Straight from the Wire
Aleksandar Vucic told reporters that he, and not some minister, will announce any policy changes
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic brushed off the demands of one of his cabinet ministers to join the EU sanctions against Russia, telling reporters on Thursday that the long-standing policy might change only if there is no other way.
The French president forced his controversial pension reform bill through without a full vote in parliament
French President Emmanuel Macron bypassed parliament and enacted a controversial pension reform package on Thursday, triggering riots and arson on the streets of Paris. The move, which raises France’s retirement age to 64, had already caused months of strikes and protests.
A Minnesota facility disclosed tritium water spill after applying for license extension
Authorities in the northern US state of Minnesota revealed on Thursday that a nuclear power plant near Minneapolis had suffered a radioactive water spill amounting to over 1.5 million liters. Xcel Energy, which owns the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, is working to clean up the spill and insists there is no danger to the general public.
Beijing is right to condemn the pact as spurring an arms race and undermining Asia-Pacific stability
Earlier this week, a trilateral summit was held with the leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom and the US in San Diego to flesh out the details of an AUKUS deal providing Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines, with the intention of containing China in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The foreign ministry in Beijing noted the unusual behavior of Western media
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin found it unusual that major outlets in the West uncritically embraced the claim by unnamed US officials that a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible for the bombing of Nord Stream natural gas pipelines.
At the press briefing on Wednesday,
Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley called up their Russian counterparts for the first time in months
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, on Wednesday, for the first time in months, to discuss the incident in which an American spy drone went down in the Black Sea waters off Crimea.
Finland expects Türkiye to green-light its application later this week, but Sweden’s fate remains uncertain
President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said on Wednesday that he expects a positive answer on Helsinki’s membership in the US-led military bloc when he meets his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan later this week.
Niinisto is scheduled to arrive in Türkiye on Thursday and tour the regions affected by the February earthquakes that claimed almost 50,000 lives.
New missile test comes amid South Korea’s drills with the US and a summit with Japan
The North Korean military fired another ballistic missile into the sea towards Japan on Thursday, officials in Seoul said. The third launch in five days came as South Korea continued joint military exercises with the US, and just hours before the South Korean president took off for Tokyo.
Ammonia escaping from a 20,000-gallon container stoked concerns of wider contamination
Workers at a Coca-Cola plant in Florida were forced to evacuate following a major chemical leak, local officials said. The spill also prompted a brief shelter-in-place order for residents in the area.
A massive 20,000-gallon tank was found to be leaking ammonia at a facility in Auburndale,
Officials in some EU states say the bloc is forcing them to foot the bill for millions of unused vaccine doses
Pfizer has offered to extend its Covid-19 vaccine contract with the European Union while scaling back deliveries, but still expects the bloc to pay billions of euros for unused doses amid a major supply glut in some countries,
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