saying it was “developing in leaps and bounds, at a fast pace”. This will likely play well with Beijing officials worried by a sluggish economy.

But Mr Xi himself did not echo the tone of these lofty compliments. Instead, his remarks were more perfunctory – even bland. Mr Putin, he said, was a “good friend and a good neighbour”. For China, the welcome ceremony and show of unity is in its interests, but lavishing its guest with praise is not.

The costly war in Ukraine, which shows no signs of ending, has changed their relationship, exposing the weaknesses in Russia’s army and its economy. Mr Xi will know that he is now in charge.

The war has isolated Russia. China’s ties with the West may be tense, but Beijing has not cut itself off from the world like Russia, nor does it want to.

While the public statements may have lacked enthusiasm, President Xi did hint at the importance that China places on the relationship.

He invited Mr Putin to his official residence, Zhongnanhai. Few leaders are afforded that honour - US President Barack Obama being among them back in 2014, when ties between the two were at their best.

President Xi is attempting a fine balance - he wants to maintain an alliance with Mr Putin, while also knowing that close ties with a pariah puts at risk his stable ties with the West which he needs to help his ailing economy.

The fact is, this visit was all about the money: Mr Putin needs China’s support for his war in Ukraine.

The make-up of the Russian leader’s entourage was a sign of what he hoped to get out of the trip: he brought with him the governor of Russia’s Central Bank, his finance minister and his economics advisor.

The joint statement released to mark the visit also contained some eye-catching ideas to increase trade – building a port on an island which the two countries once wrangled over for more than 100 years, and speaking to North Korea to see if Chinese ships could navigate through a key river to reach the Sea of Japan.

It mentioned the word “co-operation” 130 times.

All of this will, of course, have been carefully watched by the US. Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China to stop fuelling Russia’s war and trading in components that could be used in Russian drones and tanks.

So they will not have missed the fact Mr Putin toured a state-backed university famous for its cutting-edge defense research during Friday’s visit to the city of Harbin.

The tour - and the ceremony and symbolism surrounding this visit - certainly appears to suggest Mr Xi is determined to prove that he will not be swayed by pressure from the West.

But behind the scenes of this show of unity, there may be limits to how far Mr Xi is prepared to go.

After all, China’s interests are not Russia’s interests. As the senior partner in this relationship, Mr Xi will likely co-operate when it suits him – even if his “dear friend” and ally needs him.

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