Europe

The BBC’s Defence correspondent breaks down a drastic shift in Washington’s position on the war in Ukraine.

Half of French island in Indian Ocean burnt by wildfire2 days agoEve WebsterBBC NewsFor nearly a month the French territory of Amsterdam Island in the southern Indian Ocean has been engulfed in flames.
Located about halfway between Australia, Antarctica and Madagascar, the island has seen burning across more than 55% of its 54 sq km area.
Amsterdam Island doesn’t have a permanent population but researchers have been stationed there since the 1980s.
Since the fires broke out, 31 people have been evacuated to Réunion Island, closer to Madagascar. And last week French authorities launched a mission to control the wildfires and assess their impact.
The most recent blaze was discovered on15 January by a scientist researching the atmosphere.
According to a report from the Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences (LCES), it broke out near the Pointe Bénédicte observatory which monitors greenhouse gases, mercury, and aerosols in the atmosphere.
Despite residents..

Austria’s political crisis deepens as far right fails to form government2 days agoBethany BellBBC NewsReporting fromViennaAustria’s far-right populist Freedom Party says it has ended its attempts to form a coalition government with the conservative People’s Party, ÖVP.
The announcement follows several weeks of heated negotiations and marks the second time coalition talks have failed since September’s election.
The ÖVP first attempted to form a three-party coalition with the Social Democrats and the liberal NEOS, then a two-party coalition with the Social Democrats – but both efforts collapsed.
With the Freedom Party (FPÖ) unable to form a government, Austria is now in an unclear political situation.
The leader of the Freedom Party, Herbert Kickl, has called for swift new elections and blamed ÖVP for the collapse, accusing the party of being unwilling to make compromises and playing “power games”.
“Although we made concessions to the ÖVP on many points, they wer..

Ukraine war talks start now, Trump says after Putin call6 hours agoBernd Debusmann Jr, at the White House, and Mike WendlingBBC NewsJames WaterhouseUkraine correspondentUS President Donald Trump has said he had a “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in which the leaders agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he and the Russian president had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately”.
Later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had spoken with Trump about a “lasting, reliable peace”.
The calls with the warring sides came as both Trump and his defence secretary said it was unlikely Ukraine would join Nato, which will come as a bitter disappointment to Kyiv.
On Thursday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed Trump was the “one man in the world” capable of bringing both sides together and insisted US attempts to negotiate peace were “certainly ..

Hegseth sets out hard line on European defence and Nato2 days agoAlex TherrienBBC NewsFrank GardnerSecurity correspondentEuropean nations must provide the “overwhelming” share of funding for Ukraine, the new US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said, as he signalled a drastic shift in Washington’s position on the war.
Speaking at a defence summit in Brussels, Hegseth said the US would no longer “tolerate an imbalanced relationship” with its allies and called on Nato members to spend much more on defence.
He also said it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders and downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato.
The comments came as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held a “lengthy” phone call in which they agreed to begin negotiations to end the war.
The new US defence secretary’s remarks are the clearest indication yet of the Trump administration’s position on the Ukraine war and what a peace plan to end the conflict could involve.
The positions set out ..

At least 66 people have died and 32 were injured in a fire at a ski resort hotel in the city of Bolu.

It’s election day in Belarus – with Alexander Lukashenko set to continue his 31-year-long rule of the country.

Tens of thousands of people demand action as they gather to remember the victims of Greece’s worst railway disaster.

Holocaust survivors have been marking 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.

Friedrich Merz: Risk-taker who flirted with far right2 days agoJessica ParkerBBC Berlin correspondentFriedrich Merz – leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – is set to become Germany’s next Chancellor.
His party is projected to win around 28% of the vote. The question now is who he might form a coalition with.
Described by his supporters as an antidote to Europe’s crisis of confidence, Merz, 69, is a familiar face to his party’s old guard.
Politically, he has never come across as exhilarating. And yet he promises to provide Germany with stronger leadership and tackle many of his country’s problems within four years.
As election results came in on Sunday evening, he grabbed attention by declaring that the US appeared indifferent to Europe’s fate and questioned the future of Nato, demanding that Europe boost its own defences.
His explosive bid last month to tighten migration rules with the support of far-right votes in parliament revealed a man willing to gamble by breaking ..