The “yes” leads the provisional count in the Icelandic referendum on the resumption of accession negotiations with the European Union (EU) by nearly two points, with around 60% of the votes counted. According to the partial count, 50.9% of voters would be in favor of resuming negotiations, compared to 49.1% who oppose it.
It is not common for a CIA director to travel to Moscow. However, when it emerged that John Ratcliffe had secretly visited the Russian capital this week, President Donald Trump downplayed it and said it was just a “semi-routine” trip. That did not stop speculation about the real reason that led Washington to send its top intelligence chief to a country at war with its ally, Ukraine, and at odds with NATO. The last known time the CIA director traveled to Moscow was in November 2021, when William Burns conveyed to Vladimir Putin’s government a warning about its buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, prior to the start of its invasion in February 2022.
Visibly emotional, dressed in a dark suit and black tie and seated behind a palatial rectangular table, with a portrait of his smiling father, two lit candles, and a flower arrangement, Haakon XVIII, the new king of Norway, delivered his first message to the country this Saturday, paying tribute to Harald V, who passed away last Friday at the age of 89, after serving as king for the past 35 years. The Norwegian monarch confirmed that his wife, Queen Mette-Marit, will share his commitment to the country and declared himself willing to “risk everything, even life, for the freedom and independence of Norway.”
Madhukar Upadhyay is a veteran hydrologist, a scholar of climate changes. Few know the rebellious waters of Nepal better than him, both in their underground currents and on the surface, as well as the mountains that feed them. He responds from Kathmandu, still under the impact of last Wednesday’s flood, which has left at least 669 dead and about three thousand missing.
The swans, ducks, and geese of Lake Tjörnin, the idyllic urban pond of Reykjavik, swim peacefully under the cool August sun, unaware of the division with which Icelandic society faces today’s referendum on whether or not to resume negotiations with Brussels for accession to the European Union (EU). The ballot result is expected to be very close.
At least 27 people died and another 42 were injured in a Russian drone attack on Friday against a warehouse that supposedly housed ammunition in the Bucha district, near Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities reported on Saturday.
The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) raised on Saturday to two the number of Spanish nationals located, after estimating three missing, following the massive flood that has caused more than 600 deaths and nearly 3,000 people unaccounted for in Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region (China).
Ratko Mladic, the convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief who died on Thursday in The Hague at the age of 83, will receive a State funeral with full honors, according to Serbia’s Minister of Justice, Nenad Vujić. In statements to the Bosnian Serb channel ATV, the minister said that the preparations will follow the protocol corresponding to Mladic’s military rank, convicted of war crimes and genocide, but considered by many in Serbia as a hero.
Norway bids farewell to its sovereign today. Harald V has passed away at the age of 89 at the National Hospital of Oslo after being admitted for hemolytic anemia, ending more than three decades of a reign defined by stability and closeness. He will go down in history as the heir who challenged the strict dynastic rules by imposing his marriage to the commoner Sonia Haraldsen, the act of determination that marked the character of his trajectory. His departure shocks a nation that saw in his figure a guarantor of neutrality and institutional integrity.
Icelanders go to the polls this Saturday to decide in a referendum whether this North Atlantic island, which for decades has preferred not to be part of the European Union (EU), will resume negotiations with Brussels for a possible accession to the community club.