Category World News

According to a report released by Belarusian state media on Friday, state security service agents detained the man and discovered documents relating to joint military exercises that were being planned by Belarus and its ally, Russia. Poland has referred to the action as a “provocation” and a “response” and called it “provocation.”

The priest, Grzegorz Gawel, was detained the day before in Lepel, east of Minsk, the city where he had previously been detained. Additionally, a Belarusian national was being held.

The suspect, according to the Polish news agency Belta, has a copy of a document related to the Zapad 25 exercises scheduled for this month. Additionally, he had a portable telephone SIM card registered to someone else and cash in Belarus and other countries.

Because of Belarus’s proximity to three NATO allies, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Zapad exercises, which are held every two years in either Belarus or Russia, are watched by Western nations with interest.

According to Belta, the Belarusian state news agency, “there is unquestionable evidence of the Polish citizen’s espionage activities.” He was given a secret military document a few minutes before his arrest. All of this was captured on video.

Belta continued, saying that he had been attempting to get the Belarusian national into his business and gave him money and small presents.

On Friday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared to reporters that Warsaw “will not accept” the nonsense that the Belarusian side has uttered.

Although I’m not certain of the nature of our Jesuit’s trip to Belarus, Tusk claimed that he saw a friend or acquaintance there.

According to a spokesman for X, Polish security forces “do not employ clergymen to gather information about military exercises.”

According to deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki, the arrest was likely connected to upcoming military exercises. He promised to respond, but he wouldn’t give specifics.

Relations between Belarus, a Russian ally, and Poland, one of Kyiv’s main supporters in the European Union, have sunk to a new low since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, is one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and has authorized the use of his country’s territory by Russia for the Ukrainian invasion in 2022, despite the fact that he has stated that Belarusian servicemen won’t participate in it.

Russians have also moved into Belarus with their tactical nuclear weapons.

The incumbent Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party has been declared the winner of the Samoa national election.

FAST won 30 of the 50 seats contested, according to the official results released by the Samoan electoral commission on Friday. However, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, the party’s former leader, will step down in the place of Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt, who took over earlier this year.

14 seats were held by the main opposition, the Human Rights Protection Party. Four more independent candidates were chosen.

Only three seats, including her own, were won by Fiame’s Samoa Uniting Party, which was founded earlier this year. In January, a factional dispute led to her expulsion from FAST.

In the nation of about 220 000 people, rising prices were identified as a pressing issue for voters.

Residents of Apia, the capital of Samoa, had informed the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that they wanted the next government to concentrate on the economy and jobs prior to the election on August 29.

Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, the head of state of Samoa, had issued a warrant confirming the names of the new members of the next parliament.

Seats have been won by five women. At least six women must be in parliament, according to the Samoa Observer, which would require the creation of an additional seat in accordance with a 10% minimum representation requirement.

In 2021, Fiame won the election that removed Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi from power after 22 years, making her the country’s first female leader.

She hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last year, which was focused on the Pacific’s impact, to raise the profile of the country internationally.

Anutin Charnvirakul, the leader of the conservative Bhumjaithai party, was chosen as Thailand’s parliament’s prime minister.

Anutin will succeed Paetongtarn Shinawatra of the ruling Pheu Thai Party, who was fired from office last month due to an ethics scandal.

With the support of the liberal People’s Party, Anutin defeated Chaikasem Nitisiri, the populist candidate for Pheu Thai.

Anutin promised to call a general election within four months, giving the largest party in the 500-seat parliament the backing it had.

The Bhumjaithai leader was confirmed to have received more than 247 votes, the 492 active members’ majority, while counting and voting were still being conducted.

After the vote is over, his final score must be verified. In a few days, he and his government are scheduled to take office, according to King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s official announcement.

The Shinawatra clan, a force in Thai politics for the past 20 years, is dealt yet another blow by Veteran Anutin’s election.

Their populist movement has long been at odds with the pro-military, pro-monarchy establishment, but it has been increasingly detested by legal and political obstacles.

In the hours leading up to the vote on Friday, Thaksin Shinawatra, the dynasty’s patriarch, flew out of Thailand and headed for Dubai.

Anutin once supported the Pheu Thai coalition, but he abruptly gave up in the wake of Paetongtarn’s actions during a border dispute with neighboring Cambodia.

In the event of a hoped-for peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, hundreds of nations pledged to send troops there on Friday as a security guarantee.

If President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker that peace are unsuccessful, 26 states agreed at a summit of the “coalition of the willing” on Thursday to provide forces to deter Russia from further aggression. The United States’ commitment, which is viewed as essential to any such security arrangement, is still a mystery.

At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin stated that if some troops showed up, especially now that they are engaged in fighting, they would likely be legitimate targets. This was a move that came after the Russian president made a public display of close ties with China and North Korea.

Putin reaffirmed his claim that Ukraine’s closer military ties with the West are one of the “root causes” of the conflict, which started in February 2022 when Russian forces launched an invasion and stated that the deployment of foreign troops would not promote long-term peace.

Putin said, “I simply do not see any sense in their presence on the territory of Ukraine, full stop, if decisions are made that lead to peace, to long-term peace.”

Separately, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, stated that the Paris summit proposal was “definitely not” acceptable.

The presence of NATO forces, foreign forces, or international forces on Ukrainian soil, he said, “would be considered a threat to ourselves,” he said to reporters.

Peskov instead asserted that all necessary security guarantees for Ukraine were included in the terms of the 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul.

Ukraine would abandon NATO goals and establish a neutral, nuclear-free status under the Istanbul framework. It would also receive security assurances from France, the US, Russia, China, and Britain.

However, the Paris summit proposal stated that any future agreement must be enforced by a “reassurance” force to patrol in Ukraine under the leadership of France and Britain.

Russia has previously violated numerous agreements with Ukraine and the West, including one that involved separatists fighting Kyiv’s army in the east between 2014 and 2022.

Uncertain

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, hosted the Paris summit, while other countries, such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, took the initiative remotely.

After Trump and Putin had direct talks, the meeting stoked concerns that Macron is ready to accept Kremlin accounts of the conflict and its demands for a ceasefire. He led the charge to demonstrate that Europe can act independently of the US.

Therefore, it’s uncertain whether the US will be involved in the Paris proposal.

Trump has previously stated that Washington may provide additional support, such as air power, but won’t deploy troops there.

Putin stated on Friday that both Russia and Ukraine need security guarantees.

Russia will, of course, carry out these agreements, I repeat. However, no one has yet had a serious discussion about this with us.