Angela Merkel set off Monday on what could be a three-year countdown to the end of her leadership of Germany, a stint that has made her the European Union’s longest-serving leader and a key figure in facing the continent’s many crises.
European Union leaders gave themselves several more weeks – perhaps until the end of the year – to clinch a friendly divorce with Britain before their separation, after a Brexit summit Wednesday avoided any friction but also produced no tangible results.
The Trump administration is formally notifying Congress that it plans to pursue trade agreements with the European Union, Japan and Britain.
Strong earthquakes struck Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian island of Bali on Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of major damage. The quake in Papua raised the possibility of a local tsunami, although authorities said there was no significant tsunami threat to Hawaii or the wider Pacific region.
Brexit minister Dominic Raab voiced confidence on Tuesday that Britain and the European Union would make progress on their divorce at a summit next week, but again asked the bloc to meet London ‘halfway’ on the most difficult areas.
The United Kingdom’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid will designate the entire Lebanese organization Hezbollah as a terrorist movement at next week’s Conservative Party conference.
Five world powers and Iran agreed late Monday to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil, a key move sought by Tehran following the U.S. pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal and its re-imposition of sanctions.
European leaders gathered in the Austrian city of Salzburg on Thursday for the second day of an informal summit. One of the main issues are the deadlocked negotiations on Brexit, the final agreement on which is supposed to be laid out in October. Immigration, a major policy point for Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose government holds the rotating EU presidency, and security in the bloc are the other major talking points.
Britain is over 85 percent of the way to agreeing on a deal with the European Union on its exit from the bloc, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington told Irish radio on Thursday, adding that a deal could be reached by October or November.
Israel struck in Syria on Saturday night, targeting an area near the airport in Damascus, Syrian state media reported. According to the report, several Israeli missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defenses.
Amid growing concerns about a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib province, Germany appears to be mulling participation in any retaliatory U.S.-led airstrikes, in a reversal of its traditionally hesitant stance on military engagement.
Britain, France and the US have warned Syria it will suffer a “much stronger response” if it uses chemical weapons again.
The number of Britons who describe themselves as belonging to the Church of England has fallen to a record low with more than half now saying they have no religion, according to a survey published on Friday.
New British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday (Aug 21) will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia’s ‘malign behavior’ and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.
A convert from Islam in Iran said he and 11 other Christians were sentenced to a year in prison for ‘inclination to the land of Christianity’ among other charges, according to Mohabat News.
Britain’s vote to leave the European Union could ‘in theory’ be reversed although there is a still a strong probability it will go ahead, said the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici on Monday.
Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reportedly warned the U.S. on Friday that sanctions it plans to impose against Moscow over the nerve-agent attack of a former spy living in Britain could be treated as a declaration of an economic war.
The Trump administration on Wednesday ordered new sanctions on Russia after determining that Moscow used a nerve agent in an attack on a former Soviet spy and his daughter who are now British citizens.
On Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, in conjunction with the top diplomats of Britain, France and, for that matter, Germany, released a joint statement expressing ‘deep regret’ over the re-imposition of American sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Divers off the South Korean island of Ulleungdo have discovered the fabled wreck of the Dmitrii Donskoi, a Russian warship that was sunk in 1905 and is rumored to still contain 5,500 boxes of gold bars and coins said to be worth US$133 billion.