Tag: Europe

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Spain’s rail network under scrutiny after second deadly crash in three days

Spain’s rail network is under scrutiny after a commuter train crashed near Barcelona just days after at least 43 people died and 152 were injured in a collision between two high-speed trains.

The second crash in three days occurred at approximately 9pm on Tuesday when a retaining wall collapsed onto the track near Gelida in the region of Catalonia in north-east Spain, derailing a local train.

A trainee driver, named as 27-year-old Fernando Huerta from Seville, was killed and 41 people were injured, five of whom are in a critical condition.

It is believed the wall collapsed as a result of the unusually heavy rainfall that Catalonia is experiencing. However, as a precaution the region’s network was shut down pending inspections, stranding hundreds of thousands of people and causing chaos on the roads.

Emergency responders work at the site of the train derailment accident in Gelida

Earlier in the day, several people were injured, none seriously, when a train on the Maresme coast north of Barcelona struck a rock on the track. After a delay, the train was able to continue its journey.

The incidents have prompted Spain’s biggest train drivers union to call for an indefinite strike to demand assurances for the profession’s safety.

“We are going to demand criminal liability from those responsible for ensuring safety in the railway infrastructure,” the Semaf union said in a statement on Wednesday. It said it could not accept “the constant deterioration of the rail network” and was calling for “urgent new measures”.

While the cause of Sunday night’s collision at Adamuz, near Córdoba in southern Spain, is not yet clear, the train’s black box recorder revealed that the driver of the high-speed train from Málaga to Madrid had warned the control centre that he was in trouble moments before.

The driver is heard saying: “I’ve got an enganchón [a snag] near Adamuz.” According to the train operator Adif, the issue referred to was related to the connection between the train’s operating system and the overhead power source. The control centre tells him to disconnect the train from the power source; the driver replies that he has already done so.

He tells the controller to stop all oncoming trains and is told there aren’t any, but only moments later the high-speed train collides with a regional train heading in the other direction. The driver is then heard saying the train has been derailed and calling for emergency services.

The two accidents have focused minds on the rail network – both the nearly 4,000km (2,485 miles) of the super-efficient high-speed AVE network, mostly built with EU funding, and the chronically unreliable and underfunded regional services.

The transport minister, Óscar Puente, stressed during an interview with the television station Telecinco that the two accidents were “completely unrelated”. But opposition parties have seized the opportunity to pile pressure on the government.

“This is too much,” the head of the rightwing Popular party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, wrote on X as he demanded an “immediate clarification” of the state of the nation’s railways.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday before the Barcelona-area crash, the far-right Vox party’s spokesperson Pepa Millán claimed Spaniards were now “afraid to get on a train”.

However, while the latest accidents raise concerns about safety, according to EU statistics Spain’s rail network is one of Europe’s safest. According to the same report, in 2024 a total of 16 passengers died in accidents on Europe’s rail networks, among them one passenger in Spain. During the same period there were 20,000 deaths on Europe’s roads. (Guardian)

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UK’s Starmer calls Trump’s remarks on allies in Afghanistan ‘frankly appalling’

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about European troops staying off the front lines in Afghanistan insulting and appalling, joining a chorus of criticism from ‌other European officials and veterans.

“I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling, and I’m not surprised they’ve caused such hurt for the loved ones of those who were killed or injured,” Starmer told reporters.

When asked whether he would demand an apology from the U.S. leader, Starmer ⁠said: “If I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize.”

Britain lost ‍457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s. For several ‍of the war’s most intense ‍years it led the allied campaign in Helmand, Afghanistan’s biggest and most violent province, while also fighting as the main ⁠U.S. battlefield ally in Iraq.

Starmer’s remarks were notably strong coming from a leader who has tended to avoid direct criticism of Trump in public.

Trump told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” on Thursday the ​United States had “never needed” the transatlantic alliance and accused allies of staying “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan.

His remarks added to already strained relations with European allies after he used the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to again signal his interest in acquiring Greenland.

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel condemned Trump’s remarks on Afghanistan, calling them untrue and disrespectful.

Britain’s Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, also weighed in. “Those sacrifices deserve to ⁠be spoken about truthfully and with respect,” he said in a statement.

“We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who also served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Reuters in an interview.

Trump has “crossed a red line”, he added. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.”

