Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Chinese company demands compensation from the UK over British Steel nationalization

    Chinese company demands compensation from the UK over British Steel nationalization

    In a formal statement released Sunday, China’s Jingye Group, the former owner of British Steel, has launched a formal challenge against the United Kingdom government, demanding financial compensation for billions in investment losses one week after the U.K. seized the historic steel manufacturer into public ownership. The dispute has escalated into a bilateral diplomatic flashpoint that risks shaking confidence in the U.K.’s reputation among global cross-border investors.

    The sequence of events that led to nationalization began in 2020, when Jingye purchased struggling British Steel out of insolvency, an acquisition the Chinese firm frames as pulling the iconic industrial brand back from the brink of collapse. Tensions flared last year, however, after Jingye warned it was considering shutting down the blast furnaces at British Steel’s Scunthorpe facility—currently the last remaining site in the U.K. that produces virgin steel from raw iron ore and other primary inputs. The British government responded by assuming full operational control of the company, a move formalized by the Department for Business and Trade on July 17. Officials framed the nationalization as a necessary step to protect 2,700 local jobs at the 130-year-old plant, which traces its industrial roots to the U.K.’s Industrial Revolution when British innovations revolutionized global steelmaking. The government added that maintaining domestic steel production is critical for national security, ensuring a steady supply of material for large public construction projects and the country’s defense sector.

    In its statement posted to China’s WeChat social platform, Jingye Group launched a scathing critique of the U.K.’s actions. The company accused the British government of offering “almost zero compensation” for its asset seizure, despite years of sustained investment and major contributions from Jingye to the British steel sector. The nationalization, the firm claimed, has damaged the British government’s global credibility, sown uncertainty among international investors, and caused severe financial harm to both Jingye’s operations and public funds held by British taxpayers. It further called on the U.K. to end its “trampling on international investment rules.”

    Jingye confirmed it has already activated negotiation procedures under the China-U.K. bilateral investment treaty, and has reserved all legal rights, including the option to pursue binding international arbitration. The firm also says it will advocate on behalf of British taxpayers to pursue legal action against both the U.K. government and former British Steel management, though it did not release further details on its planned legal strategy. A spokesperson for the U.K. government noted last week that an independent assessment will be conducted to evaluate if any compensation is owed to Jingye, with no figure or timeline publicly confirmed to date.

    The dispute drew a formal response from China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday, which warned that how the U.K. resolves the compensation issue will directly shape how Chinese investors evaluate the British investment environment and the reliability of government commitments there. “China urges the UK to earnestly respect market principles and the spirit of contract, and find solutions on compensation and other issues acceptable to both sides,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that Beijing fully supports Chinese companies in defending their legitimate legal rights through formal legal channels.

  • What to know about the challenges Andy Burnham will face as UK prime minister

    What to know about the challenges Andy Burnham will face as UK prime minister

    LONDON – When Andy Burnham crosses the threshold of 10 Downing Street on Monday, he will carry high public expectations into office, while also inheriting a daunting pile of domestic and international crises that mirror the unenviable challenges that forced his predecessor out of Downing Street.

    After nearly a decade serving as Mayor of Greater Manchester in northwest England, and a surprise win in a recent parliamentary by-election that cleared his path back to national politics, Burnham was confirmed as the new leader of the Labour Party last week, and is set to be sworn in as the United Kingdom’s new prime minister. For the regional leader who has spent his career governing a population of just 3 million, steering a national government serving 67 million people across four nations will be a step up of unprecedented scale, bringing with it complex issues he has never before had to address at a national level.

    Below is a breakdown of the most pressing issues facing Burnham’s new administration, and early indications of how he may approach them:

    ### Reviving the Sluggish Economy and Decentralizing Power
    Burnham has so far kept his policy details vague, but has pledged to release a full roadmap this week outlining how he will fund his domestic agenda, which centers on jumpstarting stalled UK economic growth, upgrading public services, and raising household living standards.

