###Case hailed as human rights victory as Tromsø court says Tommy Olsen’s actions are lawful and protected under international treaties

The decision of a Norwegian appeals court to dismiss the extradition of an activist accused of facilitating the illegal entry of people into Greece has been hailed as a rare victory for human rights.

In a judgment described as unprecedented by lawyers representing Tommy Olsen, the Norwegian founder of the NGO the Aegean Boat Report, the court unanimously rejected the request saying his actions were not only lawful but protected under international treaties to which both countries adhered.

Zacharias Kesses, heading Olsen’s legal team in Athens, said: “It’s a unique decision. Blocking an extradition request on the continent of Europe is unheard of, which is why this is also such a victory for human rights. Tommy was charged with monitoring and reporting people in distress at sea – an absurdity that the Norwegian court acknowledged.”

Olsen was arrested at his home in the arctic capital of Tromsø on 16 March after a European arrest warrant issued by Greece. A district court initially upheld the request. The activist challenged the ruling before the Hålogaland appeals court in Tromsø.

Explaining its decision, the appeals court cited the risk posed to Olsen’s freedom of expression – a fundamental article of the European convention on human rights – if extradition occurred. It also stated that under Norwegian law his actions, which included recording violations, communicating with refugees and assisting in asylum procedures, were not deemed to be criminal offences.

Prosecution authorities in Norway on Tuesday made clear they would not appeal against the judgment.

Donald Trump’s threats, personal envoys and hollowed‑out U.S. embassies are reshaping Washington’s presence in the world. Allies from Europe to Asia are rewriting the rules of engagement – ignoring the president’s rhetoric and forging new diplomatic channels to manage a U.S. foreign policy driven increasingly by personalities, not institutions.

In rambling writings full of vitriol against a wide range of people, the teenagers who attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego this week, killing three men and themselves, left little doubt about the models for their violence.

Chief among them: the shooter who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Researchers who study extremism have long noted the resonance of the Christchurch attack among far-right assailants, attributing it to the extent of the violence, the document the killer posted concerning his views and actions, and — especially — his decision to livestream the massacre. Among those who apparently modeled attacks after Christchurch was a shooter who months later killed 22 people in a Texas Walmart.

“Part of what we’re seeing in violent extremist communities online is wanting to emulate the attacks that have had the most kills — which is a disgusting thing to say, but it’s the reality,” said Katherine Keneally, director of threat analysis and prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an anti-extremism organization. “There is this obsession and it’s just sort of gamifying of attacks.”

They left behind a 74-page document — the same length as the one written by Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant. Like Tarrant’s, it cited a range of far-right ideological inspirations, including the notion that white people are being replaced by other populations, and offered self-interviews detailing their motives and goals.

And they called themselves “Sons of Tarrant.”

The writings include hateful rhetoric toward Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, as well as the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and the political left and right. They indicated they were trying to accelerate the collapse of society. In his section, Vazquez wrote of having “some mental health issues” and being rejected by women.

##What's the news?

• Soon after taking over the European People’s Party, President Manfred Weber and Secretary General Thanasis Bakolas hired two one-man consultancies with ties to Greece’s governing party.
• The consultants were paid over half a million euros in six months time, payment information obtained by Follow the Money shows.
• The European Parliament refused to reimburse the amounts but did not escalate the case for further investigation.

##Why does this matter?

• Weber is considered to be the EU’s most powerful politician. Under his watch, the EPP spent a large part of its reserves on consultants who other staff members say brought limited added value.
• The affair raises questions about the effectiveness of oversight over how European political parties spend their money.

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###It points to a long-term U.S. vulnerability.

Nearly three months into the conflict, the Iranian regime has succeeded in confounding U.S. and Israeli expectations for a speedy victory.

The regime survived a wave of targeted killings early in the war. It then managed to turn the tables on its more powerful adversaries, introducing something of a stalemate.

Since mid-March, Iran has maintained control over the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway crucial to the world’s oil and gas trade. It has been able to limit U.S. and Israeli attacks on its energy industry. It even got President Trump to rein in Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia.

“Iran definitely has the advantage here,” said Nicole Grajewski, who teaches at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in France and studies Iran’s foreign policy. “The U.S. is just kind of flailing at the moment.”

This is, at first blush, somewhat surprising. The United States has the most powerful military in the world. Iran, a regional power, does not. But wars are not fought in isolation.

To gain an edge over its much more powerful adversary, Iran used a method that game-theory scholars call “triangular coercion,” said Daniel Sobelman, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who studies Iranian deterrence strategies.

