Event: Nato

Judge says comments to the media by prosecutors about defendant violate rules of what can be said outside of court.The Utah judge presiding over the Charlie Kirk murder case has held prosecutors in contempt of court over comments they made to media organisations about defendant Tyler Robinson.On Friday, Judge Tony Graf said the comments violated his restrictions on what the two sides can say about the case outside of court.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Lawyer for suspect in Kirk killing wants more time to review evidencelist 2 of 3Turning Point USA held its AmericaFest conference. Here’s what happenedlist 3 of 3ABC ‘fighting back’, urging US public to defend stations amid FCC scrutinyend of listBut Graf denied a defence request to take the death penalty off the table as a sanction for the violation.He said the problem could instead be resolved through the screening and questioning process for potential jurors, which is intended to weed out people who could be biased about the case.Robinson, a 23-year-old from southwestern Utah, has not yet entered a plea.He is charged with aggravated murder in the September 10 assassination of Kirk, an ally of United States President Donald Trump who was shot in the neck while addressing a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University.Defence lawyers accused Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard of trying to influence potential jurors by going on a “media tour” to talk about ballistics evidence in the case. Ballard also said prosecutors had enough evidence to show Robinson murdered Kirk.Legal experts had said blocking the death penalty would have been an extreme remedy. Graf said it would have been “grossly disproportionate” to the misconduct.Ballard argued that he had a right to speak to the news media to correct misinformation about a preliminary finding by ballistics experts.Those experts’…

Last April, she was also the EU leader of choice to head to the White House for a meeting aimed at easing tensions over US tariffs on European goods.For someone who started out on the fringes of Italian politics, with her roots in Italy's post-fascist tradition, and who has spent years trying to rebrand herself as a moderate, credible face of the European right, that closeness to Trump was never just seen by observers as a useful diplomatic tie.It was proof, on the biggest stage available, that she belonged there.But Trump's unpredictability has proved difficult for Meloni to handle, denting her credibility both nationally and internationally. The first real fracture came in late March, when Italy's defence ministry refused to let US military aircraft bound for the Middle East use the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily without parliamentary approval, a decision rooted in Italy's constitution and the public's deep opposition to the war. Weeks later the row deepened. Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social in April over the pontiff's criticism of the war, calling him "weak on crime". Journalists barely had time to file the story before it fell apart again.Days later, Trump told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni had "begged" him for a photo at the summit, in a phone interview dubbed in Italian and never aired in English. "She wanted a picture with me so badly," Trump's Italian voiceover said. "I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her."Meloni did not wait long to respond. She posted a video, delivered in Italian, calling Trump's account "completely fabricated.""I don't know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies," she said. "I can only say it's a pity he doesn't show the same resolve toward the enemies of the…

U.S. President Donald Trump. File. | Photo Credit: AP President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 100% tax on imports from any country that imposes a tax on digital services from United States companies.In a post on social media, Mr. Trump took aim at European countries that he said are discussing “imminent” implementation of taxes on American companies. The U.S. President has repeatedly sought to use tariffs as way to deter such taxes, but many countries are looking for revenues as their economies increasingly operate in digital realms that are dominated by American companies.“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100 per cent TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Mr. Trump wrote.He added that the new tax would supersede any previously negotiated trade deals. Mr. Trump said the penalty would apply to any country that moves forward with such a tax, but he singled out European nations in his post.Mr. Trump has repeatedly pushed against foreign efforts to tax or regulate American tech giants. Last year he threatened new tariffs on any country that moved to do so. A post from last August said that digital taxes and regulation “are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”The threat comes ahead of Mr. Trump's July 4 deadline for the European Union and United States to start implementing a tariff deal that caps tariffs on most EU exports at 15%.The European Union in May finalised a trade deal with the United States that caps most tariffs on EU exports at 15%. The deal followed months of debate within the EU after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tentatively struck the deal last year while visiting Mr. Trump's golf…

US President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 100 per cent tax on imports from any country that imposes a tax on digital services from American companies.In a post on social media, Trump took aim at European countries that he said are discussing “imminent” implementation of taxes on US companies.The president has repeatedly sought to use tariffs as a way to deter such taxes, but many countries are looking for revenues as their economies increasingly operate in digital realms that are dominated by American companies.“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump said in his post.He added that the new tax would supersede any previously negotiated trade deals. Trump said the penalty would apply to any country that moves forward with such a tax, but he singled out European nations in his post.Trump has repeatedly pushed against foreign efforts to tax or regulate American tech giants.Last year he threatened new tariffs on any country that moved to do so. A post from last August said that digital taxes and regulation “are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology”.

All of South Korea’s military forces will be trained as drone operators in a sweeping overhaul of its warfare strategy, the defence minister has said.“All soldiers should be able to use drones like a second personal firearm,” Ahn Gyu-back, who heads the defence ministry in Seoul, said on Friday.The plan envisages training 500,000 authorised military personnel across the army, navy, air force and marines to become “drone warriors”, the ministry said.Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East had shown that drones were now a “gamechanger on the battlefield”, Ahn said.“Low-cost drones operated in large numbers are fundamentally changing the nature of warfare,” Ahn said, warning North Korea was also continuing to develop its weapons capabilities, increasing threats to military and civilian facilities in the South.The military planned to procure about 11,000 commercial drones for training purposes by the end of this year, rising to 60,000 by 2029, alongside more than 20,000 low-cost disposable combat drones by 2030.Seoul also said it would fast-track a domestically developed long-range loitering munition dubbed K-Lucas. The system takes its name and concept from the American Lucas (low-cost uncrewed combat attack system) drone, itself reverse-engineered from Iran’s Shahed-136 suicide drone, which Russia deploys extensively in Ukraine.South Korea’s ‌plan includes expanding counter-drone systems such as laser and high-power microwave weapons.The announcement comes against a backdrop of concern about North Korea’s drone capabilities and follows a deeply embarrassing episode for Seoul’s security forces in 2022 when five small North Korean drones breached South Korean airspace.One entered the no-fly zone above the presidential office in Seoul. The military scrambled jets and attack helicopters and fired about 100 shots, failing to down a single drone.North Korea’s drone capabilities have grown considerably, in part through its deepening military partnership with Russia, which analysts say has given Pyongyang access to battlefield data…