    “This change today is the most significant turning point for our politics in 40 years,” Burnham remarked Friday as he officially took the Labour Party reins. “It will lead us to a country where life becomes more affordable, and every person and every region can lift themselves up from where they stand now.”

    The economy Burnham inherits was showing tentative signs of improvement until the outbreak of the Iran war upended global forecasts. Economists now widely predict sharp growth slowdown across 2026 alongside renewed upward pressure on inflation, leaving little room for major new spending commitments.

    A core ideological priority for Burnham is closing the opportunity gap between London and the wider UK, primarily through widespread government decentralization: channeling more funding directly to local authorities, and renationalizing a number of public services that were privatized during the 1980s. His model of business-friendly progressive governance, dubbed “Manchesterism,” seeks to combine private and public investment to upgrade transport, housing and national infrastructure. This ambitious structural reshaping of the UK state could take years to fully implement, however.

    Joshi Herrmann, founder of the independent Manchester-based news outlet The Mill, who has covered Burnham’s career for more than a decade, noted that Burnham may be able to ease financial pressure for struggling households. But, he added: “If the core question facing the country is who can deliver sustained economic growth and reshape the UK economy for the post-Brexit, post-financial crash era, I’d be very surprised if Andy Burnham is that answer.”

    Constrained by tight public finances, Burnham has very little room to increase overall public spending. He is taking over from Keir Starmer, who won power on a manifesto that ruled out increases to the UK’s major tax rates, locking Burnham into that fiscal framework unless he chooses to break those campaign pledges. Burnham has declined to rule out introducing a new wealth tax, telling former footballer and broadcaster Gary Lineker on the Goalhanger podcast last week that the government “might be having to ask for a little more” from the country’s wealthiest citizens.

    ### Navigating Foreign Policy and US Relations With Donald Trump
    One of Burnham’s biggest gaps in experience is on the global stage, but he has already made clear he will maintain the UK’s longstanding commitments to NATO and the country’s independent nuclear deterrent. He has also reaffirmed that Britain will remain a staunch backer of Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion and a reliable ally to the United States.

    The future of US-UK relations will largely hinge on how Burnham handles unpredictable US President Donald Trump, who initially praised Starmer before turning on him over Starmer’s refusal to back the US war with Iran. Burnham has publicly criticized Trump in the past, but says he will treat the US president with respect, just as he treats other political leaders, while being willing to stand his ground on points of disagreement.

    “I like to think I’ve got some personality myself and I’ll just, you know, I’ll deal with him very upfront in the same way,” he told Lineker. “Where you disagree, do it, but do it in a way that is kind of meeting him where he’s at.”

    Trump has repeatedly pressured NATO member states to dramatically increase their military spending, putting Burnham under pressure to go further than the defense spending targets set by Starmer’s government. Starmer’s existing 15 billion pound ($20 billion) defense spending boost is far smaller than what UK military leaders have demanded, and critics have pointed out the plan lacks full funding within the current national budget.

    ### Navigating Sensitive Political Terrain Over the Israel-Hamas War
    Burnham has openly criticized Starmer’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. He condemned the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, but has argued the previous UK government waited far too long to call for a permanent ceasefire.

    According to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by the Hamas-led administration but staffed by medical professionals that maintain detailed records generally deemed reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israeli operations. Burnham has said his government will consider adding new sanctions against Israeli individuals involved in violence in Gaza and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

    The conflict is deeply sensitive for the Labour Party: the party was plagued by accusations of systemic antisemitism before Starmer took leadership, and it also relies heavily on electoral support from the UK’s large Muslim population. Burnham’s stance on the war has already drawn backlash from UK Jewish groups, while pro-Palestinian activists have criticized him for refusing to classify Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as genocide.

    ### Tackling the Politically Thorny Issue of Migration
    Notably, Burnham made no mention of migration in his acceptance speech as Labour leader on Friday, despite the issue ranking as a top priority for a large share of UK voters. Like many wealthy European and Western nations, the UK has seen a sharp rise in arrivals of migrants fleeing war, famine, climate-driven disasters, political persecution and poverty in their home countries.

