World News

Far-right parties surged in the European Union-wide elections for a new European Parliament, including in Germany and France, where President Emmanuel Macron called snap legislative elections within three weeks.

Voting was underway in most of the 27 European Union member states Sunday, the final and most significant day of European Parliament elections, amid concerns about the war in Ukraine, which seeks to join the EU, and issues such as migration. Polls ahead of what has been dubbed Super Sunday suggest far-right and moderate right-wing parties are due to make gains.

Voting was underway Saturday in five European Union countries, including Italy, to choose 127 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament during concerns about the EU’s future. Saturday’s vote was day three of four days of European elections, marred by violence, such as an attack against the Danish prime minister. The voting will conclude Sunday when most voters of the 27 member states cast ballots. Observers on Saturday focused especially on Italy and Slovakia, which are still reeling from last month’s assassination attempt on their prime minister.

U.S. President Joe Biden has, for the first time, publicly apologized to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for the months of delay in American military assistance that Kyiv said cost lives and allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield.

The European Union’s parliamentary elections, the world’s largest voting exercise after India’s, entered their second day Friday. EU nations Ireland and the Czech Republic cast ballots for 35 seats in the European Parliament. Friday’s voting began in these two nations after the Netherlands kicked off the four-day ballot with an anti-Islam party in a tight race with leftist parties.

World leaders gathered Thursday in Normandy, France, for the 80th anniversary of the bloody D-Day landings that helped to end World War Two, realizing that Europe faces once again death and destruction in Ukraine.

Global initiatives are accelerating to introduce a worldwide digital identification document (ID) that opponents say could eventually force billions to relinquish their privacy.

The Dutch Labor Party/GreenLeft (PvdA/GL) alliance has become the biggest party in the Dutch elections for the European Parliament, winning eight seats, in a setback for right-wing parties, exit polls showed Thursday.

The Netherlands kicked off four days of voted in the European Union when almost 400 million voters can elect 720 members of the European Parliament at a time of turmoil across the continent.

The board of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday passed a resolution censuring Iran for its ongoing refusal to cooperate with the agency’s nuclear watchdog inspectors, the Associated Press reports. The resolution was introduced by France, Germany and Britain.

At least four people, including two Ukrainians, were killed, and some 20 people suffered light injuries when a passenger train collided with a freight train overnight in the Czech Republic, officials said Thursday.

In the second-biggest exercise in democracy behind India’s recent elections, almost 400 million voters will elect 720 members of the European Parliament (EP) from beyond the Arctic circle to the edges of Africa and Asia at a time when Europe faces its most significant armed conflict since World War Two.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has blamed the opposition for last month’s attempt on his life and said he was punished for anti-war views.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia could deploy nuclear bombs and provide long-range weapons to others against Western targets after Ukraine used for the first time U.S. arms to hit sides inside Russia.

A German far-right politician has been injured in a knife attack in the same German city where a police officer was fatally stabbed last week by a suspected Islamist extremist.

A suspected Islamist extremist was shot and captured by Lebanese soldiers after a Wednesday shootout outside the U.S. Embassy near Beirut that injured an embassy security guard, witnesses and officials confirmed.

A prominent Jewish leader has praised a decision by the Dutch fishing town of Urk to welcome Jews who are fearful of rising antisemitism in the country.

As clashes continue between the US and its allies and Iran-backed Houthi Islamic rebels in Yemen, the jihadist terrorists launched anti-ship ballistic missiles at an American vessel in the Red Sea at the weekend, the Washington Times reports.

Authorities in Germany say they believe an Islamist extremist carried out a knife attack in the southwestern city of Mannheim that killed a young police officer and left five others injured.

An emergency open meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday saw the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan clash with China and Russia over North Korea’s continued launches of satellite and ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions, the Associated Press reports.