Latest news

Canada-US relations
Canada invests billions in defence – wants to reduce dependence on Trump

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is presenting a multi-billion dollar investment in the country's defence industry aimed at reducing dependence on Donald Trump's USA, several media outlets report.

- We have relied too much on our geography and on others to protect us. It has created vulnerabilities that we can no longer afford, he says according to AFP.

Canada is investing over 3000 billion kronor, which will, among other things, go towards direct defence spending, procurement and infrastructure that will strengthen the country's security in the coming decade.

Carney has been openly critical of the US president's shake-up of relations with its allies. On Tuesday, he said that Canada now hopes to avoid "being held hostage by other people's decisions" when it comes to security.

Iran-US relations
Vance: Iran does not accept Trump's red lines

Today's nuclear talks between the US and Iran have gone well, Bloomberg reports. An American source says that the Iranian negotiators are to present a concrete proposal for an agreement within two weeks.

– In some ways it went well. But in other ways it is clear that the president (Donald Trump) has set red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to acknowledge and work within, Vice President JD Vance tells Fox News.

Donald Trump has threatened military action if Iran does not agree to an agreement and has increased the military presence in the region. The US is demanding, among other things, that Iran stop enriching uranium. Iran, for its part, wants the US to ease sanctions. 

Political situation in France
Political assistant among ten arrested for murder of French right-wing extremist

Ten people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the fatal beating of a 23-year-old far-right activist in France. This is stated by the prosecutor's office in Lyon, reports France Info.

One of them is Jacques-Élie Favrot, an assistant to MP Raphaël Arnault for the left-wing party Indomitable France.

Favrot was arrested on Tuesday, but on Monday he was suspended from the National Assembly after it became known that witnesses had seen him during the demonstration where the fatal beating took place, according to information to BFM TV.

Six of those arrested were members of the “Young Guard”, a group within the far-left in Lyon that has previously been accused of violence against political opponents and which Arnault helped to found in 2018, according to Le Figaro.

Videos from the demonstration on Thursday show at least six masked people beating three people who are lying down. 23-year-old Quentin Deranque later died of his injuries.