    Public anger over rising numbers of dangerous small boat crossings of the English Channel has fueled the rise of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, which notched a series of key local and regional election wins that ultimately led to Labour’s decision to oust Starmer and install Burnham as party leader.

    Burnham has said he will largely stick to the outgoing Labour government’s existing framework on migration, which has already overseen a drop in net migration from a peak of more than 900,000 in 2023 to 171,000 in 2025. Data shows small boat crossings this year are already down 40% compared to the same period in 2025. Burnham has committed to continuing the downward trend in net migration, and previously voted in favor of a bill designed to further cut Channel crossings and redirect migrants to safer, legal migration pathways.

    Associated Press writers Pan Pylas and Jill Lawless contributed reporting to this article.

  • Liberal senator rejects Tony Abbott’s claim multiculturalism has ‘failed’

    Liberal senator rejects Tony Abbott’s claim multiculturalism has ‘failed’

    A public clash over Australia’s multicultural policy has erupted within the country’s Liberal Party, after former prime minister and current party president Tony Abbott claimed the decades-long framework of multiculturalism has failed, citing last year’s deadly terrorist attack at Bondi Beach as his evidence.

    In a speech circulated on social media earlier this week, Abbott argued that Australia has incorrectly opened its doors to immigrants who refuse to endorse the core values enshrined in the country’s citizenship oath. He went further, claiming that key tenets of the Islamic faith are fundamentally incompatible with the norms of Western liberal democracies, specifically calling out the Bondi attacker for disregarding Australia’s longstanding commitment to religious freedom.

    “Plainly, multiculturalism has failed and diversity is not our strength when two individuals have so rejected our national ideals,” Abbott stated in his remarks.

    The controversial claim drew an immediate public rebuke from one of the party’s senior frontbench senators, Andrew Bragg, who pushed back against Abbott’s assertion on Sunday, saying he strongly disagrees with the former leader’s assessment. Bragg emphasized that Abbott’s comments run counter to the Liberal Party’s own long historical legacy of advancing inclusive immigration and multicultural policy in Australia.

    “I don’t agree with that,” Bragg told public broadcaster ABC. He went on to explain that liberal ideology itself laid the groundwork for modern Australian multiculturalism by establishing the foundational legal and social framework that protects freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of individual conscience for all residents.

    Bragg walked through the Liberal Party’s decades-long track record of advancing inclusive policy to underscore his point: “The Liberal Party built modern Australia – if you look at the Menzies government opening up immigration after the war, the Holt government abolishing key parts of the White Australia policy, and then of course Malcolm Fraser’s actions to promote multiculturalism and introduce iconic institutions like the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). So we have a very proud record to stand on, and I think it’s very important that we’re clear about that.”

    While Abbott’s current role as party president is officially classified as administrative, political observers note he still holds significant sway over the direction of the party’s federal campaign messaging. Bragg stressed that parliamentary party leaders have a responsibility to clearly articulate the party’s stance on what multiculturalism actually represents, and how the policy aligns with both liberal values and the needs of 21st-century Australia.

    He added that any concerns over illegal activities, from terrorism to forced marriage, are often misattributed to multicultural policy. “If people have concerns about certain things in Australia, whether that be around terrorism, forced marriages, other things like that, those are things which are illegal under Australian laws, and those things are not multiculturalism,” Bragg said. “The great thing about multiculturalism is that you can subscribe to the Australian nation, its laws, and its culture, but you can engage in your own cultural practices as well.”

    When asked whether senior party figures should pressure Abbott to retract his comments or stop making similar public statements, Bragg stopped short of calling for censorship, noting that as a former prime minister, Abbott retains the right to hold and express his own personal views, even as they diverge from the party’s historical position. “He’s a former prime minister. He’s entitled to his views. And I strongly disagree with them,” Bragg summarized.

