Almost a quarter of the world experienced democratic backsliding, or a shift towards autocratization, in 2025, and six of the 10 newly regressive countries identified in the research are located in Europe and North America, including G-7 powers such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Sweden's parliament is set to vote on Wednesday afternoon to impose a new minimum salary for work permits set at 90 percent of Sweden's median wage, with the new requirement in force from June 1st. The new threshold will increase the minimum salary for a permit from the current level of 29,680 kronor to 33,390 kronor when it comes into effect in June 2026, and will also empower the government to exempt work permits for certain jobs.
The 65-year-old taoiseach Irish for prime minister was under political pressure to talk tough to Trump about the war on Iran. But as the Irish Times newspaper noted, he remained effectively mute for the first 20 minutes as the US president held forth on a range of grievances, including the resignation of Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center.
Mr Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country. And what we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless, small, little acts of complicity. When a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don't say anything, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we could produce it and consume it we all face a moral choice.
If you got British citizenship after settling in the UK under the EU settlement scheme, you can travel to the UK using a valid: passport of your other nationality; [or] national identity card from the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland.
Gaining citizenship through family or through marriage is possible, but if you don't have any useful relatives or an EU spouse you'll be looking at getting citizenship through residency. From residency requirements to rules on dual nationality, every country in Europe has its own way of tackling naturalisation.
Ireland are Triple Crown winners for the 15th time thanks to a 12th consecutive win over Scotland, whose long search for success in Dublin will stretch into its 18th year before they get another chance to end their dismal record.
The song and its choice by Romania/Eurovision and promotion by those organisations represents a reckless normalisation of a dangerous practice. It's playing fast and loose with young women's lives. The emerging medical evidence is that frequent sexual strangulation is giving young women brain damage.
A significant number of Serbs do not recognize the legitimacy of the authorities in Pristina. Kosovo's government insists that the Law on Foreigners is simply a mechanism to ensure that residents have the correct documents. Many Kosovo Serbs, however, are convinced that the measure targets them and is designed to either make them foreigners in their own homes or force them out of Kosovo for good.
An increase in defense spending has been most visible and sustained in Serbia. Over the past decade, there has been pressure to replace weapons inherited from the Yugoslav People's Army, while the political leadership has also recognized the political and symbolic value of such investments.
Swedish King Charles XII was down on his luck, defeated by the Russians and camping out in a place called Bender in Moldova, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish sultan was getting tired of the Swedes hanging around on his territory, so Turkish forces crowded into Bender. Mayhem ensued. Charles was forced out. What a kalabalik!
Scotland put themselves in contention for a first-ever Six Nations title with a sensational seven-try 50-40 victory over France at Murrayfield. Les Bleus arrived in Edinburgh knowing a bonus-point win over Gregor Townsend's men would have sealed them a second consecutive championship and teed them up for a first grand slam since 2022. But it was the rampant Scots who produced one of their greatest-ever performances to blow Fabien Galthie's team away.
EU member states and the UK are united in taking defensive measures if a European country is attacked, and in helping the Gulf nations with whatever they can. However, they disagree on Trump's war goals and the extent to which they should support US action against Iran. There will be no unified position on the war. On the other hand, none of the member states will enter the war directly; they will not play an active role alongside the US or Israel.
I do a video a day when I'm on my dog walk in Lund, and I try to find different topics to talk about. My son pointed out to me a video from national broadcaster SVT about a guy named Shahdad who came here from Iran when he was 14. Now he's 25 and he was about to be deported, even though his mum has a permanent residency and he had a job, so I did a video on him, because I didn't agree with that.
