00:00Amid economic and geopolitical tensions, EU leaders gathered in the Belgian countryside
00:06for an informal summit on competitiveness.
00:10Hungary's opposition leader Peter Magyar has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling
00:15Fidesz party of preparing a blackmail campaign against him.
00:20Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladislav Heraskevich has been disqualified before his first run
00:26at the 2026 Milano-Kotina Winter Olympics.
00:31Amid economic and geopolitical tensions, EU leaders gathered in the Belgian countryside
00:36for an informal summit on competitiveness.
00:39In terms of geopolitics, if you want to be a geopolitical power, you are either a strong
00:44economic power or a strong military power.
00:47We are a strong economic power, but we need to be stronger, that's for sure.
00:51So we need to work with our simplification processes, we need to work with everything
00:57that is helping our companies.
01:00Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on Europeans not to send money to Ukraine
01:05if they want to remain competitive.
01:08We'd like to have a better performing economy.
01:11We have to stop the war in Ukraine and to generate peace.
01:14Second, if you need your money for your competitiveness, don't give it to somebody else.
01:19So don't send your money to Ukraine.
01:21Instead of we should spend on our own economy to improve competitiveness.
01:25Euro bonds is set to be high on the agenda.
01:30The EU is stuck between federalizing and disbanding.
01:34Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told Euronews flagship program Europe Today.
01:39The economist blamed weak fiscal and investment pillars for Europe disintegration.
01:44We have federal money and this is our tragedy.
01:48We have a great central bank, a monolith of a central bank, and we have, you know, 20 treasuries
01:55that can't really rely on it.
01:57When EU leaders discussed euro bonds, they failed to talk about who would issue the debt,
02:02he added.
02:03It was a mistake to create federal money without a federation.
02:07The result has been the spectacular drop in investment, the stagnation, which is causing
02:13the lack of competitiveness.
02:15So we have two choices.
02:17We are at a fork on the road.
02:19We can move in the direction of federation or we can disband the euro.
02:24Varoufakis' comments came as EU leaders gathered in the Belgian countryside for an informal summit
02:29and competitiveness, with euro bonds emerging as a central point of contention.
02:34French President Emmanuel Macron called for, quote, future-oriented euro bonds to invest
02:40in the ecological transition and AI, insisting that global markets were seeking alternatives
02:46to the U.S. dollar.
02:50The European Union is setting up a strategy to efficiently detect malicious drones entering
02:56the bloc.
02:57The Commission presented an action plan on Tuesday in response to multiple incidents
03:02that have affected critical infrastructure in countries such as Poland and Belgium.
03:08We have seen that drones, they have violated our airspace, disrupted our airport operations
03:14and caused also near misses with the civilian aircrafts.
03:17In fact, this malicious or irresponsible use of drones affects the protection of critical
03:24infrastructure, also our external borders, ports, transport hubs and public spaces, as
03:30well as maritime safety and energy security.
03:33The strategy aims to increase investments in technologies that can distinguish malicious
03:38drones from others.
03:40The Commission also announced a new certification scheme for counter-drone systems and the launch
03:45of an industry forum to scale-up production.
03:52Hungary's opposition leader Peter Magyar has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz
03:57party of preparing a blackmail campaign against him.
04:01It reportedly involves a secretly recorded sex tape made with surveillance equipment that Magyar
04:07suspects the governing party plans to release.
04:09He said journalists received a photo of a bedroom with a message coming soon suggesting a video
04:15release is imminent.
04:17Fidesz' representatives denied involvement in distributing the photo.
04:21Under Hungarian law, releasing sexually explicit images without consent is a criminal offence.
04:28The allegations come as tensions grow in the campaign ahead of an April parliamentary election,
04:33which has already seen activists attacked and candidates targeted with deepfake videos.
04:39Magyar's TISA party is currently ahead of Orban's Fidesz in recent polls.
04:44Magyar launched TISA following a government-linked child abuse scandal that forced two senior
04:49officials to resign.
04:51The scandal eroded public trust in Orban's administration and created an opening Magyar
04:56exploited to build his party rapidly, creating the strongest challenge to Fidesz in years.
05:05Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladislav Heraskevich has been disqualified before his first run at the
05:112026 Milano-Kotina Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee IOC announced on Thursday.
