On September 22, the European Union extended for another three years the sanctions affecting nearly three thousand Russian individuals and entities, but two very well-known billionaires disappeared from the list in the process: Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman. Vitalie Cojocari draws attention to the fact that a peculiar diplomatic deal lies behind both removals.

The United States considers the defense of its own territory, the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific region more important than Europe, US NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker stated. According to the diplomat, this does not mean abandoning Europe, but Washington expects its European allies to take on a greater share of defending their own continent.

OpenAI is making its AI-based cyberdefense system, called Daybreak, available free of charge to the government of Ukraine. The technology will primarily be used to protect civilian critical infrastructure, including hospitals, power plants, energy grids and state IT systems.

Donald Trump supports banning American diesel exports, after the national average price of diesel in the United States rose above a record $6.53 a gallon. According to the president, the United States should not sell fuel abroad but should keep it on its own market to increase supply and drive down prices. No decision has been made yet, however: Trump has so far only indicated that he supports the

The sale of Lukoil's international assets to the American investment fund Carlyle has been dragging on for nearly ten months because agencies within the Trump administration have failed to reach agreement among themselves, the Financial Times reported, an analysis summarized by the Bulgarian outlet Mediapool. Because of the delay, European refineries are unable to increase their gasoline and diese

Today, on his Facebook page, the leader of the Transylvanian Hungarians informed the Transylvanian Hungarian voters who elected him that Siegfried Mureșan had presented the Alliance with his government program, which Kelemen Hunor deemed "supportable." Why? Well, that's not really clear, because beyond broad generalities, no Hungarian interest whatsoever featured among the negotiation points.

Designated Prime Minister Siegfried Mureșan would form a government with three deputy prime ministers, an unchanged number of ministries, and the participation of the PNL, USR, and the DAHR (Hungarian minority party). At his press conference on Wednesday, he said he would not raise taxes, would keep the flat tax system, and would reduce VAT from 21 to 19 percent as soon as the budget situation all

Elon Musk, the self-appointed high priest of Western free speech, gave an interview to Chinese state television, and while he was at it, thoroughly buttered up Xi Jinping. The Tesla CEO called the Chinese president a "great leader," then stated that under his rule, China has achieved "tremendous prosperity."

Six and a half months of war, a "most ruthless economic operation of all time," a president who demanded a white flag and threatened to bomb his own ally, Oman — and now Tehran generously offers to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week, on one condition: that Washington first takes its foot off its throat. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday in New York that Iran could reopen the

According to Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), Russia will ultimately lose if the political course does not change and the war continues. The statement was made at the party's Sunday evening press conference, after the conclusion of the three-day parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Mureșan told the parliamentary factions of the National Liberal Party (PNL) on Tuesday that he would go through with the installation procedure and appear before Parliament for a vote of confidence, even though the Social Democratic Party (PSD) had announced it would not support his government.

Russia is not preparing to conquer Europe, but to temporarily seize a piece of NATO's eastern flank and use it as a political bargaining chip with the United States, retired Major General Adrian Ciolponea said in an interview with the Romanian outlet Libertatea. Ciolponea previously served as the European representative to NATO's Allied Command Transformation and also commanded the Romanian Army's

Six days before his retirement, returning from vacation, Madrid investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado issued the last ruling of his career on Monday: he sent Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, along with her advisor at the Moncloa Palace, Cristina Álvarez, to trial before a jury. The charges are influence peddling and misappropriation of funds. The prosecution has sa

The cybersecurity research group that breached OpenAI's systems this past summer is warning that the artificial intelligence industry is not prepared for the security risks posed by increasingly powerful models, the Washington Post reported. The warning came just days after Google confirmed that its Gemini model had autonomously breached the systems of three real companies during a cybersecurity t

Ukraine is bringing the case of Oleshky, in the occupied Kherson region, before the UN General Assembly, where, according to the government in Kyiv, some two thousand civilians — including roughly fifty children — have been living for months without food, drinking water, medicine or any way to escape. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Monday that Russia is "deliberately causing a hu

Humanity has already crossed seven of the nine planetary boundaries that determine the Earth's stability, and all seven are in the worst condition ever recorded – according to the 2026 Planetary Health Check. The annual assessment was published on Monday by the Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany; the report was prepared by more th

The global diesel shortage caused by the wars in Iran and Ukraine is unlikely to ease before next year at the earliest – that is what storage market data and industry players indicate, according to a Reuters analysis published on Monday. The two wars have removed several million barrels of supply from the market every day in the Middle East and Russia, inventories have fallen to historic lows, and

Călin Georgescu's supporters have been trumpeting on TikTok since yesterday that the DIICOT case is a fabrication, that the million-euro fraud is the "system's" revenge, and that Russia has nothing to do with any of it. Of course it doesn't. Except that, according to the prosecution, the money traveled to the accomplices' accounts through a bank in Russian hands. And except that the man who introd

One of the world's most notorious cybercriminal groups, ShinyHunters, claimed on Sunday that it had taken control over the dark web site of its main rival, the Russian-speaking gang cl0p. The move brought a long-simmering feud between the two gangs into public view, Reuters reported.

The member states of the European Union on Tuesday extended for three years the individual sanctions affecting nearly three thousand Russian citizens and entities, though two billionaires considered close to Moscow — Uzbek-Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov and Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman — were removed from the list. The agreement was reached only at the last moment, after Latvia vetoed the