  • Kyiv struck after attack on Russian e-commerce giant

    Kyiv struck after attack on Russian e-commerce giant

    Escalating cross-border attacks have plunged the Russia-Ukraine war into a dangerous new phase, with Russian ballistic missiles striking multiple civilian targets across Ukraine’s capital Kyiv overnight in retaliation for a major Ukrainian drone assault on Russian logistics infrastructure. The July 19 bombardment, which comes as Ukraine grapples with rare domestic political upheaval in its fifth year of full-scale invasion, has left conflicting casualty figures and widespread damage across the capital.

    Moments after Ukraine’s Air Force pushed an emergency alert to residents via the messaging platform Telegram warning of incoming ballistic threats, AFP correspondents on the ground in Kyiv heard multiple loud explosions. One blast was powerful enough to trigger car alarms across the city’s central district, witnesses confirmed. Initial casualty reports have been inconsistent: Kyiv’s military administration announced one fatality in a Telegram update, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported seven injuries with no confirmed deaths, and Ukraine’s state emergency service put the number of wounded at just two.

    Local authorities confirmed that the overnight strikes ignited multiple fires and damaged structures across five of Kyiv’s districts. In the Solomianskyi district, an apartment building was directly hit, and a nearby supermarket caught fire. A residential home burned in the Sviatoshynsky district, while strikes were also confirmed at a shopping and entertainment complex in Dniprovsky district, a second apartment building in the central Shevchenkivsky district, and an unused non-residential structure. This latest wave of attacks is part of Russia’s nearly daily campaign of missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian cities that has continued uninterrupted since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

    The retaliatory Russian strike came one day after Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack on e-commerce warehouses in Russia’s Moscow and Tambov regions. Ukrainian officials confirmed the attack, which killed eight people and sparked massive infernos across the two logistics hubs. In a post on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the strike was a direct response to repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, adding that the targeted warehouses were being used to store sanctioned components for Russian drone manufacturing and navigation systems.

    In simultaneous attacks across Ukraine on Saturday, Russian strikes killed five people and injured nearly 20 more in regions spanning the country’s southeastern frontline. Over recent months, Kyiv has stepped up long-range strikes on Russian territory, a campaign it frames as “long-range sanctions” intended to punish Moscow for its years of bombardment of Ukrainian civilian areas. The campaign has primarily targeted Russian oil infrastructure, contributing to widespread fuel shortages in one of the world’s largest oil-producing nations. Moscow has meanwhile reported a sharp rise in incoming drone attacks: Russian capital mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed that more than 370 drones were launched toward the Moscow region overnight in the recent attack, adding that nearly 1,900 incoming Ukrainian drones were intercepted in the week between July 11 and 18.

    Beyond the escalating cross-border fighting, Ukraine is facing unprecedented domestic political unrest amid a sudden military leadership shakeup. For the third consecutive day on Saturday, thousands of protestors gathered in major Ukrainian cities to oppose Zelensky’s dismissal of popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The tech-focused minister, who had pushed aggressive reforms to digitize and modernize Ukraine’s war-weary military, was removed in a surprise cabinet reshuffle at a moment when Ukrainian forces had been gaining incremental momentum on the frontline, triggering a rare public backlash against Zelensky’s administration.

    The reshuffle has also fuelled widespread media speculation that army chief General Oleksandr Syrsky could be next to be replaced, as Zelensky held two consecutive days of closed-door meetings with top military commanders over the weekend. During his six months in office, Fedorov repeatedly clashed with the 60-year-old Syrsky over his modernization and digitization agenda for the Ukrainian military, which has been strained by more than four and a half years of continuous high-intensity combat.

  • Immigrants ‘destroying’ Australia, Pauline Hanson claims at CPAC dinner in London

    Immigrants ‘destroying’ Australia, Pauline Hanson claims at CPAC dinner in London

    One Nation party leader and Australian Senator Pauline Hanson has refused to walk back inflammatory remarks about the end of the race-based White Australia policy, doubling down on her anti-immigration rhetoric during a high-profile conservative gathering in London over the weekend. Just one day after sparking widespread public fury for comments lamenting the abolition of the century-old white-only immigration framework, Hanson addressed a black-tie dinner hosted by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where she doubled down on her incendiary claims that mass immigration is ‘destroying’ Australia, mirroring what she claims is a crisis unfolding in the United Kingdom.