Britain’s veterans minister, Alistair Carns, whose own military service included five tours including alongside American troops in Afghanistan, called Trump’s claims “utterly ridiculous”.

“We shed blood, sweat and tears together. Not everybody came home,” he said in a video posted on X.

Richard Moore, the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service, said he, like many MI6 officers, had operated in dangerous environments with “brave and highly esteemed” CIA counterparts and had been proud to do so with Britain’s closest ally.

Under NATO’s founding treaty, members are bound by a collective-defense clause, Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.

It has been invoked only once – after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New ​York and Washington, when allies pledged to support the United States. For most of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S.-led force there was under NATO command.

Some politicians noted that Trump had avoided the draft for ⁠the Vietnam War, citing bone spurs in his feet.

“Trump avoided military service 5 times,” Ed Davey, leader of Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats, wrote on X. “How dare he question their sacrifice.”

Poland’s sacrifice “will never be forgotten and must not be diminished”, Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

Trump’s comments were “ignorant”, said Rasmus Jarlov, an opposition ‍Conservative Party member of Denmark’s parliament.

In addition to the British deaths, more than 150 Canadians were killed in Afghanistan, along ‌with 90 French service personnel and scores ‌from Germany, Italy and other countries. Denmark – now under heavy pressure ‍from Trump to transfer its semi-autonomous region of Greenland to the U.S. – lost 44 troops, one of NATO’s highest per-capita death rates.

The United States lost ‌about 2,460 troops in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, a figure on ‍par per capita with those of Britain and Denmark. (JapanToday)

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French museum fare hikes for non-European tourists spark outcry

Should foreign tourists pay more for state-funded galleries than locals, or should art be accessible to all, without discrimination? France is hiking prices for non-Europeans at the Louvre this week, provoking debate about so-called “dual pricing”.

From Wednesday, any adult visitor from outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway will have to pay 32 euros ($37) to enter the Louvre — a 45-percent increase — while the Palace of Versailles will up its prices by three euros.

Americans, UK citizens and Chinese nationals, who are some of the museum’s most numerous foreign visitors, will be among those affected, as will tourists from poorer countries.

The French move has few precedents elsewhere in Europe, but is more common in developing countries, where tariffs at sites such as Machu Picchu in Peru or the Taj Mahal in India vary.

Trade unions at the Louvre have denounced the policy as “shocking philosophically, socially and on a human level” and have called for strike action over the change, along with a raft of other complaints.

They argue that the museum’s vast collection of 500,000 items, including many from Egypt, the Middle East or Africa, hold universal human value.

While rejecting discriminatory pricing on principle, they are also worried for practical reasons, as staff will now need to check visitors’ identity papers.

French academic Patrick Poncet has drawn a parallel between France’s move and the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration hiked the cost for foreign tourists of visiting U.S. National Parks by $100 on January 1.

The French policy was “symptomatic of the return, as elsewhere in the world, of unabashed nationalism”, Poncet wrote in Le Monde newspaper last month.

Other state-owned French tourist hotspots are also hiking their fees, including the Chambord Palace in the Loire region and the national opera house in Paris.

The government has justified the increases on financial grounds, looking to raise 20-30 million euros annually at a time when it is under pressure to boost revenues and cut spending.

Some of the funds will go towards a colossal plan to renovate the Louvre, which French President Emmanuel Macron announced last year.

Estimated to cost around a billion euros, unions and some art critics have called the project wasteful.

Everyone agrees the Louvre is in poor shape, however, with a recent water leak, structural problems and an embarrassing daylight robbery in October focusing minds.

“I want visitors from outside the EU to pay more for their entry tickets and for that surcharge to go toward funding the renovation of our national heritage,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati said at the end of 2024 as she announced the hikes.

“The French are not meant to pay for everything all by themselves,” she added.

It remains to be seen whether the break with European convention by the continent’s most-visited country will spur other cultural destinations to follow suit.

Pricing based on age is commonplace in Europe, with access for under-18s free at places such as the Acropolis in Athens, the Prado in Madrid or the Colosseum in Rome to encourage them to visit.

The Louvre will remain free for minors from all countries and Europeans under 26.

Other destinations, such as the Doge’s Palace in Venice, offer free entrance for city residents.

