₦airaland Forum

LeeSmart:
You need to come see how furious these European countries were yesterday😅😅.
I love how trump is handling dem, thank God for the incoming German chancellor who's also going to align with mr trump.

FreeStuffsNG:
He will lose again

Zelensky is among the least of his priorities but he chose to make it a priority.

The current polls were bad for him so much that in Economy, he is now down 5% as against 8% up in 2017

FreeStuffsNG:
Trump is transactional so I am not surprised. Ukraine’s time too will come after Trump leaves office.

The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for its occupied territory to be returned that passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.

The U.S. delegation also abstained on its own separate resolution that called simply for a negotiated end to the war after European-sponsored amendments inserting new anti-Russian language also passed the 193-member body by a wide margin.

The votes were a clear sign of opposition by major U.S. allies as well as countries throughout the Global South who were prepared to buck heavy diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to quickly end the war through direct negotiations with Moscow.

A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the fast-moving diplomacy, said the United States would introduce its resolution at a meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council later Monday and would veto any amendments.

“While our partners at the Security Council and in the General Assembly would like to debate the entire situation now, we are much more focused on just getting the parties to the table so that whatever the next step is can be undertaken,” the official said

Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the International Crisis Group, said the divide between the United States and Europe marked “the biggest split among Western powers at the U.N. since the Iraq War — and probably even more fundamental.

Germany’s Friedrich Merz has pledged to achieve “independence” from the United States after his centre-right alliance won parliamentary elections held amid doubts about US President Donald Trump’s commitment to Europe’s security.

Merz, who faces complex negotiations with his party’s traditional centre-left rival to form a coalition government after ruling out the second-placed hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), said on Sunday that it would be his “absolute priority” to strengthen Europe so it does not have to rely on Washington for its defence.


“I never thought I would have to say something like that on a TV programme but after Donald Trump’s latest comments in the last week, it is clear that the Americans, or at least this portion of the Americans, this government, care very little about the fate of Europe,” the chancellor-in-waiting told a televised roundtable of political leaders.

Merz said he was not sure that NATO would exist in its “current form” by the time of the next meeting of the transatlantic military alliance in June, “or whether we will have to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly”.

That is my absolute priority, I have no illusions at all about what will come out of America,” Merz said.

Merz also took aim at tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s cost-cutting tsar and close ally, for intervening in the election campaign to support the AfD, which secured its best-ever result in a national poll.

“The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and impertinent than the interventions we have seen from Moscow, so we are under massive pressure from two sides,” Merz said.

Merz’s Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) alliance won 208 seats with 28.6 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, preliminary results showed, followed by the AfD with 152 seats and 20.8 percent of the vote – a doubling of its result at the last election.

Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had governed in a widely unpopular three-party coalition, took 120 seats, its worst result since the end of World World Two.

The Greens won 85 seats, followed by the democratic socialist Die Linke with 64 seats and left-wing populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) with one seat.

DrAda:
Ok. He won't be missed

Pope Francis is in a critical condition after he suffered a long asthmatic respiratory crisis that required high flows of oxygen, the Vatican has said.

Francis, 88, who has been hospitalised for a week with a complex lung infection, also received blood transfusions after tests showed a condition associated with anemia, the Vatican said in an update today.

Earlier, doctors said Francis was battling pneumonia and a complex respiratory infection that doctors said remains touch-and-go and will keep him hospitalised for at least another week.

The Vatican carried on with its Holy Year celebrations without the pope on Saturday.

In a brief earlier update today, Francis is said to have slept well overnight.

But doctors have warned the main threat facing Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.

As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Francis was responding to the various drugs he is taking, the pope's medical team said in their first in-depth update on his condition.

The heated exchange erupted after Senator Akpoti challenged Akpabio, asserting that her voice would not be silenced. Natasha declared to Akpabio, “I am not afraid of you

It was an emotional day for A$AP Rocky and Rihanna, as he was found not guilty in his gun assault trial.

Rihanna took to her Instagram afterward to write, “The glory belongs to God and God alone! Thankful, humbled by his mercy!”

A$AP told reporters outside of court, “First of all, I got to thank God… And I really want to thank the jury for making the right decision. I’m just so thankful. This is crazy right now. This whole experience has been crazy, for the past four years, but I’m thankful, nonetheless, I’m thankful. Blessed to be here right now, to be a free man talkin’ to y’all. Thank you. All praise to God.”

EU diplomats have imposed a fresh round of sanctions against Russia, as Brussels vows to ramp up pressure on Moscow despite US-led negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine war.

The bloc’s 16th package of sanctions will target Russia’s aluminian industry, oil exports and individuals and companies deemed to be fuelling Russia’s war against Ukraine.

They will hit 13 more banks and 73 more “shadow fleet tankers” used by Moscow to export crude oil. A “phased-in” ban on EU countries buying certain types of Russian aluminium products will also be brought in, according to officials briefed on the package.

The package is set to be formally approved by EU foreign ministers on Monday, on the third anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It comes after Donald Trump appeared to place some blame for the war on Ukraine, saying that a “half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives, and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides”.

jaxxy:
She was very wrong but the punishment was too harsh.

it's not rewarding bad behaviour but giving people opportunity to learn and grow rather than condemning them for their sins.

She has already been punished by the school. Should her education end cos of that??

Masterviolence:
I cannot fathom the meaning behind your statement. Is Europe not being exceedingly foolish in its desire for the destruction of Russia?

Do you truly advocate for the continuation of European support for the war in Ukraine, a conflict that seemingly leads to the complete devastation of Ukraine, especially considering their reluctance to deploy their own soldiers against Russia? The fact that a sanctioned Russia is performing better than some of Europe’s wealthiest nations is a compelling reason to hasten the negotiations

Ukraine will not recognise any peace deal made by the US and Russia if Kyiv is not involved, Volodymyr Zelenksy has insisted.

The Ukrainian president said negotiations between US and Russian officials expected to begin in Saudi Arabia tomorrow will “yield no results”, given the absence of a Ukrainian delegation.

“Ukraine regards any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine as ones that have no result, and we cannot recognise ... any agreements about us without us,” Mr Zelensky said.

Ukraine “did not know anything” about the upcoming US-Russia talks, he added, telling reporters he had learnt about them from press reports.

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, arrived in the Gulf state earlier today and is expected to meet Russia’s delegation alongside Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, the White House Middle East envoy.

The Kremlin has sent Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, to discuss ending the war in Ukraine and to prepare the ground for a personal summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Today, Lavrov said the Kremlin has no intention of giving up any territory it has seized in Ukraine.

In Paris, European leaders are expected to gather later to discuss their own peace plan for Ukraine.