Two countries on Nato’s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance.Western sources also fear there could be danger on the horizon because the Kremlin is coming under pressure from Ukraine’s campaign of long-range attacks on targets near Moscow and St Petersburg.On Monday, Latvian intelligence said: “We see indications that Russia is preparing military provocations against the Baltic countries or Poland.” However, it would be well short of a full scale attack.A senior political source from a second Nato member made a similar statement last week. They said “we are picking up intelligence” that Vladimir Putin was “planning something against the Baltic states”.They said Putin might be willing to test US support for some of Nato’s smallest member countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – in a desperate effort “to throw the dice” as Russia struggles with its invasion of Ukraine.Latvian intelligence said Russia was not capable of opening a second front, but was considering “hybrid attacks, such as missiles, drones or other actions designed to send a signal: stop supporting Ukraine, or you will have your own problems”.Though the warnings appear linked, there was only limited supporting detail, unlike the detailed warnings released by the CIA and MI6 before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.But they come at time when Russia’s advance in Ukraine has stalled, raising questions about whether the Kremlin would turn to alternative strategies to break the deadlock or change the dynamics in its favour.Keir Giles, a Russia expert with the Chatham House thinktank, said: “Moscow will be looking for ways to disrupt the current trend, through horizontal escalation [spreading the conflict to other countries] or doing something elsewhere. We should not expect…

NewsFeedThe French navy boarded and seized a Russian oil tanker near Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, saying it is part of Moscow’s ‘shadow fleet’ used to evade sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Russia’s embassy in France called it ‘another case of piracy.’Published On 26 Jun 2026

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. File | Photo Credit: Reuters Russia on Thursday (June 25, 2026) denied exerting pressure on Belarus to ​support an expansion of the war in Ukraine, while Belarus said it was ⁠the West that was trying to drag it into the conflict.The former Soviet state is strategically important to all sides, being closely allied to Moscow and sharing borders with Russia, Ukraine and three NATO ‌states.With Moscow’s forces struggling to advance and Ukraine raining drones on targets far inside Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said repeatedly that he believes Moscow wants ‌to get Belarus more involved on the Russian side.The Wall Street Journal reported ‌on ⁠Wednesday (June 24, 2026) that Russia wanted to use Belarus as a springboard to step up ⁠attacks on Ukraine, and that Moscow was threatening to cut financial support if it did not agree.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the report “does not correspond to reality” and that Belarus was “our closest ally”.Belarus says West stoking tensionBelarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin said ‌it was the West that was stoking tension.“The situation along our borders is extremely unstable, and escalating. Beyond our borders, NATO troop formations are being reinforced, infrastructure is being upgraded, the military budgets of neighbouring states are expanding, and politicians are making strident militaristic statements,” ‌he said in a speech to graduating officers.“Efforts are under way to prolong, ​and even expand, the hot conflict unleashed by the West in Ukraine. Today, we are acutely aware of a blatant attempt to drag Belarus into ⁠the war.”European states vehemently deny Russian allegations that they are responsible for the war in Ukraine, against which Russia launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.Last Friday, Mr. Zelenskyy said that signal relay ‌stations in Belarus were being used to guide Russian drone attacks…

Poland and Ukraine tried to strike a conciliatory tone on Thursday (June 25, 2026) as they opened the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference in the Polish port of Gdansk after weeks of squabbling over historical differences — albeit without President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the West to believe a post-war Ukraine will "rise from the ruins" like his native city Gdansk, largely destroyed during World War II, as he tried to dampen the diplomatic spat with Kyiv.Ukraine's economy has been devastated by the Russian invasion and requires hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in reconstruction.The conference opened under heavy security after weeks of uncertainty over whether it would take place at all.Mr. Zelenskyy had infuriated Poles by signing a decree naming a military unit after the WWII UPA nationalist insurgents, who took part in massacres against Poles in the 1940s. "We can build the future only on truth, on mutual respect, on an understanding of history," Mr. Tusk said.But, in comments that may stir Kyiv, he also said Ukraine should "understand its own history" and show an "authentic capacity and readiness for reconciliation" if it wanted to join the EU.The row has created a political crisis between the allies in the fifth year of Moscow's invasion.Mr. Zelenskyy normally attends the annual conference aimed at boosting investment into Ukraine, but skipped the Gdansk event amid the deteriorated ties.Kyiv sent Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko instead, with a string of European leaders and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen also attending.'Something so emotional'Ms. Svyrydenko also struck a friendly tone."Thank you for your help when it was the most urgent time to support us," she told the Polish audience, referring to Poland opening its borders and taking in over a million Ukrainian refugees after Russia invaded in 2022.It has since…