Euobserver.com

Zsuzsa Hegedüs, a veteran aide of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, has quit her post after Orbán spoke out against interracial mixing in a speech last weekend. The speech was "pure Nazi" and "worthy of Goebbels [Hitler's propagandist]" she said in her resignation letter, according to Hungarian media. Orbán replied he had "zero-tolerance" of racism and and antisemitism, despite a history of race-baiting by his government.

Russia is to abandon the International Space Station it operates with Europe, the US, Canada, and Japan after 2024 to build its own one, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday. US agency Nasa had earlier said the international station would retire in 2031. The European Space Agency recently cancelled a joint Roscosmos project to look for life on Mars in fallout from the Ukraine war.

The EU has put forward a draft new nuclear non-proliferation deal between Iran and world powers after 15 months of talks, with EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell writing in the FT that: "If the deal is rejected, we risk a dangerous nuclear crisis, set against the prospect of increased isolation for Iran and its people." Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said Iran had its "own ideas" on a compromise.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Greece on Tuesday in his first time back in the EU since his minions murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and dismembered him with a bone saw. Bin Salman held talks with Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis about defence-sector, energy, and telecommunications investments. He wanted to help make Greece "a hub" for hydrogen fuel imports he said prior to his departure.

From food policy to climate change, corporate lobbyists are exploiting the Ukraine crisis to try to slash legislation that gets in the way of profit. But this is only making things worse.

Comparisons between post-communist Albania and current-day Ukraine are fascinating — and make many pertinent parallels. Ukrainians have a similar determination to belong to "the rest of Europe" as Albanians.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is pitching his Latin American country as the answer to the world food crisis following the war in Ukraine. The traditional wheat importer has now exported three million tonnes of the grain so far in 2022.

The agreement came as Russia's Gazprom said it would cut gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to 20 percent of capacity, starting Wednesday. Ireland, Malta and Cyprus secured exemptions.

The agreement came as Russia's Gazprom said it would cut gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to 20 percent of capacity, starting Wednesday. Ireland, Malta and Cyprus secured exemptions.

German national airline Lufthansa has announced almost all its flights from Frankfurt and Munich will be cancelled due to a staff strike scheduled on Wednesday, DW reported. The effects of the one-day strike are likely to affect flights later in the week. More than 1,000 flights have been called off affecting around 134,000 passengers amid the summer peak travel season. Thousands of flights have been cancelled across Europe this summer.

Cyprus has said Russia's war on Ukraine and related gas cut-offs could help accelerate its efforts to get offshore gas flowing to the EU. Europe's "intention to move away from Russia regardless of when the war ends" means it will need alternative sources, Cypriot energy minister Natasa Pilides told Bloomberg Monday. Exploration of Cyprus' offshore fields was bedevilled by territorial disputes with Turkey before the war.

The EU Parliament needs to take stronger measures against MEPs who serve foreign dictators, such as Putin, on bogus election-monitoring missions.

EU member states should start preparing now for a new wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in autumn and winter, the EU commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides said on Monday, adding that there had been a "worrying increase" in outbreaks. Kyriakides said that the commission had asked member states to accelerate booster shots now for persons over 60 and vulnerable groups, Reuters reported. "These months should be preparatory months," she said.

The meeting comes as the Russian state-controlled Gazprom announced that supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany would drop to just 20 percent of capacity, starting Wednesday.

The two Conservative MPs fighting to replace Boris Johnson as British prime minister clashed on taxes, inflation and foreign policy in their first head-to-head TV debate on Monday night. Former finance minister Rishi Sunak warned of current foreign secretary Liz Truss's former embrace of China, whilst Truss, promising £40bn [€47.2bn] in tax cuts, accused Sunak of raising taxes. The winner is due to be announced on 5 September.

The leader of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party has warned Moscow could try to interfere in the country's snap elections, called after the collapse of Mario Draghi's government last week, Reuters reports. Enrico Letta said he wanted Italian intelligence agencies and the European Union's disinformation unit to monitor the two-month election campaign. The rightwing parties, the League and Forward Italy, are predicted to win a majority alongside hard-right Brothers of Italy.

The UK will host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, in lieu of war-torn Ukraine, the BBC reported. Ukraine won the 2022 event, earning it the right to host the televised competition, whilst the UK came in second place. Several cities are in the running to host the event, which sees a live audience of around 10,000 spectators, plus a TV audience across the continent.

David Trimble, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist party and the inaugural first minister of Northern Ireland, died at the age of 77 on Monday, his family announced. Trimble, alongside the moderate nationalist leader John Hume, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work putting together the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which led to power-sharing and the end of decades of bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

The trade association for disposable nappies responds to MEPs claims on dangerous chemicals in disposable nappies in the EU.

Esperanto's supporters include Alfred Hermann Fried, co-winner of the 1911 Nobel Peace Prize, and Lord Robert Cecil, the winner of the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize — not to mention communist revolutionaries like Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Josip Tito.