Britain has long had a policy of offering universal free access to permanent collections at its national galleries and museums.

But the former director of the British Museum, Mark Jones, backed fee-paying in one of his last interviews in charge, telling The Sunday Times newspaper in 2024 that “it would make sense for us to charge overseas visitors for admission”.

The proposal prompted debate but has not been adopted.

A research paper published last year by The Cultural Policy Unit, a British museum think tank, opposed it for both practical and philosophical reasons.

It would reduce entries, lengthen queue times and overturn a centuries-old policy, the report concluded.

“Britain holds its national collections for the world — not just its own residents,” it objected. (JapanToday)

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Trump threatens European nations with tariffs until US can acquire Greenland

US President Donald Trump on Saturday escalated his quest to acquire Greenland, threatening multiple European nations with tariffs of up to 25 percent until his purchase of the Danish territory is achieved.

Trump aimed his ire at Denmark, a fellow NATO member, as well as several European countries that have deployed troops in recent days to the vast, mineral-rich territory at the gateway to the Arctic with a population of 57,000.

If realized, Trump’s threats against Washington’s NATO partners would create unprecedented tension within the alliance.

From February 1, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would be subject to a 10-percent tariff on all goods sent to the United States, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.

“On June 1st, 2026, the Tariff will be increased to 25%. This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” he wrote.

“These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable,” Trump said.

“Therefore, it is imperative that, in order to protect Global Peace and Security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation end quickly, and without question.”

It was not immediately clear what authority the US leader would invoke to impose the threatened tariffs of up to 25 percent.

Since returning to the presidency, Trump has unleashed sweeping tariffs on goods from virtually all trading partners, to address what Washington says are unfair trade practices and as a tool to press governments on US concerns. (Vanguard)

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Danish PM says Greenland showdown at ‘decisive moment’ after new Trump threats

Denmark’s Prime Minister said Sunday that her country faces a “decisive moment” in its diplomatic battle over Greenland after U.S. President Donald Trump again suggested using force to seize the Arctic territory.

Ahead of meetings in Washington from Monday on the global scramble for key raw materials, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that “there is a conflict over Greenland”.

“This is a decisive moment” with stakes that go beyond the immediate issue of Greenland’s future, she added in a debate with other Danish political leaders.

Frederiksen posted on Facebook that “we are ready to defend our values – wherever it is necessary – also in the Arctic. We believe in international law and in peoples’ right to self-determination.”

Germany and Sweden backed Denmark against Trump’s latest claims to the self-governing Danish territory.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned U.S. “threatening rhetoric” after Trump repeated that Washington was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not”.

“Sweden, the Nordic countries, the Baltic states, and several major European countries stand together with our Danish friends,” he told a defense conference in Salen where the U.S. general in charge of NATO took part.

Kristersson said a U.S. takeover of mineral-rich Greenland would be “a violation of international law and risks encouraging other countries to act in exactly the same way”.

Germany reiterated its support for Denmark and Greenland ahead of the Washington discussions.

Before meeting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadehpul was to hold talks in Iceland to address the “strategic challenges of the Far North”, according to a foreign ministry statement.

“The legitimate interests of all NATO Allies, as well as those of the inhabitants of the (Arctic) region, must be at the centre of our discussions,” Wadehpul said.

“It is clear that it is exclusively up to Greenland and Denmark to decide questions of Greenland’s territory and sovereignty,” he previously told Germany’s Bild daily.

“We are strengthening security in the Arctic together, as NATO allies, and not against one another,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said ahead of an international meeting on critical raw materials in Washington.

European nations have scrambled to coordinate a response after the White House said this week that Trump wanted to buy Greenland and refused to rule out military action.

On Tuesday, leaders of seven European countries including France, Britain, Germany and Italy signed a letter saying it is “only” for Denmark and Greenland to decide the territory’s future.

Trump says controlling the island is crucial for U.S. national security because of the rising Russian and Chinese military activity in the Arctic.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Alexus Grynkewich told the Swedish conference that alliance members were discussing Greenland’s status. The US general added that while there was “no immediate threat” to NATO territory, the Arctic’s strategic importance is fast growing.

Grynkewich said he would not comment on “the political dimensions of recent rhetoric” but that talks on Greenland were being held at the North Atlantic Council.