    Hanson’s latest controversial remarks center on a familiar critique that has defined her political career: she argued that global political leaders are failing to protect national sovereignty, arguing they are increasingly beholden to international special interests rather than the needs of their own domestic populations. She told the assembled conservative audience that the shifts Australia has experienced from decades of high immigration mirror the challenges she says the UK now faces. ‘I see in Australia the problems that you have in Britain. I see immigration is destroying our country as it has destroyed yours,’ Hanson told attendees.

    Hanson’s perspective on UK immigration was shaped by a recent guided tour of Luton, a town located 30 minutes northwest of central London that has become a flashpoint for debates over multicultural integration in the UK. Notably, her tour was led by far-right British activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is widely known by his professional pseudonym Tommy Robinson. Robinson has a lengthy criminal record that includes convictions for assault, stalking, and public order offenses, and he has previously faced formal investigations over his documented links to Russian state-backed propaganda networks. It was in a separate interview with Robinson that Hanson first made her remarks lamenting the end of the White Australia policy, triggering the initial wave of national and international backlash.

    In her CPAC dinner speech, which was first brought to public attention by *The Sydney Morning Herald*, Hanson also repeated a common grievance among right-wing nationalist circles: she claimed that white communities in both Australia and the UK are being forced to feel collective shame for their national histories and are labeled inherently ‘white privileged.’ She argued that majority populations are being pressured to abandon their long-held national identities to accommodate new immigrant communities, rather than expecting new arrivals to integrate into existing national culture.

    Hanson sought to frame her comments as not inherently anti-immigrant, noting that she has consistently supported immigration by people who commit to integrating into Australian society. ‘I have always welcomed people to Australia, a country built by the migrants that came there for a better way of life,’ she said. ‘And as I said at citizenship ceremonies: I welcome you as long as you give our country your undivided loyalty. But if you don’t, I’ll be the first one to take you to the airport, put you on plane, and wave you goodbye.’

    To contextualize the ongoing controversy, the White Australia policy was formally enshrined in Australia’s 1901 Immigration Restriction Act, a collection of racially discriminatory laws designed to block non-European immigration to preserve a nation dominated by white, British-origin populations. The framework was gradually rolled back through mid-20th century reform, before former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam fully abolished the policy with bipartisan political support in 1973. The controversy has already drawn sharp condemnation from political opponents, with one senior Australian politician already comparing Hanson’s meeting with Robinson to a meeting with Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and more details on the political fallout are expected to emerge in coming days.

  • Iran declares Islamabad agreement suspended, blames US violations

    Iran declares Islamabad agreement suspended, blames US violations

    Tensions between Iran and the United States have reached a new critical juncture, with Tehran formally announcing it has abandoned all obligations under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a Pakistan-brokered truce deal reached just months ago to de-escalate open hostilities between the two nations. The official announcement, made Saturday by Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, represents the clearest break yet from the June agreement, with Gharibabadi directly blaming the United States for triggering the suspension through its own repeated violations of the deal’s terms. As the announcement landed, ongoing military exchanges between the two sides continued to intensify, raising fears of a broader regional escalation that could draw in neighboring states. Signed in June following weeks of open armed conflict, the 14-point Islamabad MoU outlined a clear path toward de-escalation: it included commitments to reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, end the US naval blockade of Iranian assets, and roll back military operations in a phased, reciprocal process. But according to statements carried by Iran’s state-owned Fars News Agency, Gharibabadi said Washington failed to uphold its end of the bargain. “The US has violated and suspended all its commitments within the framework of the Islamabad MoU,” Gharibabadi told the outlet. In response, Tehran has mirrored the action, halting all its own obligations under the agreement. “We also likewise have suspended all of our commitments as a result; we are no longer implementing those commitments,” added Gharibabadi, who leads Iran’s technical negotiating team for discussions with international parties. “We are now busy defending the country.” This formal suspension comes after weeks of rising tensions: Iranian officials had previously warned that continued US military attacks would put the entire truce at risk. The break from the agreement coincides with a sharp intensification of conflict across the region. Iran’s Ministry of Health confirmed that US military strikes carried out since July 6 have killed at least 50 Iranian civilians and left more than 500 others wounded. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s elite military force, has also issued a stark warning to nations that host US military assets on their territory, stating that any support for US attacks will be met with a proportional reciprocal response. Overnight US strikes caused further civilian disruption, damaging a key desalination facility that supplies drinking water to roughly 10,000 Iranians. The strike signals that the conflict has entered a new, more unstable phase, with spillover effects already being felt across the Gulf region. Bahraini authorities activated air raid sirens multiple times in recent days as authorities prepared for potential incoming attacks, while Kuwaiti military forces confirmed they have intercepted several missiles and drones launched toward the country. The breakdown of the Pakistan-mediated deal marks a major setback for regional diplomacy, ending the brief window of de-escalation that opened earlier this year and raising the risk of a full-scale regional conflict in the Middle East.