05:18The IOC banned Heraskevich from using his custom-made helmet, which features portraits of Ukrainian
05:25athletes killed in Russia's full-scale invasion since early 2022.
05:30The helmet does not display any slogans or political symbols.
05:35With regret, we took this decision, but it followed his refusal, multiple refusals, to comply with the IOC guidelines
05:43on athlete expression.
05:44Despite multiple exchanges and in-person meetings with the IOC and Mr. Karasevich, the last one
05:52just this morning at 7.30, with the IOC President Kirstie Coventry, who was in Kortina to meet him,
05:59he would not consider the many compromises that we offered him.
06:04Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Andrei Sibiha, slammed the IOC's decision, calling it an act of shame.
06:09Two more Ukrainian Olympians have had their helmets barred from the Winter Games on the
06:14grounds of politicization.
06:22Russia has attempted to fully block access to the WhatsApp Messenger app in the country,
06:28the company said on Thursday, as Moscow seeks greater control over its internet space.
06:34The Kremlin is also pushing for a state-backed, controlled Max Messenger, which WhatsApp called
06:41a state-owned surveillance app, in a statement shared on social media.
06:46Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that Meta was being blamed for failing
06:52to comply with Russian regulations.
06:55Earlier this week, Moscow also restricted access to the Telegram messaging app, its founder Pavel
07:01Durov has confirmed. Several Meta platforms have been officially banned in Russia following
07:07Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Facebook and Instagram are only accessible
07:14with a VPN in Russia.
07:20U.S. President Donald Trump met privately with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the
07:27White House on Wednesday to discuss Iran's nuclear program. Trump said there was nothing definitive
07:33reached but that he had insisted that negotiations with Iran continue as the U.S. pushes for a deal
07:40on its nuclear program. In a statement, Netanyahu's office said the Prime Minister had also discussed
07:47developments in Gaza. The two leaders spoke for nearly three hours but did not take questions
07:53from journalists. Prior to the meeting, Netanyahu's office said he wanted the U.S.-Iran talks to include
08:00limits on Tehran's ballistic missiles and its support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
08:07The visit was Netanyahu's sixth to Washington during Trump's second term and comes as both the U.S.
08:13and Iran have projected cautious optimism after holding indirect talks in Oman last Friday.
08:20Trump first threatened military action over Iran's bloody crackdown on nationwide economic-driven
08:26protests, then shifted in recent weeks to a pressure campaign aimed at pushing Tehran into a deal
08:33regarding its nuclear program. Israel itself is widely believed to have atomic weapons but has never
08:40confirmed its status as a nuclear-armed state and nor has it joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
08:51U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi came under fire at a congressional hearing over the Justice Department's
08:58handling of the Epstein files. Bondi also declined to face Epstein's survivors seated behind her
09:04when asked to apologize for the Department's failure to redact victims' names.
09:09You apologize to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein.
09:16Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through
09:25with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?
09:36Congresswoman, you set before Merrick Garland set in this chair twice.
09:43Attorney General Bondi, I'm going to finish my answer.
09:47At one point during the hearing, Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump.
09:53She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from his success,
09:57even though Bondi herself distributed binders with information on the files to social media
10:02influencers last year.
10:04You sit here and you attack the president and I am not going to have it. I'm not going to
10:09put up with it.
10:10This has been around since the Obama administration.
10:13This administration released over 3 million pages of documents, over 3 million.
10:20And Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents.
10:26He is the most transparent president in the nation's history.
10:31An additional 3 million pages remain unreleased and survivors are now urging the Department of Justice to make them public.
10:43James Van Der Beek, the teen heartthrob who starred in coming-of-age dramas at the dawn of the new
10:50millennium,
10:51shooting to fame, playing the titular character in Dawson's Creek, has died at the age of 48.
10:57His family announced the passing in a statement and asked for peaceful privacy whilst they grieve.
11:04Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was being treated for colorectal cancer.
11:10The actor was known for being in the movie Varsity Blues and on TV in CSI Cyber as FBI Special
11:18Agent Eliamundo.
11:19But he will forever be remembered for his role in Dawson's Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003.
11:26Most recently, he made an appearance on ABC's Dancing with the Stars in 2019, where he reached the semi-final.
11:35Van Der Beek is survived by his wife Kimberly and six children.
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