The strategy works by attacking a more vulnerable third party that has some leverage over an adversary to gain advantage over an opponent that cannot be outmatched directly.

In this case, the third parties were primarily the Gulf states, which are both militarily vulnerable and economically important to the United States. Iran’s attacks against them early in the war, combined with its ability to effectively close the strait, have for now successfully thwarted a decisive victory for the United States and Israel.

It is a strategy that could have long-term implications not only for the outcome of the current conflict and Iran’s role in the Middle East, but also for the limits of U.S. power elsewhere.

Not all countries will be willing or able to use triangular coercion against a hostile superpower in the same way. But after Iran’s example, more may try.

##See also:

• Trump’s tough-talk foreign policy is hitting a wall with Iran as it grips Strait of Hormuz (Associated Press)
• How severe has the economic impact of the Iran war been for the Gulf states? (The Conversation)
• Gulf allies are quietly starting to break with Washington (The Hill)
• Checkmate in Iran • Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. (The Atlantic)

##Vilnius residents urged to take shelter during alert, after Nato and EU warn that Russia is diverting Ukraine’s drones

Lithuania’s president and prime minister were rushed to underground bunkers and residents of the capital, Vilnius, urged to take shelter during a warning issued after a drone violated the country’s airspace.

Air and train traffic in and around the city was suspended after the mobile phone “take shelter” alert, the first issued in an EU and Nato country since the start of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Air raid alert! Go immediately to a shelter or a safe place, take care of your family members and wait for further instructions,” read the defence ministry’s warning, which was sent at about 10.20am on Wednesday and lasted for about an hour.

Schools brought children to designated shelters, people in office and apartment buildings went down to basements, and Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, and prime minister, Inga Ruginienė, were rushed to bunkers along with cabinet members and MPs.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said after the alert that Russia and Belarus had been directly responsible for a spate of drone incursions into EU and Nato countries’ airspace during recent weeks.

Russian electronic jamming has been blamed for the Ukrainian drones crossing into Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which border Russia. A Nato jet shot down a drone over Estonia on Tuesday, while Latvia’s prime minister resigned last week over the incursions.

##See also:

• Romania shoots down Ukrainian drone flying over Estonia (Politico)
• Inside the 'kill-zone' on Ukraine's front line, where new weapons have transformed war (BBC)

Executions in 2025 soared to the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 1981, with 2,707 people executed across 17 countries, revealed the latest annual report from the human rights organization on the global use of the death penalty.

The staggering rise recorded in the report Death Sentences and Executions 2025, was down to a handful of governments determined to rule by fear. Iranian authorities, the main drivers behind the spike, executed at least 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 figure. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia raised its execution tally to at least 356, using the death penalty extensively for drug-related offences. Executions in Kuwait almost tripled (from 6 to 17), while they near doubled in Egypt (from 13 to 23), Singapore (from 9 to 17), and the United States of America (from 25 to 47). Overall, executions rose by 78%, after at least 1,518 executions were recorded in 2024. The 2025 total does not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes continued to be carried out in China, which remained the world’s lead executioner.

“This alarming spike in the use of the death penalty is due to a small, isolated group of states willing to carry out executions at all costs, despite the continued global trend towards abolition. From China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia to Yemen, Kuwait, Singapore and the USA, this shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instil fear, crush dissent and show the strength state institutions have over disadvantaged people and marginalized communities,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

The resurgence of highly punitive approaches in the “war on drugs” drove efforts to expand the use of the death penalty. This was reflected in the number of executions, with close to half (1,257 or 46%) of all known executions recorded for drug-related offences: in China (+), Iran (998), Kuwait (2), Saudi Arabia (240) and Singapore (15). Algeria, Kuwait, and the Maldives made legislative efforts to expand the scope of the death penalty to include drug-related offences.

The government of Burkina Faso adopted a draft bill that included reinstating the death penalty for offences such as “high treason,” “terrorism,” and “acts of espionage”, while the authorities in Chad established a commission to review matters related to the death penalty – including its reinstatement.

• Pro-Orban media sees leadership changes, programme cuts
• Incoming PM Peter Magyar pledges new media law and restoration of press freedom
• Analysts warn reforms in public service media depend on political will
• Pro-Orban conglomerate faces loss of state advertising revenue

The media empire built by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, a key pillar of the nationalist leader's 16 years in power, is swiftly unravelling following an election last month ​that abruptly ended his rule.

Within weeks of the vote, which the centre-right opposition led by Peter Magyar won with a landslide, senior figures at some of the most prominent pro-Orban ‌outlets have been pushed out and a flagship news programme was scrapped.