  • Hungary’s president signs a constitutional amendment ending his term

    Hungary’s president signs a constitutional amendment ending his term

    BUDAPEST, Hungary — A dramatic chapter of Hungarian political transition drew to a close Saturday when outgoing President Tamás Sulyok signed a constitutional amendment that formally terminates his term in office, wrapping up a bitter standoff between Sulyok — an appointee of long-ruling former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — and the new administration led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar.

    Magyar, whose center-right, pro-European Tisza Party secured a landslide election victory over Orbán’s long-standing government in April, made Sulyok’s removal a top priority after taking office in May. The new prime minister has framed the ouster of Sulyok and other Orbán-aligned officials as a necessary purge to dismantle what he calls Orbán’s autocratic “mafia state.” Magyar repeatedly called on Sulyok to step down, arguing the president failed to uphold his constitutional duty by failing to check anti-democratic policies advanced during Orbán’s 12-year tenure.

    When Sulyok refused to resign voluntarily, Magyar’s parliamentary majority pushed through the constitutional amendment earlier this week, a measure that mandated the immediate end of Sulyok’s presidency. The legislation gave Sulyok five days to sign the amendment into law, and he acted on the final day of that window to put the measure into effect.

    In a video posted to Facebook Saturday evening, Sulyok — who Magyar repeatedly labeled Orbán’s political puppet — pushed back against his removal, saying the forced end to his term served as “lasting proof that the fundamental values of a free society, the rule of law, democracy, the principle of power-sharing, have been trampled on in the interest of power.”

    Sulyok’s term will officially end at midnight on Monday. Following the vacancy, Parliament Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer will assume presidential duties on an acting basis, until Hungarian lawmakers elect a permanent new president within a constitutionally mandated 30-day window. Magyar announced Saturday he would convene his party caucus on Monday to discuss the Tisza Party’s nomination for the new head of state.

    Sulyok’s removal is just the latest step in Magyar’s sweeping campaign to remove Orbán-era political appointees and undo the institutional changes implemented during his predecessor’s decade-plus rule. Since taking power in May, the new government has suspended the news division of state-owned public television and radio — which Magyar accuses of operating as a propaganda arm for Orbán’s ruling party — and dissolved the controversial Sovereignty Protection Office, a body Orbán’s opponents have long condemned as a tool to harass government critics and muzzle independent media outlets.

    Beyond ending Sulyok’s term, the constitutional amendment approved this week includes a package of broader governance reforms: it introduces new judicial oversight changes, establishes a special office tasked with investigating allegations of financial corruption and abuse during the Orbán administration, and enshrines a 12-year term limit for members of parliament into the national constitution.

    Orbán, who led Hungary for 12 years before his election defeat, reacted sharply to Sulyok’s signing of the amendment Saturday. In a Facebook post, the former prime minister warned that “tyranny is no longer a threat, but a reality.” He added, “If this could be done to the president of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe.”

