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Political situation in the UK
Tony Blair in unusual attack: “Labour is playing with fire”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is entering the debate about the future of Labour. He accuses both current Prime Minister Keir Starmer and potential successors of lacking a “coherent plan” for the country and of having introduced policies that have hampered business.

“The Labour Party is playing with fire – or, more precisely, with its own future and that of the country,” Blair writes in a critical essay of over 30,000 characters, published on his think tank’s website.

Blair criticizes, among other things, the government’s labor market policy, climate policy and plans to phase out the oil and gas industry. He also wants to see closer ties with Donald Trump.

He also warns that a change of leadership within the party would be “irrelevant if it does not start with a political debate.”

British media describe the text as a very unusual move from a former Labour Prime Minister. Strong reactions are expected within the party, writes The Guardian.

Downing Street has declined to comment on the essay, but tells the BBC that Keir Starmer is “completely focused on delivering change for working people”. 

Political situation in Brazil
Trump receives Bolsonaro’s son at the White House

On Wednesday, Flávio Bolsonaro, the main challenger to Brazil’s leftist President Lula da Silva, visited Donald Trump at the White House.

Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a coup attempt, shows a picture of himself and Trump in the Oval Office on social media. He gives no details about the meeting, but says they will come later.

Lula and Bolsonaro are relatively even in opinion polls ahead of the election in October, but Lula has a lead of a few percentage points.

Change of power in Hungary
Hungary blocks Orbán’s decision – stays in ICC

Hungary’s new parliament has voted by a wide margin to block the country’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), writes AFP.

The withdrawal was initiated last year by then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Energy shift
Sources: Irritated EU leaders forced to charge

There is a growing irritation among EU Commission staff traveling between Strasbourg and Brussels: the need to stop and charge their electric cars at a rest area outside Luxembourg. This is according to sources for Politico, which writes under the headline “Not exactly Air Force One”.

The forced break has reportedly become a source of frustration within President Ursula von der Leyen’s team. The Commission’s green vehicle fleet cannot quite make the 440-kilometer journey without a charging stop, which adds up to half an hour to the already five-hour drive.

The criticism reflects objections from political groups and lobbyists, who believe that the EU Commission is pushing the green transition faster than both consumers and charging networks have time to adapt. 

The hunt for RAF terrorists
67-year-old RAF member sentenced after decades on the run

German Baader Meinhof member Daniela Klette has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for a series of armed robberies, German media report. 67-year-old Klette was arrested in 2024 after more than 30 years on the run.

The robberies she is convicted of were committed while on the run when she was living undercover. In addition to the robberies, she is also charged with having machine-gunned the US embassy in 1991.

Klette is believed to have committed the robberies together with two other members of the terrorist organization, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, who are still at large. The three were part of what is usually called the third generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF), also called the Baader Meinhof League after the front figures Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, writes TT.