The tone of public service media changed overnight, with more opposition voices appearing even before Magyar formally took power, while pro-Orban influencers have practically disappeared from social media.

Magyar, who called public service media a "factory of lies", has pledged to restore press freedom, create a new media law and a new ​media authority.

Leaders of ⁠the European Union are closely watching Hungary as a test case for restoring democratic checks and balances - media freedom was one of the key rule-of-law issues over which Orban's government often clashed with Brussels.

Under Orban, state ​media came under increasing government control as new media laws were enacted, and several private outlets were either shut down or taken over by pro-government businessmen. ungary fell to 74th place in 2026 from 23rd in 2010 in Reporters Without Borders’ ​press freedom index.

The German housing market crisis is deepening social inequality. Newcomers in particular are struggling to find affordable housing — with consequences for integration, education, and the labor market.

Finding a rental apartment with three or four rooms in Berlin? No problem for top earners. In May 2026, a major rental platform is listing a unit of just over 100 square meters (1,076 square feet) for just over €4,000 ($4,680) per month, including heating and other additional costs. The lowest offer is just under €1,000 for 80 square meters — but that unit requires renovations and is located on the outskirts of the city.

Renters are currently finding it almost impossible to find an attractive and affordable apartment in a good location in large parts of Germany. This is especially true in both metropolitan areas and in economically strong rural regions.

Across the nation, there's a shortage of around 1.4 million apartments in the lower and middle price ranges, and this limited availability, combined with high demand, is driving prices up.

More than half of Germany's population lives in rental housing. Tenant‑protection laws safeguard existing contracts relatively well, but the situation is different for new rentals. According to the latest annual report by the Expert Council on Integration and Migration (SVR), immigrants and people of immigrant background are disproportionately disadvantaged in this process.

Newcomers often live in smaller — and frequently overcrowded — apartments, and they are far less likely to be homeowners. More than 50% of people with no migration history live in owner-occupied housing, compared with less than 33% of those with one. Newcomers to Germany also have to devote a larger share of their income to rent.

These challenges are compounded by structural disadvantages: Lower incomes and larger household sizes are key factors. But migration‑specific hurdles also play a role, as insecure residency status, weak social networks, and language barriers make finding housing even harder. Refugees in particular tend to move into socially disadvantaged neighborhoods, where rents tend to be lower or where support networks might already exist.

At the same time, many asylum-seekers remain in state-run accommodations for lack of alternatives — even though they are legally permitted to move out. Discrimination is another disadvantage people with a migration history face in the housing market, said deputy SVR chair Birgit Glorius: "Including racial discrimination, as studies have shown."

Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) won Sunday’s Andalucían regional election, but lost its absolute majority, leaving it dependent on the support or abstention of the far-right Vox party to form a new government.

After the poll in Spain’s most populous region – which will serve as a barometer of wider electoral opinion before next year’s general election – the socialists slumped to an all-time low and Vox picked up one additional seat.

The PP took 53 seats in the 109-seat regional parliament, leaving them two seats short of an absolute majority and five down on the 58 they won at the last election in 2022.

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), which is led nationally by the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, dropped from 30 seats to 28, while Vox climbed from 14 seats to 15. The leftwing Adelante Andalucía party climbed from two seats to six, and the leftist coalition Por Andalucía held on to the five seats in won four years ago.

Sunday’s results mean that the regional PP leader, Juan Manuel “Juanma” Moreno, will have to negotiate his return to office with Vox – something he was keen to avoid during the campaign.

Polls leading up to next year’s general election suggest the PP is on course to defeat Sánchez, whose inner circle, party and administration have been battered by a series of corruption scandals. However, the conservatives are expected to fall short of an absolute majority and would probably need Vox’s support to govern at a national level.

##Iranian attacks and the stoppage of seaborne transit have paralyzed Qatar’s vital gas exports, stalling the economic pivots intended to anchor the country’s growth.

In Qatar, a desert peninsula protruding into the Persian Gulf, natural gas turned the country from a pearl-diving backwater into one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Qatar spent three decades building supply lines, shipping tens of billions of dollars of liquefied natural gas each year through the Strait of Hormuz to ports across Asia and Europe.

The state, which derives more than 60 percent of its revenue from gas and gas-related exports, used that money to transform the peninsula into a gleaming metropolis.

Then, in February, Qatar’s door to the world slammed shut.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz means virtually no gas has left Qatar’s shore for more than two months. The nation is also cut off from the sea routes through which it imports everything from vehicles to produce. Fears of regional instability have hurt tourism and eroded business sentiment.

