Europe

BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 20. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between Azerbaijan Investment Company OJSC and Türkiye's company Gürok Group to study the possibilities of construction of a glassware plant in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Mikail Jabbarov wrote on X, Trend reports. "The plant is intended to meet the glass container needs of both domestic and international food and beverage makers. Gürok Group, rated fifth in the world in the production of glass products, engages in a variety of areas, including glassware, tiles, industrial equipment, construction, and tourism," the publication reads. Will be updated Stay up-to-date with more...

But the biggest uncertainty for most Europeans isn’t about Putin — it’s about America. The U.S. Congress’ failure to support Ukraine has left many speechless. And Trump’s warning that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to an ally who hadn’t “paid up,” still rings loud. While one defense minister asked me, “Doesn’t he understand the value of allies?” (“Afraid not,” I answered), many others are finally beginning to come to terms with the possibility that come next January, they may well be on their own. Eastern European allies are already boosting their defense spending to...

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSilicon Valley tech giants’ actions could “severely disable” UK spooks from preventing harm caused by online paedophiles and fraudsters, Suella Braverman has suggested.The Conservative former home secretary named Facebook owner Meta, and Apple, and their use of technologies such as end-to-end encryption as a threat to attempts to tackle digital crimes.She claimed the choice to back these technologies without “safeguards” could “enable and indeed facilitate some of the worst atrocities that our brave men and women in law enforcement agencies...

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailOn Saturday, former president Donald Trump will attend the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside of Washington, DC right before he hops over to the South Carolina primary, where he will almost certainly declare victory.His address to the conservative faithful at CPAC — largely comprising snake oil salesmen, College Republican chapters looking for a fun weekend in DC, and the most dieheard conservative activists out there — will serve as a sort of homecoming. Trump first addressed the...

For the second day in a row, mourners walked purposefully along Moscow’s snow-heaped Garden Ring on Saturday carrying bouquets to lay at one of the improvised memorials to Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition figure who perished in a prison colony the day before.The flowers, wrapped in paper to shield them from the icy wind, were not only a symbol of mourning. They also served as a form of protest in a country where even the mildest dissent can risk detention. And the people who laid bouquets at the Wall of Grief, a monument to the victims of political persecution...

On 16 February, Russia's federal penitentiary service announced the death of Alexei Navalny, the leading political opponent of Vladimir Putin, in the Siberian penal colony where he had been held since August 2023. The cause of death is not yet known. Navalny, 47, had been sentenced to 19 years' imprisonment for "extremism" and nine years' imprisonment for "embezzlement" and "contempt of court", charges considered political in nature. Navalny’s death comes a month before Russia's presidential election, from which most of Putin's opponents have been ousted. In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalised in Siberia after being poisoned with novichok - an...

Anton (not his real name) was thrilled when he secured a position as an operator at the SK Innovations (SKI) car battery plant in Komárom, Hungary, in 2020. He expressed his joy by stating, "I was happy because the money was good, especially for that region." The gigafactory had just opened and, amid the height of the Covid pandemic, the workload was manageable. However, within six months, Anton parted ways with the company after a urine test revealed that his nickel levels were three times higher than the safety limits. Nickel accumulation has been associated with lung fibrosis, kidney and...

In my 16 November press review, I looked at the seemingly inevitable rise of far-right ideas in many EU Member States. However, two recent events merit our full attention for highlighting the extent to which civil society is mobilising to counter this trend, three and a half months ahead of crucial European elections. In Germany, massive demonstrations in response to the rise of the far right indicate that the tolerance threshold for the actions of far-right political parties has been exceeded. Tens of thousands of people marched over several days in cities throughout the country, and continue to do so...

Katalin Novák: “We’re safe and dry”. Is the reign of Hungary's all-powerful ruling party, Fidesz, beginning to crack? The scandal now gripping Viktor Orbán's self-proclaimed "illiberal democracy" might suggest so. On 10 February, the President of the Republic, Katalin Novák, announced her resignation in a televised address, followed by the former Minister of Justice and head of the Fidesz list for the European elections, Judit Varga. The two women had been in the spotlight for several days after the independent Hungarian media outlet 444.hu revealed Katalin Novák's decision - with Varga’s approval - to pardon a man convicted of covering...

Miranda Bryant in The Guardian calls it “one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history”: a landslide consisting of two million tonnes of contaminated soil is slowly advancing on the village of Ølst in Denmark’s Jutland region, threatening to devastate the local ecosystem, including the Alling Å river. Local residents fear that their village, as Rasmus Karkov puts it in Danish daily Berlingske, “risks being buried in sludge, slag, contaminated soil and sand, permeated with the rot of dead mink”. The landslide originated from a plant run by Nordic Waste, which, as The Local explains, processes waste coming...