Author: Daily Sabah With DPA

Sweden, the UK and Israel will compete in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest final in Switzerland. British girl group Remember Monday, with the genre-shifting “What The Hell Just Happened?” inspired by their friendship after they met at school in Hampshire, will be the eighth performance on Saturday night in Basel. There has also been speculation that Canadian singer Celine Dion, who won for the Swiss in 1988 with “Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi,” could take to the St Jakobshalle stage, amid her stepping back from touring due to health issues. Remember Monday will be up against the noted contenders Sweden,…

Pope Leo XIV, the world’s first US pope, plans to meet with US Vice President JD Vance, a converted Catholic, on Sunday, when there will be an inaugural mass for the new pontiff, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Friday. Parolin emphasized that the schedule and organization for Sunday, with guests from more than 200 delegations worldwide, is very complex. However, he said the protocol team is working on arranging the meeting. Vance will lead the US delegation for the 10am (0800 GMT) Mass on Sunday. For the vice president, this marks a quick return to Rome.…

Germany’s chancellor announced that the EU will adopt new sanctions against Russia next week after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to attend peace talks in Istanbul. Speaking to public broadcaster ZDF late Thursday, Friedrich Merz said while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Türkiye and showed a willingness to negotiate, Putin’s absence headed off a potential ceasefire agreement. “Who can say that we haven’t made sufficient diplomatic efforts in recent days to end this war? The only person who is in the wrong now, by not showing up, is Putin. All the prerequisites for a ceasefire were in place,” Merz…

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia can only be achieved through direct talks between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaking ahead of planned talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Türkiye on Friday, Rubio told Fox News the only way to achieve a breakthrough was if Trump and Putin sat “across the table” from each other. “I don’t know what the date or the place of that is yet, but that’s really the only chance at this point,” he said. Trump had made similar remarks earlier,…

The personal wealth of Britain’s King Charles III personal wealth has jumped by £30 million ($40 million) to £640 million in the last year, making him as rich as former prime minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murphy, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. Charles, who acceded to the throne in 2022, ranks joint 238th in the list of the UK’s 350 wealthiest people and families, up 20 places from 258th in 2024. Calculations by the newspaper’s Rich List suggest the monarch is £140 million richer than David and Victoria Beckham, who are said to be worth £500 million,…

US President Donald Trump says his trip through the Gulf region could generate between $3.5 trillion and $4 trillion. Speaking at a meeting with business leaders in Qatar on Thursday, Trump described the journey as a historic trip. “We’re the hottest country of the world. And six months ago, they were laughing at the US, but they don’t laugh any more,” he said. “This is a record tour. There’s never been a tour that will raise – it could be a total of $3.5, $4 trillion. Just in this four or five days.” He did not provide details for the…

Another dead whale has been found stranded on a German island in the North Sea. The minke whale washed up on the east side of the uninhabited island of Minsener Oog, a spokesman for the Wadden Sea National Park said on Thursday. It is still unclear why the 6.5-metre-long marine mammal died. The dead animal was discovered on Tuesday evening and reported on Wednesday, said the national park spokesman. Experts will attempt to take samples from the whale and examine them over the next few days to determine the cause of death. Germany’s Waterways and Shipping Authority says the whale…

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has expressed concern over Germany’s decision to tighten border controls and reject asylum seekers at the country’s borders. UNHCR’s representative in Germany, Katharina Thote, told dpa that the agency was worried about the government’s move to stop accepting asylum applications at the border. She noted that Germany has been a key partner for UNHCR for decades and remains an important country of asylum in Europe. Stricter border controls were introduced on the orders of newly appointed Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt last Wednesday, with exemptions applying to vulnerable groups, including heavily pregnant women, women with young…

France has strongly rejected rumours about an alleged bag of cocaine belonging to President Emmanuel Macron on the train on the way to Kyiv before the weekend. “This is a tissue. For blowing your nose,” the Élysée Palace wrote on its official X account overnight, showing a close-up of the crinkled white item on Macron’s table. Any suggestion that it was something more suspicious was wrong, the post said, blaming “France’s enemies.” “When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs. This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both…

During his first audience with the international press on Monday, new Pope Leo XIV made an appeal for media and press freedom and the search for truth. “We must say no to the war of words and images. We must reject the paradigm of war,” the recently elected pope said in Rome. He called on the reporters to “strive for a different communication, one that does not seek consensus at all costs, does not use aggressive words, does not follow the culture of competition.” “Peace begins with each one of us in the way we look at others, listen to…