måndag 23 december 2024

TOP NEWS

Political situation in France
France's new government ready - the fourth in a year

France has got its fourth government in a year. Prime Minister François Bayrou's new team includes conservatives, centrists and politicians with a left-wing background, writes AP.

Several names are familiar from the previous government, such as Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. But there are also new faces like former Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who will now become Justice Minister, and former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who will be Education Minister.

The new government takes office after months of political deadlock and is under pressure to deal with France's huge debts. Developing a budget for 2025 will be the first and most urgent item on the agenda.

Syrian War Fall of al-Assad regime

Divorce rumours about Assad denied by Russia

The Kremlin denies reports in Turkish media that Bashar al-Assad's wife has filed for divorce and wants to leave Russia, writes the BBC.

Asma al-Assad, who was born in Britain and has both Syrian and British citizenship, was reported this weekend to have grown tired of life in Moscow. The reports claimed that she wanted to move to London, but this is not the case, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

- This does not correspond to reality.

Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow when the Syrian regime was overthrown earlier in December.

Russian energy investment: Nuclear power in China and Iran

Russia is building more than ten nuclear power plants abroad and hopes to make money from the growing energy demand, writes the Financial Times, which spoke with President Vladimir Putin's envoy Boris Titov.

Construction projects are underway in countries such as Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Iran and Turkey, and despite sanctions against the oil and gas sector, Russia is strengthening its role as a global supplier of nuclear energy and hopes to become “one of the largest builders of new nuclear power plants in the world.”

Governments in the West have tried to push back on the ambitions – the US has been banning imports of Russian enriched uranium since May this year, among other things. The EU’s new energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, has also said that he wants to examine the entire supply chain for nuclear power in order to achieve the goal of being free of Russian fuel imports by 2027.

China on the Philippines’ new missile system: “Dangerous”

The Philippine military confirms that it will buy the American Typhoon missile system, reports AFP. The system has previously been used by the Philippines, including in joint military exercises with the US, which China believes has exacerbated tensions in the South China Sea.

China believes that the purchase of the missile system increases the risk of an arms race and says in a statement that it “initiates geopolitical confrontation.”

“The introduction of the system is a provocative and dangerous move,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday.

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