Latest news

Middle East crisis  Situation in Iran
Iran expert: New leader unlikely to emerge

Iranian leaders, foreign representatives and grieving residents gathered around the coffin of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday ahead of the six-day state funeral, which begins tomorrow.

One person who is unlikely to appear is his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei. This is what Iran expert Mohammad Fazlhashemi at Uppsala University told TT.

– Israel and the US have a major intelligence advantage over Iran and as soon as he shows up, he becomes a target for American and especially Israeli agents inside Iran.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously made it clear that all new Iranian leaders will be killed.

Several sources in Mojtaba Khamenei's inner circle have told Reuters that he was seriously injured in the attack that killed his father, and that his face was disfigured.

The future of the EU
Major problems with the EU's new passport control system

Last year, the EU launched its new electronic entry and exit system for citizens outside the EU, the Entry/Exit System (EES), with great fanfare.

Now, a number of countries are raising alarms that the system is causing chaos at airports, and that the situation is set to get even worse when summer travel picks up. This is reported by the Financial Times.

- Passengers and families should not be guinea pigs for a half-finished passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer, says Ryanair's chief operating officer Neal McMahon.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admits the problems, writes Politico.

- We are working with member states to solve the technical problems, she says at a press conference. 

Russian invasion  The world's response
Sources: Three countries halt EU sanctions

The EU hopes to hammer out its 21st package of sanctions against Russia on July 13, but Greece, Cyprus and Malta have blocked it, diplomatic sources tell the Kyiv Independent.

The countries are concerned that the proposal for a six-month price cap on Russian oil, intended to reduce Russian oil revenues, would affect their economically important shipping industry.

- Too large differences between world market prices and the price cap on oil would lead to ships reflagging in third countries, says a diplomatic source.

After the change of power in Hungary, the EU is now trying to push through sanctions that Viktor Orbán previously halted, including on Russian fish.

However, Portugal and Germany have objected, and a diplomatic source says that manufacturers of cheap fish products - such as fish fingers - have such small margins that they cannot even handle small price increases.

Trump reads children's book on podcast: "I usually read about myself"

On Friday, an episode of the podcast "Storytime with the Second Lady" was released, in which US Vice President Usha Vance is a guest of President Donald Trump, writes AP.

In the episode, Trump reads from the children's book "Presidents play!" with cartoon pictures of presidents playing sports outside the White House.

He makes a series of judgments about his predecessors. Lyndon Johnson is called "a tough guy," Ronald Reagan "a person of high quality" and John F Kennedy "the second best-looking president." Barack Obama is dismissed as a bad basketball player.

When asked by Usha Vance how much Trump himself reads when he has free time, the president replies that he mostly reads newspapers.

- I usually read articles about myself, he says.