“Those dialogues continue in Brussels. They have been healthy dialogues from what I’ve heard,” the general said.

A Danish colony until 1953, Greenland gained home rule 26 years later and is contemplating eventually loosening its ties with Denmark. Polls indicate that Greenland’s population strongly oppose a U.S. takeover.

“I don’t think there’s an immediate threat to NATO territory right now,” Grynkewich told the conference.

But he said Russian and Chinese vessels had been seen patrolling together on Russia’s northern coast and near Alaska and Canada, working together to get greater access to the Arctic as ice recedes due to global warming. (JapanToday)

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Trump slams ‘‘decaying’’ Europe and pushes Ukraine on elections

U.S. President Donald Trump deepened his rift with Europe in an interview published Tuesday, calling it “decaying” and blasting key allies as “weak” over immigration and Ukraine.

Speaking to Politico, Trump also called on Ukraine to hold elections despite Russia’s invasion and questioned whether the country is truly democratic under President Volodmyr Zelenskyy.

Trump doubled down on his recent extraordinary criticisms of Europe, following the release of the new U.S. national security strategy last week that recycled far-right tropes as it warned of civilizational decline on the continent.

“Most European nations, they’re, they’re decaying. They’re decaying,” Trump told Politico in the interview, conducted Monday.

The 79-year-old billionaire, whose political rise to power was built on inflammatory language about migration, echoed far-right talking points as he said that Europe’s policies on migrants were a “disaster.”

“They don’t want to send them back to where they came from,” Trump said.

The Trump administration’s strategy sparked alarm in Europe — where most countries are part of the U.S.-led NATO alliance — by calling for the cultivation of “resistance” in the EU.

Asked if European countries would not remain U.S. allies if they failed to embrace his migration policies, Trump replied that “it depends.”

“I think they’re weak, but they also want to be so politically correct,” Trump said.

He listed countries including Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden that he said were being “destroyed” by migration, and launched a new attack on the “horrible, vicious, disgusting” Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor.

Trump also brushed off the Kremlin hailing the new U.S. strategy as echoing its own views, saying Putin “would like to see a weak Europe, and to be honest with you, he’s getting that. That has nothing to do with me.”

The U.S. president then criticized Europe’s role in resolving the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying: “They talk but they don’t produce. And the war just keeps going on and on.”

Washington and its European allies are increasingly at odds over Trump’s plan to end the war, which many European capitals fear will force Kyiv to hand over territory to Moscow.

Trump also had sharp words for Ukraine and for Zelenskyy, in his latest see-saw in relations with the leader whom he called a “dictator without elections” in January and then berated in the Oval Office in February.

“I think it’s an important time to hold an election. They’re using war not to hold an election.” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Elections in Ukraine were due in March 2024 but have been postponed under the imposition of martial law since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Fresh elections were included in the draft U.S. plan to end the war. (JapanToday)

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Putin accuses Europeans of sabotaging peace efforts on Ukraine; meets U.S. delegation

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv’s European allies Tuesday of sabotaging U.S.-led efforts to end the nearly 4-year-old war in Ukraine, shortly before he met with a delegation sent by President Donald Trump.

“They don’t have a peace agenda, they’re on the side of the war,” Putin said of the Europeans prior to talks in the Kremlin with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Putin’s accusations appeared to be his latest attempt to sow dissension between Trump and European countries and set the stage for exempting Moscow from blame for any lack of progress.

He accused Europe of amending peace proposals with “demands that are absolutely unacceptable to Russia,” thus “blocking the entire peace process” and blaming Moscow for it.

“That’s their goal,” Putin said.

He reiterated his long-held position that Russia has no plans to attack Europe — a concern regularly voiced by some European countries.

“But if Europe suddenly wants to wage a war with us and starts it, we are ready right away. There can be no doubt about that,” Putin said.

Russia started the war in 2022 with its full-scale invasion of a sovereign European country, and European governments have since spent billions of dollars to support Ukraine financially and militarily, to wean themselves from energy dependence on Russia, and to strengthen their own militaries to deter Moscow from seizing more territory by force.

They worry that if Russia gets what it wants in Ukraine, it will have free rein to threaten or disrupt other European countries, which already have faced incursions from Russian drones and fighter jets, and an alleged widespread Russian sabotage campaign.