    But Magyar framed the amendment’s passage as a landmark win for Hungarian democratic renewal. In his own Saturday Facebook video statement, the prime minister argued that by approving the amendment, “we have fulfilled several of our important commitments and returned what the Orbán regime tried to take away from the Hungarian people for many years.”

  • Hungary’s president agrees to stand down after parliament backs removal

    Hungary’s president agrees to stand down after parliament backs removal

    In a dramatic shakeup of Hungarian politics that caps months of upheaval following the April general election, President Tamás Sulyok has formalized his early exit from office, signing a controversial constitutional amendment that will end his term at midnight Sunday. The move comes after Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s ruling Tisza party pushed the constitutional change through parliament in a fast-track process to remove Sulyok, a figure widely recognized as a key loyalist to long-serving former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose 16-year grip on power ended with a landslide defeat for his Fidesz party in April.

    Sulyok faced an explicit five-day deadline to sign the amendment, with the alternative being a messy constitutional crisis and formal impeachment proceedings. As the clock ran down on Saturday evening, the outgoing president confirmed he would comply with the new law — but used his final statement to deliver a scathing rebuke of Magyar’s new administration. He argued that the forced ouster via constitutional amendment represents a clear breach of the rule of law, calling the moment a “breaking point in Hungarian constitutional democracy.” In his remarks, Sulyok claimed that the “core values of a free society… have been trampled underfoot for the sake of political power,” adding that he had no existing constitutional pathways to challenge the amendment.

    This ouster marks the most high-profile and consequential action taken by the Tisza government to date, which has framed Sulyok as a leftover puppet of the Orbán era that had no place in the new administration. Since taking power after a commanding election victory in April, the party has moved rapidly to implement sweeping constitutional changes to undo the institutional legacy of Fidesz.

    The amendment has already drawn fierce pushback from Orbán and what remains of his party. Orbán has condemned the move as an act of tyranny and called on his supporters to hold public protests against the ouster. Since the April election defeat, Fidesz has collapsed into disarray, still reeling from the shock of losing power after 16 years in control. Orbán himself has largely vanished from public life, and has refused to claim his allocated seat in the new parliament.

    The roots of this political clash stretch back to the 16 years of Fidesz rule from 2010 to 2026. During that time, the party used its long-held two-thirds parliamentary majority to reshape Hungarian state institutions to align with its ideological and political goals, filling dozens of nominally independent state positions — including the presidency — with hand-picked party loyalists.

    When the constitutional amendment vote passed parliament on Monday, the 141 Tisza deputies gave a standing ovation as the final results were read out. The move has split legal and political observers, however. András Baka, the former head of Hungary’s Supreme Court, publicly expressed support for Sulyok’s removal in comments to the BBC. Baka argued that between 1989 and 2010, Hungary operated as a consistent rule-of-law democracy, but after Fidesz took power in 2010, the party systematically captured independent state institutions to build an authoritarian regime. “And it is now very difficult to break up a sophisticated authoritarian regime… which was designed to survive even after electoral defeat,” Baka explained, justifying the removal of Sulyok as a necessary step to undo Fidesz’s institutional legacy.

  • Mexico’s president to attend World Cup final at Trump’s invitation

    Mexico’s president to attend World Cup final at Trump’s invitation

    In a notable shift after months of public verbal friction, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has confirmed she will accept an invitation from United States President Donald Trump to attend the 2026 FIFA World Cup final this Sunday. The high-profile match, set to take place in New Jersey, will mark the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since December, a gathering that carries significant diplomatic weight amid ongoing strained bilateral ties.

    This appearance will break Sheinbaum’s earlier pattern of stepping back from prominent World Cup event engagements earlier in the tournament. When Mexico’s opening match against South Africa kicked off in Mexico City — a game Mexico won 2-0 — Sheinbaum opted not to take her place in the stands, instead gifting her ticket to a young Indigenous woman from the country, a choice that aligned with her administration’s focus on centering marginalized communities.

    Speaking to Mexican reporters, Sheinbaum clarified her decision to attend the final, emphasizing that the direct, personal invitation from the U.S. president was the core factor in her change of plans. She also confirmed that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will join the two leaders at the event, and noted that she would release a pre-recorded address with further details on her trip in the coming day.