Ras Laffan, Qatar’s industrial center for gas production, is shuttered, and roads are blocked. At the vast Hamad port south of Doha, loading cranes stand paralyzed. Throughout the capital, hotels and boutiques sit in noticeable silence. Qatar’s growth forecasts have been slashed amid the cessation of L.N.G. trade.

Qatar’s economic transformation started in the 1990s. It made a large bet on supercooling gas from the North Field — the world’s largest natural gas reservoir, in Qatar’s northeast — to minus 162 degrees Celsius. This turned the fuel into a liquid, allowing Qatar to bypass regional pipelines and ship gas to every corner of the globe.

From the 1990s to the 2010s, the economy boomed, growing at an average annual rate of roughly 13 percent. To power this build-out, Qatar relied on an influx of foreign workers. Today, about 90 percent of its 3.2 million residents are noncitizens.

Seeking to build on that momentum, Qatar said in 2019 that it would expand the amount of L.N.G. its North Field could produce to 126 million tons a year by 2027. Before the war, its capacity was about 77 million. The expansion is considered one of the largest energy projects ever planned.

Then, in late February, much of that activity ground to a halt. Unlike its neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have pipelines that can bypass the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar is geographically trapped behind the waterway.

Within 24 hours of the Iranian blockade, QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy giant, announced it couldn’t fulfill its contracts. Two weeks later, Iranian missiles and drones struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant, damaging critical equipment and causing a 17 percent reduction in Qatar’s production capacity.

The damage means that even if the strait were to open tomorrow, it would take years to return to prewar output. Analysts estimate that QatarEnergy has already lost billions of dollars since the war started, and every day that the strait remains closed, the country bleeds hundreds of millions more in lost sales and shipping charter fees.

The war has also exposed another kind of vulnerability. As part of a long-running effort to diversify beyond fossil fuels, Qatar has tried to transform itself into a tourist destination and a hub for international business and finance. Since the war began, however, the number of international visitors to Qatar has plummeted amid travel advisories from the United States and other governments. Many multinational companies, fearing regional instability, have sent staff out of the country. In March, the World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the Middle East was losing $600 million a day in tourism revenue.

For Qatar, like many of its neighbors, the diversification strategy hinges on sustained foreign capital, a steady supply of expatriate labor and, above all, the perception of stability.

Economists forecast that even if L.N.G. revenue were to vanish for years, Qatar’s deep pockets would allow it to continue paying salaries and maintaining essential services. At the same time, the authorities have pressured international firms to return to prevent an exodus of foreign capital and talent. The concern is that if companies are allowed to collapse, the country’s overwhelmingly foreign work force could quickly disappear

##See also:

• Gulf allies are quietly starting to break with Washington (The Hill)
• Checkmate in Iran • Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. (The Atlantic)
• A New Order for the Gulf • The Region Must Build Its Own Security, Not Buy It (Foreign Affairs)
• Saudi Arabia floats Middle Eastern non-aggression pact with Iran (Financial Times)
• Oil touches two-week high after drone attack on UAE nuclear power plant (Reuters)

A man drove his car into pedestrians in the northern Italian city of Modena on Saturday, injuring eight people, four seriously, officials said.

They included a woman who had to have both her legs amputated.

After the car came to a halt against a shop window, the driver emerged holding a knife and injured a passer-by who gave chase, before the suspect was overpowered.

The suspect, 31, has been identified by officials as an Italian national of Moroccan origin.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who cancelled a planned trip to Cyprus and described the incident as "extremely serious", visited the injured in hospital with President Sergio Mattarella on Sunday.

She also met Luca Signorelli, the passer-by who intervened, and thanked him for his actions.

The incident occurred around 16:30 (14:30 GMT), when the speeding car hit the pedestrians in Via Emilia next to the iconic cathedral of Modena, south-east of Milan.

The vehicle then veered left before coming to a halt against a shop window.

Signorelli had told Italian media he was trying to help the woman when he noticed the driver trying to run away.

He said he gave chase and the attacker turned on him with a knife in hand. He received a blow to the head and one on his chest before being able to restrain the suspect, with the help of other passers-by.

At a news conference on Saturday evening, the prefect of Modena Fabrizia Triolo said the suspect had been referred to a mental health centre in 2022 for "schizoid disorders", but had then "disappeared without a trace".

The death toll from a Russian missile attack that flattened a Kyiv apartment building rose Friday to 24, including three teenagers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as he led the mourning for one of the deadliest attacks on the capital in the 4-year-old war.

The cruise missile hit the nine-story corner apartment block Thursday during what the Ukrainian air force said was Russia’s biggest barrage on the country of the full-scale invasion. Emergency workers finished digging through the rubble searching for victims after more than a day, Zelenskyy said on X.