Trump’s peace plan relies on Europe to provide the bulk of the financing and security guarantees for a postwar Ukraine, even though no Europeans appear to have been consulted on the original plan. That’s why European governments have pushed to ensure that peace efforts address their concerns, too.

Speaking with Putin via a translator before the talks, Witkoff said he and Kushner had taken “a beautiful walk” around Moscow and described it as a “magnificent city.”

Coinciding with Witkoff’s trip, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to Ireland, continuing his visits to European countries that have helped sustain his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion.

In what could be a high-stakes day of negotiations, Zelenskyy said he was expecting swift reports later Tuesday from the U.S. envoys in Moscow on whether talks could move forward, after Trump’s initial 28-point plan was whittled down to 20 items in Sunday’s talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Florida.

“They want to report right after that meeting to us, specifically. The future and the next steps depend on these signals. Such steps will change throughout today, even hour by hour, I believe,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Dublin with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.

“If the signals show fair play with our partners, we then might meet very soon, meet with the American delegation,” he said.

“There is a lot of dialogue, but we need results. Our people are dying every day,” Zelenskyy said. “I am ready … to meet with President Trump. It all depends on today’s talks.”

After months of frustration in trying to stop the fighting, Trump deployed officials to get traction for his peace proposals. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin’s talks with Witkoff and Kushner would take “as long as needed.”

The talks have followed parallel lines so far, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sitting down with Ukrainian officials. (JapanToday)

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European soccer body UEFA moves toward vote to suspend Israel

European soccer body UEFA is moving toward a vote to suspend its member federation Israel over the war in Gaza, people familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press on Thursday.

A majority of UEFA’s 20-member executive committee is expected to support any vote in favor of suspending Israeli teams from international play, two sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Such a step would prevent Israeli national and club teams from playing in international competitions including next year’s World Cup. Israel’s men’s team is set to resume its World Cup qualifying campaign in two weeks with away games against Norway and Italy.

It is unclear whether world soccer body FIFA will support excluding Israel given the close relations between FIFA’s leader, Gianni Infantino, and President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration’s support to secure the World Cup, and process visas for players, officials and potentially hundreds of thousands of visiting fans, is seen as key to FIFA delivering a successful tournament in the U.S., Canada and Mexico next year.

A State Department spokesperson said it will work to stop any efforts that tried to ban Israel’s team from the World Cup.

FIFA’s ruling council is scheduled to meet in Zurich next week. The 37-member council includes eight from UEFA.

FIFA declined to comment on Thursday. Infantino is based this week at FIFA’s satellite office in Trump Tower in Manhattan while attending events on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly.

Calls to exclude Israel from soccer and other sports have increased in recent weeks amid an outcry over the humanitarian toll of its military campaign in Gaza. Last week Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Israel should be banned from international sports events just like Russia, which was sidelined after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Earlier this week seven independent experts working with the U.N. Human Rights Council urged FIFA and UEFA to suspend Israel from international competitions.

UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin signaled a tougher view on Israel last month when banners saying “Stop Killing Children. Stop Killing Civilians” were placed on the field in front of the Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham teams ahead of the Super Cup game in Udine, Italy.

The discussion about whether to ban Israel from international sports comes as Israel faces increasing criticism and isolation over its military campaign, launched in response to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last week, Israel was accused of committing genocide in Gaza by an inquiry commission commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Israel’s sports and culture minister, Miki Zohar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s soccer federation, Moshe Zuares, have been working “intensively behind the scenes” to block efforts to oust Israel from UEFA, Zohar’s office said Thursday. “The right step now is to act responsibly with the professionals and not to make statements, and this is how all the parties involved in the efforts are acting. We will address this later.”

The decision to ban Russia in 2022 was partly driven by a swath of UEFA member federations refusing to play scheduled games against Russian opponents. No national or club team in Europe has so far refused to play an Israeli opponent, though soccer leaders in Norway and Italy have publicly expressed their unease in recent weeks.

The Norwegian soccer federation also pledged to give its profits from ticket sales for the Oct. 11 game in Oslo to humanitarian work in Gaza by Doctors Without Borders.