    Tensions have lingered between the Sheinbaum administration and Trump’s White House across multiple key policy areas, including cross-border security cooperation and bilateral trade rules. The last time the two leaders shared a public appearance was back in December, during the official World Cup draw ceremony, months before the tournament kicked off.

    This iteration of the men’s World Cup marks a historic first: it is being jointly hosted by the three North American nations — the United States, Mexico, and Canada — a collaborative project that was intended to highlight regional cooperation even as political rifts have widened between the current leaders of the three countries. Sunday’s final will pit defending world champions Argentina against European powerhouse Spain for the tournament title, with Spain’s King Felipe VI also confirmed to be in attendance for the decisive match.

    This coverage is part of ongoing reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean from the Associated Press.

  • German politician resigns over surrogacy child controversy

    German politician resigns over surrogacy child controversy

    A leading German center-right politician has stepped down from his top parliamentary role following widespread backlash over his use of an international surrogate to welcome a new child, a practice he and his party have long banned domestically.

    Forty-six-year-old Jens Spahn, a senior figure in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former parliamentary group leader for Germany’s governing coalition, confirmed earlier this week that he and his husband Daniel Funke had become first-time parents via a surrogate based in the United States. The announcement immediately ignited fierce cross-party criticism, even from within Spahn’s own CDU, over accusations of blatant hypocrisy: surrogacy is strictly prohibited under Germany’s 1990 Embryo Protection Act, a policy that both the CDU and Spahn personally have repeatedly supported for decades.

    Under German law, anyone facilitating commercial surrogacy within the country faces up to three years of prison or substantial fines. While raising a child born via surrogacy abroad is not illegal in Germany, the CDU reaffirmed its unwavering support for the full domestic ban as recently as February 2025, arguing that the prohibition prevents the exploitation of women and stops surrogacy from being turned into a profit-driven commercial industry. Critics have also highlighted Spahn’s long public record of opposing surrogacy legalization: during his tenure as German Health Minister in 2020, he rejected calls from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) to loosen the country’s surrogacy restrictions, and as early as 2015, he wrote publicly that “as a gay man and a Christian I find it personally very hard to warm to the idea of a rented womb”.

    In an official statement released Saturday, Spahn said he had concluded that his new personal happiness as a parent was fundamentally incompatible with his high-profile political position. “The balancing act between my private decision to have a child through surrogacy and the understandable expectations placed on me as Chairman of our parliamentary group has become greater than I anticipated,” he wrote. Spahn also called for more empathy in public discourse, noting that the “increasing relentlessness in public discourse” had forced him to reflect deeply on his position.

    CDU leader and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly backed Spahn’s resignation, calling the decision “right” and “inevitable.” “Credibility is the highest asset in politics,” Merz posted on social media, confirming that the party would immediately launch the process of selecting a permanent replacement for Spahn’s role. Until a permanent successor is appointed, Alexander Hoffmann, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group, will take over Spahn’s duties on an interim basis. Hoffmann said that Spahn’s choice “deserves the utmost respect,” though many within the party have maintained that the resignation was unavoidable.

    Prior to Spahn’s announcement, senior CDU politician Daniel Peters from the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania told German tabloid *Bild* that Spahn’s position had become “no longer tenable,” arguing that it was fundamentally wrong for a senior lawmaker to act one way privately while upholding a conflicting policy as an elected official.

    The controversy comes as European nations remain deeply divided over surrogacy policy. Like Germany, Italy, France and Spain all enforce domestic bans on commercial surrogacy. Just this month, France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled that children born to surrogates abroad must be legally recognized as the children of their intended parents. In contrast, Italy’s right-wing government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni passed a law in 2024 that criminalizes Italian residents pursuing surrogacy even outside the country’s borders. For thousands of German couples, both same-sex and heterosexual, who cannot conceive children on their own, surrogacy abroad has become one of the only accessible paths to building a family.