Crowds of grieving people — many of them children — streamed toward a makeshift memorial beneath a tree near the destroyed building.

Russia has hammered Ukraine with large-scale aerial attacks in the days since a May 9-11 ceasefire that U.S. President Donald Trump said he asked Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to observe. Fighting continued over those 72 hours, although reportedly on a lesser scale.

This week’s attacks ran counter to recent suggestions from Trump and Putin that the war is close to ending.

The assault mostly targeted the Ukrainian capital, where 48 people were wounded, including two children, Zelenskyy said.

He said Moscow had launched more than 1,560 drones against Ukrainian population centers since Wednesday, adding that about 180 sites across the country were damaged, including more than 50 residential buildings.

Previously, the biggest Russian drone attack was on March 23-24 when Moscow’s forces fired nearly 1,000 drones and missiles at Ukraine. Thursday’s death toll in Kyiv approached one from July 2024 that killed 32 civilians and injured another 85.

##See also:

• Ukraine drones kill four in Russia, Moscow faces biggest attack in over a year (Reuters)
• Enter the Killer Robots: The Ukrainian Forging the Future of Warfare • Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister, sees futuristic military technology as crucial to his country’s survival. (New York Times)
• Russian ship that sank near Spain in 2024 may have carried nuclear reactor parts (Associated Press)

##Residents of al-Bustan district told to make way for Kings Garden, with knocking down own houses cheaper option

At the bottom of a steep and densely populated valley just below Jerusalem’s old city walls, the earth has been shaken in recent weeks by jackhammers and bulldozers.

These have been the sounds of Jerusalem for decades as the Israeli state has relentlessly sought to stamp a uniformly Jewish identity on to the occupied east of the city, while erasing its Palestinian character.

Typically it is workers for the state and municipality at the wheel of the bulldozers, but in the al-Bustan neighbourhood, in the shadow of the 11th-century al-Aqsa mosque, the clamour is from a more recent development.

It is the sound of Palestinians demolishing their own family homes.

“This is something really hard. This is something bitter,” Jalal al-Tawil said as he watched a tractor he had hired, with a front loader at the front and jackhammer at the back, rip apart the last remnants of the house his father had built, which in turn had been on the site of his grandparents’ home.

The experience of demolishing his own family’s home and history had drained al-Tawil, but it came down to brutal economics. The Jerusalem municipality had told him it would cost him 280,000 shekels (£72,000) if its workers demolished the house. Hiring his own equipment and labour would cost al-Tawil less than a tenth of that.

“Also, if they do it, they will uproot the land and make a complete mess,” he said. For him it was like being given the choice between suicide or being murdered, he said.

More than 57 homes in al-Bustan, part of the larger Silwan district of East Jerusalem, have been demolished in the past two years with at least eight designated for demolition in the next few weeks. On the site a biblical theme park called the Kings Garden is to be built, supposedly where King Solomon took his leisure three millennia ago.

The park is designed to be part of a spreading, largely settler-driven, archaeological project focusing exclusively on Jerusalem’s Jewish past and centred on what has been called the City of David – despite the view of many Israeli archaeologists that the visible remains date to other eras, before and after King David’s iron-age reign.

##See also:

• US may ask Israel to put Palestinian tax money toward Trump's Gaza plan, sources say (Reuters)
• They Fled to Safety in Palestinian Territory, Then Settlers Attacked Again • Violent settlers are not merely clearing Palestinians from land under Israel’s control. They are attacking areas where Israel agreed to Palestinian self-governance. (New York Times)
• Israeli Real Estate Expo Advertising West Bank Settlements Returns to NYC • The controversial event and the NYPD’s response to resulting protests present a test for Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (The Intercept)

Authorities from 15 countries carried out coordinated raids on 12 May against a criminal group suspected of selling fake medicines and supplements online and misleading seriously ill people.

The group, operating since 2019, allegedly marketed more than 400 differently named supplements through companies set up to sell products that were not authorised for sale, Eurojust informed on Thursday.

Hundreds of websites and social media pages were created by a network of “virtual sellers”, often using the names and images of celebrities and fake doctors.

People who filled in online forms were contacted by call-centre operators who posed as doctors or medical specialists and claimed the products were genuine treatments for serious or incurable diseases.

The supplements had no effect on the human body and contained similar ingredients despite being advertised for different illnesses.

The group is suspected of generating at least €240 million in transactions.

The coordinated action day involved searches at 113 locations in Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, Eurojust said.

##See also:

• Takedown of criminal group selling fake medicines and supplements to mislead seriously ill victims (Eurojust)