Both Italy’s Gabriele Gravina and Lise Klaveness of Norway are elected members of the UEFA executive committee which could vote on suspending Israel. Zuares, the Israeli soccer federation president, is also on the panel as is Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, a member of the Qatari government who is president of European champion Paris Saint-Germain.

Israel enraged Qatar, an influential U.S. ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, with a Sept. 9 airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha, the Qatari capital.

At the Champions League final in May, PSG fans displayed a banner saying “Stop Genocide in Gaza” in French. UEFA did not open a disciplinary case despite having rules against political messaging inside stadiums.

On Wednesday evening in Greece, Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv played PAOK in the UEFA-organized Europa League. There were pro-Palestinian protests outside the stadium in Thessaloniki and a “Stop Genocide” banner displayed inside. (JapanToday)

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Trump tells world leaders their countries are ‘going to hell’ in combative U.N. speech

U.S. President Donald Trump argued for lower levels of global migration and urged a turn away from climate change policies on Tuesday in a combative, wide-ranging speech to the U.N. General Assembly that leveled scathing criticism of world leaders.

The 56-minute speech was a rebuke to the world body and a return to form for Trump, who routinely bashed the U.N. during his first term as president. Leaders gave him polite applause when he exited the chamber.

He rejected moves by allies to endorse a Palestinian state amid Israel’s latest Gaza offensive and urged European nations to adopt the same set of economic measures he is proposing against Russia to force an end to the war in Ukraine.

Much of his speech was dominated by two of his biggest grievances: immigration and climate change.

Trump offered his U.S. immigration crackdown as a case study for what other world leaders should do to curb mass migration that he says is altering the fabric of nations. Human rights advocates argue the migrants are seeking better lives.

“I’m really good at this stuff,” Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell.”

Trump, who met last week with Britain’s environmentally conscious King Charles at Windsor Castle, called climate change a “con job” and urged a return to a greater reliance on fossil fuels. Scientists say climate change caused by humans is real.

“Immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe,” Trump said.

Trump’s administration plans to call for sharply narrowing the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month, Reuters reported last week, as it seeks to undo the post-World War II framework around humanitarian protection.

Trump sprinkled into his speech a litany of false and misleading statements, such as that London Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to impose “sharia law” on London and that “inflation has been defeated” in the United States six days after the Federal Reserve said inflation has gone up.

European powers have spent months trying to stabilize their relationship with the U.S. leader with a focus on winning U.S. support to end the war in Ukraine. At a NATO summit in June, Trump and European leaders lavished each other with praise.

But in Tuesday’s speech, Trump mocked NATO allies for not shutting down purchases of Russian oil and said he would impose strong economic measures against Moscow.

“They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one? In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs,” he said.

“But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you are gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”

He did not detail the measures, but he has been considering a package that includes sanctions against countries that do business with Russia, like India and China. The main buyers of Russian oil in Europe are Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey.

Trump later held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who pressed for more U.S. support to resist Russian advances. Trump, asked by reporters if NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace, said, “Yes, I do.”

On the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Trump rejected efforts by world leaders to embrace a Palestinian state, a move that faces fierce resistance from Israel.

“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” he said, repeating his call for the return of hostages taken by the Palestinian militant group.

Trump said the United States wants a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would see the return of all remaining hostages, alive and dead.

“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said.

He was to discuss the future of Gaza during afternoon talks with several Gulf leaders.

Trump, who has cast himself as a peacemaker in a bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, complained that the United Nations did not support his efforts to end conflicts around the world.

He added to his complaints with personal grievances about the U.N. infrastructure, saying he and first lady Melania Trump were briefly marooned on a malfunctioning U.N. escalator and that his teleprompter was not initially working.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said, noting that Melania Trump nearly fell when the escalator stopped abruptly. (JapanToday)

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Tinubu returns to Abuja after vacation in Europe

President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday returned to Abuja after concluding his annual working vacation in Europe.

Tinubu arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport and was received by Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule.

Also at the airport were his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.

The Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, confirmed the President’s return in a statement issued on Monday.

He said Tinubu concluded his work vacation ahead of schedule and would resume official duties on Tuesday.

The President departed Nigeria on September 4 for France, intending to split his annual holiday between France and the United Kingdom.

During his stay in Paris, Tinubu held a private luncheon with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.

Both leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and pledged to strengthen partnerships for mutual prosperity and global stability. (Channels)